Category Archives: Book of Me

Book of Me – Prompt 5: Childhood Home

This is week 5 of a 15 month writing project. This week’s writing prompt for the Book of Me focuses on childhood homes. This writing challenge is provided by Julie Goucher from the blog Angler’s Rest. Coincidently, I just took a big trip this summer to show off my childhood homes to my children. We stopped by three of the four to take pictures.

When did you leave home?
Where was it?
Where did you move to?…
Was it rented or owned? – with parents/Grandparents
Was it inherited
What was it like – describe it – each room.
Were there a favorite room?
Is there anything you particularly remember from the house?
Pictures
The road & area

Childhood Homes

During her childhood Deborah lived in 4 different houses.

The foot of Hale Street in Rockport (Image courtesy of Google images)

Her first house was in Rockport, Massachusetts, also known as the Methodist church parsonage. This address appears on her birth certificate, 17 Hale Street. The house was built in 1800, so it turns out that this was the oldest house that Deborah ever lived in. She lived in this house for almost three years. One impression Deborah had of this house was that it was located at the top of a hill, at the end of the street.

In the yard outside Hale Street

Her parents did not own this house as it was provided by the church for their spiritual leader. Some of the furniture was old and second hand, having been used by previous occupants. The only memories that remain of this house are the photographs. They moved from this home to their new parish soon after the birth of Deborah’s brother.

Yegerlehner, David - 1969-02-08 Rockport Parsonage

Rev. Yegerlehner in his study at Rockport

The Sias Avenue house today is no longer owned by the church (2013)

The next home was in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. As the first, this was also a parsonage for the Methodist church which was located nearby at the end of the street. This home was built in the early 1950s, a two story structure with a basement and an attic. All the bedrooms were on the second floor. The fourth tiny bedroom was used as David’s office. A large porch stretched across the front. The main floor consisted of an entry way (with staircase), living room, dining room and kitchen. All the rooms had two doors so it was possible to run in a giant circle throughout the rooms. In the 1970s, a large lilac hedge separated the property from the neighbor’s yard. The lilac has always been one of Deborah’s favorite flowers, due in part to these childhood bushes. Another contributing factor was the Nancy Drew book The Mystery at the Lilac Inn.

Deborah in her tree – Shrewsbury

In the backyard was a large tree. The tree’s trunk branched about 4-5 feet above the ground. It was one of Deborah’s favorite pastimes to climb this tree or to sit in the trunk’s fork. While living in this home, Deborah attended pre-school and started elementary school. She took her first dance lessons and learned to ride the shiny red bike she received for her fifth birthday. She got her first kitten, an all black male that was mistakenly named Queenie before its sex was discovered. It was also the last home in which her family lived as a single unit. This was her home for less than four years.

Outside the house in Shrewsbury

Greybert Lane (1982)

During second grade, in the spring, Deborah, her mother and her brother moved to a small ranch home on the west side of Worcester. Of all four homes, the house on Greybert Lane deserves the grand title of childhood home. She lived in this home from second grade through ninth grade. The house was located on an acre parcel of land. The bulk of the land was wooded with a small creek, Tatnuck Brook, forming one of the boundaries. The house was located at the end of a cul-de-sac. Across the street, behind the neighbor’s houses was Patch Reservoir. In the winter, one of the neighbors allowed the neighborhood children to cut through their property to access an old dock for ice skating on the lake. The summers were filled with playing in the woods and brook. The house wasn’t particularly special, a cookie cutter ranch. Deborah’s grandfather was recruited to help “finish” the basement which became a combination play room and guest bedroom. By the time Deborah reached high school, the house had grown too small.

Greybert Lane (2013)

High school graduation day at Hadwen Lane

The fourth childhood home was also on the west side of Worcester, but closer to the high school. It was located up near the top of a hill. Although the back yard was wooded, the lot was smaller and there was no longer a brook in the back. When the house was purchased the second story was unfinished. Again, Deborah’s grandfather was recruited to frame the rooms in the upstairs although several contractors were hired to attend to the drywall, wiring and plastering. Deborah and her brother had the rooms on the second floor to themselves. For the first few years, there wasn’t any heating upstairs. Deborah had a room almost double the size of her previous room and the closet was a walk in room beneath the eaves. This is the home where Deborah lived when she graduated from high school. She only lived there continuously for three and half years.

