Ed Boyle, 95, looks out of his childhood bedroom window and points to the Forty Fort Presbyterian Church next door where organ music would some nights keep him and his brother awake. Boyle visited the home at 1220 Wyoming Ave., Forty Fort, for the first time in 84 years.
                                 Aimee Dilger | Times Leader

Ed Boyle, 95, looks out of his childhood bedroom window and points to the Forty Fort Presbyterian Church next door where organ music would some nights keep him and his brother awake. Boyle visited the home at 1220 Wyoming Ave., Forty Fort, for the first time in 84 years.

Aimee Dilger | Times Leader

After 84 years, former Forty Fort man returns to residence

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<p>Forty Fort Mayor Andy Tuzinski, right, looks on as Eileen Gallagher and Christine Grove show their uncle Ed Boyle photos of a brick the family had placed in the Forty Fort Borough Park after Tuzinski read a proclaimation welcoming Boyle back to the town.</p>
                                 <p>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader</p>

Forty Fort Mayor Andy Tuzinski, right, looks on as Eileen Gallagher and Christine Grove show their uncle Ed Boyle photos of a brick the family had placed in the Forty Fort Borough Park after Tuzinski read a proclaimation welcoming Boyle back to the town.

Aimee Dilger | Times Leader

<p>Ed Boyle was welcomed into the home at 1220 Wyoming Ave., Forty Fort, for a glimpse of the home he grew up in, but hadn’t visited in 84 years.</p>
                                 <p>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader</p>

Ed Boyle was welcomed into the home at 1220 Wyoming Ave., Forty Fort, for a glimpse of the home he grew up in, but hadn’t visited in 84 years.

Aimee Dilger | Times Leader

<p>Ed Boyle, 95, looks around a remodeled kitchen ion the home he grew up in at 1220 Wyoming Ave., Forty Fort. Boyle, a resident of Harrisburg, hadn’t been in the home in 84 years.</p>
                                 <p>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader</p>

Ed Boyle, 95, looks around a remodeled kitchen ion the home he grew up in at 1220 Wyoming Ave., Forty Fort. Boyle, a resident of Harrisburg, hadn’t been in the home in 84 years.

Aimee Dilger | Times Leader

<p>Ed Boyle, 95, looks out of his childhood bedroom window and points to the Forty Fort Presbyterian Church next door where organ music would some nights keep him and his brother awake. Boyle visited the home at 1220 Wyoming Ave., Forty Fort, for the first time in 84 years.</p>
                                 <p>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader</p>

Ed Boyle, 95, looks out of his childhood bedroom window and points to the Forty Fort Presbyterian Church next door where organ music would some nights keep him and his brother awake. Boyle visited the home at 1220 Wyoming Ave., Forty Fort, for the first time in 84 years.

Aimee Dilger | Times Leader

<p>Forty Fort Mayor Andy Tuzinski, right, looks on as Eileen Gallagher and Christine Grove show their uncle Ed Boyle photos of a brick the family had placed in the Forty Fort Borough Park after Tuzinski read a proclaimation welcoming Boyle back to the town.</p>
                                 <p>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader</p>

Forty Fort Mayor Andy Tuzinski, right, looks on as Eileen Gallagher and Christine Grove show their uncle Ed Boyle photos of a brick the family had placed in the Forty Fort Borough Park after Tuzinski read a proclaimation welcoming Boyle back to the town.

Aimee Dilger | Times Leader

<p>Ed Boyle, 95, looks around a remodeled kitchen ion the home he grew up in at 1220 Wyoming Ave., Forty Fort. Boyle, a resident of Harrisburg, hadn’t been in the home in 84 years.</p>
                                 <p>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader</p>

Ed Boyle, 95, looks around a remodeled kitchen ion the home he grew up in at 1220 Wyoming Ave., Forty Fort. Boyle, a resident of Harrisburg, hadn’t been in the home in 84 years.

Aimee Dilger | Times Leader

<p>Ed Boyle was welcomed into the home at 1220 Wyoming Ave., Forty Fort, for a glimpse of the home he grew up in, but hadn’t visited in 84 years.</p>
                                 <p>Aimee Dilger | Times Leader</p>

Ed Boyle was welcomed into the home at 1220 Wyoming Ave., Forty Fort, for a glimpse of the home he grew up in, but hadn’t visited in 84 years.

