It's Day 10 in my 21 Day Family Connections Experiment - and at the same time, here's Randy Seaver's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.
This Saturday, Randy wants us to share a story from our childhood. He's also asking if we've started our memoirs yet - and if not, he says to start. (My answers: no, other than here, and, maybe...)
Randy's is a story from his newspaper delivering days when he shared a route with his brother. This reminded me that my brother and I had Star Weekly1 routes. I never did a daily paper. My brother had a bigger route, but he had a bike. I just lugged along a huge bag. I remember customers were nice; mostly I remember going to apartments on Cambie Street in Vancouver, between 18th and 25th. Perhaps that's because my Na lived in that area at 23rd. She almost always had goodies and I'd drop by.
But that's not my story...
Vancouver Public Library main webpage, May 2020: vpl.ca
While the libraries here are all shut, I've been using the Vancouver Public Library website even more than usual. And lately they've had this cute banner up with a photo of little kids reading outside.
This too got me reminiscing about one summer in the 1950s, long ago. A young neighbour from across the street, but much older than I, 'constructed' a big tent in the backyard for us. She must have consulted with Mum, or perhaps Na, who often looked after us while Mum and Dad were at work, because it was made with lots of blankets and sheets from our house, with chairs and a few other things to prop it all up. And more blankets to make the 'floor'.
My friends and I loved this. We played with our dolls mostly, I imagine. And I do remember lying out there reading all by myself.
The tent must have been up for a week or so, because I remember it had to be 'repaired' a few times when pieces came loose.
I hadn't thought about this for ages. I don't know for sure what I was reading then, possibly one of the many Bobbsey Twins or Happy Hollisters books. I read as many of those as we could find. Or I could have been reading a book given to me by my mum, A Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton-Porter.
This too got me reminiscing about one summer in the 1950s, long ago. A young neighbour from across the street, but much older than I, 'constructed' a big tent in the backyard for us. She must have consulted with Mum, or perhaps Na, who often looked after us while Mum and Dad were at work, because it was made with lots of blankets and sheets from our house, with chairs and a few other things to prop it all up. And more blankets to make the 'floor'.
My friends and I loved this. We played with our dolls mostly, I imagine. And I do remember lying out there reading all by myself.
The tent must have been up for a week or so, because I remember it had to be 'repaired' a few times when pieces came loose.
I hadn't thought about this for ages. I don't know for sure what I was reading then, possibly one of the many Bobbsey Twins or Happy Hollisters books. I read as many of those as we could find. Or I could have been reading a book given to me by my mum, A Girl of the Limberlost by Gene Stratton-Porter.
I still have this copy and a copy of Freckles which I wished later I'd read first. Mum said she had to look for a long while to find either. It was originally published in 1909; I think mine are from the early 1950s. Mum no longer had her books.
I remember being quite taken with the chapter titles, for instance, Chapter XXI "Wherein Philip Ammon Returns to the Limberlost, and Elnora Studies the Situation." Also that the author seemed to have taken on a male name and a double-barrelled surname. (Geneva was her name; Gene a nickname she used.) My mother knew quite a bit about Gene Stratton-Porter.2
Part of the book I really liked, mostly to do with Elnora's learning about nature living in the Limberlost Swamp in Indiana, and how to stand up for herself at school, and her determination to get an education despite her circumstances. But I did wonder why my mother so loved the book, as I was sure nature was never of much interest to her, although education certainly was. And the ending of the book was somewhat happy - it seemed Elnora won the hero - not of much interest to me at the time!
The painful part of the book was Elnora's relationship with her hard, even cruel, mother. That I could not understand, although it changes for the better by the end of the novel. Years and years, later, I realized that my mum likely had seen a likeness to her connection with her own mother. We did discuss this some, but I never did let her know I felt that way about the novel. Perhaps I could have....
I remember being quite taken with the chapter titles, for instance, Chapter XXI "Wherein Philip Ammon Returns to the Limberlost, and Elnora Studies the Situation." Also that the author seemed to have taken on a male name and a double-barrelled surname. (Geneva was her name; Gene a nickname she used.) My mother knew quite a bit about Gene Stratton-Porter.2
Part of the book I really liked, mostly to do with Elnora's learning about nature living in the Limberlost Swamp in Indiana, and how to stand up for herself at school, and her determination to get an education despite her circumstances. But I did wonder why my mother so loved the book, as I was sure nature was never of much interest to her, although education certainly was. And the ending of the book was somewhat happy - it seemed Elnora won the hero - not of much interest to me at the time!
The painful part of the book was Elnora's relationship with her hard, even cruel, mother. That I could not understand, although it changes for the better by the end of the novel. Years and years, later, I realized that my mum likely had seen a likeness to her connection with her own mother. We did discuss this some, but I never did let her know I felt that way about the novel. Perhaps I could have....
REFERENCE
1. The Star Weekly, a very popular Canadian publication, ran from 1910-1973. Learn a bit more about it at "Collecting The Toronto Star Weekly" by Steve Smith.
2. Gene Stratton-Porter, "The Legend of Limberlost", Smithsonian: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/gene-stratton-porter-americas-fading-natural-beauty-180974161/
2. Gene Stratton-Porter, "The Legend of Limberlost", Smithsonian: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/gene-stratton-porter-americas-fading-natural-beauty-180974161/
Photograph by R Orville Lyttle, 2001 June. via Flickr.
STAR WEEKLY sign Commercial Dr, Vancouver BC. (CC BY-SA 2.0)
For more about the 21 Day Family Connections Experiment, see my first Experiment article here.
For more about the 21 Day Family Connections Experiment, see my first Experiment article here.
1 comment:
Setting up a blanket tent in the backyard would have been great fun. I think I tried that once, but all the blankets fell in on us. :)
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