Hadwen Lane (2013)

Deborah left home at age eighteen to attend college. She only ever came home for vacations after that, with the exception of the year that she left graduate school. She came home one last time for about six months. She met her future husband during that time and never looked back.

Book of Me – Prompt 4: Favorite Season

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This is week 4 of a 15 month writing project. This week’s assignment is to write about your favorite season. This writing challenge is provided by Julie Goucher from the blog Angler’s Rest.

In case you are just coming to my writings, I want to point out that I am consciously writing all my posts in the third person. My plan is put all the posts together in the end as a book to give to each of my children. I want each post to have a consistent style so I am trying to look at my life and my memories as an outsider looking in, like a reporter or a historian would. I also know that I have my own family photographs that illustrate this memory. Once I locate them, I will update this post!

Favorite Season

New England is one of those places that has distinct seasons. Summers are typically on the shorter side and can be hot and humid with an occasional thunderstorm to break the heat. Winter can last longer than expected. The first snow can fall early in October or late September. The last snow may come as late as Memorial Day at the end May. Or there may be little snow at all, just the bracing temperatures and limited sunlight that signal the season. Spring and Autumn, the transitional seasons, can be leisurely and pleasant or over in the blink of an eye. Northern California is in many ways the complete opposite. Spring, Summer and Autumn often slide unnoticeably together. The Central Valley does not have a high enough elevation to generate snow with only rain and occasionally hail as precipitation. Because of the high heat in the summer, the California landscape is a flip flop of what one might expect in New England. Dried yellow and brown grasses cover the land in summer while plush green fields are visible in the winter and spring during the rainy months. For a child of New England, California can take some getting used to. The normal seasonal cues are not as apparent. If one wants to “visit” the snow or the autumnal foliage, leaving home is required with a minimal 2-3 hour drive. There are some benefits to never having to shovel one’s driveway, but the loss of such seasonal pageantry is debatable.

Cars stuck on the highway

As for a particularly favorite season, Deborah never liked to play favorites. Each season brought its own delights and pleasures. One memorable seasonal event from her childhood occurred in February 1978. A monster storm was heading towards New England. At that time it was very hard to predict and track the weather. This storm took the east coast by surprise in its ferocity. On Sunday, February 5, 1978, the snow storm was predicted but it did not arrive Monday morning as anticipated. Everyone went to school and work as usual. Deborah does not completely remember whether they were sent home from school early that afternoon, but it was a distinct possibility. Other government agencies closed up mid-day and sent their employees home. Sadly, many people did not make it home in time. Thousands were stranded in their cars on the roadways while trying to make it home. Over 3,500 abandoned cars were discovered, just on Interstate 95 alone, after the storm and clean-up commenced. Many people perished from carbon monoxide poisoning when the snow covered up the exhaust in their idling vehicles. Many more people were left without electricity for almost a week. Boston recorded all time high snow falls. Snow drifts reached heights of 15 feet in some locations. After the snow stopped, people were scared to leave their homes for fear of disappearing underneath all the snow. In fact, automobile traffic was suspended for the remainder of the week in Eastern Massachusetts. Only emergency vehicles and snow ploughs were allowed on the roads.[1]

Now why, one might ask, might this be a happy memory? Imagine the psyche of an elementary school aged child. The snow cancelled school for two weeks. In the end, public school children were out of school for three weeks because winter vacation was already scheduled for late February. The drifts were piled as high as small mountains, especially after the ploughs cleared the roads. Once it was safe to go outside, the snowy landscape became an imaginary wonderland. People dug underground tunnels to rival any Eskimo’s igloo. Fantastical snow sculptures were created. No hills were required for sledding. All other snowstorms pale in the memory of this storm. Anyone who lived through this blizzard immediately knows what one means when referring to the “Blizzard of ‘78”.

