My memories at the age of four when we were living at ‘Hook’s’ farm are scattered. When I scroll back to that time frame I remember playing with the other children and tagging after Louis. I was his shadow because he always dreamed up things to do. He was the organizer. We all waited until he told us what we would play and who would do what.

In the summer time we didn’t own a fan and the small trailer dad built for us was naturally like an oven. After supper mom and dad would sit on a blanket on the hillside. When we children wore ourselves out playing tag we would join them and those were the times dad would point to the stars and tell us which ones were in constellations, their names, and how the sailors knew where they were by the location of them at certain times of the year.

He also taught me how to tie my shoes one of those times. I came running up to him once and asked him to tie my shoe. He said, “You need to know how to do that and then when they are untied you can do it yourself.” Then came the lesson. “Make a loop in your right hand with this string, like this. Then take the other string with your left hand and go around your loop, like this. All you have to do then is poke your left string under your loop and pull both of them tight, like this.” I was excited. To know how to do something all by myself made me feel “grown up.” Grown ups knew how to do all kinds of neat stuff and I wanted to be that way too. I spent the rest of the evening tying and untying my shoe-strings.

At Halloween I remember mama making pop-corn balls and red-cinnamon candied apples for the neighborhood. They were wonderful because they looked just like the ones in the stores. Besides that they tasted as good as they looked. Sometimes Buster would be visiting and dad would give him and Louis some money to walk to Reed’s Dairy Store and buy a gallon of ice-cream. They were always given the same directions……”take your time going……and hurry back.” It was one of those things dad always said. I grew up knowing that ice-cream was the talisman for the mood around the house. If it had been a good day quite often we would get ice-cream. That was a good thing. If the day was beset with problems or expenses there was no ice-cream. That was very bad. My family will tell you that since I am very very grown up……….I have ice-cream almost every day…..and THAT is a good thing.

Winter came and we were warmed with a brooder stove in our little trailer. I don’t remember being cold and I thought everyone had to take “spit baths” like we did. Mom made our young lives good and dad loved ice-cream and movies so we never felt deprived of anything. Remembering the trailer and how it supplied our needs we felt very lucky not to have to live down-town in an old apartment. Mom and dad were always able to point out our benefits and never dwelt on the things we didn’t have…..therefore we didn’t know what we didn’t have. Life, for us, was good.

Spring came and the asparagus fields were green with the crop coming up. It was harvested and sold by the owners. For mom and me Spring meant birthday time. This year was especially one that would be different as I turned five. Louis walked quite a ways to school and being older (and being a boy) this worked. I would be school age in the fall as five-year-olds went to school then but to kindergarten. Mom and dad didn’t think I should walk that far to school and especially in winter weather. After much soul searching they decided to take me to grandma Stricklett’s for my first year.

Grandma knew everyone on the school board and they knew I spent a lot of time at grandma’s which would count for residency. The only thing was…..no kindergarten. I was enrolled in the first grade in September after becoming five in May. Naturally I was the youngest in the class and though I could do the work well enough I was not emotionally on a par with my classmates. In retrospect I guess it didn’t matter because I was always at grandma’s and didn’t have contact with any of them anyway.

I walked to and from school with Buster and Sally. I remember one time Sally was putting my overshoes on and she was having a lot of trouble. I kept squirming and complaining but she persisted. I limped to and from school, still complaining when I came home. Sally took my overshoe off and a dead mouse fell out along with my foot. I felt sorry for the little mouse for I had a story book called, “Suzie, the Shy Little Mouse.” She was real to me and I loved my book. That is how I got my family knick-name of “Suzie.”

I loved being at grandma’s for it was like my second home. Besides grandma, there was Buster and Sally, aunt Inabelle and aunt Mary came on week-ends. However, by Spring I was very homesick. Although mom and dad came as often as they could I was anxious to go home by the end of school. They moved the trailer close to downtown again so that I could walk to school. It was only two blocks away and besides Louis, Doris and Billy would be going there. They lived in an old apartment with their dad a block away from the school. My cousins and Louis and I were very close in our young lives.

So I joined the family the Spring I was six and ready to start the second grade in the fall. I would have all summer to get used to the new location. Dad had moved our trailer to 124 South 24th Street and parked it behind a large hotel and to the side of an old apartment house. We were just a block away from Billy and Doris so we had everything we needed………life was very good.

Until tomorrow,

Essentially Esther