“Eighty Years have LONG since Passed AWAY”

This is that picture…

As of today… little Tommy in the NAVY Uniform …

 and ME… holding Mom’s purse…

are alive today!

 

Mom & all 4 001

Today is April 19th, 2022 and this photo was taken  in April or May 1946.

“How do I know? you may be asking?…”

When it was determined that my Mother was going to have another child, and that she already has three children…what do you … NOW need to do?

1945…WWII is over and everyone in America is happy and thinking  about all the good things that they put off doing…until better times would soon be here!

I’m guessing that everyone in the whole wide world was HAPPY  and celebrating as much as they could now, since  we  were scrimping and doing with out so much… all for the WAR effort, but now, we could be happy  as all of the SERVICE Men and WOMEN were NOW,  coming home…  and at long last “PEACE” was the good word!

Well… my Mother was a small “five foot” person,  and she was the thirteenth child in her family.

Something that does not run in lots of families is the having of  “TWINS”… and how many families can say that there MOTHER  had “THREE” sets of twins?

What a lovely surprise for my MOTHER… she was now going to have a set of twins, too!

So… NOW what to do?

There would have to be some place for us three children to stay, temporarily? But where?  We were sent to different “HOMES” for children… to check out?

There was an all girls home in South Saint Louis that we all took a tour of, would I like it?

And so…  then we went to an all BOYS’s Home … a place that maybe my brothers would go to?

It did not seem that we would be HAPPY … being separated and not getting to see each other… as we were  so young , and what kind of life would that be… for all of  us being   here and there, and when would there  be a visiting day, if ever … that we could see each other and not forget our  own family members?

 

Baby Karen 001

Daddy holding our new baby sister “Eve Karen” and the three of us…                                                                Denny Jr., ME, and Tommy

 

“Eve Karen” was born on February 16th and my Mother was in the hospital for two or three weeks… and the “HOME” for us only had one Visiting Sunny a month.

So these photos were taken  late April 1946 or in May… as you can see the trees are starting to grow.

As all good stories that you …”The READER”…take up to read… this story has so much more to be  added, as so much TIME has just slipped away, and so many people are no longer alive,  with which to add their “two cents”… as sometimes some things are seem in a  very different  slant… depending on just  who was  back there and exactly what was  really remembered correctly… if at all or if  there  was anything worthwhile completely  forgotten?


Posted in Family, Grandma, Today and tagged with 2 comments.

Comments

  • Chris says:

    Thank you for sharing your story. I wish I knew more about how my father and his siblings ended up in the Home, and how long they were there. I have been told that my grandmother had strong feelings of guilt the rest of her life.

    • Mary Ellen says:

      Thanks for the comment… As the oldest child, I was there to see and hear and in those days the messenger with notes to the in-laws and WWII going on … the “Ration Books” that I was sent to the store with…as the oldest…I just had my fair share of things that just had to be done… with my ears open and the mouth shut…I even remember the “AIR RAIDS”… lots happening… and I do not hear of others and what they did back then.

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