I think it must have been when Carolyn was about a year old, we moved to Milwaukee. Perhaps it was after that. Sometime during that time we visited with Grandmother Prince in Bentonville, Arkansas. I think we probably stayed the whole summer--or most of it--at least Mother and Carolyn and me.
I have this memory of making the trip back to Wisconsin in a touring car, with extra jump seats and with isinglass curtains to snap on if it rained.
These things I remember:
- Going to the beach along Lake Michigan ---playing in the sand and jumping the waves.
- Going to the park at night on the Fourth of July to see the fire works.
- Being given Cod Liver Oil to build me up. It was thick and brown and I actually liked it.
- Being given eye exercises to strengthen my eyes. I know now that I had a lazy eye (and still do.) Nowadays they cover the good eye to force you to use the weak one, but apparently they were not doing that then. The doctor tried having me do eye exercises to try to improve the situation. I guess it didn't work. I also got my first pair of glasses when I was about four. The very first day that I had them, I was playing with some neighbor children, running around the yard with a cardboard box over my head. (Can you imagine?) I tripped and fell flat on my face and thoroughly crushed the lenses. It was a wonder I didn't get glass in my eye. Lenses were all glass at that time. Only one other time in all my life of wearing glasses did I break them and that time I slipped on the ice when I was about twenty. I broke the frames several times but never again the lenses.
- Sometime during those early years I would have headaches which made me sick at my stomach and I would have to go to bed. They were one sided--I always said my eye hurt. I think it was my right eye (my bad one) but I am not sure. From what I know now I think they must have been migraine headaches with, perhaps, an allergic trigger. I have this memory that I would get them one day after I had eaten bananas. I seem to have had them until I was eight or nine years old.
- Going to a big department store with Mother and Carolyn. We rode on an escalator. It was many years before I was again in a store that had an escalator. I had what must have been my first ice cream soda. The flavor was Orange. I remember being told by my mother that it was not nice making a noise by trying to get the last little bit out of the glass with the straw.
- Having my tonsils out. I had to spend the night in the hospital. Mother stayed at the hospital, but was not able to really stay with me. I had been promised all the ice cream that I wanted, but when the time came I didn’t want it. My throat hurt too much.
By the summer of 1927, my grand mother Prince had moved to Colorado. We all went out there at the beginning of the summer. My memory tells me that Daddy had a month's vacation and then he went back to Milwaukee and the rest of us spent the summer in Colorado. We did our travel on the train in a sleeping car. On our way to Colorado, we went to visit Daddy's sister, Aunt Beulah, who lived in New Mexico in the Estancia valley. At that time there were two cousins, Emmagene and James. Emmagene was about my age and James about Carolyn's. They lived way out in the country and had a windmill. We were told not to climb the windmill, Which we promptly did! It was far too tempting--and very dangerous for someone of our ages. We got into trouble for it--don't remember how we were punished.
In preparation for this big trip, Daddy bought a new trunk which had a tray in it. Carolyn and I had fun hiding in it while it was still brand new. It occurs to me that it was a dangerous thing for us to do. Perhaps we were well supervised. (I had that trunk for many years. Once after I was married to Lee O. we stored woolens in it with moth balls. It never did completely get rid of the smell. Years later while we lived on Briarwood Drive, we painted it and "antiqued" it and used it as a coffee table in the den.)
Two things I remember about the train trip. One was how dirty our faces were in the morning. In those days trains were coal burning. There was no air conditioning so the windows had to be open for ventilation. Another thing that impressed me was the fact that when I woke up in the morning, we seemed to be going back where we came from. We had gone through a switching point at Omaha while I slept. The engine was now on the other end.
I remember at least one Christmas. I got a little table with two chairs. It was blond and the very first thing we got water on it which left marks. When Caroline and I had birthdays, we each got a present.
I started to kindergarten the in the fall of 1927. I walked (was it a block or two?). However I was always met at Capitol Drive which was the street in front of our house. It was a very busy street.
The only thing that I remember about school was the day the clown came to entertain us. He asked if anyone had drunk coffee for breakfast. Some boy volunteered to go up on stage. The clown had him bent his elbow, and then held a glass under it. A brown liquid ran out as if it were coffee coming from his elbow. For some reason this scared me very much and I didn't want to go back to school after that . I have always thought that they didn't make me go back because of that. However, as I have tried to put things in proper chronology, my guess is that I was allowed to stay home a few days and then about that time my world fell apart and that was why I never went back.
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