Nancy's Sophomore Slump

Me, age 15

By Tenth Grade I felt like an 'old pro' at high school. The year was a heady journey of ups and downs. I went on my first date, studied journalism, saw the end of a friendship and the deepening of others. That spring, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated. A boy at school died. And Mom suffered a major health crisis that hospitalized her for weeks.

Me, fall 1967

I had taken Algebra in summer school so I could 'catch up' to my friends and take Geometry as a sophomore. I started out ok, but couldn't keep up and failed the class.

My geometry teacher Mr. Jacobson and I had a 'special' relationship. One day he said I was his favorite geometry student. "He kept bugging me and asked, "Who's your favorite geometry teacher?" That spring, when I was flunking the class, I told one of his honors geometry students to "kick Mr. Jacobson hello for me," and she did. She said he laughed and thought it was 'sweet of me' to remember him. When I came into class he told me, "I got your hello." I apologized, but he said, don't think of it, adding that he was "happy to fill my head with geometry."

About Journalism class I wrote, "Mr. Rosen's going to be a real peach of a teacher." I loved the class, even selling the Herald newspapers and Lancer yearbooks. I wrote, "Everything Mr. Rosen says sinks and goes deep into me. I looked through all my old Heralds and my Lancer.  I bet I’ve looked at my yearbook a million times."

I had Biology with Mr. Gasiorowski whose passion for his subject was infectious. What a great teacher and a great guy. He was a Chicago Cubs and Eddie Stankey fan.

When my dad brought home two rabbits in the spring I named them Eddie Stankey and Stanley Miller, a chemist Mr. G talked about who made amino acids in a test tube. My brother called the bunnies Spot and Snow.

Me with Edie Stankey and Stanley Miller

When Mr. G talked about Desmond Morris' book The Naked Ape I bought a copy. Mom picked it up to look at and was appalled by the description of the human body response during sex. I told her I had read more salacious things in her books which I had picked up and read!

In October my folks went to the Parent open house. I wrote, "Apparently Mom and Dad had a good time at open house tonight. They liked all my teachers, especially Mr. Rosen and Mr. Gasiorowski. Mr. R said, “I don’t know if any of the kids have been telling you what we’ve been doing..”
“Yeah!” Mom said.  “Two hundred sentences…”
“That was a while back.”
“Now you're doing verbs and photography.  She likes your class best, I think.”

Girl's Choir 1967-68. I am in the second row from bottom, fifth from the right.

I was thrilled to be promoted to Girl's Choir. We wore a navy blazer provided by the school. I felt really sharp wearing it to school on days we sang. I was always singing, walking home or through the school hallways. They were a great group of gals and I made many friends in choir. I enjoyed Mrs. Ballmer.

Gym was required for two years. My gym locker was near that of the 'Greaser' girl who had bullied me in junior high, taking my hat and throwing it. One day I was singing while dressing and she said, "She's singing. Are you singing for me?" I replied, "If you want me to." And so I sang the second alto part of the song we were learning in choir. Her friends listened, too. They said I was good. I was never picked on again. It was a confirmation of something I had believed when a girl: if a bad guy came along all I had to do was play the piano or sing to calm the wildness.

I was still pining for the same boy. I wrote, "Mom left me with no hope. But Dad did. He said, “Don’t give up.” He said anything—even a fumble—boosts a guy’s morale. Let’s hope so. Of course, he ought to know, being a guy himself—once."

My old neighbor and friend Mike D. who had moved away was now a freshman at Kimball. I was too shy to talk to him. One day he gathered his courage and asked if I was me and then asked if I remembered the telescope and Homer the Ghost. I didn't have the courage to let him know I really had liked him. Partly it was pride, as I was a year older, but mostly I was shy.

A boy from my homeroom teased me for a while then asked me out. We dated for a few weeks, going to a school dance. We were dancing to My Girl when he kissed me, my first kiss. He wanted to go steady. I liked him as a friend, but we had little in common and I broke it off.

My homeroom class, 10th Grade. I am in the second row, third from right.

I followed several friends and joined the Political Action Club.

I never cared about sports but went to the football games at school to see my friends. I did learn a little about football.

I was writing more poetry:

The sunlight from the window,
Formed a stream of light flowing into the room.
The light illuminated the particles of dust
Floating on the river of melted sun.
The slowly sinking silver moon
Abandoned its position in the heavens
Giving it up to the victor, the sun.
A rosy dawn slowly, silently
Took over the sky transforming
A midnight blue to rainbows.

I read Gone With The Wind and wrote, "I feel I know Scarlet and Gerald and Rhett and Melody and Ashley all personally. I suffer with them. They haunt me, through Rhett's asking Scarlet to be his mistress, through Ellen's death, through when Scarlet finds the Tarleton twins have died. War is horrible. The book is so much a love story, but also it gives an excellent picture of Southern life and a great background to the Civil War. I never knew that was like that."

