The Surprise of My Life: An Autobiography

By Claire Drainie Taylor

“It’s an autobiography! If I tell you what’s in it you won’t read the book.” — Claire Drainie Taylor

Or would you? Maybe you’d be intrigued by the progression of a life begun as an unexceptional little girl born to a middle-class Jewish Canadian couple in a small prairie town who, at age sixteen, married a refined Englishman, and survived the Great Depression, partly alone in a shack in the woods of Vancouver Island. Or how, only a few months after returning to Vancouver, with no training and minimal education, this same young woman walked on stage at one of Canada’s finest old theatres, and went on to a successful thirty-year career as an actress and radio dialogue writer.

Having been compelled by her family to write her memoir, it wasn’t until she’d finished and reread her manuscript that Claire Drainie Taylor realized what an extraordinary life she’d led. Her descriptions of the many fascinating incidents that make up her story, and how she dealt with them, revealed herself to herself in a way that illuminates what she calls “The Surprise of My Life.”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier University Press
• Release date: Oct 30, 2010
• ISBN: 9781554586721

Claire Drainie Taylor

Claire Drainie Taylor, who died at the age of 92, worked as a free-lance radio and television actress from 1939 through 1970. She collaborated with her second husband, John Drainie, on radio dramas, supplying his narrative with dialogue. She is a Life Member of the Association of Canadian Television and Radio Artists.

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Life Writing Series / 5

Life Writing Series

In the Life Writing Series, Wilfrid Laurier University Press publishes life writing and new life-writing criticism in order to promote autobiographical accounts, diaries, letters and testimonials written and/or told by women and men whose political, literary or philosophical purposes are central to their lives. Life Writing features the accounts of ordinary people, written in English, or translated into English from French or the languages of the First Nations or from any of the languages of immigration to Canada. Life Writing will also publish original theoretical investigations about life writing, as long as they are not limited to one author or text.

Priority is given to manuscripts that provide access to those voices that have not traditionally had access to the publication process.

Manuscripts of social, cultural and historical interest that are considered for the series, but are not published, are maintained in the Life Writing Archive of Wilfrid Laurier University Library.

Series Editor

Marlene Kadar

Humanities Division, York University

The Surprise of

My Life

An Autobiography

CLAIRE DRAINIE TAYLOR

with a Foreword by Marlene Kadar

Wilfrid Laurier University Press

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program.

We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program for our publishing activities.

Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data

Taylor, Claire Drainie, 1917-

The surprise of my life : an autobiography

(Life writing; v. 5)

ISBN 0-88920-302-4

1. Taylor, Claire Drainie, 1917- . 2. Actresses -Canada - Biography. 3. Radio writers - Canada -Biography. I. Title. II. Series.

PN2308.T39A3 1998 791'.092 C98-930839-1

Copyright © 1998

WILFRID LAURIER UNIVERSITY PRESS

Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 3C5

Cover design by Leslie Macredie

Printed in Canada

All rights reserved. No part of this work covered by the copyrights hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means— graphic, electronic, or mechanical—without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any request for photocopying, recording, taping or reproducing in information storage and retrieval systems of any part of this book shall be directed in writing to the Canadian Reprography Collective, 214 King Street West, Suite 312, Toronto, Ontario M5H 3S6.

For my very dear children

who encouraged me to keep writing and for

my cherished grandchildren

Emily Pastor (In memory)

Angela Pastor

Michael Pastor

Gabriel Martin

Samuel Martin

Lauren Drainie

Alison Drainie

Alexandria Drainie Taylor

and their children

and

their children

and

their children

and

their children

and

their children

and

their children

and

their children

and

their children

etc.

Contents

Foreword by Marlene Kadar

Acknowledgements

Author's Note

The Beginning

Swift Current

And All the Other Places

Vancouver—First Marriage

Rock Bay

John Drainie Makes an Entrance

Life with John

And the Children Came . . . and Came . . . and Came . . .

Interlude

The Final Stretch

Foreword

by Marlene Kadar

Claire Drainie Taylor's memoir, The Surprise of My Life: An Autobiography, is a moving, intelligent and often humorous account of a life lived to the fullest, a life reflected upon by a narrator whose honesty and sensitivity draws the reader into her story, a narrator whose memory for the details of her childhood, her childbearing years, her children's lives is remarkable. With her own busy career as a radio and television actor, she has remained a loving mother, wife and grandmother, devoted to the preservation of the family's legacy and the stories they have yet to tell. Although married now to the Canadian film entrepreneur Nat Taylor, The Surprise of My Life tells an earlier story, the story of her exciting life with John Drainie, the celebrated Canadian actor with whom she raised six children.

