For 100+ years, members of the Mollick family have lived in the two-story house on top of the hill in Grapeville, Pennsylvania. Francesco Mollica made the long hard journey by boat from San Illario, Calabria, Italy finally landing at Ellis Island. Francesco travelled to the Southwestern Pennsylvania area where other family members were already established. Francesco went to work and eventually found the tiny town of Grapeville, which at that time was known as East Jeannette. Francesco thought that the hills of Grapeville looked like the hills of his beloved San Illario back in Italy. Without the Ionian Sea view of course. Francesco made a few trips back to Italy to visit his wife and family, always returning to Western Pennsylvania where his new life was becoming established.

Francesco worked, saving money, sending some back to his wife and family in Italy and eventually had enough money to buy a small piece of land in Grapeville. Back in those days, you could buy an entire house kit from the Sears Catalog, which is exactly what Francesco did. Francesco made a few trips back to Italy to visit his wife and family, always returning to Western Pennsylvania where he believed his future life would be lived out. He built the house and sent for his family. When Catarina arrived, she was pregnant with my Grandfather James. My Grandfather and all of his siblings were raised in the Sears house located on top of the hill in Grapeville. At some point, my Great-Grandfather changed his name and the rest of the family’s name as well. My Great-Grandparents became known as Frank and Catherine Mollick. Until new siding was put on the house within the last 15 years or so, there was a door that had a nameplate on it leading into the house. The metal nameplate was old and corroded, but still proudly displayed the name “Frank Mollick”. The door may still be there under the siding, but I cannot remember now if it was removed and closed off or not.

The house has often housed multiple generations of the family. It was the gathering place for parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. The house is haunted with the memories of the generations born, raised and died there. It holds the whispers of holidays and celebrations. Birthdays celebrated. Christmas Eve dinners full of seafood, pasta, presents and family. At various times the house was a small market and a barbershop in addition to the family home. My Dad ran a custom cabinetry business from the garage for several years as well.

The downward trend started in 1961 when my Father – James Mollick – son of James and Ethel Mollick and grandson of Frank and Catherine Mollick – met my Mother – Margaret Griffiths. My Grandfather had died a few years prior leaving my Grandmother Ethel with my dad and his sisters – Patricia and Catherine. To my father, family was everything. He loved his mother, siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins. While the Mollicks were a loving joyous group of devoted Italian Catholics where family was everything, my Mother came from a much less desireable family situation. Her Father was an abusive man who physically, sexually and verbally abused all of his children as well as his wife who was the mother of his children. Then my maternal Grandmother died when my Mother and her siblings were still quite young. There were times where the siblings were put in an orphanage. And other times when their father would beat and abuse them. My Mother dropped out of school in 8th grade, never to return or obtain a GED.

My Mother – being the oldest female took it upon herself to mother the other children. While she felt responsible for the others – probably forced upon her by her father – she also could dish out the abuse just as well. As they say, the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. My Mother lived with her Grandmother for some period of time, before being kicked out. Then moved in with a cousin in Grapeville, who happened to be renting a small house that was also owned by the Mollick family and was right next door to where my Grandmother, Father and Aunts were living. I don’t know what attracted my Father to my Mother at the beginning. I don’t know if he intended to marry her, although I’m pretty sure she intended to marry him as she saw a way out of her situation. I have been told that my Grandmother was opposed to the marriage. I believe my Grandmother had my Dad’s best interests at heart.

My Mother became pregnant and my Father being the good Catholic boy that he was raised to be, did the right thing and married my Mother. My parents were married on February 13th, 1962 and six short months later a healthy full-term baby girl was born. That was me! My Father moved us across the country to Bremerton in the state of Washington. Bremerton could only be reached by ferry from Seattle. My Dad’s Uncle Russ lived there and convinced my Dad to come out because there was work at the shipyards. So my Dad loaded us up in the car and undertook the cross country trip. While living in Bremerton, my brother Jim was born. A few things led to our family moving back to Grapeville. My Grandmother Ethel missed us so much and while my Dad had moved her to be with us, she really missed the rest of her family back in Pennsylvania. And then the earthquake hit, seriously damaging the house we were living in. So my Dad made the drive back across the country to Grapeville with his family.

After returning in 1967, my Grandmother and aunts were coerced into signing the house over to my Mother and Father with the understanding that my Grandmother could live in the house with us for the rest of her life. The house was given to my parents in March 1967. Spoiler alert: my Mother kicked my Grandmother out of the house by the early 1970s. You would wonder why my Dad would allow this when I’ve already told you that my Dad’s family meant everything to him. Make no mistake, my Dad loved his Mother with all his heart. But he was given a choice that night that either his Mother had to leave that very night or my Mother was going to leave my Father, take me and my brothers and my Dad would never see us again. Can you imagine the pain my Father went through having to choose between his Mother and his children?

My Mother and Father repeatedly borrowed against the value of the house obtaining mortgages and sometimes second mortgages. For as long as I can remember, mortgage companies, utilities and bill collection agencies were calling about late and missed payments.

My Dad was a hard worker. He worked a factory job, volunteering for extra shifts, volunteering as a firefighter in the factory and responding whenever the fire alarm at the factory went off because there would be extra cash in his check for responding. And yet, there was never enough money to pay the bills. My Mother insisted on handling the money. You may recall that she dropped out of school in the 8th grade. So you may wonder if this led to an inability to properly do math. I would argue that wasn’t the cause of the shortages. My Mother liked to spend money. She never bought anything of value. She just bought a lot of inexpensive crap. And her sense of entitlement to everyone else’s money was beyond anything I’ve ever witnessed.