Other books I read included Alfred Hitchcock's Stories Not for the Nervous; The Moonspinners; The Return of the Native and Tess of the D'Ubervilles by Thomas Hardy; Other Voices, Other Rooms by Truman Capote; J. D. Salinger's books; John Knowle's A Separate Peace; Green Mansions; The Foundation Trilogy by Issac Asimov; Kingsblood Royal; The Chosen by Chaim Potok; Anna Karenina; and Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein.

Tom and Dad playing at dining room table, Me and Mom.
No one else wore their hair that way. I always did something weird.

The fall began with the murder of a classmate's little brother in the Quickstead Woods near Kimball. Then my Grandfather Ramer was hospitalized after his first heart attack. One night some boys were trying to get the attention of the girls who lived across the street. Dad yelled at them to be quiet. They threw a beer bottle through my parent's second-floor bedroom window.

That October, listening to my records I wrote,

"Life is so baffling and unpredictable. It schemes, and you can only hope you’re on the right side of the conflicting forces and not on the overpowered side. It can cut you down like a scythe cuts the wheat. You fall at its mercy. It can be endless in every way as the stars. It can make you as exhausted as one lost in a pathless woods.

I won’t cry, no I won’t cry,
I won’t shed a tear
Not as long, not as long as you
Stand by me.

I feel so strange to feel so friendly
To say “good morning,” and really mean it,
To feel these changes happening in me,
But not to notice still I feel it.

"It’s all so strange. To say “good morning” and really mean it.  It makes me think.  Do they?  Does someone care, even if to say a “good morning?”  What is there left to say?  Is there something I’ve forgotten?  One person left blank?

“I can no longer keep my blind drawn,
And I can’t keep myself from talking.”

"But I notice, I feel it. What a strange effect a beautiful, overdubbed melody can have, creating a whole new emotion out of nowhere. Changing instantly how you feel. Maybe tomorrow I’ll know the answers. Maybe tomorrow I’ll know. I can only wait. And hope He will stand by me, as before."

At Christmas, our neighbors the McNabs joined my family for a turkey dinner. I played Christmas Carols on the piano and they sang along. Afterward, Grandma Ramer, Dad, my brother and me took a drive to see Christmas lights.

We ended up in Detroit. I wrote, "We saw Cobo Hall, Ford Auditorium, The Spirit of Detroit, Hudson's Christmas display windows. It began to snow, not much on the ground, but it does look beautiful to look out your window and see snow falling. Yes, we saw Detroit in all its glory, and the dark, back alleys that chill you to the bone. Not far from Grand Circus Blvd. and it's lighted stores, are broken-down tenements. But even there, in cracked windows, can be found a few colored lights, a lighted candle."

We spent New Year's Day in Tonawanda. I wrote, "Now I'm grown I can see people's personalities. Aunt Alice and Uncle Kenny, Skip, Tom Wilson. Skip says I can't marry until I'm 30--get an education. Uncle Ken is funny. Aunt Alice will have a baby in July. John [Kuhn] pities poor dad--"even your own daughter!"--because I pick on his big nose." I wrote that "Nancy Ensminger was impressed by my description of my life in Michigan." Sadly, Aunt Alice lost that baby.

In January I wrote, "I think the world's falling apart. Riots, wars, crime--dear God, I wish I lived on some obscure island in the Pacific or on an iceberg off Greenland. When will man find peace? Will he ever? We destroy all the beautiful things with ugliness. I wish I were a child again able to live in my own magical world and leave the rest up to the adults. But in this day and age, teenagers are caught up in it. Ever since I heard [a boy] talk about being drafted I've been scared for the boys I know. I hate war. Cutting down the nation's youth, without a chance, growing up too quickly."

The Herald, our school paper

On April 5, I wrote, "It happened again. Martin Luther King Jr's murder. Students wore black armbands, shaking their heads silently during Mr. Stephan's speech. They protested that the flag wasn't at half mast until the governor proclaimed it. They were emotionally upset. We all felt bad, and perhaps guilty for our race. We are the future who will deal with this problem. It's fortunate most felt compassion instead of victory."

On April 6, I wrote, "It seems we just all exploded happily over Hanoi's wanting a peace talk, and up, up, up went the stocks. LBJ had to stay and cancel his trip as riots broke out over King's murder and down, down, down went the stocks. I am convinced this country is a mess. Mr. Jacobson's been talking politics in class lately, and Mr. Burroughs is great on current events. I've learned a lot about him about Vietnam, stocks, the racial problem, and other problems of this Rat Race. Mr. Gasiorowski has been preparing us for sex, marriage, and other things about Adult Life and responsibilities. With Mr. Rosen we try to take this world and report all the latest facts on the Rat Race to the Rats themselves. So, in the end, you've gotta get involved. Mr. Gould tries to help your 'love life,' and Mrs. Ballmer helps you get enjoyment out of succeeding and working hard to get to the top. And Mrs. Dubois teaches teamwork. In school, they prepare you for Life."

On April 18, I went to Great Scott on Crooks Rd. with Mom to buy easy meals. Mom was going into the hospital for two weeks and I would be responsible for cooking, cleaning, and getting my brother up and to school. Every few years Mom would try another treatment for her psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis.

