What do you remember?

[kyresearcher]

I only have a few memories from age 5, well it's been so long since I was that age. My family lived on a farm and Dad had built a wooden sled that he used to get from one barn to another. We had 3 barns, and instead of walking he would hitch the horse to it and he would stand on it with reigns in his hands, while I would sit on the back of sled. I remember when he walked I would follow him and try to step in his exact tracks. He took us to a church play at Christmas in the road wagon (we didn't have a car) We were all covered up with quilts and it was snowing real hard.
I would wait in my front yard for my Aunt to pick me up on Sunday morning for Sunday school.
Mom was sick all of my life, very poor health.
Dad worked in Louisville, Ky during the week and came home to the farm on weekends. He stayed with his sister, I remember going with him and staying for a week.
An adoptee whom I been received an email from brought back another memory that I had forgotten. She wrote "I and others were riding in a VW bus and the parakeet got loose and flew all around and flew out the window. I was devistated." This caused me to remember the parakeet my Aunt had when I visited with her that week. It hated me and would fly around me but once it perched on my shoulder and reached over and took a bite out of my lip. I am so glad she shared that with me as it brought back that memory.
I was asked to be in a school play and recite a poem before I ever entered school. All this happened at age 5 or before.

 

[itsreenw]

Hmmm...I remember going to kindergarten in Okinawa when my dad was stationed there. My favorite shirt had pastel squares on it and tied in the front. I remember the wooden cars that fit together like a puzzle and I remember my mom waiting for me at the bus stop. I remember coming to the states and starting in my new kindergarten class. My teacher was Ms. Latham. She wore too much lipstick and her perfume stank. But I was her favorite.

I also recall the morning that I was walking the 3 blocks to school. There were lots of kids walking alone back then. A man in a sky blue hatchback car like a Mach I, drove up and ask if I wanted a ride. He was of hispanic descent and had on a plaid shirt. I will never forget that. Ever. I ran across the street and knocked on the door of the 1st house. The man drove off laughing.

If Anna is still alive, she would remember being snatched away from her own yard and her kitty. She may not know if the memories are real but I bet she remembers.

 

[GraceBlue]

I remember a lot. I remember when I was 3, I was in the hospital for 9 weeks with meningitis. I also remember being pushed in a wheelchair and wheeling myself in the hallways of the hospital. I lost all of my hearing to meningitis so I am profoundly deaf, I remember the sound of a piano and that is the only 'sound' I remember hearing. I remember certain books and toys I had. I remember going up to my grandparents cabin and swimming in the lake with my cousins. I remember the very first day of speech therapy, I screamed my head off when my mom left the room. I remember the speech teacher's musky breath and how she gave me a Pepperidge farm gingerbread boy after every speech class. I remember my mom telling me she was having a baby and telling my mom she was having a girl, not a boy and my mom replying by saying it could be a boy but I refused to listen to her. I remember my sister being born, visiting my mom in the hospital. I remember the look on my mom and my grandmothers faces when they recieved a phone call from a friend of my aunt telling them her 2 year old son had drowned. I remember my grandfather who died when I was 4 1/2, I remember all the flowers in his room and there was a small smurf stuffed animal in one of the bouquets, he gave it to me before he died. I remember moving from one house to another and my mom asking me which room I wanted (in the new house.)
I remember a lot more things but its just too much to type!

 

[michelle]

I remember when my mom had my brother, I was 3 1/2. I can still to this day picture everything in my head, me and my dad waiting for her then seeing her with the baby ect....Its one of my favorite memories. I also have earlier memories but I dont know if they are real or not. Its one of them things where I was with my grandparents but now they have died and I cant ask them, some things will just come to mind and I dont know if its all real or not. But the birth of my brother, my dad and I laugh about that because he cant believe that I remember that.

