Cori Connors: September 2026

When we were small we were known as the Three Little Girls. Born just over a year apart, we became part three of our family of seven kids. The three of us became sort of an entity in itself: "Get the 3 Little Girls in the car."... "Have the 3 Little Girls had their bath?" (yes, three girls in one tub)... "What are the 3 Little Gilrs wearing for Easter?" I can't imagine how hard it was on Libby when it was down to one after we left for college.

The Lord Be Praised, after a chunk of life kept us apart, we have reunited and live just steps away from each other in our beloved neighborhood in Farmington, UT. We are ageing, and memories are fleeting, so before we forget, we decided to take a trip to our hometown of Pittsburgh, PA. The three of us girls. We invited Dave to come to be our Chauffeur, since he too grew up in the Burgh and he knows these roads. And he knows us. Kate drove down from her home in New York and joined us for a couple days.

Here's a brief accounting our adventure into the past.

Three Little Girls.
Christmas on Old Clairton Road, circa 1966 maybe.
I think Libby was grumpy because her dress was see-through.

Day 1 Revisiting our childhoods in Pittsburgh.

Thursday Sept. 10, 2026

This old house on the cobblestone street in Mt Lebanon has been made new by its owners. We have rented it for the week in an attempt to feel like we are living here again, tucked safely into an old brick house in the rolling south hills of Pittsburgh PA. The three little girls have come home, seeking a tightening of the threads to our past, knowing that the process will help cinch us more completely together, as if that were possible.

Though we were all born in Southeartern Idaho, we here molded in Southwestern, PA. Ann Marie was six, Libby was three, and I was barely five-years-old when we arrived with all our small-town Mormon innocence. This area witnessed the full dimension of our young lives, showed us the beauty of cultural and religious diversity and tattooed our heartaches, giggles and triumphs into the flesh of her mossy hillsides. I suppose we came here to rediscover ourselves. While we have friends and classmates we would normally visit here, this particular trip has been reserved for our shared past.

In the span of time between Kindergarten to my entry into Second Grade at Pleasant Hills Elementary School, we lived in no less than seven different houses. After that, 373 Old Clairton Road was home until I entered Ninth Grade at TJ High. My sisters straddled me in grades, though because Ann Marie has a July birthday, she was two grades ahead of me instead of one.

The first house we lived in on Grace Street.

The home I remember best:
373 Old Clairton Road

I will, for the sake of time (since it is currently 1 am) offer a brief accounting of our journey to the past. Dave has been our trusty Roadie, driving the van we rented at the airport and snapping photos of the Three-Little-Girls-Turned-Big in places that mean something to us.

Our first day, Thursday, we arrived at the airport around 4:30, rented a van that would accommodate hobbly old people, and drove to the new Pittsburgh LDS Temple. It’s closed for annual maintenance, so we marveled from outside the gates. “Who would have imagined,” we said to each other, “that we would be standing on temple grounds in our own hometown?”

The 3 "Little" Girls
with their chauffeur
outside the Pittsburgh LDS Temple

Mom, Libby and I at the Washington DC Temple Open House circa 1975
Two years later I would marry that chauffeur here.

Afterwards we drove up the street and enjoyed a lovely dinner at a restaurant called The Turn. We sat in the open air on a perfect Pittsburgh night, listening to live music as we ate.

Toasting the beginning of a magical trip.

With our bellies satisfied we made our way to this home in Mt Lebanon, stopping just long enough to pick our bedrooms and deliver our luggage. Then we were off to Giant Eagle for our first trip down memory lane. One of Ann Marie’s first jobs with a steady paycheck was as a bagger at Giant Eagle. Her favorite part of that job was when she was assigned to go out and gather carts in the parking lot. We filled our buggies with all sorts of unnecessary stuff and headed back to the house for a night’s sleep.