As all American genealogists are aware, the 1950 United States Federal Census was released on April 1 of this year. Federal law prohibits the release of census data (except to individuals who are seeking data about themselves) for 72 years.
I have looked at a lot of census records in the course of my genealogy research, but this census is special – it’s the first one where I appear. I was born in 1947, so I was three years old when this census was taken. I was eagerly awaiting the release of this census information.
I was disappointed when I first looked at the early released information. It was not yet indexed and searchable on databases like Ancestry.com, but it was possible to figure out what census tract your family was in if you knew the address where they were living in 1950. I thought I would be fine – I knew that my family moved to 1113 Dashiell Road in Fairfax County, Virginia, in 1950, so I thought I’d be able to find us. But my hopes were dashed – apparently we didn’t move until after the census was taken, and I didn’t know the address of the place where we lived before that.
I knew it was in South Arlington, in a development called The Pickett Homes. This development was one of five housing complexes built in Arlington to house returning veterans and other government workers. I knew where it was (it was torn down by the late 1950s and new apartment buildings were put up on the site, but I didn’t know the address. Everyone in my family who might have known the address is gone, so I figured I was stuck. I didn’t expect the census data to be transcribed and indexed until later this summer.
But yesterday, here came the data. I began to get hints in Ancestry that this information was available, and I soon found myself and my family. We lived at 1913 S. 12th Street in Arlington; the census pages helped me figure out where our house was (probably) in the maze of streets that made up The Pickett Homes. Here’s the census entry for my family.
It takes a little squinting, but this shows my father Lloyd, my mother Violet, my brother Ken, and me (Karen S.) living at 1913 – some street. Looking further up the page, I was able to see that this was on S. 12th Street. My father was 31, my mother was 28, my brother was 6, and I was 3. My father was born in Illinois and my mother was born in Texas, as I know. My father worked for the Department of the Army as an Administrative Assistant; he would go on to work for the Department of Defense in various capacities until he retired in the 1970s.
I didn’t know that my mother worked part-time in a children’s apparel store. I knew that she had worked in a place called the Bo-Peep Shop, but I thought that was later. This raises a question for me – how did my parents arrange child care for a 6-year-old and a 3-year-old? My brother had just turned six in March of that year, so he wasn’t in school yet (Virginia didn’t provide for kindergarten until probably about the 1960s or so). We didn’t have much family in the area – everyone was in Arizona or Illinois – but my Aunt Elma and Uncle Ross (they were actually my father’s aunt and uncle) lived not far away in Arlington, and they may have been able to help out. The 1950 census shows that they were both working, however, so I don’t know how my parents managed this.
Fortunately for me, my father’s name was on the “sample line” of the census, which means he was asked to answer more questions. If you look closely, you’ll see that he was Sample Line 13; the bottom of the page shows the additional information about him:
Now, I know this is small, but since you’re reading this online, you can enlarge this so you can see it. I’ll summarize it for you anyway. It asks what was the highest grade in school that the person attended; my father answered S12, which according to the instructions on the bottom of the page meant “Senior High, grade 12,” and the next column has an “x” beside the “Yes,” box. This meant he completed that grade. The next column shows that he was over the age of 30. The next column asks how many weeks he worked out of the house; the answer was “52.” Beside that, it asked about his income. The answer was $4,026. The next question asked how much money was earned by a relative living with him. The answer was $1,003; this was my mother’s income for the previous year.
It was interesting to look at the people who lived around them. On the same page of the census record, it shows that my family’s neighbors included an insurance salesman, two secretaries (one at a hospital and one at “Public Buildings Service,” an active-duty member of the military, a beautician, a file clerk at the CIA, a seamstress, a plumber, and an appliance salesman at a department store. Income information was available only for the six Sample Lines, but my father’s income was triple that of the highest figure earned by anyone else whose income level was provided.
This is what this part of South Arlington looks like today.
The Pickett Home years have always been an important part of my family’s story. So far as I can figure out, they moved into their home here just about as soon as the complex was built in 1942, and lived there until 1950. I’m not sure how they managed the years when my father was away during World War II (1944-46), when my mother moved back in with her family in Tucson, but this is certainly where they lived when they returned to Arlington in 1946.
It's so fabulous that you have census records. All of ours, just about, have been destroyed. We have to rely on electoral rolls.
Interestingly, my cousin and his wife live across 395 in the Arlington Ridge neighborhood, very close to where you lived all the years ago. They are on 19th St South between Kent and Joyce. 😊