In May, my journalism class attended a conference for high school students held at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. We got press cards. My friends and I spent time wandering around town among the college students. I hoped to go to college, too. But I had not talked to my folks about it.

The photographer for the school newspaper and yearbook was the step-son of my Ninth Grade English Teacher, Mr. Botens. He would hang around our classroom, talking to Mr. Rosen. One time they were discussing how to photograph a person in a jar and they asked me to pose. I was wearing the Mod suit I'd bought with the money I found on my way to summer school. I liked Joe, but he was older and I thought he was too cool for me. My friend Dorothy knew him and one day we went to his house so she could return chemistry papers she had borrowed. In April she told me she asked him if he'd date me. She said he said he thought I was cute and would consider--it but he had a girl. That was bitter-sweet.

On May 15, 1968, I came to school and my friend Kathy gently broke the news that Joe had suffered a serious accident. I was stunned. At choir, my friend Peg told me Joe had died. The Girl's Choir sang Happy Birthday and I was offended, unwilling to have life go on in the midst of death. I grieved for days, recalling all my losses over the years. In the end, I decided, "So, follow his example, when he lived. Find the ambition and vigor he met life with. And die with the courage and determination he did, but only when it is time. Now you know death for what it is."

Newspaper articles on the death of Joe Botens

1969 Lancer tribute to Joe Botens

On June 5, I turned on the radio and heard that Robert Kennedy had been shot. One of my close friends was upset, saying her parents didn't understand. There was another school rally and the Principal gave another speech and a prayer for Kennedy's recovery. On June 6 I wrote, "I prayed as I fell asleep: Don't let him die, don't let him die."

October 1967 Free Press photo of RFK visit to Detroit

While Mom was at the hospital the doctors discovered that she was being harmed by the medications she was on and they took her off them, cold turkey. She became very ill, losing both weight and her hair. The family feared she would die. Dad came home from work, ate, and went to the hospital. I was not allowed to go. I stayed with my little brother.  It was an awful, stressful time.

The school year ended. The last day I walked home alone, for all my friends had left already. I was very blue. Summer of 1968 was the lowest point of my life.

The stress of Mom's illness showed in my family. I was falling into depression, moody and unhappy. My folks were short with me. There were fights. They did not understand that stress affects the whole family.

My Uncle Dave was in a horrible car accident in Annapolis. I went with the McNabs to see The Graduate. I traded bedrooms with my brother, making me nostalgic thinking about all I'd experienced while in that room. I went bike riding with my girlfriends. We saw the fireworks display at the Clawson park, just a block away from where I now live.

Mom was still not well when my July birthday came. Instead of a Sweet Sixteen party like my friends had, I was lucky to have a cake and a family gathering.

I struggled with the evil in the world, the loss of my naive belief in the innate goodness of all people. Now, I wondered if I wanted to live in such a world. I prayed to just die and then felt terror. I realized my terror was because I believed in God and feared that my prayer might be answered. I had at least accomplished one goal: I was on my way to a real faith.

One summer day I took my brother Tom and his friend Bruce McNab to show them my daily walk to Kimball. After Freshman year all I could think about was getting back to school. This summer I was nostalgic for simpler, happy days. One year had changed everything.

Bruce McNab and Tom Gochenour

One More Mr. Henckel Post

I found some errata concerning Mr. Henckel our glee club teacher at Jane Addams Junior High.

Mr Henckel and the Glee Club

Nov. 18, 1964

This is the day Mr. Henckel got paddled. He had told Mike M. that he had the right to paddle anybody who didn't put the books back right. Jim B. put a pile of books back wrong. Mike hit him once. Then Mr. Henckel put his book back wrong. Mike got up and took the paddle. Mr. H was writing something in his black book. SMACK! After a while he said 'when I gave him that job I didn't think he'd have enough nerve to do it to anybody.' Everyone died of laughter.

Nov. 23
Today Mr. Henckel came in and told us about his new son, Graham, who was born the Sunday before. he told us he was named after Graham Hill, the race car driver. He said he was going to get training wheels for his motorcycle. Someone asked if Graham had a middle name. When the answer was no, someone said, "How about Graham Crackers?" Now my brother goes around eating graham crackers all day saying, "I'm eating Mr. Henckel's son all up."

NOTE: Lori Shader Patterson admits she was the one who suggested Crackers as a middle name!

Nov. 24
In music class we sang "Noel" off-key; he let us out early.

Dec. 7
Iolante, an operetta. It was good. Even if it was about fairies I enjoyed it very much. Mr. H. put a sign in the projector that read: "Help! I'm being held prisoner in the projector! The next day he said he found out who it was, and put his own photo under the projector." Denise made a little paddle for Graham Mr. Henckel put it under the projector while we watched Iolante.

Dec. 10
Mr. Henckel got mad at us. The boys tried to out-sing the girls. He put on a record of Christmas Carols. Everyone got bored. Sue and Ann had a staring contest. Sue won because someone pushed Ann's belly-button.

