Growing up in Springfield

GROWING UP IN SPRINGFIELD

My sister located among our mother’s letters her diary from the year 1937, the year I was born.  Mother kept all her correspondence strictly private, so it was only after her death in 1996 that my sister was able to go through the material.  The diary records the time she found out she was pregnant up to and shortly after my birth when I made circumstances so trying for her that she no longer had opportunity to write.  I did gain valuable insights into family life in Springfield in 1937.  Consequently, I began thinking about my childhood…

The House

I know that my parents were living with her parents at the time of my birth, but she mentions being able to move into their own home which was a small rented house on Sunshine.  Soon after they rented a house at 700 S. Weller, and then in 1940, with my grandfather’s help, bought their first house at 1050 S. Pickwick.  It was later renumbered 1036.  The house was a one story bungalow with a ¾ basement.  Today if you go to that address you will see that a later owner added a second story to give the house more space.  It had only two bedrooms, thus when my sister was born two years later, a third bedroom had eventually to be created from the dining room.  The dining table was moved to a corner of the living room, and that was the situation for seventeen years.

From the time I was two years old until I was nineteen, the ten and eleven-hundred blocks of south Pickwick were the center of my universe.  My grandparents lived at the end of the 1100 block (1151), and my best friend lived at 1104, just 5 doors down and across Delmar.  Well, that was after Charles Martin, Jr., built a house on what had been a vacant lot between the house next to us and the house on the corner that belonged to our dentist, Dr. Loren Chapman.  However, it was a wonderful universe in which to grow up, one rather different from what one would experience most places today.

First, I should describe our house.  Yes, it was rather cramped, and all through my childhood my parents looked at other possible larger houses but never found one that they liked better.  On one occasion, my Dad decided to enclose the large front porch and create a new room.  He ordered the materials and had a carpenter hired, but the city stepped in and stopped the process because it violated codes.  It would seem that it would cut off the line of vision from other houses.  I once suggested to my Dad that he build a second story, but he dismissed that suggestion as untenable.  It is ironic that the later owners did exactly that.  My wife and I were able to see inside, and I must say that it was wonderful and would have been greatly enjoyed had my Dad taken my suggestion.  I wonder if they found my sister’s shoe which for the sake of meanness I tossed into the attic space from the stairway going to the basement.  If I ever ran out of things to do, I tried to do what I could to make her life miserable.  That is probably not too unusual for older brothers to do to their little sisters.  But let anyone else try to bother her, and they had to answer to me.

But the fact that the house was a bit cramped didn’t prevent my sister and me from having a wonderful time.  The house was our castle.  My bedroom was at the back on a corner, and it had three large windows on one wall and three on the other.  Talk about a well-lighted room!   I remember that my mother, who was a very talented person in many ways, using stencils and some artistry of her own created Walt Disney figures all over the wall including Mickey and Minnie Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy.  It was a delightful room.  I can remember, from earlier times, my baby bed, lying in it and seeing the little clouds on the ceiling.  No, they were not a part of mother’s décor; they were spots from water drips that at some time in the past had made it through the roof.  But the pattern delighted me.  Oh, my sister inherited the baby bed after she came along as well as later the front bedroom.

The house had a large front porch that went across the entire width.  Daddy had installed a swing that his mother gave him.  Many hours my sister and I along with our friends and family member enjoyed that wonderful swing.  The porch was a gathering place, a happy place that was an integral part of our universe.

Inside the living room paralleled the porch by extending across the entire width of the house.  At the far end was a wood-burning fireplace.  My dad recalled that he once almost set the house on fire because, I guess, he let too much creosote to build up.  I remember the warm crackling fires there and the curved wire screen that protected the living room from any embers.  There were two windows on either side of the fireplace, and on one side was the chair where my dad usually set.  Mother bought a spinet piano which was situated on the wall between the door to the ex-dining room and my sister’s bedroom.  I took piano lessons from age eleven to the time I left for college; so many hours of my life were spent at the keyboard there.  At the other end were the dining table and a place where the Christmas tree was placed, although when we got a television set shortly before we moved, it was given that prime location.

