The City, Cleveland – my earliest memories
I was born at home on West 104th on August 17th or 18th. My birth certificate says the 17th but mother says the birth certificate was wrong and there are other errors on it, so I believe her. We always celebrated it on the 18th. It was very hot the day I was born. Mom says they had fans running while she was in labor. She told me she had a nurse come and stay with her for a week. It was part of an insurance policy she had. Dr Dwyer delivered me as he had delivered the older kids. I’m the youngest no matter what Pat told his kids!
I also had my tonsils out at home on the kitchen table (same Doctor, who’s office was a couple blocks away at West Blvd and Lorain). I’m not sure if I remember that or whether I remember the bad dreams I had about it later. I do remember that afterward I was offered ice cream which I refused. Pat couldn’t believe that anyone would ever be too sick to eat ice cream but I’m sure he was just as glad as that meant more for him.
I remember being at the beach at Edgewater park. Uncle Hughie was giving me a ride on his back while he swam. I started to cry and everyone thought it was because I was afraid of the water but it really was because I was afraid of getting my pants wet. I must have just been recently toilet trained because wet pants seemed a very bad thing to me at the time.
The first time I went to a movie was at the Madison Theatre. It was a cowboy movie. I was so afraid that I was going to be caught in the crossfire, I hid behind the seat most of the time.
The house we lived in was a double. My father bought it just before he was married. He always said that there was no reason to be paying rent when you could use the money to buy your own house. When Uncle Hughie came to stay with us from Ireland, the uncles all helped to build an extra room on the back behind the kitchen. That’s where the boys and Uncle Hughie slept. Mom and Dad slept in the front bedroom and Mary and I had the back bedroom.
Another one of my first memories was sitting on the curb of the brick street watching someone load our furniture onto a moving truck. We were moving from the house in Cleveland to a farm in Huntington. I think my orders were to stay out of the way so that was why I was sitting on the curb. It was at the height of the depression. Dad thought we would be better off on a farm because if we grew our own food, we would never go hungry. He had a disability pension from the army. He had been wounded while serving in the First World War. He was shot in the head and lost the hearing in one ear and the sight in one eye. Eventually he would lose the eye itself and use an artificial eye.