I am four years old. Last week, we came to Anna’s house to live--me, my big brother Matty, my sisters Dolly and Goldy and Papa. We are all in Anna’s house with her husband, Phil, and his three children, Herbert, my age, Lil, two years older, and Goldy, four years older. Phil scares me, he is huge and frowns a lot.
Today I am going to go to kindergarten. Anna helps me dress after my bath in the big tub. First my one-piece short-sleeved underwear with the buttoned drop seat. Over that goes a little harness with garters hanging down. They hold up the long tan cotton stocking. Next, a cotton dress with pockets and embroidered flowers. Matching panties over the underwear. High button shoes. I use a buttonhook to fasten the buttons. Anna inspects me. My straight dark brown hair is parted in the middle, cut so it comes just below my ears and with bangs a half-inch above my eyes. I have a clean handkerchief in the pocket of my dress.
Anna takes my hand and walks to Public School Number 7 with me. I must cross South Broad Street. “Remember to look both ways to make sure it is safe for you to cross,” Anna reminds me. South Broad Street is broad, paved with cobblestones with two sets of trolley tracks in the middle and electric wires overhead. After that, I must walk to Grier Street, the next corner and turn left. “You know which way is left,” Anna prompts. Before the end of the first block I can see Public School Number 7. It is a red brick building. There are big maple trees shading the grass between the building and the sidewalk. Two very heavy tall doors confront me. Anna pushes them open and we are in the entrance hall. There is a big clock with a pendulum. The tick-tock seems very loud because there is no other noise in the entrance hall. Anna guides me to an office and I sit in a big chair while she talks to the lady behind the counter. “This is my little sister, Cecile, she just came to live with me. Her mother died more than two years ago. Her father also lives me with. Here is her birth certificate and a letter certifying that she has been immunized against small pox. She will be five in November and I want to enroll her in kindergarten.”
Anna is ready to leave. “Be a good girl, do what the teacher tells you to do. Remember the way home at noon.” I blink back tears; I don’t want Anna to leave me there.
The lady comes out from behind the counter and takes me into a room crowded with children and toys. “We have a new student today, say hello to Cecile.”
Thirty-two pairs of eyes look at me, thirty-two mouths say in unison, “Hello, Cecile.” The teacher takes my hand and sits with me beside her. “Sit here, this is story time.” She begins to read about the Little Red Engine. I know the story. My sisters read to me. My big secret is that I can read it by myself.
The teacher notices my distressed look. She leans down to ask, “Do you need to go to the bathroom?’ I nod and she leads me to it. See, there is a picture of a girl on the door. Inside there are six toilets each enclosed by walls and a door. Six washbowls on the opposite wall. I have to stand on tiptoe to reach them.
A few days later the teacher comes to me. I have an open book in my hands. Are you looking at the pictures?” she asks. “No, I’m reading the story.”
“Read it to me."
“Hansel and Gretel saw a gingerbread house in the forest.”
The next day I moved up to the first grade. We learned to use the steel pointed pens, to dip them into the inkwell in the corner of the desk and to carefully print the letters of the alphabet.
I am six years old, in second grade. We learn the Palmer Method of Penmanship. Each of my sisters has a framed certificate because they learned Palmer Penmanship.
I am seven years old. In the third grade we no longer learn Palmer Penmanship. No more tedious hours making continuous circles or vertical strokes. A new invention, a fountain pen, has its own ink reservoir.
I am ten years old. I am sick with a sore throat. When my throat feels better, I have trouble controlling my movements. My hands sometimes jerk, my mouth moves, and my eyes blink. Sometimes I find it difficult to walk, or hold utensils. Anna takes me from doctor to doctor. One says,” she has Rheumatic Fever and St. Vitus Dance. Here is a prescription for powdered aspirin four times a day. Bed rest and nourishing food are the only treatment. I can’t say how long the symptoms will last.”
I could no longer go to school. I stayed home with Anna. But, I could read books. My brother would bring me seven books at a time from the public library. I think he just started at one corner and went along the shelf to select the books. I read them in less than a week. I listen to the radio.
I am eleven years old sitting next to my Papa. It is Thanksgiving and the huge dining room table is crowded with extra chairs. My Papa must feed me with a spoon because I cannot hold the spoon and bring it to my mouth.
I am twelve years old. I am in a big hospital in New York City. They put me in cold packs three times a day. First, they put blanket on the bed, then a rubber sheet and then a cloth wrung out of cold water. I must get in bed on top of the wet sheet, which they wrap tightly around me, then the rubber sheet is wrapped on top of that and finally the blankets are also tightly wrapped around me. This is a new treatment for St. Vitus Dance.
After I leave the hospital, I go to a convalescent home in upper New York State. I am the only child there. The other patients are kind to me and take me to pick mushrooms with them. But, one of the ladies had some kind of fit in the dining room and I began to have nightmares. I begged Anna to take me away from there.
I am thirteen years old. I return to school to enter the seventh grade at Alexander Hamilton Junior High School. I miss the children who were in my class from First Grade through the Sixth Grade, Helen, Olga, Dorothy, Clifton, Robert and George. But they are now in the ninth grade at Theodore Roosevelt Junior High at the other end of town. Now, we have moved into Anna and Phil’s beautiful large new home on Union Avenue. Now, I have a big room all to myself and even my own bathroom.
I find it difficult to make friends at this new school. Also, now we have a different teacher and a different classroom for each subject. The boys sit on one side of the cafeteria; the girls sit on the other side. We are seated like that in the auditorium, also.
I am fifteen years old. My papa died this past summer while I am at Girl Scout camp at Lake Kannawakee in New York.I did not know he was so sick and without warning Anna came up to camp to take me to his funeral. After the funeral, we endure the ritual period of mourning, sitting shiva, the mirrors are covered.
When my father’s will is read, my other sisters contest the will, and this caused a bitter rift which lasted for many years.