My mother was a naive innocent 17 year old when she was pregnant with me. She did not know anything about labor or giving birth. One day when she was visiting her mother, she just thought that she 'had to go'. So off the outhouse she went . . . time and time again. Her mom finally realized what was going on and called the midwife. I was born on my grandmother's kitchen table at 6th Avenue in Newark, New Jersey. What a way to come into the world! I am sure that a year later when my sister Millie was born, my mother knew exactly what to do.

My earliest memory is a corner house we lived in on Berkeley Avenue in Newark, owned by my grandfather. This was a 6 unit apartment house that both sides of our family lived in. Millie and I would be put in our double straw carriage. Our uncles Louie and Benny, teenagers themselves, would turn us around and around.

My grandfather worked in a chocolate factory and he would bring home the broken pieces and give them to us. Thus began a lifetime love of chocolate.

My grandfather lost this apartment house during the depression. We then moved to 777 North 6th. Street. It was a four family house. Each apartment had young children our age. I remember when Millie and I had the measles we had to sleep in a darkened room. The other kids would come to our window (we were on the porch side) and talk to us. We also had the mumps in that house. When all the kids got chicken pox, I was the only one who did NOT get them!