The memoir begins in Claire's childhood: born in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, of Jewish parents, Claire remembers the joy and chaos of life in her first family, a family which, though always living on the edge, and despite setbacks, managed to survive. She recalls that her first love, Jack Harrison Murray, with whom she eloped in 1934, was attracted to this warmth and wanted it for himself.

What is interesting about our narrator's perspective is that she addresses her children, all of her children and grandchildren, and does not spare them any of the details of her life because, for her, all the details are part of the story they must inherit. Claire Drainie Taylor is a truthful and disclosing narrator, unafraid to tell the whole story. She admits that the story is very personal and may actually reveal more than we need to know about Drainies, Wodlingers and Epsteins. But it is precisely Claire's attachment to the personal details of her life that sets this memoir apart: the details of love, in particular, run through the book like a silver thread, linking lovers, children and families, blending traditions as disparate as Russian and Lithuanian Jewish with the upright Anglicanism of the Drainie clan.

Claire Drainie Taylor remembers with exquisite emotion and courage the kinds of contracts she has made with her world and treats them with special respect. One of these contracts goes like this: every time John Drainie bought himself a new record album, he bought his wife a gift of flowers as a kind of peace offering. The flowers became code for the fact that Drainie bought himself a gift, and also for the more intricate fact that John Drainie's perfectionism could make him unhappy and difficult as a husband. Claire relates the story of the coded gift in a way that makes the reader understand its layers of meaning, but also in a way that illuminates both actors in this particular and riddling family play. Claire and John Drainie were equal in their passions, passions which, despite the affection between them, were not always resolved. It is the open-endedness about their love and passion that draws the reader to the narrator and her story, and makes that story the surprise that Claire Drainie Taylor acknowledges in the title. Without pretense, Claire Drainie Taylor tells us the story of what she initially perceives as an unexceptional life, but a life that, on reflection and to her surprise, illuminates an exceptional history, an uncommon career and a complicated love and family life.

Acknowledgements

Now let me see. Isn't this the space where the author is expected to pay tribute to those whose encouragement and support have kept the project alive and seen it N through to fruition? I think that's what I'm supposed to be doing here.

But honestly, except for my daughters Jocelyn and Kathryn who deserve special kudos for their practical assistance, wouldn't I be gilding the lily if I acknowledged the inspiration of the rest of my family and friends? After all, their contribution is self-evident throughout the text. How much more attention do they want?

Naturally, the lion's share of the credit (and blame) goes to me. Things happened. I remembered. I wrote them down.

On a more serious note, my genuine thanks go to Sandra Woolfrey and her capable staff at Wilfrid Laurier University Press, and to Marlene Kadar whose insightful Foreword almost encourages me to continue my search for other surprises.

Author's Note

I was taller than all my grandparents, said my mother, Rose Epstein Wodlinger, who was five feet tall in a stretch. That, and the brief, chilling incident that opens this narrative, plus the fact that they were all born in European countries— Russia, Germany, Lithuania for sure—and one, more exotic great-grandmother, in Sophia (whether under Turkish or Greek domination at the time is unclear), represents all I know about my ancestors. One other fact: Baba Rosen (see picture) and Zada Rosen (no picture, but I remember him from my childhood) both died in Winnipeg and were survived by six daughters and two sons. What happened in their lives from birth to death (aside from successful coupling!) I'll never know; there's no one left to tell me; no written record, nothing. Of the others, I know even less.

Not wanting you, my heirs, to be deprived of a past history, I've assembled this collection of family memories for your edification. It's all very personal and may tell you more than you care to know about Drainies and Wodlingers and Epsteins (if I've left anything dangling consult your parents)—but I've written truthfully, and with affection. I offer it to you as a gift—not with humility, but with pride: pride in your interest in reading it several generations removed—and pride in myself for making the effort to write and complete it: I never thought I would!

