Memories of Childhood
Years Gone By - A Memoir
To see the text with photos or to download or print, click on File 11, a PDF story of my youth with many rememberances and photos - 15 pages.
In the early years of the 1940's when the war was beginning, our family
lived just a block off the Mississippi River on the north edge of
Minneapolis at 5230 North 3rd Street. Our house was on lot 14 and
parts of 13 and 15 at the center of the plot map you see below. Back
in 1940 when we moved in (and the year I was born) we had just seven
neighbors on the street and the rest was just vacant fields. To the
right of our house and across a vacant lot was the home of Mr. and
Mrs. Erick Rudd (5240) and on the left of us was Peter and Katherine
Sandbeck (5226); then Mr. and Mrs. William Sward (5222); then Peter
Eggert and his wife ____ (5218). Across the street was the home of Harry
Thompson (5229); then to the north was a vacant shack (5233); then
Chester___ (5237); then Mrs. M. .J. Linsal (5241). At the end of the block to
the south facing 52nd was the shack of old Mr. Ing. I’d like to tell the stories
of what I remember about these families here but I must tell it somewhere
else. This is a story of my family and my growing up.
The house isn't there any more - - Neither is the street. It's part of the
interstate highway system and now hundreds of cars and trucks pass
through that place each hour busy with their own concerns and schedules.
But back then, though, the street was unpaved and quiet. The neighbors
visited with friendly concern and children played and ran about in the yards.
Bed sheets and towels on the clotheslines flapped in the breeze and an
occasional dog barked and chased after the children. In our back yard,
there was a wild plum tree, a grape arbor with two swings, lots of irises,
a rickety old screen house and a doghouse. Lilac bushes ran along both
sides of the yard. The Lilacs on the south side were kept neatly trimmed
and the ones on the north were let to grow tall. A large Box Elder tree
shaded the porch in the front and, in the back; a dirt alley ran behind the
old garage.
It was the middle of July and the sun was warm in the still noon air and
small white clouds drifted across the bright sky. In the back yard, the
Morning Glories bloomed under the kitchen window and the grass was
a little dry because it hadn't rained for a while. Mom was hanging out
the clothes on the line and, by the door to the back porch; I played
in the dirt along the corner of the sidewalk. I had a few little rubber trucks
and a farm tractor. With my fingers, I made little roads in the dirt. The
year was 1944 and I had just turned four years old in May. With a child's
imagination, I could go just about anywhere then.
First there was me and then there was my brother Billy. He was a year
older than me and we would play in the dirt and ride our trikes and run
around the neighborhood and have fun. Billy was my leader in playing
with friends in the neighborhood and I followed along. Billy was skinny
and I was kind of chubby, I thought. Then there was my mom and dad.
It seems mom was always washing clothes in the basement or making
dinner in the kitchen. I remember that dad was always working or busy
with something. He'd work on the car in the garage or trim the hedges
in the yard or tend his vegetables in the garden or talk to the neighbors.
I remember relatives and my cousins would come over a lot and he would
talk and there was a lot of laughter. Mom laughed too and I liked that.
I had a lot of fun when my cousins came over. Mom was thirty-four and
dad was thirty-seven then.
Dad was a waiter at the Jolly Miller and he took the streetcar to go to work.
I thought that my sister Mary Ann was a lot older than me and almost
grown-up at that time - - I guess she was ten. My brother Junior was
thirteen and, it seems, he was away most of the time with his friends.
He went down to the Mississippi River a lot.
It may have been that same summer that I remember riding my tricycle along
the sidewalk by the south side of the house. There were Peonies planted next
to the house and the buds were fun with ants crawling all around sucking up
its nectar. I liked to pick off the buds and watch them roll on the ground like
marbles. Mom would say, "Now, don't pick those buds!" Earlier in the spring,
Box Elder bugs by the hundreds, or maybe thousands, crawled around the
siding of the house and basked in the warmth of the sidewalk.
I remember mom canning beans and peaches and baking bread. I remember
the "dough gobs'' that she would fry up on the stove and roll in sugar from the
left-over dough. We would run in from our playing and run out with these
wonderful warm treats. Out in the back yard, the sidewalk ran out to the garage
and, just to the right, the grape arbor grew up on two sturdy posts and across
an arch. Two well used wooden swings hung from the arch on strong ropes.
Mom made grape jelly from the grapes of that vine if she could get to the ripe
grapes before the birds would eat them - - which was often the case. And next
to the grape arbor was the wild plum tree. Mom made plum Jelly, too - the best.
And under the plum tree, our dog Pal sprawled out to rest in the shade. His dog-
house was in the Iris patches just up from the plum tree along the Lilac hedge.
One summer afternoon I took a nap in the doghouse. It may have been that
same year or possibly a year earlier in 1943. I guess mother was frantic.
Everyone in the neighborhood was out and the police were looking for me,
too - - I guess I was lost. Mom found me, though. As she walked past the
doghouse she thought, "He can't be in there,” but looked in anyway. There
I was - - sleeping. I remember how comfortable it was there in the doghouse.
It had a screened back window that allowed some circulation and had warm
straw on the floor. With little spiders with their spider webs in the corners,
I remember that it was a nice place.
I remember a rather large book of children’s rhymes that I liked to read.
It had a hard cover (I think all books then had hard covers) and black ink
drawings about the rhymes. I remember that that if there wasn’t a little
picture to go with the rhyme it wasn’t as fun. The book was in rags from
much use. Anyway, there was Blackbirds in a Pie, Little Black Sambo, Ring
Around The Rosies and so many more. My favorite, however was Hey
Diddle Diddle because of the fun pictures.
Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon.
The little dog laughed to see such sport
And the dish ran away with the spoon!