Beyond my mother’s bedroom, the former dining room was a little breakfast room, the kitchen, and the back porch.  My Dad obtained from one of his friends and customers who owned a restaurant (Daddy worked at my grandfather’s bank, the Farmers’ and Merchants’ Bank), a booth that one would find in a café.  The both had shiny red seats and a black-topped table.  It was a delightful place to eat.  The problem was that the area was large enough only to accommodate the booth, so the people on the inside could not get out unless the person on the outside moved.  My dad and I had the inside seats, and my sister and mother the outside.  That meant that my mother had to do all the waiting on us.  I enjoyed my inner spot because I could just sit there and eat.  My dad’s favorite way of asking my mother to get something for him was “While you are up…..”

The kitchen was Mother’s domain.  I could usually find her there when I needed something.  I remember saying to her while she was in the kitchen, “Now that I am ten years old, I think I should have a bicycle.”  They agreed that the era of the tricycle should end for me, although I had many happy rides from our house to my grandparents’ house on that trike.  I think I was allowed to make the block and a half solo from the time I was four.  Once my mother let me set out wearing a little tan sun-suit.  My grandmother called my mother as she saw me approaching her house and said, “David is out here riding his tricycle without a stitch of clothes on!”  Mother explained, and as I came closer, my grandmother could make out the sun-suit.

The kitchen was another happy place, as was the back porch which was the transition area from the house to the exciting outside world.  It took on extreme importance when warm weather came.  Not only did we traverse it coming and going to the back yard or garage, but it stored all kinds of things that were used in the outside world but inappropriate for the inside.  In cold weather it could be a place of refuge for the dog.

Between my bedroom and my sister’s was the one bathroom.  We didn’t feel deprived in only having one bathroom.  I can remember my mother pouring hot water for a bath before we got a heater.  My sister and I loved to play pranks on our Dad like opening the door when he was in there just to hear him growl at us.  There was the time when I was sitting on the white throne looking for something to do, I picked up the nearby plunger, and tried to see if I could get it to stick to the wall, which I could reach from where I was sitting.  It did stick.  But when I tried to pull it off, it didn‘t want to turn loose.  I found out how much suction a plunger can have.  I gave it a monumental tug, and it came off, but it took with it a perfect circle of plaster from the wall.  Needless to say, my parents were not too happy.

The basement

Then there was the basement.  All kinds of exciting activities went on there.  There my sister and I never knew a dull moment.  At times it was the location of our model houses as we acted out the lives of the Doggerells and Tulsas.  I won’t say “doll house” because boys were not supposed to play with doll houses.  My sister had one, so I built, let’s say, a model home, out of orange crates.  We then accumulated some very authentic-looking miniature furniture and acted out the drama of our two families.  Because my grandmother liked to give me miniature ceramic dogs, my first family was the Doggerells.  My sister had a bronze dog that Daddy found for her on a business trip to Tulsa, Oklahoma, so we called her family the Tulsas.  We had maids (it was the 40’s and 50’s remember) made from deodorant bottles.  Later we found plastic miniature people to replace our china dogs and deodorant bottles.   I kept expanding the houses, even to the point of installing a working elevator made from my Erector set.  Maybe that is where I got my love for the miniature world, as I have had several model train layouts….still do. 

The basement was often converted into a school room.  I was the teacher, and my sister and a collection of stuffed animals and her dolls became the class.  Sometimes Sue was the teacher.  We also made it into a library with books that could be checked out.  Later my dad, always wanting us to have a good time, had a separate room built with dry wall ceiling and knotty pine paneling.  After I developed my interest in movie making, that became our studio.  I later moved my office there and had a telephone installed.  That was the location for my studying in high school and for the first two years of college.  If anyplace was the epicenter of my universe, it was the basement of the house.

The outside world

(Dogs)

My first dog was Spot.  Daddy felt that every boy should have a dog, so when I was four years old, he brought Spot home.  I can’t remember where he got him.  My mother was quite distressed because she did not like animals in the house, and we had no fence in the large back yard.  I didn’t get to keep Spot very long because he pooped on the rug.  I can still remember the sight of it and the ensuing row.  My mother commanded my father in no uncertain terms to get rid of Spot.  But I shall say that my Dad’s belief that his son should have a dog did not go away, so he hired a carpenter to build an elegant white wooden fence around that big back yard.  The carpenter was Max Kohler who was one of Daddy’s customers at the bank.  Anyone who worked for us, anyone who sold anything to us, anyone who did anything for us was a customer.  Usually Daddy could negotiate a deal.  He was famous for his deals.