Dec. 11
Mr. Henckel gave us a speech on Mozart. Denise has gotten a lot of tape on her mouth.

Dec. 15
Three days ago someone took Mr. Henckel's paddle.

Dec. 17
We all said Merry Christmas to Mr. Henckel. He said, "Same to you, lunkheads."

Here is something I made up back then:

Mr. Henckel's Musical Dictionary

Accent: emphasize or stress. Example: When Mr. Henckel has to tell the 7-4s to be quiet. SHUT UP YOU MEATHEADS!

Alla Breve: Two beats to the measure. Example: Spanking someone to music.

Allegretto: Gay and moderately lively. Example: The way Mr. Henckel acts when he doesn't have to stay up and feed Graham that night.

Cadence: The end of a musical sentence. Example: When Mr. Henckel finished a speech on music.

Crescendo: A gradual increase in tone. Example: What Mr. Henckel does when he gets mad.

Da capo de fine: return to the beginning and play to the measure marked fine. Example: What Mr. Henckel has to do with we aren't listening to his speech and he has to repeat it.

Fortissimo: very loud and strong. Example: How Mr. Henckel talks when he's mad.

Henckel: A famous music teacher.

Graham 'Crackers': a famous food.

Lump-Lump: a name used by Mr. Henckel

Meatheads: people with no musical sense, talent, etc. Example: the 7-4s.

Molto: much. Example: Mr. Henckel like much music.

Non Troppo: not too much. Example: the 7-4s don't like much music at a time.

Peabrain: a name used by Mr. Henckel

Peanutbrain: another name used by Mr. Henckel

Poco: little. Example: We do little singing.

Sempre: always. Example: The 7-4s will always like Mr. Henckel.

Sforzando: forcing. Example: We always force Mr. Henckel into letting us sing.

Nancy Goes to Junior High

My first year of school in Michigan came to an end. Summer was long and boring--no Day Camp at Herbert Hoover Junior High School, no kids gathering for games under the streetlights, no friends, no cousins seen regularly. While my little brother had lots of kids his age on our street, there were only a few my age and they were either a few years older or a few years younger. The lack of a shared history and mutual experiences made it hard to connect.

Dad and I shoveling snow

I did still bike over to see Gail, even after my grandparents moved to another house a few miles away in Berkley.

Gail M. and Me

I had cousins but they were all younger than me. My mother's sister and one of her brothers lived in Metro Detroit.

Me and my Ramer cousins. I am on the left and my brother is in blue.

Seventh Grade meant a new school, Jane Addams Junior High, over a mile's walk away. We had to wait in lines outside the building for the doors to open. It was there I experienced bullying, albeit a mild sort.

I wore a  Mod cap hat. There was a group of girls called "greasers," dressed in black leather coats and sporting dark eye liner and teased hair. One decided to take my hat and toss it. I got mad. So of course, she did it again the next day.

My teacher Mrs. Green liked outgoing kids and was concerned about my shyness. Even in elementary school my teachers would say I was "coming out of my shell," but with the move and school change I was even more shy. Mrs. Green told my parents there was something 'wrong' with me and Mom got pretty upset. Actually there was something 'wrong'; I was depressed and homesick for Tonawanda. In November I wrote, "I wish I could go back to Buffalo--I miss the street, the houses, the people, the friends."

I was lonely and made up a friend, Homer the Ghost, who kept me company on my long walks to school. I made up a whole ghost family. I knew he was imaginary. When others learned about Homer they were not so sure.

Homer the Ghost

The school had Friday night Boy-Girl dances. I did not (would not) like rock and roll, I was a klutz and had no interest in dancing, and I did not like boys "that way." No, Friday nights were for The Man From Uncle, and I was a card-carrying member of the fan club. I wrote about it here.

A teacher asked who was going to BOGI, the boy girl dance; my hand stayed down. She decided to have a boy ask me to the dance. I was outraged. He was popular so I knew he could not really like me, the weird, uncool kid. Girls encouraged me to go, that he meant it, but I did not believe it. He tried again the next day, too. I never forgave or forgot that experience.

Later when that same boy learned about Homer he asked our art teacher if my ghost was real. She said, "Nancy's pulling the wool over your eyes." I didn't know what that even meant, but until graduation day that boy would ask me, "How's Homer?" with a knowing gleam in his eye.

Mom, me, Dad, and Tom 

What did change my life were the electives classes: a quarter year spent in sewing class, cooking class, art class, and music class.

Drawing exercise in Art Class 

My grandmother bought me a piano that year and my lessons resumed. I discovered I liked to sew and was good at art, and I was thrilled to be in chorus again. I drew a lot and kids asked for my pictures.

My horse drawings

Imaginary friends

Mr. Russell Henckel was our choir teacher. He was fun, but strict when the boys acted up. There was a paddle in his office and he was not afraid to use it. We listened to Gilbert and Sullivan's operetta Iolanthe in class while the words were projected on a screen. One day we arrived in class to see projected a note: "Help! I'm being held prisoner in the projector!" The next day there was a picture of the captive. We also studied Mozart; I wrote that he had a sad life with only his dog at his funeral.

