Grandma’s Stories

Sep 22nd “And These were those GOOD Old Days”

This year is 1946…easy to remember when you look at those in this PHOTO!

Looking at this picture…Baby, “Eve Karen” in the arms of  our Daddy, and she is all bundled up to keep her warm, as this picture must have been taken on a second or fourth Sunday of a month, as those were the Visiting Days at St. Vincent’s… and the background … it looks like Spring!

Our baby sisters were born on February 16, 1946… and they were   identical twins… and the first born twin, Kathleen had a crushed lung and only lived a week.

 So, as I am looking at the trees…  in this picture… this could be early May, 1946.

That “SAILOR” out-fit that   our “TOMMY”  is wearing… is the very same  “out-fit” that  older brother, “DENNY” wore on his trip to “OHIO”  when he was  only “four years old”.

Wrote about that trip a couple weeks earlier, and posted the news-paper clipping along,  giving all of the particulars of that   long “trip”  that little  DENNY took … all by himself … when “DADDY” had to go to  “CALIFORNIA”  to work on the  “NAVY SHIPS”   during WWII – – just some the exciting things that the  “McClarren”  children did during those  “hard” times  of WWII, and we NOW all have  lived  long enough to talk about it!

“Just some of the memories of our little sister, EVE KAREN” …  just good to have a few  old  PHOTOS …  for a “BACK-up” – otherwise – no one would believe…  half of  the good old days… when we were  in those bad times of  a  “WAR” and what  all “AMERICANS” all  working  together, did to help  our “COUNTRY”  WIN…  those were the days … we  “ALL”   just did that which we could… to keep AMERICA, FREE!

 

This next picture is taken years before that  above.

Here we are in Pine Lawn… and it looks like our little brother, “TOMMY” is the brand new baby in our household.

“Tommy” was also born in February and on that Lucky number 13! And Tommy: has been Lucky  every day of his life… as he was the “BABY” of the family… and all families delight in having a “baby” that is smart and learns everything so fast and with all that … he could entertain everyone with so many stories and songs…I always thought he would make it big in Hollywood!

In 1942… we moved from the County to the City of Saint Louis and this next picture shows me in the back yard of the house we moved to… and as a nosy prospector …looks like everything and anything that was left in the backyard… will be inspected by ME!

During those WWII years, we did makes some changes to this picture! For starter the yard was cleared out and my parent plants some tomatoes and a couple of other things they enjoyed eating.

That two car garage soon became a place to raise chickens and have eggs to eat. Further to the left… my Dad made an opening low to the ground… so that the chickens could come and go.

With chickens and eggs and a few items that were planted… how could you go wrong?  Every family had those ration books with coupons that allowed you to buy certain things, and without the coupon…you were out of Luck in getting.

Times were different and difficult, so everyone worked together and did their part for the WAR effort… and now as we all know… cooperation of all the people working together… makes for our winning the WAR!

Posted in Childhood, Family, Grandma and tagged "Mickey McLaren" -" herself"with 2 comments.