Chapter 9 - 5110 Park Avenue

The $35 per month rental houses looked so much more livable but our budget would not allow it. We had carfare, groceries, clothing and utilities to pay. Our income was only $120 per month if both parents were working. If Mother stayed at home to take care of us, our income would not cover expenses so she had to continue working. This meant that she must hire someone to be there during the hours when she was at work. She found an elderly lady, named Mrs. Stanton. Mrs. Stanton would come in the morning, cook, clean, do some washing, see us off to school and stay there until Mother came home. Then she left to go home.

OUR ELEMENTARY SCHOOL: Our house was just two blocks from the Frances Willard Elementary School. It was a new school located at 50th and Garfield. I completed 5th and 6th grades while we lived there.

My 5th grade teacher taught us to diagram sentences. I was good at that. But I did not do well at spelling because we had to write the words in pen and ink. I knew how to spell the words but always messed up at least once because of the ink. That cost me points.

THE NEIGHBORS; A new neighborhood is always full of new experiences, some good and some not so good. We had neighbors whose lives were troubled. The family next door had a little boy about two years old. His Mother and Father invited our family to visit them one evening. They explained something about the child’s health to my parents. I did not understand the words but had noticed that his head seemed a bit too large for his body. The reason they invited us, other than just to be friendly, was to ask if Jean or I would be like to come to their house once in a while and do some art projects. The wife explained that she was once an art teacher and had all the supplies for creating art objects with paper. She would like to have us come for companionship with her and their little boy. We spent many pleasant hours cutting, pasting and painting with them. Later I learned that her child suffered from what is known as hydroencephilitis (water on the brain). For this there still is no known cure. He continued to get worse as time went on and they knew that they would eventually lose him. But through those difficult days she filled our days with fun and friendship. I had found someone with enormous strength and will never forget her.

We did not know many of our neighbors but when something tragic happened word got around. One day an ambulance pulled up to the front of nearby house and carried someone out. It wasn’t long before everyone on the street knew that this woman had electrocuted herself. She did it by placing the vacuum cleaner close to the bathtub, filled the tub with water, got in, turned the vacuum cleaner on, then held on to the handle. I wondered what could have been so terrible in her life that she chose to end it this way. There were other incidents in this neighborhood and all I can say is that the quality of life was so dismal for some that the strength to keep on keeping on was not possible.

THE PIANO: Mother bought a used upright piano for $35 and had it moved to our house. I do not know where she found the money for this. She wanted me to take piano lessons so I

began taking lessons from Lucy Parrot, a piano teacher who lived in a house near 39th and McGee. (By the way, the name of the street was changed from Hyde Park to McGee soon after we moved from there.) If we had still been living at 4055 Hyde Park I could have walked to her house. Now we lived a great distance from 39th and McGee. To get there from the house at 5110 Park Ave., I had to walk four blocks to Prospect Ave., take a streetcar to 39th Street, transfer to the 39th Street bus, get off at McGee and walk half a block to her house. This took up most of my Saturday. In addition, Miss Parrot expected me to practice at least one hour each day of the week. But it was a good way to spend my time.

CHRISTMAS AT 5110 PARK: We spent Christmas twice at 5110 Park Avenue twice, 1935 and 1936. But they were not as happy as some of our Christmas holidays. On Christmas Eve of 1935 we were invited to a grand Christmas Eve party and in order to get there we had to borrow Dad Gangy’s car. Daddy always tried to avoid asking for the car but he did ask this one time because it meant so much to Mother. On the way home Mother suggested that since we had the use of a car we should buy a Christmas tree on the way home. Daddy was hesitant but Mother insisted. I think he did not have enough money to buy a Christmas tree. It may have meant that he would be short on car fare or that he would not have enough lunch money for the next week. Or it may have been that he thought the tree would scratch the car or shed needles on the car. But he gave in and we came home with a Christmas tree. I was very sad and wished we had come home without the tree.

The 1936 Christmas was also sad. Mother worked all day at Nelly Don’s and had to do her Christmas shopping after she got off work on Christmas Eve. She had to rush to get it all done and get home in time for dinner. Since the foreclosure on our 65th Terrace house, we were without charge accounts and she had to wait for her Christmas pay check to have money to buy gifts for us. She finally got home well after dark. I had been waiting for her. That evening she waited until past our bedtime to wrap the presents. When we got up there were presents for us all wrapped in red tissue paper and tied with a piece of gold twine.

MICKEY: After school one day I was sitting on the steps of the front porch and a yellow dog with a bushy tail walked into our yard. When he saw me his tail began to wag. He sat down on the step beside me and I threw my arm over his back. I told him about things I had done at school that day and he listened. After that, almost every afternoon he came to visit me. I named him Mickey and he seemed to understand that this was his new name. Mother did not allow us to bring pets into the house but she let me take leftovers from dinner to the yard for him. He may have belonged to a nearby neighbor but he seemed to like to visit me.

THE DROUGHT: The summer of 1937 was a year of drought in the Midwest. During that summer there was no rain. The grass turned brown and was infested by swarms of grasshoppers. As I walked across the grass the grasshoppers would hop up by the hundreds and slap at my legs. Window fans and air conditioning were not available in those days. Nights were miserable. Only hot, dry and infrequent breezes found their way through the screens. Some people would pull a cot out to a porch or the driveway trying to take advantage of even the slightest breeze. Some even slept in the basement. Others would even try to spend time in the basement of the house during the hot summer days. They would prepare their meals in the kitchen but bring the food to the basement to eat. We were all waiting for the summer to end and the welcome fall weather to begin.

DAD SHACK DIES: While we were still living at the 5110 Park Avenue address, Dad Shack developed a rapidly accelerating form of Cancer. He and Nana had to move from the Hyde Park house because there was no bathroom or bedroom on the first floor of that house.

They needed a house with all rooms on one floor. In 1936 they moved to a bungalow at 5614 Michigan Avenue so Nana could continue caring for him. It was then that he began to realize that his life was coming to an end and that if he were ever to achieve a life goal of seeing California he would have to make the journey very soon. Here again members of the family helped to make this dream come true for him. Plans for the trip were made and Aunt Evelyn, along with her baby girl Carolyn, agreed to drive Dad Shack and Nana to California. He passed away while they were there and his body was transported to Kansas City for burial.