On November 20, 1964 I started to read Jane Eyre and liked it. That fall I wrote my first poem, a very lousy poem called The Bat, and later one called The Poem.

On the anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy I wrote,

"A year ago today, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. I remember walking down the hall and passing a class watching a TV--an educational channel. They were the first to know. Mr. Saffronoff and our class went to the library. Everyone was in a daze, no one knew really what happened. Only that the President was assassinated. Mr. S talked to us about how the President was assassinated and about the president. We couldn't accept the fact at first. I was confused. We went back to our room --Mr. S left us for a minute. Some didn't believe it--thinking it was a hoax. Others said the killer must be insane. I felt very sad, depressed, as I walked home alone; I cried. I didn't know much about him--I wasn't interested in politics. When I got home I acted naturally and all after that, like it seemed it didn't matter."

There was a Mock Election held at school. I was still clueless about politics. I was asked if I would vote for LBJ or Barry Goldwater. Then I was told about LBJ's Great Society and war on poverty. I decided to vote democrat. It was one of the few winning votes I have ever cast.

On November 25 I read The Lost Continent of MU, perhaps a book from my Grandfather Ramer, and Stop the Typewriters! about an eleven-year-old girl named Nancy who wants to be a writer.

Over Christmas break, my family returned to Tonawanda. We left December 31. I wrote it was a sunny, muddy day. I wrote about seeing a Glendale street and recalled the song 442 Glendale Ave. My brother said the twin Grand Island Bridges belonged in Ripley's Believe It Or Not.

We stayed with my Aunt Alice's family, which now included Grandma Gochenour. I have no idea how they fit us all in! We visited all our old friends and I saw all my cousins ("they act and mainly look the same but, boy, they have grown" I wrote) and we stopped at the Kuhn's house.

I spent a day with Nancy Ensminger and we had our photos taken in a photo both. Her mom fed us canned spaghetti.

Me and Nancy Ensminger

Nancy Ensminger, Christmas 1964

By spring I had made some friends, Dee and Diane, two girls whose families had moved from the South to Detroit for jobs. Dee and I just started talking on the long walk home from school. She lived a few blocks away. Diane lived next door to Dee.

I joined a Girl Scout troop, although I was disappointed the girls were more interested in watching Hullabaloo on television and talking about boys than scouting. But I was thrilled with our 'adventures,' like this one I wrote about in my diary:

"We sold calendars at Hollywood grocery. Betty Sue and Besty went to Edward's but were kicked out. The manager said they were bothering the customers. They went to Frentz & Sons Hardware, who bought two, one to hang in the store. At the Funeral Home--Spiller-Splater? Or is it Spitter-Splatter? Or Spiller-Splitter? Well, anyways, Betty Sue started to go in but Betsy said they'd better ring the door bell. Four or five rings later a very mad man answered. He took Betty by the collar and asked what she wanted. "I want to sell you a Girl Scouts Calendar," she said calmly. "I don't want any," was his answer and he turned away. Halfway, he came back. "OK--how much?" Betty Sue said he just didn't want the funeral home to have a bad reputation. At Rambler and Pontiac Betsy told a man that her brother bought a car from there and if he didn't buy a calendar he'd return it. "Get lost," was his affable answer. At Pontiac they were real nice and gave them some booklets, too. Lynn, Cherie, Cindy and me and Mrs. D stood at the entrance of Hollywood. One man said he'd buy one when he came out. We were there three hours and he never came back out! Another man answered no, but don't tell his wife he had a Playboy one already. A boy who worked there we asked every time he came by. Once, we didn't ask him and he looked surprised."

Already I was recording the life around me in detail.

I was invited to visit a church and saw an altar call. I saw people whose belief in God was so real they were crying. It made me consider issues of faith for the first time, and I committed to developing a believe in God.

My Grandfather Ramer took me with him to St. John's Episcopal Church.  Having grown up in the Broad Street Baptist Church in Tonawanda, with it's immersion Baptism and stained glass windows, being Episcopal was an adjustment. We genuflected, knelt, had responsive readings, plus the church was modern and huge. I had several schoolmates in the confirmation class, plus my friend Gail's family were members.  My first communion I sipped from the Communion cup as instructed. I hated the sour wine and I learned to dip my wafer into the wine!

St John's Episcopal Church, Royal Oak MI in the 1960s

I made friends in the neighborhood, including a boy named Mike D., a year younger than me. Mike and I took Dad's telescope into the back yard and looked at the moon and stars, making up stories about outer space. We enjoyed pretending stories about Homer the Ghost.

My imaginary gang, Homer the Ghost and friends

One day his younger sister asked if I would like her brother to be my boyfriend. I was upset. First, because I valued friendship above everything and had no interest in boys, and because, actually, I had a crush on him, too, but was not about to admit it. I alienated a friend, and then he and his siblings moved away. I was heart broken, having lost a true kindred spirit friend. But nobody knew.