I was just three or perhaps four years old when for Easter mom got Billy
and me sailor outfits to wear (America was in the middle of World WarII then).
I remember it was warm that Easter and we had a lot of fun in our sailor
clothes. To this day I remember a particular clear glass rabbit that Billy
and I each got from mom’s aunt Emma. You could open the bottom and
it was filled with small many colored jelly beans.
In the fall of 1946 I was in the first grade at Jenny Lind School but I don't
remember much about that. I do remember the first grade in Sunday
School at Hope Church on Emerson Avenue. Mrs. May was my Sunday
School teacher and mom also taught Sunday School for one of the little
grades. I remember that we had our little classes right in the pews of the
church - - There weren't any classrooms - - and the teachers used felt
storyboards with colorful felt people, trees and houses to tell the stories
like Joseph in Egypt and of Jesus going into Jerusalem. I got a little cardboard
glow-in-the-dark picture of "The Lord Is My Shepard from her at Christmas time.
I still have it and remember how it comforted me dark nights in my bed. We also
belonged to the Junior Missionary Society and a lady would come and talk to us
about being missionaries and doctors in Africa and we would sing songs
about apes swinging to and fro in the trees. I remember the apes were
mysterious and scary.
Speaking of animals - - My sister Mary Ann really loved Pal - - He was her
dog. Dad loved him, too, and he wasn't scary. But across the alley, Jimmy
Brunz was growing up and got into motorcycles. He and his friends would
go up and down the alley and Pal would chase them barking like crazy. Well,
because Pal became such a nuisance in the neighborhood, dad finally had to
get rid of him. So that Mary Ann wouldn't feel too badly, dad said he took
him to a farm and let him go. Mary Ann was very sad and, I'm told, cried
and cried.
Well, not too long later, mom and dad went out to eat at the Band Box, a
triangular little hamburger shop in Camden where Washington and Lyndale
avenues meet. It was a cold and wet evening in about 1950 and as they
were leaving to get into the car they noticed a wet and dirty spotted dog
covered with paint cowering and shivering next to the building. Dad felt
sorry for him but he drove away. They didn't go far, though. Dad drove
around the block and came back, picked him up and brought him home.
Dad cut off the paint as best he could and cleaned him up. This became
our dog Teddy who was our best friend and playmate for a number of years.
We always had animals around the house and dad liked to take care of them.
Once a large Angora tomcat came to the door all bloody and had an ear
almost tore off. It had been in a fight. Dad cleaned him up and washed his
wounds and fed him. For a long while, every morning the cat would show
up at the door and dad would feed him milk. After a while the cat stopped
coming by. At one time we also had rabbits - - sixteen of them, I think.
At first there were just a few, but later there were a lot. We built a cage for
them up on stilts next to the garage. I remember we had the rabbits even
over the winter.
My brother, Billy and I also had our little pets then - - frogs and turtles, snakes
and salamanders, a bat one time and little puppies. One little puppy - - His
name was Spot - - died. We had to have a funeral for him so we got a pan
from the garage to put him in and dug a hole next to the Lilacs on the north
side of the garage. So we buried him and we kids from the neighborhood had
our little service. I would guess I was about eight years old then. It wasn't
too much later that mom asked where her best roasting pan was. Well, dad
said he had it out in the garage to change oil in the car. . . Mom wasn't
interested in digging up the body so that was the end of that!
The one thing I didn't like about childhood was the teasing by the other kids.
Perhaps I was overly sensitive but it seems they would do it for sport.
I would respond by getting mad and fighting and swearing and hitting.
Billy teased me too and he would hold me down to stop me and all the kids
would laugh. One time when I was about nine the kids came into the garage
where I was making something and they started to tease me. Well, I picked
up a gallon of oil paint and threw it at them. When it hit the ground the cover
popped off and paint shot into the air and slopped all over the front of my
friend Donny Zornes. He was teasing me too and I'm sure he remembers
that incident to this day. Mom would tell me, "Don't pay any attention to
them,” but the teasing hurt. My sister didn't help either and just said to not let
them do that. I remember that Billy and Mary Ann would get together and
tell funny things and laugh and laugh until they cried. I never did that. I was
sort of a serious, quiet kid who liked to make or fix things. I think I was always
in the process of building one sort of chug or another.ought I was very shy
even into my late teens. I remember that I would often plan things to say in
my mind before saying them and then turn beet red.
Another thing I didn't like about early years was the scary nightmares. It was
probably stupid (Yes, it was!) but us kids would walk down to the Camden
Theater on Saturdays for the matinee and see movies like, "Abbot and
Costello Meet Frankenstein," or, "The Thing" and hide under the seats.
I loved to be scared during the day but then I'd have nightmares about
being chased by monsters at night. The basement was a particularly
scary place that I'd have nightmares about. I'd dream of going down there
and then be chased upstairs by a monster from behind the furnace. In my
dreams, I was lucky enough to get away or wake up before it got me except
the last time. My very last nightmare was when I was down in the basement
and the monster finally got me and picked me up. I thought I was done for
- - but nothing happened. That was the end of my nightmares.
As kids we would walk down the alley past Mr. Eggert's house to Magnuson's
grocery Store on Lyndale Avenue and there, on hot summer afternoons, we could
get a big bottle of Sarsaparilla for 15 cents. We would then go out on the steps of
the store with our Sarsaparilla and count cars - "You would get all the Chevys
and I'd get all the Fords," we would say. Sometimes a car would go by missing a
tire. I guess they were stockpiling tires out at Fort Snelling for the war. This must
have been about 1944 or 1945 before the war ended.
Those also were the days before the refrigerator. Instead, we had an iceman.
