Monday, January 13, 2025

Children in the Closet - Chapter 1


Chapter One

 

               The first five memories I have of my childhood would shape my life forever.  They are still as clear and real to me nearly eight decades later as they have ever been. I am grateful they were happy ones.

               The first memory was when I was two years old. I remember it as if it were a dream and it plays like a scene from a movie in my mind.

               I am waking up and still warm and cozy under my covers.  Light from the partially open door to the kitchen is softly spilling into the room and is slowly creeping further into the small bedroom where I am lying quietly in my bed. It must have been a crib because I am looking out between long wooden spokes. I listen to the soft hum of voices and smell the delicious aroma of sausage gravy floating on the air from the warm kitchen. The coffee is ready. The fragrant smell of freshly brewed coffee would remain one of my favorites for the rest of my life.

               Granny and Granddad are in the kitchen with Mother. Perhaps Daddy is, too, if he hasn’t already left for work. Granny peeks around the corner to see if I’m awake and then comes over to my crib and picks me up, making sure my blanket is wrapped around me so I won’t get cold. She takes me to the kitchen, sets me in my highchair, tucking the blanket in and puts a bib on me.

               The taste of that sausage gravy was wonderful. It was smooth and creamy and yet there were little bits of tasty sausage in every bite. This earliest of my memories encompassed all five senses and was the only good memory I have of Granny.

               The second memory is of my mother giving me a bath. She placed a small metal washtub on the kitchen counter and, in my mind, I can still see her filling it with water, testing it on her wrist to make sure it’s not too hot. Our home was small - just a bedroom, kitchen, living room and a teeny tiny bathroom with an even tinier shower. Sometimes Mother would place the washtub in the bottom of the shower and bathe me there where I could splash and play for a few minutes. I imagine it was much easier to give me a bath standing up to a counter rather than stooping over in the shower.

               In my third memory I am sitting on the kitchen counter watching my mother make peanut butter cookies. After she mixes the dough, she shows me how to press the cookies flat with the bottom of a glass that has been dipped in sugar. Then I use a fork to make crisscrosses on each one with Mother’s hands helping me press down on the fork tines. I remember the warmth and fragrance of those freshly baked cookies. Though it’s funny I don’t remember the taste of them like I do of that sausage gravy.

               My fourth and final memory of when we lived in the little house is Daddy carrying me out to the car. Mother had prepared a bed for me in the floorboard of the back seat behind the driver. I recall it being dark, so we must have been going on a trip and traveled at night. The car gently rocked and rumbled me back to sleep.

               I was born in Kansas City, Missouri on September 24, 1948 and we moved back to Texas and into that little house in Granny and Granddad’s back yard when I was about a year old.

               That tiny little house was actually two old Army barracks Granddad bought at a bargain price in 1948 after WWII was over and they were breaking down all the camps. He and Granny lived in the big house at the front of the property.

               We didn’t get to live there long, though. One day the water heater exploded and burned the house down to the ground. Thankfully, we were not at home.

 

               Granddad was a barber and worked around the corner from their house on Poinsettia Drive in Fort Worth, at Smitty’s Barber Shop. It had the old fashioned red and white and blue striped barber’s pole out in front that twirled around during business hours. A barber was the perfect profession for him since he had such a thick beautiful head of hair.

               Originally a small four room frame house, Granddad kept adding on to it until the house became a maze of rooms that ultimately divided up nicely into two main sections much like a duplex. At one time or another, every single one of Granny and Granddad’s children lived there with their families. That’s one thing myself, my siblings, and all our cousins share – memories of that old house!

               Granny was a housewife and was as short, plain and homely as Granddad was tall, dark and handsome. Granddad had a wonderful name – Linton Anthony. Granny’s name was Myrtle May.Granddad was kind and sweet while Granny was irritable and fussy.

               Their only son, Truman, and his family had been living in one side of the house and Granny and Granddad on the other while we were living in the little house in the backyard. Uncle Truman had recently bought land in west Texas and moved his family out there. Back before Granddad became a barber, he was a farmer, cotton farmer, mostly. That’s what Uncle Truman was now. After the fire destroyed the little house, Granny and Granddad decided to move close to their son in west, Texas and help him for a time. Truman was the second born son, the first born died at the age of two, thus Truman held a special place in their hearts for the rest of their lives.

Now the big house was empty and we were allowed to live there. This was a blessing since Mother and Daddy had lost everything they had when the little house burned.

               It was 1950 and these were happy days with Mother and Daddy. They loved to play canasta and entertained often. Mother’s best friend, Dorothy, was also her cousin. She and her husband, Johnny, would come over most Saturday nights, bringing their little boy with them. He and I would play on the floor close to the card table. We could hear the clinking of the china coffee cups being set in their matching saucers and the humming sound of our parents’ voices as they talked.

               Little Johnny and I would fall asleep under the coffee table long before the adults finished playing cards and I would wake up the next morning in my own crib. The house was quiet as I climbed out of my bed and crept back into the living room where I could see the remains of the party. There I would find the cups still holding small amounts of coffee and the playing cards all fanned out just the way the adults had laid them down at night’s end.

               I would pretend to play cards and sip coffee just as I had watched the grownups do. Once I actually took a sip of that coffee and promptly spit it out. How could something that smelled so wonderful taste so bad?

 

               We lived in the big house on Poinsettia Drive for several wonderful months until Granny and Granddad left west Texas and moved back into the house and we shifted our living arrangements around. We lived on the smaller side of the house while our grandparents lived in the other side. Granddad went back to work as a barber at Smitty’s Barber Shop right around the corner.