I still listened to CKLW on the radio in bed at nights. In the spring of Seventh Grade I heard Stop! In the Name of Love by the Supremes. I liked it.

It was the beginning of the end of childhood. I liked a boy and I liked a rock and roll song. My long-held promise to my Grandmother Gochenour was being broken, for I was unable to be Peter Pan and avoid growing up.

Here I am at the end of Seventh Grade

Tonawanda Stories a Hit in 2016

It was a huge surprise to find that my  stories of growing up in Tonawanda, NY were such a hit, drawing hundreds, and sometimes a thousand, readers to my blog. It all started when a post I created to celebrate my Aunt Alice Ennis's birthday 'went viral' weeks after it was posted. I snooped around and found a photo from that post had been shared on a Facebook group "Growing Up in the Town of Tonawanda."

I joined the group and shared some older blog posts I had written about Tonawanda history, which also had a wonderful reception.

My dad wrote a memoir of his childhood and I decided to share it with the Facebook group, and soon new friends were encouraging me with "more, please" comments. In the past few months I have added my own memories.

I have enjoyed reading about other's lives since a child, and still enjoy reading diaries and memoirs and autobiographies. But it amazes and humbles me to hear that people have relived and recalled their own experience through my sharing family stories and photos.

In January I will continue the family saga as our family moved to Detroit in 1963, sharing about my homesickness and Dad's new life. It won't be a Tonawanda Tale but the story of Tonawanda folk adjusting to a new community.

I have been amazed how many Tonawanda folk I have meet over my lifetime. In Philadelphia or Michigan I have discovered so many folk with Tonawanda roots, and my brother has as well. The Tonawanda settlers crossed New York State by land or the Erie Canal, and many continued west across Lake Erie into Canada or Ohio or Michigan. And of course work and career take many of us to places we never dreamt we'd go to.

Some, like my cousin David, have returned to Tonawanda from careers elsewhere. After all, there is no place like home, and home is where our family is.

Have a wonderful holiday season and may your hometown memories be warm and bright.

Stories by Me
The John Kuhn Family: https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/07/the-kuhn-family-of-tonawanda-ny.html
The Sheridan Park Volunteer Firemen: https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/07/dads-memories-of-sheridan-park.html
The Becker Family: https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/11/eugene-gochenour-memoirs-becker-family.html
Happy Birthday, Aunt Alice: https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/01/happy-birthday-aunt-alice.html
Halloween Costumes: https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/10/halloween-costumes-of-1950s.html
Christmas Past (late 1950s): https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2015/12/christmases-past-1956-and-1957-photos.html
Building and running a 1940s gas station: https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2015/07/the-station-building-and-running-1940s.html
Tom's Brook Massacre: https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-rhodes-family-massacre-at-toms-brook.html

Emma and Al Gochenour
with Mary and Gene

Al and Emma Gochenour with
daughters Alice and Mary

Dad's Memoirs
Part I: https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/07/memoirs-of-eugene-gochenour-part-i.html
Part II: https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/08/memoirs-of-eugene-gochenour-part-ii.html
Part III: https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/08/eugene-gochenour-memoirs-part-iii.html
Partk IV: https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/08/eugene-gochenours-memoirs-part-4.html
Scouting: https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/09/memories-of-eugene-gochenour-scouting.html
Alger Gochenour: https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/11/alger-jordan-gochenour-today-i-share-my.html
Grease and Cars: https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/09/eugene-gochenours-memoirs-grease-and.html
Boating Tales: https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/10/eugene-gochenours-memoir-boating-tales.html
Floods and Subs: https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/10/eugene-gochenours-memoirs-floods-and.html
Lives Cut Short: https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/10/eugene-gochenours-memoirs-live-cut-short.html
New York State Theme Parks: https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/10/eugene-gochenours-memoirs-new-york.html
Runnning a Coffee Truck: https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/10/eugene-gochenours-memoirs-running.html
Pets, Fishing, and Hunting: https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/09/eugene-gochenors-memoirs-pets-fishing_10.html
Gene Gets a Girlfriend: https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/09/eugene-gochenours-memoirs-gene-gets.html?google_comment_id=z125uvtafzbywjdbi04cfbky4suhz5gyx3w

Aunt Alice and me

My memories
My Old House: https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/12/my-old-house.html
Birth and preschool: https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/11/my-memories-of-growing-up-in-tonawanda.html
Stories my Mother Told Me: https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/12/stories-my-mother-told-me-and-other.html
Trash Picking: https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2013/10/trash-picking.html
Lois Gibbs on my Green Heros Quilt: https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2012/11/my-green-heroes-quilt-lois-gibbs.html
Songs My Mother Sang Me: https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2014/04/songs-my-mother-sang-me-1940s-novelty.html
Houses: https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2014/05/houses.html

Related Books Reviews
Love Canal: https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-history-and-legacy-of-love-canal.html
1901 Pan American Exposition book: https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2016/10/spectacle-and-assassination-at-1901.html
The Sky Unwashed: https://theliteratequilter.blogspot.com/2013/09/mother-russia-and-sky-unwashed-by-irene.html

My Memories of Growing Up in Tonawanda: 1959

Wearing Mom's skirt and shoes for dress-up. 1959.
A reader informed me the car is a 1957 Ford Sunliner
which I believe belonged to Skip and Katie Marvin.