Aimee Dilger | Times Leader

FORTY FORT — Ed Boyle hadn’t seen his childhood home in 84 years, but on Thursday, as he walked through the remodeled homestead of his youth, his memories were crystal clear.

Walking through the front door at 1220 Wyoming Ave. in Forty Fort, Boyle, 95, stopped and looked at a small room and he began to tell one of several stories he shared with several nieces, a nephew and his great-niece.

“This is where we put our Christmas tree,” Boyle said. “Right in front of these five windows. Everybody going by could see it.”

Pointing to the opposite wall of the room, Boyle said. “We called this the music room, And that’s where we had a piano. Two of my sisters played.”

You could see the memories coming back as Boyle walked from room to room, clearly recalling exactly what each contained and offering a story or two about each.

Boyle, the youngest of six children — four girls and two boys — born to Thomas J. and Elizabeth O’Malley Boyle, said he wanted to see the house before it was sold. The 3,400-square-foot, two-story house has been remodeled and is listed by Lewith & Freeman at $319,000.

Most of the house is still laid out the way it was when Boyle lived there from 1924 to 1935. His family then moved to 1441 Wyoming Ave. Boyle attended Dana Street Elementary School and he graduated from Forty Fort High School, Class of 1943.

Boyle went on to Wyoming Seminary Business School and the Wharton School of Business. He worked as a civilian for the Pennsylvania State Police, transferring to Harrisburg in 1970, where he has lived since.

Walking through the house, Boyle would comment on days long gone.

“This was our library,” he said. “We had bookcases here. This was long before TV.”

Boyle said the house used to have a big front porch with wicker furniture.

“There were always lots of kids over here,” he said. “Always a houseful.”

Boyle looked around the living room and the dining room, noting that there once was a large chandelier that hung over the dining room table. When he talked about each room, you could envision what it must have been like and you could see and hear all those voices of children and adults.

Then Boyle noted a significant change. Where a new kitchen is, Boyle said there was a den. The kitchen of his day was to the left, he said with incontestable certainty, and a pantry was off to the side. As he gazed out what once were the kitchen’s back windows, he talked about a backyard with fruit trees of apples, peaches and pears, and a long gone two-car garage.

“It’s all changed now,” Boyle said, staring at a new outdoor deck and a paved parking lot where that orchard-like backyard used to be. “And we only had one bathroom for eight people.”

The remodeled version of the home has five bathrooms.

Heading upstairs, Boyle went right to the room he shared with his brother. He stood at the window that gave a close view of the Forty Fort Presbyterian Church.

“We had to be in bed at 9 p.m.,” he said. “But some nights we were kept awake by the organ music coming from the church next door.”

Boyle then told his nieces and nephew which rooms were shared by which sisters. Lots of pictures were taken and a video to preserve these moments and the history lesson offered by “Uncle Ed.”

“This was the room with a view,” Boyle said when entering the main bedroom. “Look at that.”

Boyle then made his way to the third floor attic, a large space that has been “fixed up” with walls and flooring. In Boyle’s day, it was a place for him and his siblings to get away for a bit.

“We had an RCA Victrola right here,” he said. “We used to play classical records and operatic records.”

Someone asked if he played big band music too, and Boyle quickly responded,” This was before big bands were around,” bringing more perspective to the group.

Boyle told a secret to his family — that he sued to save money in the Victrola, which locked and he had the only key. He said it was a good plan until he lost the key.

“The neighbors had the same Victrola,”: he said. “So I asked if I could borrow their key and it worked and I got my money out of it.”

Boyle said the first movie to ever play at the Forty Fort movie theater was “Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry,” starring Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney.

Just one historical fact that only those around Boyle’s age would know.

Forty Fort Mayor Andy Tuzinski stopped by with a proclamation for Boyle, who is a U.S. Army veteran.

Boyle asked the mayor, “Where’s the President?”

Included in the proclamation was a mantra offered by Boyle’s Aunt Margaret:

“We may not know where we are going, but we know where we’re from.”

Boyle smiled and said, “This has been an historic trip for me. It has done my soul good to come back.”

Tuzinski said a brick was placed just yesterday in the Forty Fort Borough Park in memory of the Boyle family.

“That’s where I learned how to swim,” Boyle said.

And like everything else, Boyle never forgot.

Reach Bill O’Boyle at 570-991-6118 or on Twitter @TLBillOBoyle.