A Gift From The Past

Today I got a glimpse of my father's signature on a 1940 copy of the census from my old neighborhood at 2146 RacineAvenue, Chicago, Illinois.  His age listed as 31, my mother's  age listed at 30.  Below their names, their daughter Ann Marie, age 8.  That's me, of course.

I studied my father's signature, the oversized J of is name, Johnny.  Occupation - mechanic, then my mother's not so showy, Grace.  Occupation-seamstress.  We lived in my grandfather's two story building.  There was grandpa, Vincent, age 63, occupation...street worker.  My uncle Joe living with him, age 16.

It was from that house that, two years later, Uncle Joe was a soldier in the South Pacific.  Three years after that, my grandfather killed himself in that house.

The neighbor two doors away,was Mrs Keane ,  the Irish lady who took care of me as a child while my parents worked.  I thought she was ancient with graying hair and blue twinkling eyes.  The census notes her age at 53.  She went to mass every morning, rain or snow, to our beautiful St. Vincent's Catholic Church.  I made my first Holy Communion at that church.    I had such an angelic look in photos of that day.  Innocent and trusting.

The catalyst for this trip down memory lane was another angel without wings who emailed  me this  page out of the 1940 Census from Cook County.    He was the  boy next door,  swooned over by half the girls in the neighborhood.  I adored him from afar, me the 8 year old in pigtails, and he all of 12.    His parents were divorced, a rarity in the forties.  His mother had classic beauty.  No one knew what happened to the father.  She was admired by the neighbors for her simple grace.

The first twelve years of mylife was spent in that house on Racine Avenue.  I learned about the comfort of family, (my maternal grandmother lived right across the street), I had aunts and uncles and cousins nearby.  I felt the kindness of our neighbors, and the mysteries of my faith.

Leaving that neighborhood was truly like emerging from a cocoon, eyes blinking against the unknown, fearful of what might be.  I knew who I was, but not yet who I would become.  But that's another story.

So Says Sassy