A day at school had plenty of adventure

Ever since my younger sister began chasing her genealogy, she’s been bombarding me with all of these interesting little stories and tidbits about uncle so and so or maybe our great-great-grandparents.

“We must be related to Jim McGonigle, because one of our granddads married Susan McGonigle.”

“Hogwash,” I’d say. “You need to write this stuff down. That way your grandkids will know where they came from and possibly learn to appreciate their family heritage.”

Eventually, she sat down at her computer and began writing. What she began with was her own life’s story, but I guess that’s OK because that’s really something we all need to do.

She started with her childhood memories, and the following excerpt is one of the more hilarious tidbits in the life of my little sister, Gloria Jean.

… Mom came in and announced that I was now old enough to start kindergarten and go to Ott School with the rest of kids. Boy, did I think I was grown up. I loaded up my blanket, my fat pencil and Big Chief tablet, my crayons and most importantly, my peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich wrapped in the Sunday funny paper. Mom tied it with a string and I was off to school.

I remember it was great until the teacher announced that I had to stay all day, lay down and take a nap on my blanket, my mommy could not stay with me, and I had to sit down and be quiet. I guess the thing that I liked best was when the big bell on top of the building rang and all of the kids got to go outside and play. After a while it started to grow on me and I decided it wasn’t going to be so bad after all.

There was a Dairy Queen a couple blocks from school, and as long as my big brother Teddy was with me, we could walk over and get an ice cream cone after class. I remember we would walk down some stairs and go underneath of Highway 24 and Noland, and then we would come up the other side at Dairy Queen. Hand them two nickels and they would give us two ice cream cones.

My younger brother David was about 2 years old, and being the important big sister that I was now, I decided one day after school that David and I should walk to town and visit mother at the fabric shop where she worked. From our house to the Independence Square it was only about one mile. So, I took David by the hand and very carefully walked him to town, we even crossed the highway with the traffic light. Of course, we were both filthy dirty like most kids were. When we arrived in town, surprisingly, mom was not at all happy to see us. I know she really got upset with this lady Virginia, who was supposed to be baby-sitting us.

I well remember mom calling home and chewing out the woman. She asked if Virginia knew where Gloria and David were, and she said “why yes!” They were playing out in the yard and could see us both from where she sat. Mom really got mad and then bought us both an ice cream cone, put us in a taxi cab, and sent us back home. I guess it was actually a wasted trip after all, except I had never before gotten to ride in a taxi cab, that was kind of fun. Well, Virginia didn’t stay with us much longer and to tell you the truth, I was kind of glad, because I didn’t much like her anyway. We soon got a new baby-sitter.

Reference: “The Life and Turmoil of Gloria Jean (Stillwell) Miller.”