 

[kshamgochian]

Somehow I came across your posting about memories of being five and I have several memories that I would like to share. Anna and I got to wear crowns on our birthday that our teacher gave us and we sat at each end of the small cafeteria style tables while everyone sang happy birthday to us. I remember Anna's clothes. I loved one outfit that she use to wear, it was a dress that was floral printed and had elastic around the neck and wrists (I hated anything around my neck and wrists) and she wore white tights and cowboy boots. I LOVED THOSE COWBOY BOOTS! I insisted that my mom get me some and I remember kicking a boy, Paul Koprack, with them because he was bugging me and Anna on the playground. I specifically remember that our teacher Ruth Rafello sat us down on the carpet while she sat in a chair and told us that Anna had disappeared and was missing - not drowned, not dead, missing. I remember thinking of her running through trees in a dark forest and being lost. If I close my eyes, I can see the piano on the right side of Ruth, the chalk board behind her and thinking that I didn't know what disappeared meant. I remember Anna's laugh, it was infectious. I remember Anna, I remember her.

Kelly

 

[michelle]

I specifically remember that our teacher Ruth Rafello sat us down on the carpet while she sat in a chair and told us that Anna had disappeared and was missing - not drowned, not dead, missing. I remember thinking of her running through trees in a dark forest and being lost. If I close my eyes, I can see the piano on the right side of Ruth, the chalk board behind her and thinking that I didn't know what disappeared meant. I remember Anna's laugh, it was infectious. I remember Anna, I remember her.

Kelly

So sad.....

 

[Annasmom]

Somehow I came across your posting about memories of being five and I have several memories that I would like to share. Anna and I got to wear crowns on our birthday that our teacher gave us and we sat at each end of the small cafeteria style tables while everyone sang happy birthday to us. I remember Anna's clothes. I loved one outfit that she use to wear, it was a dress that was floral printed and had elastic around the neck and wrists (I hated anything around my neck and wrists) and she wore white tights and cowboy boots. I LOVED THOSE COWBOY BOOTS! I insisted that my mom get me some and I remember kicking a boy, Paul Koprack, with them because he was bugging me and Anna on the playground. I specifically remember that our teacher Ruth Rafello sat us down on the carpet while she sat in a chair and told us that Anna had disappeared and was missing - not drowned, not dead, missing. I remember thinking of her running through trees in a dark forest and being lost. If I close my eyes, I can see the piano on the right side of Ruth, the chalk board behind her and thinking that I didn't know what disappeared meant. I remember Anna's laugh, it was infectious. I remember Anna, I remember her.

Kelly

Today is Kelly's birthday, too! What a dear, funny scene you described. Ruth told me that the kindergarten class was terribly upset that day and said "but how will she grow up? We want to grow up!" Ruth said that Anna would either grow up here, or in heaven.

 

[Dr. Doogie]

Today is Kelly's birthday, too!

Of course, how could I have not made that connection!?!? :doh:
Happy birthday, Kelly! :HappyBday

 

[GraceBlue]

Happy Birthday Kelly! :HappyBday

Thank you for sharing your stories of you and Anna. Thats too funny about kicking a boy!

 

[Mr. E]

Wow, everybody has such vivid memories of their early childhoods. I remember very little. Maybe it is because we moved around so much when I was a kid. Maybe there's just no context for my memories? My memories come in flashes, like photographs.

I remember that we had to lay on mats to take naps in kindergarten. Whoever was quietest during naptime got a fairy wand from the teacher. Then you got to wake up your friends by tapping them with the wand.

I remember walking to the city pool by myself. It was about a block away, and I had my very own laminated pool pass.

I remember my cousin crying when I got a doll that looked like me for my birthday. He followed me when I took the doll outside with me, crying that it wasn't fair that I got a doll and not him.

I remember going to bed once, walking down the hall, and seeing the silhouette of a man in a hat through the hall window. I got scared and cried, and my parents got upset and said I had imagined it or was making it up to stay up longer. I was terrified that there was a man outside our house.

I remember my sister throwing up and thinking it looked like a brown, chunky waterfall.

Weird the things your brain holds onto, huh?

 

[Joe Ford]

When I was a wee lad in St. John’s Orphanage, Philadelphia, many years ago (circa 1952), all of us knicker-clad ragamuffins were issued handkerchiefs by the kindly Nuns whose charges we were.The idea, I suppose, was to reduce all those unsightly shiny sleeves we all sported throughout the winter.

