The House on King Street, Delhi (written by Patty Anne Burton)

The house was purchased from Robert Pedlow (my great grandfather) at the beginning of the 20th century. He had a business on King Street.

We do not have a date for this picture but it could be in the 1950’s since both the old trees were still there. To our family it was “Grandma Smith’s House.” Grandma Smith’s beautiful flowers always decorated the porch. She was Minnie May (nee Pedlow), wife of James Melville Smith, mother of Aubrey M. Smith and Alice E. (Smith) Burton, as well as Arthur Smith (Alice’s twin) and Dorothy Smith.

Minnie May (Pedlow) Smith, knitting on he porch (perhaps in the 1950’s). She moved into the house in the 1930’s when all her children had gone away to school and lived there for may decades.

Many people in Delhi remember Aubrey M. Smith, my Uncle Aubrey.
Here he is with me on the porch in his military uniform ready to go off to fight in World War II. The date is about 1943.

The young couple in front of the big tree: my mother Alice E. Burton (nee Smith) and dad W.G. (Sam) Burton, and me (then known as Patty Anne). About 1943.

Uncle John. Grandma Smith’s brother John Pedlow lived in the house his entire life. He was disabled and blind, but he loved his cat and his chickens. There was a wire running between the back porch and the henhouse in the back corner of the garden, he followed this when he went out to tend the chickens, often giving the cat a ride. In the background is the back garden, planted every year in all kinds of vegetables. A grapevine on a trellis also produced grape juice which was used as communion wine at the Delhi United Church. You can see the wall of the theater behind the chicken coop.

The only good colour picture we have, taken perhaps in the 1960’s or 70’s. The old tress were gone, but Aubrey kept the window boxes full of flowers, and added a rock garden where the big tree used to be. The person on the porch is Jean Smith, a friend of Aubrey’s, whom I’m sure many people in Delhi remember.