December 29, 1939

    I was standing next to my brother, pressed as close as possible to the back side of the kitchen wall in our grandmother's house. Way back against the wall, next to the kitchen sink and the bucket that held potato peelings. We knew something different was going on, because the old wooden kitchen table, the one with the curved rounded legs, was the center of some kind of activity, with different items being placed on top of the table, or so it seemed to us.  So we backed up against the wall in order to be able to see what was happening, being too little to see if we were up close and also no doubt knowing to keep out of the way. 

  My grandmother's bedroom was directly off the kitchen, and that was the hub of activity. People, grownups, were going back and forth from the room. I remember feeling a little upset because I couldn't see or know what was going on. I was 18 months old, and was not used to very many people bustling about as they were.   

   Eventually, someone came out of the room holding something which they deposited on the kitchen table. And after a while Helen picked me up and carried me to the table to view  the newly placed item. And that is as far as my memory takes me. 

   I knew  that my mother had heard my grandmother  exclaim, during the process, "Jaysus, it's got red hair!"  But that must have been my mother telling me later.