 

               Money was tight so Mother took in ironing to earn some extra money and asked Granny to look after me while she stood for long hours at the ironing board.  At first, I was happy to be with my Granny but I soon realized she was not particularly fond of me and preferred that I be as quiet and unnoticeable as possible.

               I loved my Granddad though. He was a handsome man being tall, dark and handsome with a full head of thick brown hair. Granny, on the other hand, was not attractive by any one’s measure. She was nearly as wide as she was tall, so it’s a good thing she was short in stature. Her face was not a pretty one, especially when she scowled and that was often. She wore her plain brown hair pulled tightly back into a bun. Granny had moles all over her body, and for some reason was fascinated by them. She had dozens of large, fat, dark brown ones and then many more dozens of smaller, lighter brown moles. But no matter what, Granddad loved Granny fiercely and waited on her hand and foot. I often wondered what the attraction was that bound him so closely to her. She didn’t have a pleasing personality to compensate for her appearance. Granny was a nagger and a complainer and very little seemed to please her.

               Granny had two sisters, both younger than she, and one brother with whom she was especially close. His name was Humey and every Sunday afternoon he would bring his youngest daughter, Rose Mary, over to visit. I was too little to go outside by myself so, while the adults stayed in the living room and talked, Rose Mary would take me out in the backyard to play. It was a large backyard with a chicken coop along one side of the fence and an old farm wagon and tractor near a tin roofed shed with a tin roof and open on one side.

               We played on the tractor and had a lot of fun until Rose Mary fell off it one day and cut her leg rather badly on a sharp piece of rusty metal. Daddy had been coming to the back door from time to time to check on us and he just happened to be standing there when she fell. He was out of the door so fast she had not even had time to cry out. He carried her into the house and Granny and Uncle Humey came running with bandages and rubbing alcohol. Back then you didn’t go to the doctor unless you had a Bonafide emergency. They simply cleaned her up, put a big bandage on her leg and sent her back outside to play.

               While Daddy’s meek and mild attitude was a comfort to children, it did not wear well with Granny. She nagged at him relentlessly and hounded him at every turn. In her eyes, he was a weak, insignificant little man and she made sure he knew just exactly how she felt.

               Daddy was a shipping clerk at Monning’s Department Store downtown. He didn’t make much money but faithfully brought his paycheck home every week and handed over every dime of it to Mother.

               In early spring of 1951, Mother got a job at Hotel Texas working the switchboard and that helped with the money situation. She made more money than she did ironing plus she could work nights and didn’t have to depend on Granny to take care of me. Mother enjoyed the work but had to stop before Christmas as she was going to have another baby.

               My sister was born on December 21, 1951. They thought they were going to have a baby boy and had chosen the name Lloyd Dean. When it turned out to be a girl, they combined the names to Lloydine and since it was such an unusual and unique name, they decided she didn’t need a middle one.

               Life was good for our little family and we were happy.


Mother, me and Lloyd Ewing.....1948


This is the back of the photo....strange that Mother misspelled Lloyd.


22 comments:

Anonymous said...

Enjoyed reading the first chapter.

Anonymous said...

I’m like Pamela, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
I am enjoying your writing style too.
Sue

Anonymous said...

You are so good with words. I’m enjoying reading this.

Anonymous said...

We are only on the second one and already I cannot stand the suspense!

My Shasta Home said...

I’m a fan!

Jim and Barb's Adventures said...

I envy you and your memories, not that they were good ones, but the fact that you remember anything at that age at all. I do not have a lot of memories of my childhood or even my high school years!

Ginny Hartzler said...

You have memories of being so very young, pretty much a baby!! Oh my, your Grandma sure was not like most!! It's wonder your cousin did not get tetanus, especially since it was rusty!!

BeachGypsy said...

You're doing a great job, love reading it, Linda!! Brrrr it's cold here, how about there?

Estelle's said...

Linda, your writing takes the reader into the reality of your life....it's so good to experience your childhood memories...and I thank you for sharing...excellent writing~ warm hugs!

MadSnapper n Beau said...

you have us all waiting, just like a soap opera, we get one a week... I have zero memories before I was 5, and only very few between 5 and 10, most memories are after 10. bob has early childhood but not me. agree with Estelle, excellent writing.

obscure said...

I have been reading your blog for ages and have been waiting for this book!

Shug said...

Your memories are so clear and it allows your readers to feel as if they are right there, watching these scenes unfold from a short distance. I am ready for the next chapter...waiting patiently.

~Lavender Dreamer~ said...

You really do have a good memory and I hope bringing back old memories doesn't make you feel bad. You are so blessed and have such a good life now. Thanks for sharing your life with us. Hugs!

16 blessings'mom said...

I am fascinated with your early memories! I made a second coffee when I saw you had put out the first chapter, and now I am wanting to read more! You are an excellent writer, thank you for sharing with all of us!

photowannabe said...

Well I came up as anonymous before but I am hanging on every word and looking forward to chapter #2.
Sue

Ann said...

Excellent first chapter. I look forward to reading more.

Anonymous said...

What an excellent writer you are, Linda! I’m drawn in to your story and can’t wait for more!

Deanna Rabe

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Carol said...

I am so excited to be reading this as I know you have wanted to write this for awhile. I will anxiously await your next chapter.

Great-Granny Grandma said...

Your book is going to be a real page turner.
Can't wait to read the next chapter.

Rita said...

My first memories are also when I was two--almost three. Funny how there are scattered memories over the years. Love your writing and can't wait to read the next chapter! :)

Wanda said...

Among your many gifts and talents, writing and sharing with such clarity and details puts us right into your life. Thank you for sharing your story with us. Looking forward to the next chapter.