The iceman was Mr. Lindberg who lived back across the alley from us. He had a
barn by the alley where he kept the horses but I have no idea where he grazed
them because they just had a city lot. The ice was cut from the lakes and stored
in sawdust for the summer in a cold storage building over on Humboldt Avenue about
two miles away. Mr. Lindberg drove his wagon and horses down there every day
in the summer to pick up the ice for delivery throughout the neighborhood.
Mom would put a card in the window telling the iceman whether or not we
needed ice and, when we needed it, he would come right in and put the ice in our
icebox by the back door. The green card meant we were OK and the red card
meant we needed ice. One of the wonderful things about having an iceman is
that there were always scraps and chips of ice on his wagon. We kids would
run behind the wagon as it came rumbling down the dirt alley and collect the
chips of ice to suck on those hot summer days.
In the wintertime he hauled coal for our furnace and at off times he would hire
out to dig foundations for houses. He did that with a kind of a scraper shovel
that was pulled by his horses. He also collected metal and rags for the war effort.
We had a "Raleigh" man who went door to door and came by the house regularly.
He sold things like cleaners and soap, elixirs and spices, pure vanilla flavoring and
condensed nectar. We always bought the quart bottle of cherry nectar and he
always had some sort of little gift for us kids.
I remember the garage back by the alley with its dirt floor and back door that
didn't close very well and the tools on the bench that never seemed to be in
order. The garage was my workroom and it was there that I built many
birdhouses and other stuff out of scrap wood. My best source of wood was
from the orange crates I would get from Magnuson's Grocery Store.
I enjoyed building and fixing things. I think I was always in the process of
building one sort of chug or another. Usually they were a couple of two by
fours with some plywood or boards across the top and a board to lean against.
The wheels and axles were from old wagons. The steering mechanism was
simply a two by four that was bolted in the middle to the frame and wagon
wheels nailed by their axles to each end. Then with ropes tied to the two
ends, you could pull one way or the other and the two by four would pivot
to turn the chug. Usually the wheels just fell off.
Once we made a "bus." It was a wide chug with sides and a top, windows
and a door at the side. It was big. We could even put old chairs inside for
the passengers and push six or seven kids in it. We charged the little kids a
penny for a ride around the block. Usually the wheels came off about every
thirty yards and then we would have to turn the bus over onto its top and climb
up to hammer the wheel back in place - - what a job. It took about ten kids
to push it and one trip would take half a day! A very successful financial
adventure, too! We sometimes made enough money to go and buy a Popsicle.
I remember how Dad had a green thumb and could grow just about anything.
There was an empty lot next door and he used part of that for his garden.
Dad seemed to be able to grow anything and loved the flowers and the
vegetables. I remember counting tomatoes and some plants had over 100
tomatoes on them.
I remember the two screen houses we had and the Chinese lanterns. The first
screen house was just in front of the garage and it was pretty rickety. It was
old and the wood was rotting and the screens were torn. One day when
Pearl and Chet and the kids were over, my cousin Lois and I (and I think
Billy helped, too.) rocked that screen house back and forth 'til it almost
collapsed. All of the adults were out in the front yard having a picnic and
didn't see us. Dad had to take the screen house down after that.
I remember mom canning beans and peaches and tomatoes and pickles.
By the time winter came around, the pantry in the basement had a couple
hundred-quart jars of all sorts of stuff to get us through the cold months.
Mom also made lots of bread back then. I remember the "dough gobs''
that mom fried up on the stove from left-over bread dough. She rolled them
in sugar and we would run in from our playing and run out with these
wonderful warm treats.
I remember how on hot summer days, the windows would be open
along the side of the house and the curtains would blow gently in the
breeze. I remember looking in from the yard and I could see one
of the lamps just inside by the window. It had a wide red shade
and a brass planter at the base. The white sheer curtain quietly brushed
the lamp and music from the radio drifted out onto the yard. I remember
songs like "Mockingbird Hill'', "I'm looking Over A Four Leafed Clover'',
"In The Good Old Summertime'', "The Yellow Rose of Texas'', and "Shoes
to Keep your Feet A 'Dancing". These were some of my favorite days.
I remember our next-door neighbors, Clarence and Louise Terrell on the
north, and Katherine Sandbeck and the girls on the south, John and Alice
Hughes and our playmates Jerry and Jimmy who lived across the street, and Vern
and Carrie Zornes and their son Donny who was Billy's age who lived in a small
house down at the end of the alley. The street was just an unpaved dusty road
back then. I remember cousins Jerry and Rusty and their mom and dad Marty and
Francis Cowan when they moved in at the Hughes' house. The Hughes' moved
about a mile away up by their church and mom and dad kept in touch for many
years until they both passed away. Dad and mom were glad his brother Marty
and his family moved in so close. They had many good times together and
Jerry and Rusty became new friends. Dad and mom were happy.
I remember the day dad brought home a bike and I learned to ride it out front
in the street. Billy got one, too. Dad paid $25.00 for them and that was a lot
of money. Dad pushed me along the street and I learned pretty fast. t was
second-hand but it was really nice and I had new mobility and it was like I could
fly and go anywhere. I took that bike apart many times to fix it and keep it in
running good - - working on it in the shade of the plum tree. It was fun working
on that bike.
When I was about nine or ten, the Zornes' moved into a large house up on the
corner of 4th street. Their house was on a small hill and they had a large old
Weeping Willow tree in the front yard. Its large branches were the very best
for sitting on and drinking Cool-Aid and eating treats. We spent many a
summer afternoon sitting up in that tree talking about important kid stuff and
who knows what. Across the street from Donny's house was a hill with a lot of
old dead poplar trees and one night a lot of us kids camped in a couple of tents
on the hill. In the morning some of the kids ran and got some food for our breakfast
and I sort of roamed around looking at the hollow old trees. I noticed that the
insides were filled with cobwebs and decided to see if they would burn. So I lit a
match and held it to the webs and they just sparkled a little bit and didn't do
much. I didn't think anything more of that until the fire truck stopped in front
of our house later that day. The fireman came to the door to ask if anyone had
anything to do with the tree fire up on the hill on 4th Street. I don't think I was
ever so embarrassed and mortified in my life! We walked up to 4th street and
there it was - - a big old Poplar tree about 200 feet tall with smoke smoldering
out of the tips of broken branches like strange old chimneys. Well, the firemen
said it had to be cut down and that I shouldn't play with matches!
