My parents were a young couple, that had been married since November 17th 1941, and had been trying to have a baby for 3 years
My 19 year old mother's name is Hazel Ruth Hitchcock Cangemi and at the time of my birth they are living at 1408 Knox Street in the West End.
They were very proud of their first child, except they were hoping for a boy. Almost all the baby clothes they had, for the baby, was blue. But, mother said I looked beautiful in blue. She said I was the typical little dark skinned, black curly headed little Italian baby.
Then on September 17th 1944, I was Baptized at West End Presbyterian Church, by Pastor Palmer Wm. Deloteus.
Although I can't remember it, when I was 26 months and 5 days old, there was a new addition to our family. The date was the 24th of September 1946. I had a new baby brother. Mama and Daddy named him John Joseph, after Daddy and his Daddy. He was nicknamed Butch.
My earliest memory in life is........ I'm very small-- I couldn't reach the big bed my Mama slept in.. but, I remember mama lying across this bed and crying.
I was standing by the bed and I was eye level to mama, and she was crying. I remember patting her, and asking Baby gone to Heaven?
For years, this scene kept playing over and over in my mind. For some reason I had assumed we had a dog named Baby and that it had died. So one day after I was grown I told mother about this memory. She said Carolyn That was when Butchie died. You were always trying to console me. You were just a baby.
I guess I was. Butchie had died on Christmas morning, as they were singing Christmas carols, under his hospital window, he was only 3 months and 1 day old.
And I was only 29 months and 6 days old. We were living at 5540 Darling Street in Cottage Grove.
My next vivid memory in life is.......... I'm still very small and I have another baby brother... this little brother has lots of curly black hair and he is sitting in a white canvas swing , that is hanging in the center of the doorway, between the kitchen and living room.... and I'm pushing the swing back and forth and running under it and he is just laughing and laughing.
This little brother is named...John Nathan and he was born April 19th 1948.
I'm 3 years and 9 months old now. We live on the corner of Larkin and Radcliff in what was once, Grandpa Sciacca's shoe shop.
I have quite a few memories of this place. I remember finding a stray cat and wanting to bring it in the house.
Well, Grandma Hitchcock was living with us and she told me I couldn't bring him in the house because he would kill my beautiful singing canary Trixie.
Well, Grandma surely had to be wrong, this was a nice kitty. He purred and rubbed on me. I just know grandma is wrong about this kitty. I'll just let him in the back door while grandma is busy in the other room, sewing and when she sees what a good little kitty this is, why, she'll surely let him stay in the house all the time.
But, the next thing I remember, Grandma is yelling at that mean old kitty. He had pulled the head right off my Trixie.
Needless to say.....I didn't have a bird or a cat now..... And you know what? I never did get another canary.
One day while living here, I was out back playing in the trash pile. I know this sounds funny, but, this was not just our trash, and you never know what good things other people throw out. Anyway, while going through the trash, I stepped on some glass and cut my foot real bad. I still have that scar.
And this is were I guess I got my phobia about confined space. (Claustrophobia)
This little boy (Frankie) I played with all the time, had locked me in some old cabinets that were out back, and went off and left me. Grandma said, "I kept hearing you cry and it sounded like you were getting weaker and weaker." By the time I found you, you were almost a goner."
I remember the icebox in the kitchen. There was a pan under it, that mama or grandma would empty several times a day. As the ice would melt, the pan would fill up with water. I remember them putting a sign in the window for the ice man, letting him know how much ice to leave.
The ice came in big 5 , 10, or 20 lb. blocks. This ice kept the food in the icebox cold and you used an icepick, to chip off ice, for ice tea.
It was here that mama had an experience to tell about.
One hot summer day, she had been doing the housework in her slip. She had totally forgotten about the iceman coming. She said she heard him coming, but it was too late to get her duster on, so she jumped behind the door and squatted down, hiding from him.
As soon as he left, she realized, he must have seen her ! Because, the door she hid behind, was a glass paneled door. Of course this was before Little Johnny was born, because, everyone used to tease her and say Johnny belonged to the iceman, you see his name was Johnny too.
My next vivid memory is of Grandma Hitchcock waking me and Johnny up and telling us to come and see our new baby brother. She took us into mama's room...and there was mama holding this little baby. The date was March 31, 1950 and Mama and daddy named him Richard Wayne. (Grandpa Hough nicknamed him Nimrod. He said it was in the Bible. Sure enough it is, he was a mighty hunter before the Lord, in Genesis 10.)
I remember this house where Richard was born, it was on Charles Street. I remember it was a white house and mama, grandma and I are standing on the front porch, grandma is holding a horned toad. All of a sudden this toad sprays red, red, blood all over the wall.
It wasn't long after Richard was born that we moved into the house at 12006 Aldine Westfield Road. This tall skinny house is, to later become known as, grandma's house. When you walked in the front door there was a stair way on the left and a room on the right(livingroom) and a hall that went straight ahead.