Soon after the fence came Ginger.  She was a Cocker Spaniel, and you can guess the color.  Cocker Spaniels are wonderfully friendly and lovable dogs, but they have a propensity for getting out of their confined areas and running into the street with no sense of the danger that cars present.  Ginger was run over and killed.  My parents saw to it that Ginger was replaced with another female Cocker Spaniel whom we named Blacky.  Well, you would know why.  Blacky met with the same fate, and I was partly to blame.  I had gone with my Dad to check out some hamsters, but the people who had the hamsters also had some cute little puppies.  For an eleven year old boy, puppies were irresistible.  So I persuaded my Dad, which was not too hard to do, to let me take this little puppy home.  I named her Butchie.  Butchie quickly grew up into a huge dog…I never figured out her breed.  And Butchie would under no circumstances be confined to the fenced back yard.  She dug her way out, and Blacky followed her to her death.  Butchie met a similar fate soon after.  My mother was trying to restrain her, but this very large and strong dog dragged Mother down the street and finally broke loose only to run out in front of a car.  I was twelve when my Dad, who was determined that I should never be without a dog, took me to get my second Blacky.  This Cocker Spaniel was a male who was content to stay within his back yard domain, and I am happy to report that he lived to the age of fourteen a died a natural death after I had married and moved away.  

Perhaps I should mention that Blacky II’s domain was modified.  In order to gain access to the back door without having to enter the fenced area, my Dad had a space opened up and closed off with a chain link fence.  Blacky’s dog house was strategically located just inside the gate.  As he loved any excuse to bark, he would run on a track inside the fence beginning at his doghouse and making the entire circuit around the fence.  Mother knew better than to try to plant her flowers, and she had many of them, on Blacky’s well-worn path.  Blacky did have a companion.  I once found a little black kitten wandering through my grandparents’ back yard and brought him home.  We named him Midnitte.  He met his demise when the girl living next door, Madeline, decided that he needed to be tied up so he wouldn’t run away.  He did not survive that plan.

(The back yard)

The back yard was not only the home of my dogs; it was a central location of warm-weather activities.  I did have to share it with my parents.  Mother loved to grow flowers, and she had a bed of peonies, she had iris, and all kinds of flowers.  That was her realm; it was not until many years later that I developed an interest in growing flowers.

My dad took care of the lawn mowing with a push mower.  Then came the gasoline powered mower that was self-propelled.  At that point he and/or my grandmother decided I should earn some money by mowing her huge lawn.  That became a task too much for me; I soon lost interest, much to my grandmother’s dismay.

There were two cherry trees and a peach tree that were delightful for climbing.  What boy could resist?  I found that I could climb one of the cherry trees and lie securely on a limb, looking up at the sky.  It was a convenient place to hide when I wanted to play hooky from school.  The cherry tree area was behind the garage and separated from the rest of the back yard by a grape arbor.  It was a wonderful place to be alone, a wonderful place for a boy to spend his reflective times.  Later I cut down the trees, and with the help of my dad and my uncle obtained materials to build a little house.  Of course, it leaked when it rained, but it was fun to build but not too practical for much activity.

Out in the middle of the yard was the place where we burned our trash, in those days when that was the way we disposed of trash.  It was fun to set the fires and imagine that it was some great conflagration in a city.  No, I did not go on to become a pyromaniac.  In that area, after I became such a devotee of anything on rails, I took some metal tomato stakes and built rails for a streetcar line.  And yes, I actually built a streetcar, a contraption that would actually run.  I got an old metal shaving mirror of my grandfather’s that would make a sound like a trolley gong, and we pushed this strange contraption up and down the sidewalk.  Fortunately for all involved, it didn’t last too long.

In the center toward the front of the fenced-in back yard, not too far from Blacky’s house, my Dad, knowing my love of building things, had the best sand box any kid could want built for me and my sister.  However, I spent more time there than my sister, building all kinds of structures out of sand, sometimes supplemented with match boxes.  Unfortunately, cats found our wonderful sand box, so we had to be careful when scooping out sand for our structures.  