One summer night Billy and Donny and I camped out in a tent in the field next
to the Zornes' house and got up at 4:30 in the morning to watch the eclipse of
the sun. I think I was 14 then. We got up and watched the dawn come up just
like a regular summer morning. But then about 5 o'clock the sun turned strangely
dim and the birds started to chirp again as if it was evening. It was like looking
through tinted glasses and amazing ripples of dark shadows rolled across the
ground and the streets like waves on a lake. It was awesome.
I'll always remember the clean smell of raking leaves in the yard on fall Saturday
afternoons. I'd be raking leaves and have the radio turned up in the house so we
could listen outside to Ray Christiansen on WCCO reporting the Gopher Football
games. Dad and Billy and I sometimes played catch along side of the house.
I remember trying out my new glove - - sometimes Dad really threw the ball hard.
I did catch the ball sometimes and sometimes the ball hit the picket fence in the
front yard. I remember that he knocked out one of the pickets with the ball.
I remember going to Miller ball games with Dad out at the old NicolletParkand
staying until what seemed the middle of the night for those double headers.
I remember stopping off at Marty's Pool Hall and Bar (Buzz Arlett's) and dad would
shoot pool and have some beer and I would have a seven-up. It was really smoky
in there.
I remember the upright Philco radio with its big dials and Walter Winchell and the
News, Stop the Music, "The Shadow Knows," Inner Sanctum, and The Playhouse
Theater. Dad's favorite radio news program was always "Walter Winchell and the
News," at six in the evening on network radio.
I remember that on Sundays we'd either have chicken for dinner or in the evening
a treat of ice cream with chocolate sauce while we listened to "Stop the Music" with
Bert Parks. It was one or the other because we couldn't afford both. Later when
we got a Motorola TV, I remember that awful Mel Jass advertising on Starlight
Theater. The program was in the early evening and there would be five minutes of
movie and then ten minutes of advertising all sorts of stuff. The television was a
table model and it sat on a big TV table next to the porch.
I remember the porch. It had double French doors that opened to the dining room,
a mahogany paneled ceiling, and windows that spanned across the west and north
walls. The windows had hinges so that they could be opened wide and the summer
air could blow through the house. I remember how comfortable it was out there in
the summer lying on the couch and dreaming of who- knows-what or nothing at all.
When I was little and we had coal heat, the porch was closed off in the winter
because it was too cold. Later when we got gas heat we left the porch open all winter
except when it was really cold. At Christmas the tree was put up there because we
needed the room for all the kids in the family in the living room and dining room.
I remember one Christmas particularly well. It was about 1947 and I must have
been about six or seven at most. It was Christmas Eve and the Christmas tree was
up in the living room in front of the large window and Billy and I were up in our room
sleeping. It was the front bedroom and from the window we could look out onto the
front yard and unpaved street. Well, I remember waking up hearing jingling bells
outside in the front and we got up and sneaked part way down the stairs to where
we could look around the banister to see out to the porch and the living room. As we
were sitting there on the stairs looking through the railing, the front door burst open
and in came Santa Claus with his bells and sack! We turned and flew up the stairs
and slid under the bed to hide. We hoped that Santa didn't see us and that he
thought we were sleeping! In the morning when we got up, I remember a set of
Tinker Toys was lying out and a red wagon in front of the tree. I played with those
tinker toys a lot - - I could make trucks and Ferris wheels and windmills and draw
bridges and cranes and everything I could imagine. In another year, I remember
getting an Erector Set with an electric motor. That was even better and I could
make so many things with it. One of the things that I made was a colorful candy
merry-go-round made with cardboard and frosting made from soap and coloring
and candy canes and gum drops and licorice and it would go round and round.
Dad worked at the Railway Express Agency as a driver since the mid 1940's until
he retired in 1971 and one of his regular stops was the Minneapolis Florist Company
on Hennipen Avenue just south of Franklin Avenue. Dad loved flowers and he
particularly liked to bring roses home from the florist shop for mom whenever he could.
During the summer time we often had flowers on the dining room table - -
Lilacs at the end of May and peonies in July. And on special occasions dad would
bring roses.
I remember during the mid and late fifties when mom and dad would be off to bed.
Their bedroom was a room between the kitchen and dining room and in the earlier
years it was part of a circle where children could run around and around the house
going from room to room. It was a very small room and not much privacy.
When dad remodeled the kitchen in the early fifties, he walled off the doorway from
the kitchen to their bedroom so that there was more room for a dresser and only
one door. They had a curtain on the door between the bedroom and the dining
room and it was usually open. I remember many times mom and dad getting
ready for bed and we'd talk and I remember dad had a ragged Bible close by and
he'd spend a little time reading before going to sleep.
It was a Fine Christmas Tree!
Do you remember that long ago December day
when we cut down the tree in the wood?
You were three, then four, then seventeen;
And now, my children, you are grown.
We trudged thru the woods and looked at one,
and then another to find the best we could.
Your life is your own now and so busy
with all that's important to make it your own.
The tree looked good wrapped in its lights,
with ornaments you made and ones from above.
May your tree, too, be as big and as beautiful
and fill your hearts with memories of joy and love!