There was a door under the stairs and this was a storage space. At the end of the hall there was another room(diningroom) and to the right of this room was another room.(kitchen)
Both rooms at the back, had a door that went out to the back porch. On this back porch was a deep sink. Daddy moved this sink into the kitchen. So now we had running water in the house.
There were 4 bedrooms upstairs. And we had the fanciest outhouse I ever saw. We had a porcelain commode in our out house. Back in the house, when you first stepped in the front door you noticed a light, that cast a purplish color all over everything. This eerie light came from high on the wall on the second stairwell landing.
This wall was a very tall wall. The downstairs ceilings were 18 ft. and this landing was between floors, but, the ceiling went all the way up to the second story ceilings. When you were on this landing , you turned to the right and proceeded to go up some more stairs, to reach the second floor. Up here, you could see for miles, it seemed. The windows up here started from the ceiling and came all the way down to the floor. The window ledge was around ankle high. You could fall to your death from up here. It was a long, long ways down to the ground. I think this is where I first started to be afraid of heights. I was always thinking someone was going to fall and get killed from up here. Well, can you believe it? Mama and Daddy are going to move again. Daddy built a house on Chamberlin St. and we're moving again. Well, grandma decides she doesn't want to move again. She will stay in this house, all by herself.
Well I can't believe we are really going to move off and leave her. She can't stay by herself. I cried and begged to stay with grandma. Finally mama said, she just couldn't take both of us crying. So she decided to let me stay with grandma and finish out the school year, but, I would have to come home week-ends and holidays. I went to Aldine Elementary School, back then. There is no elementary school now. It is now Ellen B. Lane. Well, that worked for awhile. Mama, Daddy, Johnny, Richard, and Roger moved to Chamberlin Street. It was while they were here that Johnny and Richard were playing on the pumphouse and Richard fell and slid down the tin, slicing his chest open. The tin sliced deep and barely missed his heart. I can remember him laying on grandmas bed, with his chest all bandaged. He looked so tiny lying in the middle of that full size bed. I hated going home on the week ends. The house was only a two bedroom. Four rooms all together. There were no girls to play with. Even the neighbor kids were boys. And we fought all the time.
Grandma Hitchcock was my world, and although I don't remember it...mama said that I was breast fed and if I was nursing and grandma came into the room, that I would pull away from her and refuse to nurse. If grandma took me, I would try to nurse her. Grandma would tell me stories, but, they were true stories. They were all about her life as a kid and her growing up years. She even told me some stories about her life as a grown woman too. Grandma told me about all the things her and her brothers did. She also remembered traveling in a covered wagon and crossing Indian territory, to go to Arizona. The Indians stopped their wagon, and her papa had to get out and smoke the peace pipe with them. He had told the kids to stay in the back of the wagon and be quiet. Grandma said she remembered her, and her brothers, pulling up the canvas and peeking out from under it and seeing the Indians and her papa smoking the peace pipe. She said her papa told them, they were only passing through, so they let them cross. She told me about, how every Christmas they always got the same thing every year. They only got one present each. The boys always got a new pocket knife, and the girls would get a new doll. Back then dolls faces were made of wax. Grandma said she never did like dolls. She wanted something alive. Something real. Well, this one Christmas morning, she got up real early and found the doll left for her. Well somehow, she managed to eat the wax off her dolls face and she knew she would get in trouble, so , she takes her doll out and buries it in the snow. When everyone got up and got their presents, she didn't have one. Her mama asked her, "Ella, what did Santa bring you?" She told them, "Santa didn't bring me anything." She said , she couldn't figure out how, they knew he had brought her a doll. Aunt Mary Lou (daddy's sister) and Uncle Johnny Kubin lived next door in the house that was to become known as the big house. Sounds like jail or the Pen doesn't it? Well, aunt Mary and uncle Johnny bought them a house and moved. I guess daddy lost this house too. I don't really know what happened. So Mama and Daddy rented the house next door to grandma's house at 12022 Aldine Westfield Road and I was to stay with grandma at night but, I had to go home during the day, and do my chores and eat my meals at home. It was here we got our first phone. The number was: ME(lrose)-6805. I do have some wonderful memories of this place. This house was the main house on the dairy. Grandmas house, was the dairy house and further down the road, across the street from the Wages, was another house and they all belonged to the same people. Their name was Orlean. These houses sat on over 500 acres. And we had access to all of it. The main house had 13 rooms + the huge halls and two screened in porches. One above the other. The screened in porches were on the south side of the house. Two sets of french doors led to each one of the screened in porches. We had an old werlitzer juke box, really it was a nickelodeon, it took nickels or quarters. You got 7 plays for a quarter. We didn't have to put money in the jukebox. There was a lever in the back and when you tripped it, it would play 20 songs, before you would have to trip it again. This jukebox held the old 78 RPM's . And we had loads of them. The jukebox sat in the main hall, along with an old upright piano, and a huge hall tree chair. The top of the piano was loaded with stacks of records. We had Decca, Capitol, Sun and many more labels. We had some records on sun label we really liked. But no one had ever heard of these people, on the records we had. You see, daddy went somewhere downtown and bought records by the 100. They were of unknown artists. But this one man could really sing. I can remember mama and I talking about it... you know who in their right mind would name their son Elvis . Elvis Presley. No one had ever heard a name like that before. Well about 2 years after that, we started hearing him on the radio. He had finally made it. Next to the huge front door, was the hall tree chair. I thought it looked like a kings throne, but, mama hated it. It had a mirror from the seat to the top. Hooks on each side of the mirror for hats or coats. And the seat with storage. We kept all our song books in here.
