View from the Porch: Growing Up in Biloxi During the 1930s-40s

This article originally written in 1988 by Melba Fay Foretich Gutierrez with the title "View from the Porch". It was later submitted by her daughter, Paige Gutierrez, to BNews Monthly, the monthly newsletter of the City of Biloxi. Photographs Courtesy of the LHG Collection/Harrison County Library System unless otherwise specified.

In 1934, our family moved to a cypress shotgun house on south Delauney Street in an old working class neighborhood in downtown Biloxi. Our home was two blocks from my school, Howard I Elementary on Main Street. We were walking distance to my Daddy’s job in Ohr’s Machine Shop, grocery stores, bakeries, restaurants, church, the library, the post office, three movie theaters, Woolworth and Kress dime stores, dress shops, the Biloxi Community Pier and Park, our dentist, doctor and more.

It was the middle of the Depression. On this small plot of land, we had pecan trees, a vegetable garden, flowers and chickens. It was fun to pick butter beans and okra, and pick up pecans. My favorite was collecting the eggs. I loved those Plymouth Rock hens. If I felt blue, I would sit in the henhouse and hold them. When one was missing, I would not eat our Sunday chicken dinner.

My younger sister and I spent a lot of time on the front porch cutting out paper dolls from old catalogs and reading library books. South Delauney Street had a lot of activity. The milkman delivered the milk in glass bottles; the fresh vegetable truck would stop. Men with strings of fish for sale would pass. The ice cream vendor would pass every day on Water Street, a half block away. He would ring a bell. If we had a nickel and were fast enough, we enjoyed an ice cream. As we sat on the porch, the Daily Herald boy tossed the paper to us.

Across the street was a grassy vacant lot — that was our ballpark until a tent skating rink moved there. Later, the rink moved a half block south to the shell pile on the beach. The view from our porch then became a miniature golf course.

As time passed, we outgrew paper dolls. We sat on the porch, played Monopoly, and watched the boys go by on their bicycles. Often, they would stop and chat. If the group was large enough, we played “Kick the Tin Can.” The neighbors did not mind when we hid in their yards — they all had children.

My favorite time on the porch was in the summer about noon when the Pan American Clipper, docked a half block away, would play popular music over a loud speaker before it left for Ship Island.

The back porch had a view of the tourist cottages just across the rear alley. Northerners liked our warmer climate and enjoyed fishing. They were nice to the many young people in the neighborhood.

The back porch was fun, too. We always had cats — we loved them and their kittens. My sister and I would take an old thin curtain, go to the beach and seine for minnows to feed our cats. Beggars would come to the back porch from the alley. Mama always gave them leftovers or at least a baloney sandwich and lemonade. 

The front porch view became a dramatic scene September 19, 1947. The family watched trees break and power lines fall, but decided we would not evacuate during this hurricane. About 8:30 A.M., we witnessed several gigantic waves. They crashed through a beach restaurant. The next wave crashed over the Greyhound Bus station on the north side of Highway 90, one half block away. A huge oil tank washed up Delauney Street toward our house. We panicked! We left 134 Delauney Street and walked to the marble post office building (now the Biloxi City Hall). Our house was barely spared from the Gulf waters in 1947. 

It is amazing that I lived in this house eighteen years and never had a key. Our home was never locked in those days.

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