1922 St. Louis

If being born was such a big deal I surely would remember the occasion, but I have to tell you, I draw a blank. The official certificate says that I, Daniel William Smith, entered this world on August 12, 1922, in St. Ann’s Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri, and here I am some 85 years later trying to recall and piece together all the important things that have happened since that day. It’s gonna’ take a little doing.

Thanks to the educational nature of  today’s television programs, I know all about the birthing procedures and the arguments about when I became the real me, and I guess my departure from the womb was normal following, as I would learn later, two sisters and a brother who had preceded me. I hope I didn’t cause my dear mother too much stress, but there’s no one left to dish out the dirt, so I’ll assume I was an exemplary baby. However, the early months and years escape me.

It probably was a game of sorts, waking up when everybody else was sleeping, or drifting off just as my elders were wanting to make a bit of noise. “Keep it down or you’ll awaken the monster” is a refrain I want to say I remember, but it’s a bit sketchy. I likely went through all the baby stages of eatin’ and poopin’ and scarin’ the bejesus out of mom and grandma at the first sign of a cold or fever. I apparently became fast friends with the family doctor early on, and with his suturing skills in later years because I kept leading with my head. Would you believe a house call for a dollar?

School came soon enough and I don’t know if we had Kindergarten or not, but I do remember first grade and Sister Delphinia. She was one of several School Sisters of Notre Dame who taught at Our Lady of Sorrows School and with whom I would spend my early learning years. Sister Delphinia was a tough lady and no one got away with anything in her class except the rudiments of spelling and early math. She was a no-nonsense person who drilled us in the fundamentals of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, and when we moved up to the next grade, if we weren’t well grounded, it wasn’t her fault. She also was in charge of getting the altar boys ready for all the special church celebrations during the year. I’m talking about 40 or 50 rambunctious imps who had to don cassocks and surplices and conduct themselves in orderly fashion during the holy ceremonies, with no snickering allowed. It wasn’t easy but she pulled it off. She and the other nuns were great teachers who contributed to eight years of solid intellectual and moral growth.

There were no school buses in those days and there were no phys. ed. classes, but we did get our exercise walking to and from school, most often twice each day. Once in a while, mom would give me a dime and I would stay and have lunch at school, especially when they had tuna salad on hard rolls, but we usually walked home for lunch and back for afternoon classes. After school, it was out of the house doing whatever the weather allowed, until time to report in for dinner or supper. What it was at your house probably depended on the family social  position. I seem to recall my family sitting down to supper.

Winters in St Louis were pretty cold and wet when I was a kid and heavy snowfalls were frequent, so after-school activities included puttin’ on old, beat up outfits, grabbin’ the sled, and headin’ for the nearest hill. What a thrill, zippin’ down the slope at breakneck speed then trudgin’ back up to do it all over again. Then it was home when it got dark and into the basement where you took off your wet things and hung them on the furnace pipes to dry and be ready for the next day.

When the breezes of spring began to blow it was time to think of kite flying. For a nickel, your Hi-Flyer could provide hours of fun and last a long time. If the paper did tear, a sheet of newspaper and a mixture of flour and water would solve the problem, and an old sheet, ripped into strips, would provide the tail as long or short as the wind demanded. Then came the ball of string, or two, or three if you wanted to send your kite halfway to the moon. If the latter, you’d be late for supper that night.

In late spring when the ground dried and you could kneel without getting your knickers or trousers wet, it was time for marbles. You had to save up and buy a few of those small glass or agate balls and a taw to shoot with, then draw a circle in the dirt and challenge all comers for a game to see who went home with a pocket full. It got to be pretty serious when a sharpie came along and made a clean sweep of it. Shootin’ marbles and flippin’ baseball cards were great springtime activities, as was just plain playin’ catch.

Neighborhood games were always possible whenever enough equipment and players were available. Hockey on roller skates was popular, and the fact that a lightly-traveled street was nearby made some hot action a sure thing. If a car came along, timeout was called until the vehicle passed through and the game picked up again. The asphalt surface was tough on skate wheels but when they were worn badly enough, they could be replaced. The kids with the heftiest allowances got the most playing time. Luckily, the real hockey sticks were durable, but you could always make do with a broom handle, a saw and hammer, and a few nails. When worse came to worst, the old adage “Necessity is the mother on invention,” came into play.

Nothing was organized, yet pick-up games of all kinds materialized. If a bat and ball and a few gloves were scrounged up, sides were drawn and it was batter up. If no equipment was available, improvisation was called for. Perhaps somebody’s hat or a rolled-up shirt, anything that could be carried or thrown became a football and a scrimmage was on. No pads or helmets, yet despite real bodily contact, few injuries occurred. Of course, the age of giants had not arrived and we were small and light compared to today’s kids. Perhaps that allowed us to play hard and not get too banged up.