For us kids, however, they were mere scraps of cloth that one stuffed in the back pocket of our breeches to keep our bums warm until they were to be turned-in the following week. And woe-be the scruff who failed to produce the said "hankie". The swift descent of an oak radiator brush to the palm of one’s hand was the dreaded reward for failure to present that precious cloth.

Needless to say, the hours before this event there was much scurrying and wringing of hands by those of us that had misplaced or even totally forgotten we were issued the damnable things. Ever the sly little bugger, I had kept mine folded (and unused, naturally) under my pillow all week.

You can imagine my horror as my hand came from under my pillow…empty. Some unscrupulous scoundrel, more clever than I, had made off with the prize.

As we shuffled forward in line to present our unwanted, and in some cases, disgustingly overused hankies I could make out an unsmiling Sister Francis standing sternly aside the growing pile of mostly white cloths as though she were building a great white pyramid to heaven. (I shudder to this day at the memory.)

Desperate times demand desperate measures. Since this was a Catholic institution we had all been dutifully immersed in catechism and the litany of Saints. (A great group of mostly bearded, holy guys that could, and sometimes would, intercede for you when times got tough.)

If I was to have any hope of avoiding punishment for my crime of carelessness it was time to talk to St. Anthony. The saints all had a specialty, you see, and his was finding things that were lost (or in some cases, pilfered.) There was even a little ditty we learned to summon his presence:

Dear Saint Anthony

Please come around.

Something is lost

And must be found.

I repeated this mantra with ever increasing desperation as the line moved agonizingly forward toward my doom. It did not help to have seen two other hankieless miscreants, howling, with tear soaked faces rushing towards the bathroom to cool their hands under a cold water tap.

As the final buffer-boy vanished in front of me, I stood alone in front of a looming Sister Francis, her pile of beckoning white hankies and twitching radiator brush was all that I could see. Where was Saint Anthony? My heart sunk. My knees pounded. My mind raced.

As the practiced swing of that oaken rod arced toward my trembling palms I realized my mistake. I should have been beseeching the patron saint of "Mercy." St. Anthony must have been busy elsewhere…or on sabbatical.

In the years since then I have asked him for a few favors…sometimes granted, sometimes not. If any of you can get his attention, now would be a good time for him to make an appearance.

 

[SherlockJr]

Joe, that was a well written story! You brought back memories I have of the Catholic nuns in grade school.

The prayer of St. Anthony is powerful. Another candle has been lit for Anna.

 

[SherlockJr]

Does anyone in the family know or remember if Anna knew her date of birth at the time she went missing?

 

[Annasmom]

Does anyone in the family know or remember if Anna knew her date of birth at the time she went missing?

I don't believe she did. She would have known that she was five, but I'm not sure she even knew when her birthday was. She was a pretty here-and-now person.

 

[Annasmom]

On December 7, 1941, my mother and a teenaged relative who was living with us in Leitchfield, Kentucky, were listening to the radio, one of those old-fashioned tall radios with a curved top. I remember my mother saying "This means war." It was Pearl Harbor day, and I was five and a half years old, the exact age Anna was when she went missing.

 

[SherlockJr]

On December 7, 1941, my mother and a teenaged relative who was living with us in Leitchfield, Kentucky, were listening to the radio, one of those old-fashioned tall radios with a curved top. I remember my mother saying "This means war." It was Pearl Harbor day, and I was five and a half years old, the exact age Anna was when she went missing.

Annasmom, can you remember this article?

Oak Ridger Wins TPA Scholarship
KNOXVILLE (AP)- The Tennessee Press Association announced today two more winners of scholarship awards to high school graduates planning to follow newpaper work as a career.
They are Michaele Benedict of Oak Ridge, for East Tennessee, and David Philpo of McEwen for Middle Tennessee. The West Tennessee winner, Eleanor Jeter was announced last month.
The scholarships are worth $650 each and the three winners plan to enroll at the University of Tennessee next fall.

 

[Annasmom]

Annasmom, can you remember this article?