[1] Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org), “Northeastern United States Blizzard of 1978,” rev. 10:38, 10 June 2013.

Book of Me – Prompt 3: Physical Attributes

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This is week 3 of a 15 month writing project. This week’s assignment is to write about your physical attributes. This writing challenge is provided by Julie Goucher from the blog Angler’s Rest.

This week’s instructions are:
Describe your physical self
Your size – clothes size
Scars
Eye color
Draw your hands
Finger Prints

Ballet recital, early 1980s at Worcester State College (Deborah is second on the left)

As a child, Deborah was always thin. Although she loved to dance, she was never considered athletic and was probably a bit on the clumsy side. Her genetic makeup predetermined her greater than average height but this did not become truly apparent until junior high (and probably contributed to the death of her dancing career). During her teen years, she grew taller than her mother and three of her four grandparents. She finally stopped growing just shy of 5’10”. Beanpole was a common nickname during this time in her life. In college, one of her roommates affectionately called her Olive Oil, after Popeye’s girlfriend because of her height and relative thinness. Throughout her life, Deborah despised clothes shopping. Standard sizes were not made for tall people. Many a tear was shed throughout the years over high waders and bare wrist bones. Even as a child, she preferred dresses and skirts because pants were never made long enough. Learning to sew was another strategy she used to compensate for gangling limbs. The advent of tall sizes at the end of the 20^th century and early 21^st century did alleviate some of Deborah’s shopping nightmares, but only a little.

Deborah, early 1990s (Aran Islands, Ireland)

Deborah did not have many scars or birthmarks. She never really broke a bone (toes don’t count) or severely cut herself. When she was in elementary school (before the chicken pox vaccine), she had the disease during one summer vacation. Several of the scabs were quite itchy. There was one in the middle of her brow that she scratched quite often. As a result, a small uneven scar was formed. Most people would not notice until it was pointed out. There were some minor scars on her fingers from the unsafe handling of sharp objects, or her possible clumsiness. During her first week in the kitchen at Kabeyun, she sliced the top knuckle of the right pointer finger trying to open a 20 lb bag of carrots. Another scar was created on her right pinkie from trying to open a pop top can of cat food. She maintained a healthy fear of such evil devices (pop top cans) for most of her adult life. On the other hand’s thumb was a scar made when a chunk was removed with a pair of scissors. The most noticeable scar was the one at the base of her neck, in the dip of the collarbone. In her mid-twenties, it was discovered that her thyroid had a cancerous tumor. The doctors attempted to take only the affected lobe but later had to go back in and remove the rest of the organ. This was perhaps the most dramatic and meaningful scar.

Deborah – c1982

Having nearly 100% northern European ancestry, Deborah was fair skinned. She was never one to get a tan, and frequently ended up with sunburns unintentionally. She was sprinkled liberally with freckles as a result. Her eyes were hazel, predominately brown with flecks of green. When she was younger, her hair was lighter but it eventually morphed into a brown with golden highlights. Since she loved red hair, she often dyed her hair red in her late teens and twenties. Typically, she preferred longer hair although there were sporadic periods when she kept it short. When she was married, her hair was almost long enough to sit upon.

Deborah in 5th or 6th grade

In first grade, it was discovered that she couldn’t read the board from the back of the room. In those days, children were frequently seated in alphabetical order. With a surname starting with the letter Y, she often found herself sitting in the back of the room. Glasses became a part of her wardrobe. As a teenager, she stopped wearing glasses as the problem seemed to have corrected itself temporarily. However, in her 20s, the difficulty of seeing distances returned, especially street signs on the highway. When she became a teacher, she had a hard time seeing the board again! So the glasses returned. Eventually, they became a permanent requirement on her driver’s license.