Larry Cowan 1996
To see the text with photos or to download or print, click on File 11, a PDF story of my youth with many rememberances and photos - 15 pages.
In the early years of the 1940's when the war was beginning, our family
lived just a block off the Mississippi River on the north edge of
Minneapolis at 5230 North 3rd Street. Our house was on lot 14 and
parts of 13 and 15 at the center of the plot map you see below. Back
in 1940 when we moved in (and the year I was born) we had just seven
neighbors on the street and the rest was just vacant fields. To the
right of our house and across a vacant lot was the home of Mr. and
Mrs. Erick Rudd (5240) and on the left of us was Peter and Katherine
Sandbeck (5226); then Mr. and Mrs. William Sward (5222); then Peter
Eggert and his wife ____ (5218). Across the street was the home of Harry
Thompson (5229); then to the north was a vacant shack (5233); then
Chester___ (5237); then Mrs. M. .J. Linsal (5241). At the end of the block to
the south facing 52nd was the shack of old Mr. Ing. I’d like to tell the stories
of what I remember about these families here but I must tell it somewhere
else. This is a story of my family and my growing up.
The house isn't there any more - - Neither is the street. It's part of the
interstate highway system and now hundreds of cars and trucks pass
through that place each hour busy with their own concerns and schedules.
But back then, though, the street was unpaved and quiet. The neighbors
visited with friendly concern and children played and ran about in the yards.
Bed sheets and towels on the clotheslines flapped in the breeze and an
occasional dog barked and chased after the children. In our back yard,
there was a wild plum tree, a grape arbor with two swings, lots of irises,
a rickety old screen house and a doghouse. Lilac bushes ran along both
sides of the yard. The Lilacs on the south side were kept neatly trimmed
and the ones on the north were let to grow tall. A large Box Elder tree
shaded the porch in the front and, in the back; a dirt alley ran behind the
old garage.
It was the middle of July and the sun was warm in the still noon air and
small white clouds drifted across the bright sky. In the back yard, the
Morning Glories bloomed under the kitchen window and the grass was
a little dry because it hadn't rained for a while. Mom was hanging out
the clothes on the line and, by the door to the back porch; I played
in the dirt along the corner of the sidewalk. I had a few little rubber trucks
and a farm tractor. With my fingers, I made little roads in the dirt. The
year was 1944 and I had just turned four years old in May. With a child's
imagination, I could go just about anywhere then.
First there was me and then there was my brother Billy. He was a year
older than me and we would play in the dirt and ride our trikes and run
around the neighborhood and have fun. Billy was my leader in playing
with friends in the neighborhood and I followed along. Billy was skinny
and I was kind of chubby, I thought. Then there was my mom and dad.
It seems mom was always washing clothes in the basement or making
dinner in the kitchen. I remember that dad was always working or busy
with something. He'd work on the car in the garage or trim the hedges
in the yard or tend his vegetables in the garden or talk to the neighbors.
I remember relatives and my cousins would come over a lot and he would
talk and there was a lot of laughter. Mom laughed too and I liked that.
I had a lot of fun when my cousins came over. Mom was thirty-four and
dad was thirty-seven then.
Dad was a waiter at the Jolly Miller and he took the streetcar to go to work.
I thought that my sister Mary Ann was a lot older than me and almost
grown-up at that time - - I guess she was ten. My brother Junior was
thirteen and, it seems, he was away most of the time with his friends.
He went down to the Mississippi River a lot.
It may have been that same summer that I remember riding my tricycle along
the sidewalk by the south side of the house. There were Peonies planted next
to the house and the buds were fun with ants crawling all around sucking up
its nectar. I liked to pick off the buds and watch them roll on the ground like
marbles. Mom would say, "Now, don't pick those buds!" Earlier in the spring,
Box Elder bugs by the hundreds, or maybe thousands, crawled around the
siding of the house and basked in the warmth of the sidewalk.
I remember mom canning beans and peaches and baking bread. I remember
the "dough gobs'' that she would fry up on the stove and roll in sugar from the
left-over dough. We would run in from our playing and run out with these
wonderful warm treats. Out in the back yard, the sidewalk ran out to the garage
and, just to the right, the grape arbor grew up on two sturdy posts and across
an arch. Two well used wooden swings hung from the arch on strong ropes.
Mom made grape jelly from the grapes of that vine if she could get to the ripe
grapes before the birds would eat them - - which was often the case. And next
to the grape arbor was the wild plum tree. Mom made plum Jelly, too - the best.
And under the plum tree, our dog Pal sprawled out to rest in the shade. His dog-
house was in the Iris patches just up from the plum tree along the Lilac hedge.
One summer afternoon I took a nap in the doghouse. It may have been that
same year or possibly a year earlier in 1943. I guess mother was frantic.
Everyone in the neighborhood was out and the police were looking for me,
too - - I guess I was lost. Mom found me, though. As she walked past the
doghouse she thought, "He can't be in there,” but looked in anyway. There
I was - - sleeping. I remember how comfortable it was there in the doghouse.
It had a screened back window that allowed some circulation and had warm
straw on the floor. With little spiders with their spider webs in the corners,
I remember that it was a nice place.
I remember a rather large book of children’s rhymes that I liked to read.
It had a hard cover (I think all books then had hard covers) and black ink
drawings about the rhymes. I remember that that if there wasn’t a little
picture to go with the rhyme it wasn’t as fun. The book was in rags from
much use. Anyway, there was Blackbirds in a Pie, Little Black Sambo, Ring
Around The Rosies and so many more. My favorite, however was Hey
Diddle Diddle because of the fun pictures.
Hey diddle diddle, the cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon.
The little dog laughed to see such sport
And the dish ran away with the spoon!
