Ethel Spencer, the third daughter of the seven Spencer children born between 1884 and 1895, was a curious and observant child. She wrote her childhood memoir in 1959 while she was professor at Carnegie Tech (today’s Carnegie Mellon University). It served as a memento of the joy-filled years she shared with her brothers and sisters in Pittsburgh’s affluent Shadyside neighborhood. The Spencers of Amberson Avenue, later published by the University of Pittsburgh Press in 1983, explores the family of Charles Hart Spencer, an employee of Henry Clay Frick, and his wife Mary Acheson from the viewpoint of young Ethel. Through the eyes of Ethel, the reader is…