I have excellent long term memory. Short term is getting shorter as I age, sped along by grief and a multitude of head injuries along the way, I am sure. But, long term…you can make bank on the accuracy of my memories. My earliest memory takes me back to sitting in the front yard, in the dirt, just inside the fence. I was still in diapers. I remember the way the sun shone on the plastic pants I wore over them as I rolled the material between my chubby baby fingers. Two large neighborhood dogs came up on the other side of the fence and started barking at me. My mother ran and picked me up, comforting my terrified screams. I had nightmares often and can remember sitting in my crib, seeing those dogs coming at me and screaming for my mother to come save me.

My next clear memory is my Aunt’s wedding in Chicago. My grandma woke me before dawn and tried to feed me breakfast but I told her I would eat it in the morning. She laughed and rocked me. I was piled up in the car and we headed north. When we reached Parkersburg, I cried because I didn’t want to go to “Sparkysburg”…I wanted to go to “Shiscago”. We arrived in the Windy City after dark and I remember “lights that moved in the sky”. I later learned they were the neon signs popular in the mid-fifties advertising restaurants and hotels along the busy boulevards.

The first picture is of me and my brother. I remember this like it was yesterday, although I just scanned this slide into my computer this week. I had never seen this picture before. I remember that blue dress. I was supposed to be the flower girl but I think I wasn’t terribly cooperative and ended up having to sit with my grandma. When I saw my mom walking up the aisle, I screamed for her to come get me. I’m sure it was a lovely wedding. *Sorry Aunt Rosie…sigh* Anyway, my brother and another boy were down in the basement of the church. What you see in my hand there is a used flash bulb from the photographer’s camera. I was gathering them up, peeling the blue plastic coating off, and stepping on them…crushing the glass under my “shiny party shoes with buckles”. Then, I scooped up the crushed glass into a shoe box and filled the ash trays that were sitting all around. I was a pistol!

The second picture is a group shot of my brother and me with my Uncle Ernie’s family. Now, my Aunt Rosie grew up here on the farm in West Virginia. But she spent her entire childhood in the nurse’s office at school from getting carsick on the bus and she swore when she was graduated from nursing school, she would move far away from those twisty roads with the kiss-me-Kate turns and never look back. She and a girlfriend moved to Chicago and worked together at Cook County Hospital.

One night, the two young women found their way into a local drinking establishment where she met a handsome sailor on furlough. They fell in love and were married soon after. My Uncle Ernie grew up in an immigrant German family on the South Side of Chicago. He was rough and tough and took no guff. His family was large and loud and the antithesis of our quiet little farm family. I love this picture. Look at all the booze. I can just picture my Grandma and Pop-Pop at this wedding reception…teetotalers that they were. Grandma with her sensible shoes and her pretty little hat perched on her head just so, her purse clutched in her lap for fear these hooligans might try to take it from her. Pop-Pop in the only suit he ever owned, his fedora neatly brushed, his shoes worn. It must have been a sight. The story is, Grandma caught me going from table to table and drinking down the bits of champagne left in the glasses. Lawrdy…I can just imagine.

My other memory of this trip was walking into a kitchen. Uncle Ernie’s mother was a caterer so I imagine she and her helpers were cooking and baking for the reception. There was a very large bag of flour and, as was common in those days, there was a prize in the bag. She found the prize…a little 14k gold ring. Someone put it on my ring finger and tied it on with a blue ribbon that matched this dress. I remember wearing it, but I don’t see it in these pictures.

I was thrilled when my Aunt sent me these two slides. I had never gotten around to putting them in my scanner till this week and was so excited to see this image confirming such a clear memory for me. I cherish every good memory of my childhood. Even though there were some dark times, it’s memories like this that banish them to the far corners of my mind and bring a warm flush of love through me. ❤️

“Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.””
‭‭Matthew‬ ‭19:14 NIV