I was just three or perhaps four years old when for Easter mom got Billy
and me sailor outfits to wear (America was in the middle of World WarII then).
I remember it was warm that Easter and we had a lot of fun in our sailor
clothes. To this day I remember a particular clear glass rabbit that Billy
and I each got from mom’s aunt Emma. You could open the bottom and
it was filled with small many colored jelly beans.
In the fall of 1946 I was in the first grade at Jenny Lind School but I don't
remember much about that. I do remember the first grade in Sunday
School at Hope Church on Emerson Avenue. Mrs. May was my Sunday
School teacher and mom also taught Sunday School for one of the little
grades. I remember that we had our little classes right in the pews of the
church - - There weren't any classrooms - - and the teachers used felt
storyboards with colorful felt people, trees and houses to tell the stories
like Joseph in Egypt and of Jesus going into Jerusalem. I got a little cardboard
glow-in-the-dark picture of "The Lord Is My Shepard from her at Christmas time.
I still have it and remember how it comforted me dark nights in my bed. We also
belonged to the Junior Missionary Society and a lady would come and talk to us
about being missionaries and doctors in Africa and we would sing songs
about apes swinging to and fro in the trees. I remember the apes were
mysterious and scary.
Speaking of animals - - My sister Mary Ann really loved Pal - - He was her
dog. Dad loved him, too, and he wasn't scary. But across the alley, Jimmy
Brunz was growing up and got into motorcycles. He and his friends would
go up and down the alley and Pal would chase them barking like crazy. Well,
because Pal became such a nuisance in the neighborhood, dad finally had to
get rid of him. So that Mary Ann wouldn't feel too badly, dad said he took
him to a farm and let him go. Mary Ann was very sad and, I'm told, cried
and cried.
Well, not too long later, mom and dad went out to eat at the Band Box, a
triangular little hamburger shop in Camden where Washington and Lyndale
avenues meet. It was a cold and wet evening in about 1950 and as they
were leaving to get into the car they noticed a wet and dirty spotted dog
covered with paint cowering and shivering next to the building. Dad felt
sorry for him but he drove away. They didn't go far, though. Dad drove
around the block and came back, picked him up and brought him home.
Dad cut off the paint as best he could and cleaned him up. This became
our dog Teddy who was our best friend and playmate for a number of years.
We always had animals around the house and dad liked to take care of them.
Once a large Angora tomcat came to the door all bloody and had an ear
almost tore off. It had been in a fight. Dad cleaned him up and washed his
wounds and fed him. For a long while, every morning the cat would show
up at the door and dad would feed him milk. After a while the cat stopped
coming by. At one time we also had rabbits - - sixteen of them, I think.
At first there were just a few, but later there were a lot. We built a cage for
them up on stilts next to the garage. I remember we had the rabbits even
over the winter.
My brother, Billy and I also had our little pets then - - frogs and turtles, snakes
and salamanders, a bat one time and little puppies. One little puppy - - His
name was Spot - - died. We had to have a funeral for him so we got a pan
from the garage to put him in and dug a hole next to the Lilacs on the north
side of the garage. So we buried him and we kids from the neighborhood had
our little service. I would guess I was about eight years old then. It wasn't
too much later that mom asked where her best roasting pan was. Well, dad
said he had it out in the garage to change oil in the car. . . Mom wasn't
interested in digging up the body so that was the end of that!
The one thing I didn't like about childhood was the teasing by the other kids.
Perhaps I was overly sensitive but it seems they would do it for sport.
I would respond by getting mad and fighting and swearing and hitting.
Billy teased me too and he would hold me down to stop me and all the kids
would laugh. One time when I was about nine the kids came into the garage
where I was making something and they started to tease me. Well, I picked
up a gallon of oil paint and threw it at them. When it hit the ground the cover
popped off and paint shot into the air and slopped all over the front of my
friend Donny Zornes. He was teasing me too and I'm sure he remembers
that incident to this day. Mom would tell me, "Don't pay any attention to
them,” but the teasing hurt. My sister didn't help either and just said to not let
them do that. I remember that Billy and Mary Ann would get together and
tell funny things and laugh and laugh until they cried. I never did that. I was
sort of a serious, quiet kid who liked to make or fix things. I think I was always
in the process of building one sort of chug or another.ought I was very shy
even into my late teens. I remember that I would often plan things to say in
my mind before saying them and then turn beet red.
Another thing I didn't like about early years was the scary nightmares. It was
probably stupid (Yes, it was!) but us kids would walk down to the Camden
Theater on Saturdays for the matinee and see movies like, "Abbot and
Costello Meet Frankenstein," or, "The Thing" and hide under the seats.
I loved to be scared during the day but then I'd have nightmares about
being chased by monsters at night. The basement was a particularly
scary place that I'd have nightmares about. I'd dream of going down there
and then be chased upstairs by a monster from behind the furnace. In my
dreams, I was lucky enough to get away or wake up before it got me except
the last time. My very last nightmare was when I was down in the basement
and the monster finally got me and picked me up. I thought I was done for
- - but nothing happened. That was the end of my nightmares.
As kids we would walk down the alley past Mr. Eggert's house to Magnuson's
grocery Store on Lyndale Avenue and there, on hot summer afternoons, we could
get a big bottle of Sarsaparilla for 15 cents. We would then go out on the steps of
the store with our Sarsaparilla and count cars - "You would get all the Chevys
and I'd get all the Fords," we would say. Sometimes a car would go by missing a
tire. I guess they were stockpiling tires out at Fort Snelling for the war. This must
have been about 1944 or 1945 before the war ended.
Those also were the days before the refrigerator. Instead, we had an iceman.