My Father remained close to his family throughout his life. Unfortunately, my Mother exploited that by continuously overspending and then asking various family members for money. She always insisted they needed the money to pay various bills. My Mother knew how to ask to get the most sympathy, often explaining how we were not going to have any heat in the middle of winter without someone helping with cash. And it was always a “loan” that never got paid back, was promptly forgotten by my Mother and did not stop her from asking over and over again. Aunts, Uncles, Sisters and Cousins were all fair game. My Mother always played the victim and it was never her fault that they didn’t have enough money to pay the bills. I can’t imagine how my Father felt thinking that he was unable to provide the basics for his family no matter how hard he worked. And then being forced to repeatedly ask his family for money.

The ”borrowing” of money was not limited to extended family members. My Mother had no issues with taking money from her children as well. At the age of 12, I started delivering newspapers and babysitting for younger neighborhood children. Yes, I know that today that would be frowned upon. But back in those days it was quite normal. Of course, this meant I was learning to handle money and had some spending cash. Between the ages of 12 and 16 I not only delivered newspapers and did babysitting for various families, I also would periodically work as a waitress during Friday night Bingo. From the time I started making money, my Mother would either just take my money without asking, or if I was there and caught her taking it, she would ask to “borrow” money from me to pay various bills. My brothers have similar stores.

When I was 18, my Mother kicked me out of the house and I have never lived there since. I did take a 10 year break from my family and was called back when my Dad had a massive heart attack. Those were the only years where I didn’t have my parents asking me for money. My brothers and I provided my parents with not only cash but also major appliances, furniture, carpeting and even whole house air conditioning. I remember giving them cash so their car wasn’t repossessed, buying a new car for myself and instead of trading my old car in and getting the $8000 trade in credit, gifting the car to my parents since their car was no longer safe or operational.

After years of being in debt, multiple bankruptcies and mortgages taken to pay off previous mortgages, my parents decided to obtain a reverse mortgage to pay off their current mortgage, their maxed out credit cards and some other bills. This happened about 12 years ago. And the thing about a reverse mortgage is that it is still a mortgage. It’s just a mortgage that is accumulating ridiculous amounts of interest while not being paid on. But the debt isn’t due until both parties die or are no longer living in the home.

Did I mention that my brother Jim had been living with my parents for the past 15 years. After being pulled from the streets of Columbus Ohio where he was homeless and had been arrested multiple times, he finally settled in with my parents. He lived there rent free for all of those years. At some point, Jim wanted internet access, so he agreed to pay for the cable bill so he could have internet. That was his contribution to the household. He helped convince my parents to take out the reverse mortgage. I tried to talk my Dad out of it explaining that the house would no longer be in the family and Jim would be homeless after they died. My brother and Mother were more insistent and my Dad went along with it to keep peace, because that is what Dad always did.

Unfortunately, between everything that they owed on other mortgages and credit cards, my parents maxed out the equity in the house without receiving any cash from the reverse mortgage. Not having a mortgage and having all your credit cards paid off should have been a blessing. But it wasn’t because my Mother immediately started maxing out credit cards again. Meanwhile, my brother Jim had close to 15 years to save money for his eventual need to either buy the house back or move somewhere else. But my brother is exactly the same as my Mother. Instead, he cashed in a pension to buy a quad and spent more than he made during those years and is now in debt and has bill collectors calling him as well.

My dad passed away in 2017. My Mother inherited his life insurance policies. Not only was there money from the life insurance policy they had paid for all his life, but there were also policies from the local and township fire departments for my Dad’s lifetime commitment as a volunteer firefighter. This was more money in one place than my Mother had ever seen in her life. And yes, she managed to spend every penny of it plus get herself into debt further in a few short years. At the age of 80, my Mother cashed in her life insurance policy because she needed/wanted more money than what she was receiving from Social Security and there was nothing left from my Dad’s life insurance. Read that last line again – at the age of 80 and with serious health issues, my Mother cashed in her life insurance policy knowing that her children would have to pay for her funeral out of their own pockets. The final blow in a long life of taking handouts from anybody and everybody was to leave her children with the bill for her funeral and burial. My brother Frank ended up paying for everything, but that is a story for another day.

And now, just six months after my Mother’s death, the house is being foreclosed on. It will be auctioned off and the bank will take a loss on it. Because after 15 years of interest accumulating on a house that has not grown in value, the mortgage due is more than the house is worth. My brother Frank (my great Grandfather’s namesake) won’t buy it because he has no sentimental attachment to it and has his own house. My brother Jim (my Grandfather’s and Father’s namesake) can’t buy it and will be homeless soon. And while I have a sentimental attachment in that it was built by my great-Grandfather and handed down through generations, I will not pay for my parent’s financial mismanagement any longer. I have my own house that I own with my husband where we are making our own memories.

And the saddest part of all is that there are official documents, photographs, and mementos from the past 100+ years that will all be abandoned in the house or have already been thrown away or destroyed by my Mother and/or brother. My brothers and I have been pitted against each other since a young age. I tried extending the olive branch to each of them over the years, but finally had to walk away and accept that they are too broken to understand what I offered. My brother Jim is acting as if the house is his (and will continue to act that way right up until he is evicted) and when he was asked by a mutual friend for the historical family mementos that she would send to me, his response was “No fucking way! She has enough!”.

After more than a century in the family, the house my great Grandfather built will be auctioned off in the near future. Most likely a house flipper will purchase it, clean it out, renovate it and resell it. And some strangers will begin a new era in the old Mollick house on the hill in Grapeville.