Most of us living in Levittown may be aware that the Levitts provided fruit trees with their newly built homes. Thank goodness that most homes didn’t receive the dreaded weeping willow shown in the plot plan for the Levittowner below, but most did get a fruit tree. The Company dispersed a variety of trees throughout the sections, save for the early buyers who had choices as to what they wanted. The un-sold properties received a mix as the trucks showed up. Although many fruit bearing trees are gone by now, my memory of them isn’t.

Growing up, we moved a number of times. Each move planted us into a different Levittown section and model home. Weeping willow tree roots weaving their way into orangeburg sewer lines at our Gentle Road Levittowner in Goldenridge, was what ultimately caused us to move to the Crabtree Hollow Rancher on Coral Lane. We ended up with a peach tree in our Jubilee yard in Indian Creek on Indigo Road, which finally bit the dust during one of the hurricanes in the 60’s. My next-door neighbor had a pear and the neighbor on the other side, had an apple. Diagonally in the back yard, as I recall, Mrs. Clay’s had a grapevine.  As kids, we would often get into trouble by helping ourselves to our neighbors fruit, even though most of it ended up rotting in the grass. Adults were so possessive of stuff they were merely throwing away but the birds and squirrels had a feast.

My mother made use of every peach. We had loads of fresh raw edible fruit, sliced up with our cereal, or with milk and sugar, homemade pies or cobblers. Yum! OK… come to think of it, who needed an apple tree? If mom wanted apples, she just went to Styers Orchards

Gardening seems to be making a comeback in many yards though. They’re filled with tomatoes, peppers, lettuce, peas and corn, and take hours of work, planting, watering and weeding. Most folks don’t seem to want the bother of a fruit tree when, for the most part, all they’d have to do is pick the fruit. Perhaps it’s the work itself that people enjoy or so it’s been suggested. I just know it’s not anywhere on the top of my list. Give me a fruit tree anytime!

Adapted from Levittowner drawing by Levitt and Sons (Courtesy of S. David Marable.

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Alice Deeny