Growing Up

My mother was very anxious that her daughters should have all the ‘advantages”. These advantages consisted of having lessons. Over the years I had all sorts of lessons. The earliest that I remember were speech lessons. I don’t know if I had some sort of speech difficulty that needed to be corrected, or if the lessons were chosen for some other reason. I was either in kindergarten or first grade at the time, for I know that I had not yet learned to read. My only real memory of these lessons is of standing on a stage and reciting a poem entitled Buttons, Buttons. The memory is not so much of the poem, but of the costume that I wore. Mother made the costume for me. It consisted of a white, peasant type blouse and a green jumper. The blouse had embroidery on the sleeves and the bodice of the jumper laced together in the front around two rows of buttons. On the skirt there were rows of buttons and the same lacing was used to make a zigzag design all around the lower edge above the hem. The outfit hung in my mother’s closet for years after my performance, and I often wore it to play dress-up until, I suppose, I grew too big to be able to fit into it any more. I loved wearing that costume, which is probably the reason I can so well remember the reason for its existence.

Twenty years later, when I was teaching first grade at Esperance Elementary school in Edmonds, I was flabbergasted when one of my students came to class wearing that costume. It was at Halloween, when the children came to school wearing their holiday costumes. It had to be the same dress, as I’m sure it was one of it’s kind. The child did not know where her mother had got the costume for her, but she liked it just as much as I had. When I got home from school that evening, a telephone call to my mother was my first priority. She could not remember the specifics of giving away the garment, but said that when she was teaching at Warren Avenue School, she gave many of our old costumes to the PTA there. The mothers would hold a sale of such items each year to benefit the school. I hope that many little girls had the fun of wearing that wonderful dress.

Following next were dance lessons. Verla Flowers had a studio in the basement of her parent’s home, only a few blocks away from us, and I was duly enrolled to study with her. Verla had danced professionally in New York, but either age or hard times had brought her back to Seattle. She seemed very young and glamorous to me, with her hair all piled up on top of her head. I studied both tap and ballet with her, and mother again made the costumes for our recitals. I remember seeing posters for one of her later recitals at a theater in the University district, but I had long since stopped being her student. I think she became quite well known as a teacher of dance, as I once saw a lengthy article written about her in the Seattle Times. Then, just a few years ago, a friend told me that she was well known as the teacher of Mark Morris, the well-known dancer and choreographer.

Mother enrolled Mary Lou and me at the Cornish School up in the Broadway district to take music lessons. I took rhythm lessons, which consisted of moving around to music, and semi-private piano lessons, where I shared the teacher’s time with a little boy. He was a much better student than I. Mary Lou must have been taking other lessons at the same time. We went to classes on the bus, and the trip required a transfer in the Fremont area. We took the streetcar, which ran down the middle of Third Avenue in front of our house, and at Fremont, we caught the bus up to Broadway. The streetcar ran on tracks laid into the street. It had wooden seats, and I loved to ride on it. The tracks remained in the street long after the streetcar stopped running. On the way home we reversed the trip. The bus stop on Broadway was in front of a shop that had fascinating things for sale from other countries. I loved to stand there while we waited, and look in the windows. The Cornish School building is still standing, albeit with many renovations and additions, very close to where my sister, Mary Lou lives today. I don’t think we took classes there for very long. I remember Mother saying we had to quit because it was too expensive.

She soon arranged for us to have piano lessons from Mr. Greener. Mr. Greener was the organist for a large church in the University district. We went there at least once to hear him give a concert. He taught children to play the piano during the week, walking from house to house to give his lessons. I was his student first, and when Mary Lou got old enough, she took lessons, too. We had to practice an hour every day, half and hour in the morning and half and hour after school. At first Mother made me practice for the whole hour at one time, but she had learned better by the time Mary Lou started lessons. The piano stood in the playroom, and I spent many hours sitting at the piano stool and practicing. Mother was tone deaf, so she only knew that the piano was being played, but not if we were doing a good job. Once, I remember memorizing a piece from Cavalleria Rusticana. Once I could play it by heart, I put a book in front of the music and read. I read most of the Anne of Green Gables series while playing that song. Every time I hear it, even now, I associate it with those books. I don’t think Mother ever knew.

I think I studied with Mr. Greener for six years. He may have told her that she was wasting her money after that, or perhaps, he quit teaching, or I may have been unwilling to continue. When I got married, Mr. Greener played the organ at our church for the ceremony. I think there might have been a problem about it with the regular church organist, but Mother prevailed, as she usually did. Mr. Greener liked to play at the weddings of his former students. I remember hearing him talk about it when I was his student.

