The Cammaratas were coming over, and we were nervous. We wanted them to feel at home. After all, our new home in South Philadelphia had been theirs for nearly 70 years. I’d mentioned their mother, Antonette, in a column I wrote about the house, back when my wife and dog and I moved in last May. The old-time neighbors still talked about Antonette’s homemade ravioli. And how the house was always filled with visitors.

Antonette died at 94 in 2015. The house was emptied and sold, and remodeled and sold to us. The remodeler was wise enough to keep some of the old character. Like the marble windowsills in an upstairs bedroom with a cigarette burn, a long-ago vestige of some rebellious teenager’s surreptitious smoke.  Reminders of a whole family history that had played out in the house we just bought.