“Doc” and Mrs. Newmeyer brought Mother and me home from the hospital at 7 days old in a car---there weren’t many cars because of the war rationing. We lived in the upstairs section of a two family flat (4616 A Arsenal) and the Newmeyers lived in a flat to the west of us. To the east (4612 Arsenal) lived my Wicker grandparents. We lived across the street from Tower Grove Park with my Long grandparents living on the other side of the park in the Shaw Neighborhood in the corner flat across Flad from St. Margaret’s of Scotland where I first heard the Westminister chimes.
As you came up the steps of our flat, you entered the living room which connected to the “dining room” with pocket doors. The “dining room” I remember as my bedroom which I later shared with Jane. Then there was like a center hall---a small square room---where mother did her ironing. To the back on the east side was the kitchen, on the west side back was mom and dad’s room which had a screened in porch attached. To the east to the side was the bathroom with frosted windows and the west side was the “toy room”. I’m sure it was my nursery in the beginning, but it seemed too small to be a bed room. Then, the dining room and living room were in the front.
Our room had pocket doors which were blocked by furniture. Hanging on the wall was a giant shadow box which held my “Storybook Dolls.” These were purely ornamental dolls with the clothes stitched on them. They were beautiful composite dolls with painted shoes. The only ones I can recall having were the bride doll (Jane’s) and Little Red Riding Hood. I think we had a cowgirl doll, too. I loved cowgirls---Mama called me “Annie Oakley” and Jane “Calamity Jane.” (she was a little accident- and tear-prone)
There were several things I loved in our room besides the dolls---my Panda bear and my globe. The panda was a huge black and white panda with amber glass eyes and a satin ribbon around his neck. I loved cuddling with him, sucking my thumb as I stroked his silky body. But, I also LOVED the globe. I don’t know where we got it---maybe Pearl. It was a glass globe painted with the continents of the earth on it in blues and greens. It was a little like a night light-glowing in the corner of our room. I sat and looked at it often, twirling the globe and wondering about far off places. Once, I even noticed that if you shoved the Western Hemisphere against Africa and Europe they almost matched up---that was the beginning of my prize-winning theory of “Continental Drift.” Well, I THOUGHT I’d discovered it until years later when I learned someone had beat me to that theory.
I also loved my encyclopedias. My transition teacher at Horace Mann school sold our family the Compton’s Encyclopedia. I saved my money for them for a long time in a little bank shaped like the set of Encyclopedias. When, they arrived, I swore I was going to read them all---I think I achieved that goal many times over. I would randomly pick out a book and just start reading---I did this for years. I’m not sure if my encyclopedias or globe gave me my love of traveling but I’m sure the two of them inspired me.
Our bed was on the west wall facing the pocket doors. Windows on the north faced the street and park. One of my earliest memories is peaking out that window, watching the streetcars roll by with the snow falling in front of the street lamps. The soft humming of the streetcars were almost masked by the metallic sound of cars with chains on the tires clinking on the street.
The bad part of our room being really an extension of the living room was when Mother and Dad entertained, it was hard to sleep---sometimes they let us go to their bed in the back of the house. The worst was when we got our first TV. Dad bought the TV with money he won in a lottery (before 1950). NO ONE had a television, but us. First, we had friends and family come, but soon people that I’d never seen before started coming over to watch TV---every night! I was becoming increasingly stressed out (at 3 or 4 years old) with company----and entertaining strange children who wanted to play with MY toys. I think the final straw was when some child whom I’d never seen before stole all of my money from my piggy bank. I became hysterical with Mother following suit. She convinced Dad that all of that company was really hurting our family.
But, the TV was a mystery to me for many years. I would invite my neighborhood friends in to watch Howdy Doody. We’d get our little chairs lined up and sit glued to them. I was convinced if we could see them, then, they could see us. Later, my grandparents also bought a TV. Their favorite show was the Arthur Godfrey Show. I quickly fell in love with one of his regular singers, Julius LaRosa, and insisted that I get dressed up with flowers in my hair so I looked nice for Julius LaRosa! I always talked to the actors on the screen as if they could hear me and, I swear this is true, one of them talked back to me! That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
The basement was dark and damp (my grandparents had a beautifully clean, painted gray basement with lots of light) and a little scary. We had a white round wringer wash machine. While it automatically agitated the clothes, we used a wringer to get the suds and water out before hanging the clothes to dry. A wringer was an attachment that had two rollers---we fed the clothes between the rollers and pulled out the clothes on the other side. We had an electric wringer, though, that I got my fingers caught in while trying to feed some clothes. In the winter and on rainy days, we had to hang laundry in the basement (we didn’t have dryers) which really contributed to the dampness already down there.
The back screened-porch doubled as a bedroom in the summer---living in St. Louis in a brick house before airconditioning was brutal. We were lucky that we lived across the street from Tower Grove Park---that was so much cooler. During the heat waves, people slept in the parks. I don’t recall ever sleeping in the parks, but we did on the porch. We made “pallets” from blankets and sheets folded. Mom and Dad would sit in chairs on the porch with the baseball game while we went to sleep. My summer memories are of listening to Cardinal baseball announced by Harry Cary---maybe that’s why I always feel a little drowsy watching baseball.
I loved hanging clothes outside, though---listening to the whoop! whoop! of the sheets as they waved in the wind. And the wonderful smell of sheets that have hung out to dry cannot be duplicated by Febreze. Our back yard was very shady which is why so many photos were taken at my grandparents’ yard next door. They had no trees because their land lady Frieda thought they were messy. But, our yard had a huge sycamore tree with bark that peeled, large leaves and ball-type seeds. I often created little “fairy towns” out of the bark leaves and seeds. I believe we had a swing set also which Dad made at the railroad shop. We had a garage that backed to an alley and an “ash pit” that I don’t recall ever having things burned in. Mostly we just threw things like the coal “clinkers” in. It was also used as a threat, “Be good or I’ll throw you in the ash pit with the rats.” I don’t recall Frieda’s place having an ashpit---she must have had it torn out.
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