While I was still taking piano lessons, I also started taking cello lessons. Mary Lou had better pitch than I had, so she got to take the violin instead. My first lessons may have been at school, as I certainly remember playing in the grade school orchestra. I also took private lessons. Our next-door neighbor played the cello for the Seattle Philharmonic Orchestra, and she was my teacher for quite a long time. I must have been a teenager at the time, as I remember baby-sitting for her sometimes, as well.

I hated carrying that big, awkward cello around. Mary Lou and I both played in a summer youth orchestra that rehearsed at the Greenlake Fieldhouse. We had to take two busses to get there, and I had to lug the cello every time. It also had to go back and forth to school with me. Once, I forgot to put the bottom post back in after school, and broke it off on the sidewalk, carrying the instrument home. I think I was trying to ride my bicycle and carry the cello at the same time. I continued to play the cello through my Jr. year in high school. My mother bribed me with a cashmere sweater if I would stick with it through the Spring Concert that year. There were only two cellists in the high school orchestra, and I believe I was quite a bit better than the other girl. I think the music teacher enlisted Mother’s help to keep me playing until after the concert.

Mother let me sell the cello the summer before I started college, I got $35.00 for it at Sherman and Clay in downtown Seattle. They insisted that I bring a letter with my parent’s permission to sell, before they would give me the money. I remember going that same day to buy myself a cashmere sweater set at Littler. Even then, $35.00 would not have paid for the complete set, so I must have had other money to pay the balance. The sweaters were avocado green, and I enjoyed wearing them for many years.

I don’t believe I ever showed much talent for any of these lessons. I’m certainly not sorry that I learned to read music and to play. But it is not something I ever continued into my adult years. The cost of giving us all those advantages must have been considerable, and we were not a family with a lot of extra money to spend. I think it must have been very important to my mother that we had the chance to learn these skills.

What I really liked to do was to read and to do needlework. We always had books at home, but mostly we went to the Public Library. The Greenwood branch of the Seattle Public library was on Greenwood Avenue, about ten blocks from our home. It was on the other side of Greenwood, so I had to cross a very busy street to get there. I went at least once a week; first with Mother, and later, with Mary Lou or by myself. I always had a stack of books to carry. We were only allowed to check out books appropriate to our age, so when I grew older, Mother had to write a note to the librarian giving me permission to check out books from the adult section. I always felt that the librarians were very stern and formidable, but I certainly felt very much at home in the library. Mother always walked up 67th St. to Phinney, and then up to the library, but I liked to vary my route by walking up Third Avenue for several blocks and then up to Greenwood. The hill wasn’t quite so steep that way, and for some reason it seemed like more of an adventure to go the less familiar way.

Mother taught me to sew when I was quite young. My cousin Margaret lived with us for about a year, right after her mother’s death. She was about twelve then, so I would have been eight. That summer we made matching sundresses. Margaret and I both remember making those dresses. Mary Lou had one too, but Mother made hers. The fabric was a multicolored stripe, and the collar of the dress was square with mitered corners. The stripes had to be matched at the miter, and we both remember having to rip out that seam and sew it over, until we got the match perfect.

I’m sure that my mother made all of our clothes when we were young, and as soon as I could sew well enough, I made my own. I loved to sew. I’m sure that some of my initial efforts must have been iffy at best, but I never noticed, and never minded making my clothing. By the time I got to high school, I was a proficient seamstress. I think I had beautiful things, and was certainly better dressed than many of my friends. Mother taught my friend Laura to sew, too. She and I both put in a hem in exactly the same way; one that was considered upside down by my college clothing instructors.

Mother taught me to embroider and to crochet, but it was Mrs. Mac who taught me how to knit. She knit German style, or pick knitting. All my friends seemed to knit the English way, where you throw the thread. Pick knitting is faster, but probably does not make such an even stitch. I became an expert at knitting argyle socks, which were all the rage when I was in high school. My boy friend, Jerry, was the recipient of most of these efforts. I’m not sure if he really liked all those socks, but he did wear them.

Mary Lou and I also had to learn how to darn. Our socks were always getting holes in the toes and heels. Those darned socks always seemed lumpy to me, and never very comfortable to wear. Mother wore lisle hose for everyday, and those had to be darned, too. She had an Indian woven basket that was her darning basket. We would often sit in the evening, listening to the radio shows, and darning our hose. Nylon stockings were available before the start of the War, but I don’t remember that we had any at our house until it was over. Nylon did not wear out as quickly as lisle or silk, and women thought they were wonderful. Finally, socks began to be reinforced that the heels with nylon or some other, stronger fiber, and after that we didn’t have to darn stockings anymore.