The Beginning

The place: a small farm a few kilometres outside a village in southern Russia. The year: around 1870. The doctor fills out the death certificate for Anne Rosen—three-year-old victim of the current plague. As he drives off in his horse-drawn buggy, he assures the bereaved young parents that Jewish tradition will be observed: he will send the deathwagon for the child's body in time to have her buried before sundown of the following day. He disappears in the falling snow which develops into a raging blizzard before he reaches the village. Three days pass before the hearse can make its way through the windswept snowdrifts to the farm. On the morning of the second day the child, Anne, wakens and asks for a drink of water.

Having escaped being buried alive, Anne recovered, grew to young girlhood and eventually, in the company of her parents, five sisters and two brothers, emigrated to Canada, where the family settled in and around Winnipeg, Manitoba, the refuge of choice for myriad European Jews fortunate enough to have escaped the pogroms and persecutions of that continent. Being dainty and attractive, it wasn't long before all six sisters were happily married and raising families of their own. Annie gave her heart to a small, gentle, red-haired Lithuanian Jew named William Epstein (Erbshstein before it was Anglicized!). Destined never to be rich, he did, however, give her three fine sons and two lovely daughters, and in time, a fairly comfortable life from the proceeds of a small general store he operated in Selkirk, a town near Winnipeg. Rose, their first-born, inherited her father's blue-green eyes and thick, red-gold hair and her mother's pert charm and daintiness. Add to that a bright mind, impeccable manners and a talent for music (she played the piano nicely and the violin beautifully) and the sum total was an extremely popular and much-sought-after young lady.

Simultaneously with Annie and Willie's arrival in the new land, three tall, handsome young brothers and one adored sister worked their way out of the Odessa area of Russia and into Canada, the brothers each doing a stint of laying railway ties for the C. E R. to earn his bread and board. Their name was Wodlinger, and eventually, they became established in farming and allied occupations and settled, too, in the Winnipeg area. Sam, the second brother, married a strong, cultured young woman named Faga Perlmutter, also from the Odessa area, and brought forth two daughters and four sons, all brown-eyed, bright and handsome.

Hyman, their eldest son, born in October of 1893, grew to be a good-looking young man, even featured, curly haired and tall. He was sensitive, loyal, hardworking, witty and possessed of a great appreciation of beauty. To wit: at the tender age of five, he saw the enchanting little auburn-haired Rose at a children's barn concert and impulsively crept up beside her and planted a kiss on her cheek. Legend has it that he loved her from that day on and vowed to make her his bride. Rose, being flirtatious and pretty, had many admirers and several serious suitors, but she loved Hy all those years, and at the age of twenty-one they were married—as he had predicted. Secretly, Rose's parents felt she could have done better financially, but the families were old friends and hadn't Hymie proven his steadfast qualities? Hadn't he been the sole support of his mother and five siblings during the three years Sam had spent in the Klondike trying to strike it rich? And hadn't some of his money, earned and saved between the ages of fourteen and seventeen, helped to pay for the substantial family home in whose garden Rose and Hymie were now being married? All things considered, it would be a good marriage.

Their honeymoon train to Vancouver stopped in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, at midnight. Hymie insisted his bride wait up to see the town where he'd amassed his teenage fortune, some three thousand dollars. Peering through the dark, torrential rain of a summer storm, Rose saw only the flat, lonely prairie unadorned by trees or foliage. Flashes of lightning silhouetted a few boxy buildings and two or three stark grain elevators. What a bleak, horrible place, she thought. Swift Current is the last place in the world I'd want to live. So it was with no great joy in her heart that she moved there a year later with her baby son Jimmie, to help Hymie establish a general store which he felt had a future. However, being young, attractive and flexible, they soon became immersed in the social, cultural?! and business life of Swift Current, a growing community striving to become an important wheat centre of the prairie.

Thus it was that their second child, a dimpled, golden-haired, blue-eyed, picture-book baby was born in Swift Current, Saskatchewan, on September 11, in the year 1917, in a little red-brick bungalow on Third Avenue East. Electing to be born backwards in a breach birth, she kicked her way out of her mother's womb instead of emerging headfirst in the accepted fashion of the day (and still very much in vogue years later). They named her Claire after Grandpa Sam's beloved young sister who had recently died in childbirth, and at six months of age had a blood birthmark removed from her forehead so nothing could mar her beauty. (Professing not to be superstitious, Rose was often to relate how Jimmy, her year-old son, had fallen during her pregnancy with Claire and cut himself on the forehead, and how, bleeding profusely, he had to have three stitches on the same spot as Claire's birthmark.) All of this was made known to me later, but being baby Claire, I still carry the scar of my three stitches—embedded now in an age line on my forehead. Embedded in my brain, I carry a network of images—pictures—all etched, strangely, against a Manitoba background. They are specific but extremely remote—so remote, in fact, that I can no longer think of the central character as myself . . . and they are isolated in time—a time which is irrevocably the present.