(The garage)

There was a garage.  It was only a one-car wooden structure which eventually proved too small for the larger new cars that my parents purchased, so Max was commissioned to enlarge it, much to my delight.  It was a wonderful place to hang out with our many neighborhood friends.  I created a kennel club in honor of the dogs I loved, and all the neighborhood gang members were included as members.  There we met, and, of course, I presided over the Queen City Kennel Club meetings.  It was also a suitable place for my first motion picture premiere after I started using my eight millimeter movie camera to produce Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella, and other features.

(The front yard)

On the north was a driveway that ran from the street to the garage which was positioned at some distance from the house.  On the south side was an outside entrance to the basement along with several flowering bushes.  The front yard of our house, as was true of all the houses of the neighborhood kids, was understood to be a gathering place for the many activities and games that we invented.  I remember gathering the shells of the beetles which we called June Bugs, and catching lightning bugs and putting them in a jar with holes punched in the top.  My sister had birthday parties with “Drop the Handkerchief” in the front yard.  My dad raked and burned leaves, and I can still remember the smell.  If he had a big pile of leaves, of course, before he set them on fire, I would love to jump in them.  There were two large trees there, and a little Maple tree that was planted out on the area between the sidewalk and the street.  Of course, the sidewalk was the scene of my tricycle and bicycle riding.  I remember nearly running Dr. Chapman down when I was first learning to ride the two-wheeler.  I also recall my mother nearly crashing when she tried her hand at roller skating.  

The world beyond

Our house with its wonderful basement, garage, back yard, front yard, and front porch were the center of most of our lives.  If the house and its immediate environs were our world, the two-block area I mentioned at the outset was the universe.  During the hot summers of the polio scare preceding the Sabin vaccine it was known that we could not go beyond this area.  There would be no motion picture shows, no going out to eat during those summers.  But that didn’t bother us in the least.  I can’t understand kids saying they are bored; we never knew boredom.  We just went outside and looked for some of our friends and found something to do.  Many times we congregated on Ann Wilson’s screened-in side porch for all kinds of card games, or we would play croquet in her front yard.  So it was still great fun in the hot summers when we were confined to the neighborhood.  The fact that the polio epidemic was raging all around us did not deter us from a joyous good time.

It was our world; it was our “gang.”  It was all we needed.  I think back, and it’s like it was yesterday.  Next door on the south lived the Bartlings.  Mrs. Bartling was a highly educated, articulate woman who had been a school teacher.  She and Mr. Bartling looked after their three grandchildren: Madeline, Joe Bill, and Peggy.  As they were physically closest to us, we spent much time with them.  They, along with most of the others in the gang, starred in my movies.  Madeline was close in age to my sister, and Joe Bill and Peggy were younger.  Peggy was killed in a car wreck in St. Louis many years later, and Joe Bill married and moved to Monaco.  Next door to the south of Bartlings lived the Martins.  They owned a furniture and music store and built their house after we moved there.  It is a flat-roofed stone structure.  Charles Martin III was their son, and was Joe Bill’s age.  Next to the Martins lived Dr. Chapman.  His son, John, was already grown when we were young.  To the north lived two sisters, Mrs. Coon and Mrs. Boatner.  Both of them lost their husbands during my childhood.  They were dedicated and highly successful flower-growers, and except for the times when Mrs. Coon simply didn’t feel well, I remember them as being very friendly neighbors.  To the north of them lived the Dustmans.  He was a music teacher, and they had three children.  The middle one, Lane, was my sister’s age, and they had a young brother names Tony who was probably the youngest on the block.  Two doors north and on the corner lived the Mattox family, and their daughter Priscilla was sometimes involved with our gang activities (I use “gang” in a positive sense of group, and not with the negative connotations of today).  Across the street from the Mattox house lived George Fellows whose father owned a hardware store that he apparently took over when he grew up.  George was much fun and involved in most of our many and varied activities including my movies.  Down the block, moving south, lived Jane McVey who was there only in the summers and lived in Baltimore (a name that didn’t mean much then except that it was far away).  On down the block was Ann Wilson whose house was always open to the neighborhood group, and next to her was Don Hall, his sister Linda, and his older brother Norman.  Don and Ann fell in love during the time of our youth and later married.  I can remember a Charles Bollman who lived in the Hall house before Don moved in.

