It's mostly true that my happiest memories are those from my childhood. And that's how it should be; children should be immune from suffering and tragedy. So it's good that the elderly have a place to recall and discuss the joys and happenings of childhood.
But I can't separate the happy innocent days of youth from what I know to be past sorrows and even tragedies of what life, and death, meant in the history of the village.
What were and could still have been historic and exemplary buildings were consumed by fire. Remember the Valley Falls Community Hall, the beautiful Funeral Home, once McClure's, later White's, the Valley Inn, long a mainstay of the community, the elegant James Thompson home, later Jensen's, the Mill itself, and the Village Tavern. I can still picture Carmen Rospo, standing in the street crying, while watching the Tavern go up in flames, liquor bottles bursting in the air like bombs. And there was that terrible fire in an outbuilding on the Coon farm where a woman and her 4, or was it 5? very young children lost their lives. Substandard housing and impoverished living conditions for certain. And there had been no one to know or care. Could so-called class distinction have been a factor.
Certainly there was "class inequity" and a lot of poverty, which breeds abusive relationships. A nearby family to our home had no visible means of support. The woman's abdomen grew large and she was considered pregnant due to what limited medical care she could receive. As far as I know, only one person offered to provide help for her expected baby, and that woman was later murdered in her own home.
And there was a whole lot of alcohol use and abuse, by both men and women. Drugs were not widely available at the time, neither legal or illegal. But there was plenty of drinking. I'll leave that for another screed.
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