Postcards from days gone by

For those who are curious about how certain areas of the villages of Lynbrook and East Rockaway looked before paved roads, stoplights and sidewalks came along, there’s a good chance that Barbara Gribbon has a shot of it.

Gribbon, a current Valley Stream resident, doesn’t just have old photos of the area — she has postcards, thousands of them. Her extensive collection includes photo communications from Lynbrook, East Rockaway, the Five Towns, Rockville Centre and Valley Stream. She keeps them in separate binders and systematically places each card in its designated spot.

“I enjoy sharing the postcards with people to keep them aware of what came before them,” Gribbon said. “I’d like to see the younger generation growing up now realize that they’re not the only ones who live here, or did live here.”

Gribbon has been a member of the Long Island Postcard Club for the last 20 years and said she collects most of her postcards from various shows and exhibits around Long Island. She grew up in Cedarhurst and Lawrence and then attended Dominican Commercial High School in Jamaica Queens before moving to Manhattan. While living in Lawrence, Gribbon delivered newspapers on her bicycle in the 1940s. One of the newspapers she delivered was the Nassau Herald.

“I got paid a nickel for delivering the paper once a week and then I would go over to the ice cream parlor and spend everything there,” she said. Gribbon added that she would never simply leave the paper on her dozen or so customer’s doorstep, she always rang the doorbell to make sure they were home.

Gribbon remembers being walked to school each morning by her neighbor and saluting the flag in the nearby Cedarhurst schoolyard when she was four years old. Her memories help fuel her love of history.

She married her husband Tom in 1958 and moved to East Rockaway where they started their family. In 1966, the Gribbon’s moved to Lynbrook. Tom died in the early 1980s. They had three children and eight grandchildren.