The iceman was Mr. Lindberg who lived back across the alley from us. He had a
barn by the alley where he kept the horses but I have no idea where he grazed
them because they just had a city lot. The ice was cut from the lakes and stored
in sawdust for the summer in a cold storage building over on Humboldt Avenue about
two miles away. Mr. Lindberg drove his wagon and horses down there every day
in the summer to pick up the ice for delivery throughout the neighborhood.
Mom would put a card in the window telling the iceman whether or not we
needed ice and, when we needed it, he would come right in and put the ice in our
icebox by the back door. The green card meant we were OK and the red card
meant we needed ice. One of the wonderful things about having an iceman is
that there were always scraps and chips of ice on his wagon. We kids would
run behind the wagon as it came rumbling down the dirt alley and collect the
chips of ice to suck on those hot summer days.
In the wintertime he hauled coal for our furnace and at off times he would hire
out to dig foundations for houses. He did that with a kind of a scraper shovel
that was pulled by his horses. He also collected metal and rags for the war effort.
We had a "Raleigh" man who went door to door and came by the house regularly.
He sold things like cleaners and soap, elixirs and spices, pure vanilla flavoring and
condensed nectar. We always bought the quart bottle of cherry nectar and he
always had some sort of little gift for us kids.
I remember the garage back by the alley with its dirt floor and back door that
didn't close very well and the tools on the bench that never seemed to be in
order. The garage was my workroom and it was there that I built many
birdhouses and other stuff out of scrap wood. My best source of wood was
from the orange crates I would get from Magnuson's Grocery Store.
I enjoyed building and fixing things. I think I was always in the process of
building one sort of chug or another. Usually they were a couple of two by
fours with some plywood or boards across the top and a board to lean against.
The wheels and axles were from old wagons. The steering mechanism was
simply a two by four that was bolted in the middle to the frame and wagon
wheels nailed by their axles to each end. Then with ropes tied to the two
ends, you could pull one way or the other and the two by four would pivot
to turn the chug. Usually the wheels just fell off.
Once we made a "bus." It was a wide chug with sides and a top, windows
and a door at the side. It was big. We could even put old chairs inside for
the passengers and push six or seven kids in it. We charged the little kids a
penny for a ride around the block. Usually the wheels came off about every
thirty yards and then we would have to turn the bus over onto its top and climb
up to hammer the wheel back in place - - what a job. It took about ten kids
to push it and one trip would take half a day! A very successful financial
adventure, too! We sometimes made enough money to go and buy a Popsicle.
I remember how Dad had a green thumb and could grow just about anything.
There was an empty lot next door and he used part of that for his garden.
Dad seemed to be able to grow anything and loved the flowers and the
vegetables. I remember counting tomatoes and some plants had over 100
tomatoes on them.
I remember the two screen houses we had and the Chinese lanterns. The first
screen house was just in front of the garage and it was pretty rickety. It was
old and the wood was rotting and the screens were torn. One day when
Pearl and Chet and the kids were over, my cousin Lois and I (and I think
Billy helped, too.) rocked that screen house back and forth 'til it almost
collapsed. All of the adults were out in the front yard having a picnic and
didn't see us. Dad had to take the screen house down after that.
I remember mom canning beans and peaches and tomatoes and pickles.
By the time winter came around, the pantry in the basement had a couple
hundred-quart jars of all sorts of stuff to get us through the cold months.
Mom also made lots of bread back then. I remember the "dough gobs''
that mom fried up on the stove from left-over bread dough. She rolled them
in sugar and we would run in from our playing and run out with these
wonderful warm treats.
I remember how on hot summer days, the windows would be open
along the side of the house and the curtains would blow gently in the
breeze. I remember looking in from the yard and I could see one
of the lamps just inside by the window. It had a wide red shade
and a brass planter at the base. The white sheer curtain quietly brushed
the lamp and music from the radio drifted out onto the yard. I remember
songs like "Mockingbird Hill'', "I'm looking Over A Four Leafed Clover'',
"In The Good Old Summertime'', "The Yellow Rose of Texas'', and "Shoes
to Keep your Feet A 'Dancing". These were some of my favorite days.
I remember our next-door neighbors, Clarence and Louise Terrell on the
north, and Katherine Sandbeck and the girls on the south, John and Alice
Hughes and our playmates Jerry and Jimmy who lived across the street, and Vern
and Carrie Zornes and their son Donny who was Billy's age who lived in a small
house down at the end of the alley. The street was just an unpaved dusty road
back then. I remember cousins Jerry and Rusty and their mom and dad Marty and
Francis Cowan when they moved in at the Hughes' house. The Hughes' moved
about a mile away up by their church and mom and dad kept in touch for many
years until they both passed away. Dad and mom were glad his brother Marty
and his family moved in so close. They had many good times together and
Jerry and Rusty became new friends. Dad and mom were happy.
I remember the day dad brought home a bike and I learned to ride it out front
in the street. Billy got one, too. Dad paid $25.00 for them and that was a lot
of money. Dad pushed me along the street and I learned pretty fast. t was
second-hand but it was really nice and I had new mobility and it was like I could
fly and go anywhere. I took that bike apart many times to fix it and keep it in
running good - - working on it in the shade of the plum tree. It was fun working
on that bike.
When I was about nine or ten, the Zornes' moved into a large house up on the
corner of 4th street. Their house was on a small hill and they had a large old
Weeping Willow tree in the front yard. Its large branches were the very best
for sitting on and drinking Cool-Aid and eating treats. We spent many a
summer afternoon sitting up in that tree talking about important kid stuff and
who knows what. Across the street from Donny's house was a hill with a lot of
old dead poplar trees and one night a lot of us kids camped in a couple of tents
on the hill. In the morning some of the kids ran and got some food for our breakfast
and I sort of roamed around looking at the hollow old trees. I noticed that the
insides were filled with cobwebs and decided to see if they would burn. So I lit a
match and held it to the webs and they just sparkled a little bit and didn't do
much. I didn't think anything more of that until the fire truck stopped in front
of our house later that day. The fireman came to the door to ask if anyone had
anything to do with the tree fire up on the hill on 4th Street. I don't think I was
ever so embarrassed and mortified in my life! We walked up to 4th street and
there it was - - a big old Poplar tree about 200 feet tall with smoke smoldering
out of the tips of broken branches like strange old chimneys. Well, the firemen
said it had to be cut down and that I shouldn't play with matches!
