This is the memoir of my Aunt Eleanor (now 85 years old), who got polio when she was four months old.

 

My mother had to be an exceptional person to survive all the trauma in her life. Childbirth at home, losing her loving husband, having four other children besides myself, and very little income. Of course, the depression days were upon us which didn’t make it any easier. I don’t know why I never asked her how she made it. She had to wash all of our clothes in the bathtub, so she certainly didn’t have an easy time of it. There was welfare, but it was different in those days. When my Mom finally was able to obtain an old washing machine and the welfare lady found out, she went around the neighborhood asking questions. The neighbors just ignored her, as they knew my Mom had to really scrape to get that washer and that she really needed it desperately.

We lived across from a train depot and she would prop me up at a window so I could see the trains coming in. The engineer always looked to see if the baby was in the window and waved.

My Dad really enjoyed music and I guess I inherited some of that. My Mom told me that she often played Hawaiian music on the phonograph for me to go to sleep. As a matter of fact we lived across from a park and they had a band concert the day I was born. The Santini family lived next door.  They had piano and Mrs. Santini liked having someone bring me over and sit me on the bench, and let me play (pound) to my heart’s content. I really think I was too young to remember this, but I do remember my Mom saying how wonderful the Santini family was to us. We all loved Italian food and still do.

My Brother Bill

I was the only girl around my age in our neighborhood, so once I was old enough to go out and play, I mainly had boys to play with. Hide and seek, kick the can, tag and baseball were the main games that we liked to play. I also enjoyed marbles, as I was a good player. I was standing behind my brother one day while we were playing baseball and whap! I got it in the nose. In those days we didn’t bother going to the Doctor for a broken nose. I cried a little and Bill hugged me and that was that.

My brother built a tree house in a large oak, and if he felt I deserved it he would let me climb up once in a while. As you can tell, my siblings treated me the way my Mother had taught them, as a regular kid. Stockton was a small town at this time and sometimes Bill and some of the other boys in the neighborhood would convince Mom to let them tie my wagon on the back of my brother’s bicycle and take me for a ride. That was always a fun day.

More of these fun times with the boys included a little trip to Bear Creek. Bill wouldn’t allow me to go swimming on this trip and I couldn’t understand why…as it turned out the other boys were skinny dipping!

He was 5 years older than me and he was my buddy. He included me in play, took me for rides on his bicycle and when he got a lathe he let me in his shop and helped me to build a standing ashtray. Although no one in my family smoked, I was real proud of it.