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At Home in the 1940'sOur house, #6, was an old 3-story gray stucco house with basement. My room was on the northwest corner of the 2nd floor. It was furnished with a maple twin bed and matching dresser and bookcase, a maple rocker, and an ancient toy chest. When I was in junior high school, Mother bought me a white bedspread with roses on it, and had the ceiling papered with a matching roses print. I thought it was the most beautiful bedroom I'd ever seen! The house had a wonderful large front porch extending along the front, with about 6 or 7 steps leading up onto the porch. There was a thick bed of lily-of-the-valley growing beside the house, and in the spring the fragrance was heavenly. Inside there was a hallway leading to a large pier table with a huge mirror above it. On the right side of the hall was a coat closet, a couple of windows, and the large wind-up record player, which stood on its own legs and had cabinet storage below to hold the albums of "78" records. On the left was a door to the living room. Turning the corner at the end of the front hall, you faced the stairs with doors on either side to living room and dining room. The 2 doors to the living room from the hall formed a terrific "loop" that allowed us to do marches, or chase each other. One of our favorite albums was one of Sousa marches. We'd put those marches on and wind up the phonograph and high-step around the loop, imaginary batons in hand, playing "parade". We knew all those marches by heart, "Stars and Stripes Forever", "King Cotton" and "The Liberty Bell" being my favorites. One of the neat features of the house was the many pantries in the kitchen. There was a large walk-in food pantry (where the cookie jar was kept), a dish pantry, and a "butler's pantry" lining the small hallway between the kitchen and dining room where there was a tiny sink, with drawers below and glass-fronted cupboards above where various odds and ends were kept, including Mother's secret stashes of special candy and nuts for her bridge club luncheons. There was at least one time I recall when she had to make an emergency run to the store for candy because "someone" had gotten into the supply and decimated it!! Music was a big part of my childhood. In the corner of the living room was an upright piano, and Mother played wonderfully well. She would often play classics in the evening -- I especially loved Chopin's "Military Polonaise", which she played with great flair. We always sang Christmas carols at the piano, and the twins and I took piano lessons and spent many hours practicing there. At some point we got an electric phonograph that played LP records -- it was in the dining room -- and Mother had a nice collection of classical records. We became very familiar with "Scheherezade", Rachmaninoff's 2nd Piano Concerto, and many other works. My sisters and I walked to and from school, of course -- Wheatley School was about a mile away, and we walked through the campus, crossed West Virginia Avenue at Florida then walked about 5 more blocks. We had to walk past the Catholic school, and I was always envious of the extra school holidays they got! Jump rope and dodge ball were the games we played before school, and long, involved jump rope chants were a big thing. ("Cinderella, dressed in yellow...") The street in front of the school was blocked off before school to allow this. Our dog, a golden cocker spaniel named Taffy Molasses Long-Eared Wag-Tail Hall, was a wonderful pet, and we loved to play with her and take her for walks. She did get ticks since she was allowed to run loose on the campus, and the discovery of a swollen tick always led to a very dramatic process -- she hated the smell of the alcohol we put on the tick to make it drop off, and sometimes when the insect was stubborn, we had to pull it off carefully with tweezers, which would make her yelp. We were supposed to check for ticks before they got big, but they were really hard to find in her long hair. When we were sick, the doctor would come to the house. Isn't that amazing? He brought his black satchel, equipped with stethoscope, thermometer and basic medications. He would give us shots and prescribe medicine, and got us through all the basic childhood diseases of measles, mumps and chickenpox. I had a lot of bad sore throats, and finally the twins and I all had our tonsils and adenoids removed on the same day -- that was our first time in the hospital. When I was in third grade I was very ill with pneumonia and was in the hospital for several days. I guess it was pretty serious, since I had to have transfusions, but I just remember hating custard and loving the books I read! An older girl I knew loaned me a series of books starting with Bomba, the Jungle Boy which I adored. That led me to the Tarzan of the Apes series by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and I devoured all of them! After that it was Nancy Drew, and anything related to horses. Speaking of my love of reading brings to
mind two incidents which got me into big trouble with my mother. When I was
in grade school I loved to read comic books, but my favorites (Batman and
Robin, Captain Marvel, and Wonder Woman) were forbidden by my parents. They
wanted me to stick to the funny comics. So of course I read the others at my
friend Billy's house. Well, I had a paper route at Gallaudet -- I delivered
The Evening Star after school, about 26 papers as I recall and I had a
wooden paper wagon with the Star logo on it. The farmhouse was on my route,
and I would ride the wagon down the farm hill after delivering that one -- a
fast and exciting ride! As a result, I had earned quite a bit of money, and
decided to send in for an offer of 30 Classic Comic books -- such titles as
Les Miserables, A Tale of Two Cities, and Ivanhoe. I
have no idea how much they cost or how I sent in the money -- is it possible
I sent cash in the mail?? -- but I had the idea I could somehow sneak these
into the house and keep them hidden. WRONG!! I arrived home one day to find
Mother waiting for me beside the heavy box of treasures, addressed to me. I
think the return address may have already betrayed its contents. She could
not believe that I would fall for a mail offer, plus buy forbidden items,
and do it all on my own. I can't remember how I got her to agree to let me
keep them, but there were many tears and assurances that they were great
literature, I'm sure!! I treasured those comics, and my favorites became
dog-eared from many readings. An important form of entertainment was going to the movies. There were two movie theaters on H Street, probably about a mile's walk from home. The Princess and the Atlas. On Saturdays they ran double-feature Westerns or action movies, and often a bunch of us would go. I believe admission was 25¢, and a small box of delicious popcorn 10¢. In between the features we saw a serial which ran 8 or 12 weeks, lasting about 15 minutes and of course providing a cliffhanger, to insure we'd return the following Saturday! Also cartoons, previews, and the newsreel containing mostly news of the war. Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, and Tom Mix were the stars in that era. At Home | Gallaudet | Grandparents | Washington, D.C. | Radio | World War II |
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