1959 was the first year I remember. The teacher told us America had a new state--Alaska. Learning there was a dated YEAR made a big impression on me. Suddenly time became linear, not a circle of revolving knowns.

1959 changed my life. The next few years were some of my happiest.

It was the year Disney released Sleeping Beauty. The year Barbie was born. I watched Bonanza, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis, Twilight Zone, Rocky & His Friends, and 77 Sunset Strip. I have said that Twilight Zone taught me many of my core values.

My family went to the drive-in and watched Journey to the Center of the Earth. I adored that movie! 1959 movies that I later saw on television included On the Beach, Operation Petticoat, North by Northwest, The Diary of Anne Frank, Miracle on 34th Street, Ben Hur, and Anatomy of a Murder.*

It was the year my brother was born.

Here I am holding Tom

It was the year Mom bought her first new furniture, a hutch, a turquoise couch, matching chairs, and rock maple colonial tables.

And it was the year I met my best friend, Nancy Ensminger, in Girl Scouts. Our moms called us The Two Nancys, always together, and different as night and day.

Nancy Ensminger at my Military Road House

Nancy had a big brother, while my brother was born a month before I turned eight. Nancy was easy going, happy, cheerful. I was wound up, intense, and tended to be fearful. Nancy had long dark braids. I had artificially curled blond hair. We both were horse crazy, liked to read, wanted to write, and had vivid imaginations.

We spent hours pretending. We played with my Beyer model horses. Grandma Gochenour went to the Goodwill in Tonawanda and brought me home Auburn model animals: fox, bear, chickens, ducks, cows--every kind of critter.  Mom bought me plastic animals from the store: models of dogs, knights on horses, cowboys and Indians. Nancy and I created personas and story arcs with them. There was Red Scott Collie, our hero, and his girl Snowball the Poodle. Their buds were two huskies, Dusty and Goldy (gray and gold colored, of course!)

Gone Fishing Barbie outfit

We played Barbie dolls. My Midge doll became "Philip** the Boy From Mars" by dressing her in the Going Fishing set of jeans and a plaid shirt.

The dolls also acted out musicals. Nancy's brother Bruce had a record player and recordings of Camelot and Oklahoma! I memorized all the songs while our Barbies or plastic animals played the roles. "Poor Jud is dead, poor Jud Fry is dead..."

Nancy at the field behind her house in 1965. The open land went to
the railroad tracks and Sheridan Park housing.

Nancy's house was on Military Road. Behind her house were open fields, barren and hilly. We roamed there, acting out other favorite story arcs: we were orphans in Scotland who solved mysteries, riding our horses across the landscape.

The fields behind Nancy's house. 1965

We imagined turning the shed behind her house into an office where we would publish our newspaper. We would write the stories and sell the paper at school. Nancy wanted to grow up to write stories and become a missionary to Africa where she would tame a Zebra. I wanted to be an author.

Nancy and I in junior high and as juniors in high school

My world was now full of friends. My cousins, the scout troop, the Rosemont girls, Nancy, and the children of family friends.

The Randalls were family friends who lived on Rosemont. Their daughter Jackie babysat me. She was great! And her brother Mike, a year younger than I, sometimes came to play (likely when no boys were around) and we traded comic books and acted out astronaut fantasies. I was interested in the Space Age and Mike and I both believed in life on other planets. Once we walked to the store across from school to buy penny candy.

Mrs. Erickson, my third grade teacher, did not like me. She always had negative things to tell Mom. I remember she would not say 'Hitler',  or "helicopter' because she would have to say 'hell'. She liked boys better than girls.

Mrs. Erikson once took me out into the hall and shook me by the shoulders and told me to stay there. Why? because I had a 'lazy tongue' and did not articulate. (I learned to articulate in choral singing later.) Another time she sent me back to Second Grade, Miss Hurley's class. There sat Mike. I was so embarrassed. Mike grew up to be an actor, puppeteer, and weatherman, well known to Tonawanda folk.

Mom's best friend Doris would come over with her son, Tom. One time I was showing off, climbing over the railing of the porch. Tom said he could do that but I didn't want him to. I wanted to be the only one to do it, and besides I was older and thought he was too young. Well, he was accomplishing the feat when I tried to stop him. I grabbed him and managed to pull his pants down! Was I in trouble...again.

I liked to climb the willow tree. It had a nicely curved branch a few feet off the ground. I remember the girl across the street would climb it with me.

In 1959 Walt Disney's Sleeping Beauty came out and Mom took me to Buffalo to see it. I was enthralled; a part of me always wanted to be a princess. Mom said I could look like Sleeping Beauty, if I lost weight.

