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| My sister Joyce 1946 in front of the porch |
I loved that porch. My Dad liked it most of the time, but twice a year he hated it. He hated it because he had to take down the storm windows in the spring and put up the screens. Then do it again in the fall in reverse.
It was a great place to play and roller skate when there was snow on the ground. Which leads me to one of the first things I do remember.
When I was about four years old, I was roller skating on that porch with one skate. The skate caught on the spring chair and I fell and hit my head on the corner of the flower bed. I was kinda' a wuss and always cried no matter what. This time I had a reason. I ran into the house crying and holding my head. My Mom thought it was just the occasional bump, but when I took my hand down the blood started running down my face.
NOTE: In those days, we did not run to the nearest emergency room for help. In fact, they didn't have emergency room facilities at the hospital, they just had an entire hospital for emergencies only. It was expensive, for my parents, and unless you were near death, it was handled at home.
So, with my head under the cold water faucet in the kitchen sink, my Mom tried to stop the bleeding. This went on for about half an hour when they decided it was time to take me to the Emergency Hospital. It was winter, and that meant putting on a snowsuit, which they proceeded to do with my head still in the sink. Mission accomplished. Then the bleeding stopped. No stitches, just a hair drying and some mercurochrome (antiseptic no longer manufactured in this country).
That blow to my head had repercussions later in my life. When I was eight I found out I needed glasses and the damage that they found to my right eye was directly related to that fall.
Isn't it amazing how things go in cycles. That sink in our kitchen was one big single sink. We couldn't wait to get a new double sink. Yet today, the trend is to that one big single sink, again. Just like the claw foot tub.
Canaries. My grampa raised and sold all kinds and colors of canaries. I can still hear them cheeping in the house. The last one was named Dopey and was an olive green and yellow green color. He died sitting on his swing. We buried him in the backyard under the Bleeding Heart bushes. They seemed to bloom better after that.
My grampa retired from the Waukegan School District, as a janitor at Glen Flora Grade School, and began sharpening saws (big saw blades) in his shop in the garage to make extra money (along with the canaries). My mom would make doughnuts every morning and would send me out to the shop with doughnuts for my grampa. This is a story she told me. "When you would go out to the shop, your grampa would pour his coffee, sit in his rocker with you on his lap and share his doughnuts with you. Then he would rock you and sing 'Go Tell Aunt Roadie' until you both fell asleep. This happened every day until he got too sick to work."
One day, my grampa sent me to the corner store to get us an ice cream cone. The closest one was closed that day so I had to walk to the one 6 blocks away. By the time I got home, the ice cream was almost melted and as usual I was crying because I didn't walk fast enough (I was only 4) and grampa's ice cream cone was mushy. He just hugged me and ate it the way it was. I seem to remember he passed away shortly after that. At least he lived to see World War II come to an end and his grandson, Nicholas (Nick) Goldschmidt, home from the war.
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| Powell Park 2012 |
World War II Stories
Rationing was how things were done during that time. Gas, meat, just about everything. They had rationing books with stamps in them that were used to buy certain things. When I was about three I thought it was something to play with and pulled them all out of the book and tried to stick them on to paper to make a picture. OMGosh! I was in trouble. Then there was the time I put my dad's glasses in bed with him and he rolled over and broke them. Ration stamps to replace them.
We also saved all our grease from cooking and put it into a coffee can. When it was full it was taken to the store to be recycled into grease for tanks, jeeps etc. We crushed tin cans and recycled those too. Had gardens to grow our own vegetables because the vegetables grown by the farmers was needed for the fighting men. I remember my mom using an eyebrow pencil to draw a line up the back of her legs to look like seams in her silk stockings (no nylons in those days). The silk stockings were recycled into silk for parachutes.
Meat (like steak, roasts, pork) was rationed and other meats were not. Beef tongue could be bought without ration stamps. My dad hated beef tongue. To make ends meet, my mom would cook it all day long, with seasoning, and then chill it in its broth. The next day, she would slice it very thin like lunch meat and make my dad's sandwiches. He thought it was bologna. Her story.
We spent hours listening to the radio, coloring and cutting out paper dolls. We had shoe boxes full.
We sang, we played games inside and outside, we put on plays. We created our own entertainment.
On Saturdays it was bath and hair washing day. My mom would wash our hair and set it in pincurls to dry (that was early afternoon). After dinner, into the claw foot tub for baths, then ear cleaning, toenail cutting and book reading. My mom never missed a night reading to my sister and I from Raggedy Ann and Andy, The Bobsey Twins, Five Little Peppers or fairy tale books that had belonged to her.
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| Five Little Peppers |