The house faced west. It was on the east side of Aldine Westfield Rd., on the north side of the house was the driveway (pear trees lined this driveway) and the north field. There was a side door on this side of the house and it was at ground level. Also on this side of the house, you could see the cellar windows. If you entered through this side door, when you entered, there was a door on your right and stairs going up on your left.
Behind the door was stairs, going down and if you take the stairs down, they lead into the cellar. But, the ones going up lead to the first floor landing of the house, there is a door to your left (it goes into the room where we ate our meals and washed our dishes) and one in front of you,(it goes into the hall where the jukebox and everything is) On your right is another set of stairs leading up.
If you go up the stairs, you will come to a landing, that is between the first and second floors. There is a window here that overlooks the drive and north pasture. Turn right and go on up these stairs to the second floor. You are now standing in a hallway and there are 6 doors. 4 bedrooms, a bathroom and a closet. On your right is another stairway leading up.
Go up the stairs and you come to another landing. It looks out over the drive and pasture again. But you see a lot further. When you turn to the right, there is another door, open it and there are some more stairs leading up. If you follow these stairs, you are in the attic. It is a huge attic. Actually it is another floor. Even adults can stand and walk around in here. There are a lot of old things here. And a lot of pigeons cooing, a lot of them live here. Back downstairs, when you come in the front door and are standing in the hall, to your left is mama and daddy's room. On your right is a large livingroom, if you go into the livingroom and turn left, you will go through a double doorway, that has doors that slide into the walls, and you are in what I suppose is the back half of the livingroom. If you want this room to be smaller you just pull the doors closed. While standing at the front door, if you proceed to the back of the hall, you will be standing in front of the juke box. On your right and left are some more doors. The one on the right leads to the back half of the livingroom, and the one on the left leads to the stairs. If you go through the door on your left you will see a door on your right, (this is the eating room to us) stairs going up and stairs going down to the door which leads to the drive or to the cellar. The kitchen is a very small hall actually, that is in the back, between the eating room and the back half room of the living room. I can't describe just how wonderful this house was. But it was like something out of Gone With The Wind. Oh yeah, I mentioned it had a cellar? Well in wet weather, it would fill up with water and looked like a huge swimming pool.
I aslo mentioned the pear trees that lined the drive on the north side of the house. Well, in back there were 2 fig trees and on the south side of the house were 7 huge pecan trees, and on the other side of these trees, was the driveway to grandma's house.
It was a beautiful place -- I loved it, as did everyone that lived there -I'm sure.
A lot of people were afraid of this house. In all the time we lived there not one time did we get any trick or treaters. Mama always made sugared popcorn for them, if anyone showed up, but, they never did. So, we kids got the popcorn plus what we had gotten, going out trick or treating. I mentioned mama and daddys room earlier. It was on the north west corner of the house. This room was cool in the summer. And when you laid on the bed in the middle of the day, reading....sometimes you had the feeling someone was watching you. But when you took your eyes off the book to see who was there, there was never, anyone there. I had told mama about it. She said, she always felt someone was starring at her with pure hatred, and it was only in this room. ( She said, "Maybe, I'm sleeping in their room, and they want me to get out.") Several other thing happened but, I'll not go into that now. I have to tell you...... I finally got a sister, but, I'm 9 years now...To big to play with a baby... But, I did swing her in the swing that hung from a huge limb in the pecan tree, once in awhile. One hot summer day--Johnny and I were playing office out under the pecan trees. We had stacks of paper that had writing on one side.. but, the back was clean... We had saw horses with boards between them, and this was our desks. We each had us a brick, that we would talk into...these were our intercoms.... Well we were so engrossed in our playing, we barely looked up, when that big shiny black car pulled into the drive. Normally we would have run to see who had come to our house. But, not this day, we were having too much fun, with this new game we invented. Soon we looked up though, because grandma was standing on the front porch, calling to us, as the car was leaving--- telling us to come see our new baby sister--- Well now, that was something, so, off we ran. We came running into mama's room.....and there she was, lying in bed holding a tiny little baby in her arms. I asked grandma, "where did we get It ?" She said, "Did you see that man that was just here?" I said, "uh huh", nodding my head up and down. " Well, did you se that black bag he was carrying?" she asked. Again I nod. "Well , he brought her in that bag, and he gave her to your mama". And do you know what? I believed her. After all my grandma told me.
Well, the date was August 31st 1953, and they named her Marilyn Diane. Mama had wanted to name her Joyce Diane, but daddy insisted on Marilyn, You know Marilyn and Carolyn. Mama said he really probably meant Marilyn as in Monroe. So she was called Diane.
(To Be Continued)