"I have been back to Solvay many times on a hunt for memories. I did my family history with my early life as the center. I had a great childhood, one that has been of so much importance lately. I guess my age is showing..... I do have gaps in my family tree but it has been fun taking pictures of the old neighborhood. My father's store has been made into four apartments and the house looks great. I do miss seeing the church that was across the street the one my father caught me climbing the roof with the neighborhood boys.
"My second project is a train set depicting Solvay in the late 1940s when I was about ten. It is of Freeman Avenue where I put my father's store, Prospect School, Bobby Maestri's house and Henry Salvini's house. They were my best friends! I also put, but out of actual location, St. Cecilia's, and several farms.
"Not all of the buildings are where they should be as I didn't have near enough room. I picked out the ones that had a special meaning for me. I squeezed in the ice house on Milton Avenue where I went every Saturday during the summer to get a block of ice for our icebox refrigerator at our camp on Oneida Lake."
Below is Milton Avenue in Annette's latest version of old Solvay. Represented among the buildings on the right are a hardware store, Tarolli's Department Store, Bryant's Drug Store ("Oh, the chocolate ice cream sodas were fabulous!" she wrote), Lamont Avenue, Pozzi's Hotel, "my Aunt Theresa Bagozzi's Bar and Grill" and Craig's Movie Theater.