Mount Tabor Way is an actual street in Ocean Grove, NJ, though the house number 190 doesn’t exist–or at least it didn’t in 1994, the 100th Anniversary of The Great Auditorium. Graced by many lovely Victorian homes and Greenleaf Park, the street begins at Pilgrim Pathway and stretches to #143, where it turns into Benson Avenue.  It’s a bright, cheerful street, even in the winter when the trees have long-since lost their foliage and their branches create lace patterns against the sky. I chose the street as the setting for 190 MOUNT TABOR WAY because I’ve stayed in one of the houses there, the house that inspired the title.

Many street names in Ocean Grove take their names from the Hebrew and Christian Bibles. Many Christians believe Mount Tabor is the mount where Jesus was transfigured. A description of the mount and Biblical references may be found at the Sacred Destinations website: http://www.sacred-destinations.com/israel/mount-tabor. (The site is ecumenical and offers descriptions and pictures of the sacred places of all faith traditions.)

The street may be most famous as the original site of Mrs. Wagner’s Home Made Pies. Once located at 124-126, a business that eventually moved to Brooklyn, NY and closed in 1969.  Mrs. Wagner’s original site is part of the Historical Society’s Women’s Trail http://www.oceangrovehistory.org/WomansTrail.html.