One summer night Billy and Donny and I camped out in a tent in the field next
to the Zornes' house and got up at 4:30 in the morning to watch the eclipse of
the sun. I think I was 14 then. We got up and watched the dawn come up just
like a regular summer morning. But then about 5 o'clock the sun turned strangely
dim and the birds started to chirp again as if it was evening. It was like looking
through tinted glasses and amazing ripples of dark shadows rolled across the
ground and the streets like waves on a lake. It was awesome.
I'll always remember the clean smell of raking leaves in the yard on fall Saturday
afternoons. I'd be raking leaves and have the radio turned up in the house so we
could listen outside to Ray Christiansen on WCCO reporting the Gopher Football
games. Dad and Billy and I sometimes played catch along side of the house.
I remember trying out my new glove - - sometimes Dad really threw the ball hard.
I did catch the ball sometimes and sometimes the ball hit the picket fence in the
front yard. I remember that he knocked out one of the pickets with the ball.
I remember going to Miller ball games with Dad out at the old NicolletParkand
staying until what seemed the middle of the night for those double headers.
I remember stopping off at Marty's Pool Hall and Bar (Buzz Arlett's) and dad would
shoot pool and have some beer and I would have a seven-up. It was really smoky
in there.
I remember the upright Philco radio with its big dials and Walter Winchell and the
News, Stop the Music, "The Shadow Knows," Inner Sanctum, and The Playhouse
Theater. Dad's favorite radio news program was always "Walter Winchell and the
News," at six in the evening on network radio.
I remember that on Sundays we'd either have chicken for dinner or in the evening
a treat of ice cream with chocolate sauce while we listened to "Stop the Music" with
Bert Parks. It was one or the other because we couldn't afford both. Later when
we got a Motorola TV, I remember that awful Mel Jass advertising on Starlight
Theater. The program was in the early evening and there would be five minutes of
movie and then ten minutes of advertising all sorts of stuff. The television was a
table model and it sat on a big TV table next to the porch.
I remember the porch. It had double French doors that opened to the dining room,
a mahogany paneled ceiling, and windows that spanned across the west and north
walls. The windows had hinges so that they could be opened wide and the summer
air could blow through the house. I remember how comfortable it was out there in
the summer lying on the couch and dreaming of who- knows-what or nothing at all.
When I was little and we had coal heat, the porch was closed off in the winter
because it was too cold. Later when we got gas heat we left the porch open all winter
except when it was really cold. At Christmas the tree was put up there because we
needed the room for all the kids in the family in the living room and dining room.
I remember one Christmas particularly well. It was about 1947 and I must have
been about six or seven at most. It was Christmas Eve and the Christmas tree was
up in the living room in front of the large window and Billy and I were up in our room
sleeping. It was the front bedroom and from the window we could look out onto the
front yard and unpaved street. Well, I remember waking up hearing jingling bells
outside in the front and we got up and sneaked part way down the stairs to where
we could look around the banister to see out to the porch and the living room. As we
were sitting there on the stairs looking through the railing, the front door burst open
and in came Santa Claus with his bells and sack! We turned and flew up the stairs
and slid under the bed to hide. We hoped that Santa didn't see us and that he
thought we were sleeping! In the morning when we got up, I remember a set of
Tinker Toys was lying out and a red wagon in front of the tree. I played with those
tinker toys a lot - - I could make trucks and Ferris wheels and windmills and draw
bridges and cranes and everything I could imagine. In another year, I remember
getting an Erector Set with an electric motor. That was even better and I could
make so many things with it. One of the things that I made was a colorful candy
merry-go-round made with cardboard and frosting made from soap and coloring
and candy canes and gum drops and licorice and it would go round and round.
Dad worked at the Railway Express Agency as a driver since the mid 1940's until
he retired in 1971 and one of his regular stops was the Minneapolis Florist Company
on Hennipen Avenue just south of Franklin Avenue. Dad loved flowers and he
particularly liked to bring roses home from the florist shop for mom whenever he could.
During the summer time we often had flowers on the dining room table - -
Lilacs at the end of May and peonies in July. And on special occasions dad would
bring roses.
I remember during the mid and late fifties when mom and dad would be off to bed.
Their bedroom was a room between the kitchen and dining room and in the earlier
years it was part of a circle where children could run around and around the house
going from room to room. It was a very small room and not much privacy.
When dad remodeled the kitchen in the early fifties, he walled off the doorway from
the kitchen to their bedroom so that there was more room for a dresser and only
one door. They had a curtain on the door between the bedroom and the dining
room and it was usually open. I remember many times mom and dad getting
ready for bed and we'd talk and I remember dad had a ragged Bible close by and
he'd spend a little time reading before going to sleep.
It was a Fine Christmas Tree!
Do you remember that long ago December day
when we cut down the tree in the wood?
You were three, then four, then seventeen;
And now, my children, you are grown.
We trudged thru the woods and looked at one,
and then another to find the best we could.
Your life is your own now and so busy
with all that's important to make it your own.
The tree looked good wrapped in its lights,
with ornaments you made and ones from above.
May your tree, too, be as big and as beautiful
and fill your hearts with memories of joy and love!
Larry Cowan 1996