(Papa Bear)

I cannot close a discussion of our neighborhood without mentioning Papa Bear.  You see, he was actually a concrete structure about three feet tall and six feet long with a top that extended out over the sides like a table.  It actually marked an underground stream or something like that.  I suppose it was erected to show anyone who would dig in the area that this underground canal existed.  I remember that at that point the streetcar tracks were still in the street, so I assume when they were removed this concrete marker told workers not to dig there.  The streetcars were discontinued the same year that I was born, so I never saw them run.  I was always fascinated with them, still am.  The number 3 line ran from Doling Park down Pickwick Street and ended in front of my grandparents’ house.  Anyway, when I was very little I would go down to this concrete structure and meet with a mythical “papa bear,” so the concrete thing came to be called by the name of my mythical character.  My parents tell me about this, because I can’t remember.  Evidently when I was bad, I would go have a talk with papa bear.  Once when I misbehaved, I even used him as an excuse.  My mother said that I told her that papa bear made me do it.  In time papa bear dissolved from a small child’s imaginative world into the starker world of grown-up reality.  But the concrete abutment still stands, minus one corner of the overhanging top which I took off with a hammer once when I was in an ornery mood.  I did many other such things that perhaps are better off not chronicled.

The War Years

World War II broke out the year before we moved to Pickwick Street, and America’s involvement began the year after the move.  I remember that my dad was out hunting when the news of Pearl Harbor’s bombing came.  He surrendered his gun to the government and never owned another one.  I recall my grandmother Lawrence visiting with us at the time and the big, black, ugly headlines in the paper.  My dad was a block warden, and during the black-out drills, I would walk with him as we inspected to see that all the lights were turned out except for one light in the front window of a doctor’s house.  I recall my parents’ talking to each other about how long they thought the war would last.  Whereas I had pre-war metal toys, my sister had to settle for plastic ones.  I also remember the ration stamps.  We could buy only the necessary amount of gasoline, shoes, sugar, and many other items.  Once the stamps allotted to us were used up, we could buy no more of the item.  I asked my mother if I could have the stamps once the war was over.  I wish now I had kept some of them.  During the time I was in the second grade, the war was at its worst we kids often made threatening sounds of bombs falling and then cringed when a real plane flew over thinking it might indeed drop the real thing on us.  We were young enough that the seriousness of what was happening didn’t really come home to us.  However, there was the morning when we saw our next door neighbor, Mr. Bartling, pacing his driveway, and we found out that his son had been killed in action.

Beyond Pickwick Street

Not all my time was spent on Pickwick Street.  I would often catch the bus and ride downtown to get a haircut at the barber shop in the Lander’s Theater building or drop by the bank and ask Daddy for some money so that I could walk to the public square and visit the “dime stores” to pick up some play things.  Conditions were so safe that a small boy could travel over town, exploring every nook and cranny, either by bus and walking or by bicycle.  Bicycling was usually in the company of a friend who lived a few blocks away, Gregory Stone.  We even found the ruins of the old Springfield Country Club which had burned down.  Once we had our two wheels, Springfield was ours for the exploring, and explore we did.

Death

It was a safe universe in which to grow up.  It was much fun and joy.  It was always exciting, always something new and different to do, but never at any time boring.  But even the best world in which a child can grow up cannot shield him from the sorrows of life.  It was not until I was eleven that I confronted death.  My great-grandmother died when I was two, but that did not affect me that much at that age.  However, when I was eleven, my best friend, Dickie Johnson, was killed in a hunting accident when his father accidently shot him.  My grandmother informed me one morning when I got up and came down for breakfast after spending the night at her house.  I was asked to be an honorary pall bearer.  It was a strange phenomenon for me.  But even more painful was the event that came five years later when my grandmother died suddenly on the day after Christmas.  We were very close, and the memory of that sad day will last as long as I do.

Conclusion

The point of my writing these remembrances of my childhood is to make a point about how children can be happy without parents’ feeling that they have to keep them entertained with expensive toys, amusements, sports programs, or other diversions.  We found our own diversions.  Apart from occasional trips to north Texas to see my father’s family who lived there and a short trip to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, we didn’t take many trips.  I was eighteen when we took our first long trip, and that was to New Orleans.  It was a safe world, a friendly neighborhood that was in a way self-sufficient and autonomous.  I am pleased to hear that it is still a safe and pleasant neighborhood, but for a while in the 40’s and 50’s it was my world.