Handprints, 2013

Book of Me – Prompt 2: Your Birth

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This is week 2 of a 15 month writing project. This week’s assignment is to write about your own birth. This writing challenge is provided by Julie Goucher from the blog Angler’s Rest.

The instructions are:

Do you have any baby photos?
Where were you born?
Who was present at your birth?
Dimensions?
What day was it? Time?
Did you have hair? Eye colours
Are you a twin?

Chapter 2: A Child is born

On a perfect Friday morning, during the late summer in a seaside New England town, expectations were about to be fulfilled. The humidity was non-existent and the temperature was pleasantly in the mid 70s. The predicted high was 78°. A light breeze was blowing off the ocean. The day had finally arrived. Today, they would be parents.

The baby was already two weeks overdue. Thus far no water had broken and labor pains were non-existent. No crazy midnight dash to the hospital required. It was time for an induction. Although they lived in Rockport, the nearest hospital, Addison Gilbert, was just over 5 miles away in neighboring Gloucester. The ride was calm and peaceful with occasional glimpses of the bay.

All day they waited as inductions take time. Dr. Ross was attending inside the labor room. The nervous father, a Methodist minister, paced outside. Perhaps he prayed for a safe delivery. Finally at 7:18 p.m., a nurse emerged, “It’s a girl!” All fingers and toes accounted for. Weighing in at 7 lbs and 11 oz, the baby was long at 22”, perhaps an indicator of her future height. The eyes of course were blue, like all newborns. Eventually they would change to hazel, with flecks of green that changed with her mood. The first hair was dark and was replaced with towheaded locks. Over time, this too would change as well.

A Girl! How rare! Only a handful on either side of the family combined in the last 75 years. The firstborn child of a new generation on the maternal side, she was a descendant of many generations of New Englanders as well as Hoosier pioneers. Had she been a boy, her name might have been Ian. Her names were chosen from family tradition and her father’s biblical studies: a judge and a loyal daughter, both independent women. A strong indication of the woman she would become.

Sources:

Massachusetts. State Department of Public Health. Birth Certificates. Registry of Vital Records and Statistics, Boston.

Sweeney Family Collection. Privately held by Deborah Sweeney, Elk Grove, California. 2013.

“U.S.Weather History.” Farmers’ Almanac. http://www.farmersalmanac.com : 2013.

The Book of Me – Prompt 1: Who Are You?

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I am going to try something new over the next few months. I am participating in a writing group called The Book Of Me (Written by You). As a family genealogist and historian, I often spend most of my time thinking and writing about the people who lived in the past. The purpose of this writing group is to explore who I am, right now in the present. The end result is that I will have a lot of information and memories to leave behind for my descendants. It will also give me an excuse to do some of my own writing, instead of just transcribing letters and making commentary. This writing prompt (and group) has been created by Julie Goucher of the Anglers Rest blog. As a weekly blog prompt, I will most likely post on the weekend. Some of the posts I might share, some I might not (if they get too personal). And never fear, I will still continue to post one World War II letter a day.

So here is the first prompt – Who Are You? This is a recognized psychological test. Ask yourself the question 20 times – Who are You? Each time you should give yourself a different answer. The purpose is to see how you view yourself. It is alright if you come up with more than 20, but you need to find at least 20.

Instead of trying to list my answers by their perceived importance, I chose to list them chronologically and as they developed.

I am Deborah, not Debbie.

Daughter, granddaughter, niece,
White, 100% Northern European,
Massachusetts native,
Descendant of our founding fathers,
From the Mayflower and pre-Revolution,
Introvert.

Sister,
Girl Scout,
Doctor Who fan, Tom Baker was my first.
Anglophile, bookworm, thespian,
A proud Highlander, wearing maroon and gold,
Changing to a Mighty Minuteman, swapping gold for white.

Seamstress,
Costume Designer,
Kabeyunite,
Finally, a brave Wolverine.

Wife,
Californian,
Genealogist, historian, archivist,
Elementary school teacher,
A Mother (twice),
CELDT tester, English language instructor,
Surrounded by children,
Loved and loving.