We attended grammar school from first through eighth grades and then went to high school. Today, it’s elementary school, then middle school, followed by junior and senior high. I guess the two systems are synonymous but I liked the simplicity better. Grammar school was coed and I recall awakening to the differences of boys and girls as the years went by. I certainly never tried to analyze it at age nine or ten, but I did know there was something nice about being around certain girls, some innate stirring within that made thoughts of this one or that one particularly special. Parties at which games such as spin-the-bottle were played, and the awkward kissings that followed, were delicious moments at such an early age.

My home life was never dull. There were eight of us in a one-bathroom house with grandma Sullivan being the matriarch, followed by mom and pop, two older sisters, and an older brother. A younger sister became the eighth member. We lived at the same address for many years and knew everybody on the block. My father ran the grocery store/meat market just down the street from where we lived, and until the building of a supermarket nearby, plus a deteriorating economy, our store served everybody on both sides of the street and life was good. Our home was always filled with music. My sisters played the piano and  I made attempts to play the violin, but we definitely enjoyed family singalongs. Mom baked the most scrumptious cakes and there was always company aplenty to enjoy them. My father was in the store twelve hours a day, six days a week, plus part of Sunday getting ready for the next week. It was only after both had died that I realized how hard my parents had worked to give us a beautiful life.

We had relatives in other parts of town but South St. Louis was where we hung out hats. Neighbors were generally of German ancestry, but others had emigrated from many European countries. One of the traits brought from the old country was the scrubbing of the home’s front steps until they glistened, after which the ladies would meet for a kaffeeklatsch which included gossip, sweet rolls, and cups of steaming coffee. On warm summer nights, polka music and loud singing could be heard coming from an outdoor beer garden. Autumn days and evenings were filled with the aroma of chili sauce emanating from most kitchens as the canning season wore on, and that, combined with the smell of burning leaves, aroused my senses as nothing else could. People were friendly; kids were everywhere; it was a great neighborhood.

This was the time when there were ice men and milk men who delivered those essentials on a daily basis. Householders would leave a note in the empty bottle on the stoop telling the milk man how many quarts to leave, and the ice man would respond to signs in the window that said 10, 25, 50, or No Ice, or the lady of the house would just open a window and yell “Hey Ice Man, Ten,” or whatever amount she required that day. And while he was delivering, kids would be climbing over the truck reaching for ice chips, considered a real treat. I fell off the back step of the truck one day and busted open the back of my head, but our family doctor was there quickly to do the necessary stitching. That scar matched another my forehead sustained a little later on when I stepped into the path of a swinging bat. My suturing friend was on hand for that one, too.

Whenever a new house was started in the neighborhood it provided days of excitement for all the kids. The foundation had to be dug out with a team of mules and a shovel-like scoop, and when that was finished, the framework of the rooms was ideal for climbing. Basements were a necessity because that’s where the furnace would be along with a bin for storing coal. In every organized household, the weekly washing was done in the basement with a big wash tub, cut-up bars of Fels Naptha soap, a scrubbing board and a wringer. In hot, soapy water, the clothes were agitated by hand with an old broom handle, followed by wringing and rinsing several times before everything was hung out to dry, weather permitting. Then came the ironing and the folding. Could anyone have imagined how blessed the coming of automatic washers and dryers would be along with drip-dry and stay-pressed clothing? Aren’t we lucky we have them now?

Even as a youngster, there were a lot of things I could do in our store from sweeping the floors to helping stock the shelves. The meat-market section was the most appealing to me because of the great display of sausages and steaks and stuff. There was no prepackaging and every customer ordered and got just what she wanted. I say she because the lady of the house did all the shopping and she kept coming back because she knew that “Butch” Smith had the best meat in town. I loved to wander into the big meat cooler and sneak a handful of fresh sauerkraut that came in big barrels, all the while admiring the sides of beef hanging there waiting to be cut into sections. To maintain the right temperature, the ice man, with big tongs and a burlap sack on his shoulder, had to heft fifty-pound pieces up a ladder and into an area atop the cooler until it was full. Whatever he was paid, it wasn’t enough.

The more time I spent in the store the more familiar I got with actually waiting on customers. I can recall the prices of certain items that I rang up on the cash register: coffee, freshly ground, went for about 28 cents a pound while eggs were 29 cents and a nickel could get you a loaf of bread. You could buy a box of Corn Flakes, a quart of milk, and a pound of sugar for the grand total of 23 cents. If you smoked, and most everyone did, your favorite Camels or Lucky Strikes were yours for 15 cents a pack. When making change, I was always thankful for the early emphasis in school on addition and subtraction. The cash register gave you the total, but the change had to be figured in your head. It was no big deal then but many of today’s cashiers would be lost without automatic readouts.