My mom and dad were deeply in love with each other but they had their occasional spats. I remember one particular incident that I'll call - "The Gift of the Magi."
My dad kept his loose change in his pocket not in any king of container. When he put his legs up on his footstool some of the change would spill out and go down beneath the sides of the cushion. I saw mother checking under the cushion and placing the change in a jar she hid in back of a kitchen cupboard. My dad finally began to miss his change. On day, on October first, the day before my dad's birthday he accused my mother of stealing it.
My mom got very angry and then disappeared into their bedroom and emerged with a small box that she placed in my father's hands. "Open it," she said. He did and there was a beautiful wristwatch. She turned and swiftly went down cellar with an armload of overalls to put into the set tub to soak. He slowly followed her. After a few minutes, I was nosy so I went downstairs. I found my mother sitting on my father's lap, on an old dusty wooden chair, and they were both crying. My dad kept saying over and over "I love you, I love you, I'm sorry!"
I was seven years old in 1939 when World War II began and nearly thirteen when it ended. Grandma King's health began to decline after 1940. They sold the house next door to us, moved to New York near Gram's relatives for a short while, then moved back to an apartment in downtown Easthampton and finally built a second house two lots down the street from their first one. Gram developed what we then called "Hardening of the Arteries in the Brain," now called "Dementia" and or "Alzheimer's Disease." It took a terrible toll on Gramp. Finally our doctor told my mother that Gram had to be put in the State Hospital to save my Gramp's life. She entered the hospital the middle of April 1946 and six weeks later she was dead. There was a big hole in my heart!
Gramp sold his house and came to live with us. We all wanted him. My mother gained a most appreciative live-in father. She would just mention in conversation at the supper table to my dad that an appliance was in need of repair or possibly replacement and Gramp would go out and buy it for her. He had a good military officer's pension plus some savings and he loved giving gifts.
He helped around the yard, cleaning the chicken coop, gathering eggs, weeding the garden and doing other light yard work. Every once a month on payday, that fell on the last Friday, he'd march up town to cash his military pension check, meet my father after work for a couple of beers and then drove home with my dad for supper. Immediately after the meal, out came Gramp's wallet and he gave each of his grand- children an allowance, the amount varied by age - so I benefited. Five dollars for me, three for Dolores and two for Frank!
My last sibling, Celeste, was born in October 1944. My dad had wanted to join the Sea Bees but my mother would have none of that. So five years after Frank, mother decided that it was time to have her "out of the draft" baby, and I got a little sister! My dad was furious because his buddies were going into the Sea Bees. But since he was doing an important defense job making intricate little wooden boxes used to ship sensitive bombsights in, plus my mother's appeal to the draft board, of which my Uncle Leon, dad's brother, was a member, he was deferred for a year. By the time the year was over in October 1945, the War had ended!
My high school years flew by with 4-H club events, Grange events after I was fourteen, dancing classes and performing in musicals. They were busy but happy years.
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