Oak Ridger Wins TPA Scholarship
KNOXVILLE (AP)- The Tennessee Press Association announced today two more winners of scholarship awards to high school graduates planning to follow newpaper work as a career.
They are Michaele Benedict of Oak Ridge, for East Tennessee, and David Philpo of McEwen for Middle Tennessee. The West Tennessee winner, Eleanor Jeter was announced last month.
The scholarships are worth $650 each and the three winners plan to enroll at the University of Tennessee next fall.

Imagine your finding this story--it must be from 1953! The amazing thing is that in those days $650 paid full tuition for a year and still left money for books and meals! One of the things the San Mateo Sheriff's officers asked me in the interview Tuesday was whether there had been television and newspaper coverage when Anna disappeared. I remember a friend who had come to stay with us asking if I would speak to a television crew which had come out to the farm, and I said I couldn't...so I really have no idea what was on television that night or following (we could barely get TV anyway.) I have the stories which were in the local paper, but never knew whether other papers picked up the story.

 

[Cubby]

I'm not sure I can relate this to age, but will do my best for "5". I've read by age 10 most childhood memories earlier than 3 disappear.

KG-. My teachers maiden name and that she married during the school year. Her married name started with K. The ABC circle which was part of the tiled floor. One color in the circle, a sierra brown. The friend I walked to school with.

My grandfathers second wife who he was only married to for a year.

My great grandmother, who we called "tickle grandma" because she spoke no english and tickled us all the time.

Visiting a family friend in my favorite pink dress and someone making fun of it, but no recollection of a name or face. They were tenants at the time.

Maybe TMI - trying to help potty train my younger sister by sitting on the back of the toilet seat and having her sit in front of me. I remember yelling mom come look at us....

Much younger than 5. Squeezing between my parents for a hug when dad came home from work, in front of the stove while mom was cooking dinner. I wasn't much taller than waist heigh.

Preschool- Stepping into our neighbors VW bus ( red and white ) to go to preschool. She was my preschool teacher and my mother watched he rson during the day. He called my mom Auntie Mommy and we had a nickname for him.

My dads old 63 Chevy, and getting my tongue stuck on the car window just after we pulled into the garage. Not sure when he traded in for the paneled station wagon.

How I got a scar on my knee..... falling on some funky green and red tiles near front of the door.

Old furniture throughout the house.

My baby mobile. Don't ask how, I recall pictures, and I recall seeing it. My son too asked about his mobile almost 2 years after he was out of his crib. He described it "going round and round".

An old Cubs/Bears reversable jacket that I wish my folks would have saved. Cuddly Duddly, old local tv shows.

The light fixture that hung from my window when I looked out the window waiting for santa.

My great Aunt's Christmas parties. 3 square windows on the front door of an old bungalow and kids piling up fighting for a spot to look for Santa. My hair being curled in bobby pins or pink cushion rollers.

Some old tv. I recall mom and I fighting over watching Bozo Circus or Days of our lives. They both came on at noon.



hth-

 

[RobinH]

I too remember many things from when I was younger, in fact, as far back as 3 years old. But now I need to ask myself "Why" I have these memories, and the answer is simple. I had a lifetime of pictures that were shared throughout my life that hold all these memories. I have a family that shares all of these memories also. I have wonderful parents who continued to talk about things that I did that made them proud, and that is how I believe I was able to retain these memories. What if I had lost my family and all of the photos at a very early age? What if all of a sudden I was with a new family who did not share any of my memories, and in fact told me that my memories were lies? What would I remember then? My guess is, I would stop talking about those memories and find a way to make new ones, eventually pushing all of those early memories to a place in my mind where no one knew they were there, and eventually even forget them. Survival is a hard thing for adults, let alone a child.

 

[iNTERESTEDWOMAN]

That's right RobinH...excellent point. Many peoples memories are because of the countless pictures, and the retelling of stories over the years. If a person was taken from a loving home and not allowed to talk about their past, I'm sure many (if not most)memories would be lost.


I have a great long term memory, I could write a book about things that happened between age 4 & 5, though my older sister can't remember anything. (Unless there is a picture of it) When we get together to talk about old times, she can remember about 1/10th of what I can. (Tough she can remember every boy she ever had a crush on! LOL)