Sleeping Beauty by Madame Alexander, 1959
Or, What the Dog Ate

My Great-grandmother Greenwood gave me a Madame Alexander Sleeping Beauty doll for my birthday. Mom said it wasn't to play with, it was too expensive. I couldn't undress her or comb her hair.

But I took the doll to Christine's house to show her. I set it on the ground while we played in her back yard. My Pepper had followed me; she found the doll and chewed on it and ruined it. I was devastated. Mom tossed the doll out. I took better care of the Little Women dolls Great-grandmother gave me, which I still have today. As an adult I bought myself a 1959 Sleeping Beauty doll to replace the one lost in childhood.

I started piano lessons when I was eight years old. I had enjoyed tinkling on the piano at the Kuhn's house when we visited. My Grandmother Ramer and Mom regretted giving up their piano lessons and since I showed an interest, they determined I was going to play! My grandmother bought me a used piano.

My teacher lived in the Sheridan Park project.**. I remember holding my two quarters in my hand as I walked down Ensminger Road to my lesson, and studying them while the previous student finished their lesson. I had John Thompson books which were geared toward teaching students classical music, basic theory, and offered brief biographies of the composers. Hence started my love affair with Classical Music.

My brother Tom and his godparents, Katie and Skip Marvin and Tom Richards

My brother Tom was born in August 1959. He was the cutest thing, with ruddy checks and blond hair and big eyes. Where I had been colicky as a baby, Tom was quiet and stoic. I liked him way better than any old Tiny Tears baby doll.

Me, Dad, Tom and Mom at Great-Grandma Greenwood's house in Kenmore
I have that student lamp on the table!

...Until he started teething and drooling all over. Yuck. And the he started crawling and walking, which meant I had to keep my crayons and scissors and paper dolls picked up.

Tom on Mom's brand new turquoise couch.

On the bright side I was the big sister and could boss him around, make him play school, and best of all I could read to him. I loved reading out loud. I loved sharing my favorite books.

Nancy 8 yrs, Tom 3.4 yr. Gramps wrote I was the
image of my mother.

Tom had vision issues just as I did as a girl, and it made him clumsy, too. We were watching Babes in Toyland on television, Tom sitting on the piano stool, when he fell off and hit his head. He had to be taken to the hospital for stitches. I was not blamed, but I felt guilty. I was the big sister and should have been watching out for him.

Nancy and Tom

Aunt Alice and Uncle Kenny lived in the upstairs apartment where I lived as a little girl before my family moved into the downstairs apartment. My cousin David was born in 1958 and Beverly in
1961.

Tom, David Ennis, and me. The pool was under the willow tree. Rosemont Ave is in
 the background. I remember I had come home from Day Camp on this day in 1960.

David and Beverly, Easter. Note Mom's starched frilly table doily.
Don't ask about the plant in the bird cage.
I have not a clue.

Cousin Beverly and I. Easter.

I loved roller skating but the sidewalks were uneven and I spent summers with scabbed knees, and yes, I picked at them. My Grandmother Gochenour and Aunt Alice went roller skating in Tonawanda**** and started taking me along. It took a while to learn how to stop while roller skating, but I loved it, especially when everyone gathered in a circle to do The Hokey Pokey.

Dad bought me a new Schwinn two wheel bicycle; the store was just next door, behind the Texaco gas station (which was next to my family's Ashland gas station on Military Rd.) It was blue and had streamers. I loved riding the bike. One time I was riding down a street several blocks away and saw a girl in her yard. We talked and made friends. I believe her name was Nancy Pritchard.

Grandma Gochenour bowled and took me along to watch. She went to the bowling alley across the street at Military and Ensminger Roads, built after the Ensminger house was burned down by the fire department. One time I met a boy who was also with his grandmother. He talked my ear off about baseball. I didn't know, or care, about baseball. I sat and listened politely, of course.

Mom, Me, Dad, Tom and Grandma Ramer. Easter.

Mom redecorated the house. The dark wood wainscot was painted turquoise, the wall paper was light brown, white, and turquoise. Dad made wood valances for the windows. Mom bought Colonial style furniture. I still have the hutch!

Mom's new furniture. 

Mom gave me that brown chair in 1972. The upholstery was still good.

 

I still have this hutch!

We went to Putt's farm in the spring in fall, went on group picnics with the guys from the garage, boated and fished on the Niagara River, took trips to Watkins Glen. It was a rich life. I loved the smell of mowed grass, the sight of the gas flame burning at the gas works along the Niagara River which I could see from my window, my school, my family.

Then my dad decided running a garage was strenuous, that we needed health insurance for Mom's health issues, and that Detroit was the answer. We would move near my Ramer grandparents and Dad would find work in the auto industry. It was spring, 1963.

* If you want to know the real important things that happened in 1959 check:
 http://www.onthisday.com/events/date/1959

** I dont recall knowing that Philip was Nancy's father's name.

*** A reader reminded me the piano teacher's name was Mrs. Cota.

****The same reader reminded me it was the Rainbow skating rink.