The child is lying in her grandma's feather bed. The room is in her grandfather's Canada Hotel in Selkirk. She is being put down for her afternoon nap by one of her teenaged aunts—either Gert or Esther. No one realizes she is hiding a lethal weapon in her chubby baby fist. After the green roller blinds are drawn and her aunt leaves the room, the child puts the big, old, Canadian copper in her mouth and begins to suck on it. It tastes bitter and strange but she continues to hold it in her mouth. She is almost asleep when she feels it slip down her throat. Panic stricken she begins to cry. Bewildered aunts and grandma try to find out why she is crying. What is it darling? Tell us what's the matter! they implore in vain. The child cries harder and harder. Is the child too young to tell? Is she enjoying the attention she is getting? No matter; she continues to cry.

The time: another time. The place: another bed. The child opens her eyes. The bed is very high and the room very bright. There are many ladies in the room. She knows they are her aunts and grandma but they are the other ones. They are happy and laughing—it seems because the child has opened her eyes. Many years later my mother told me what happened. For over two weeks I couldn't eat or drink. I was fading away, dying, in front of my grief-stricken family. The doctors were mystified until more intensive X-rays revealed the copper lodged in my windpipe. I was being slowly poisoned. My memory was of waking in the hospital after the copper was removed.

The child has just arrived at her zada's (grandfather's) hotel in Selkirk. She has been brought there by one of her daddy's sisters, Gert or Esther, she can't tell which. She is being fussed over by loving relatives. Can you sing a song for us, dear? Someone plays the piano in the only lit corner of a big room. The little girl sings An Old-Fashioned Girl in a Gingham Gown, a popular sheet music hit of 1922 or 1923. Having earned a vast number of hugs and kisses she is taken up a dark staircase and along a dark, narrow hall and is put to bed in one of the aunt's rooms: she can't be sure which.

She is going on an errand. She knows that's where she's going because someone said it and she likes the phrase and remembers it. The errand consists of taking an orange to Uncle Louie who is sick in bed; is daddy's young brother; is going to be a druggist. Up she goes alone, along the dark hall to Uncle Louie's cubicle. His brown eyes are very big and his face is pale. He has something wrapped around his neck. He peels the orange, placing the pieces neatly on the orange wrapper and eats it a section at a time. He folds the paper around the peeling, carefully tucking in the ends. Uncle Louie will be a very good druggist, she thinks.

Again it is dark in the big room of zada's hotel except for one corner lit by a green-shaded hanging bulb. It hangs low over a large, round table. The child's baba (grandmother) and her lady friends are seated around the table, miraculously cocooned inside the pool of light. They are wearing long dresses, smoking cigarettes in long silver holders and sipping hot tea in long slim glasses. The smoke curls up into the shade in ghostly writhings. Watching its mysterious dance, the child leans against her baba's knee and remains completely silent. She realizes that if she is very quiet, no one will notice her and she won't be put to bed. She can remain inside the magic circle unobserved. If her zada is in the room, he paces, hands clasped behind his back, eyes on the dark, softwood, oiled floor— down to one end—back to the other—outside the pool of light; back and forth, back and forth. Sometimes the little girl joins him. She, too, clasps her hands behind her back and keeps her gaze fixed on the floor. She is comfortable being beside him, pacing together in the dark, long room. She thinks zada is lonely because he walks by himself while the ladies drink tea and gossip. She tries to match her stride to his, but her small Buster Browns can't keep up with his heavy, square-toed, polished boots. She looks up at him in the gloom seeing his moustache and chin—upside down. Mostly, they both look at the floor—the dark, oiled floor.

The dress is royal blue velvet with a scalloped hemline: a butterfly, embroidered in gold thread, is suspended in flight on the lower left side. Claire looks a pitcher in it. Her aunts have said it several times so she thinks it must be all right. A boy of seven arrives to call for her—her first date arranged by a doting grandmother. He is taking her to a Jackie Coogan movie after dark!! The movie and the boy are long forgotten: her departure in the natural muskrat coat and the woolen toque pulled down to her eyes is not.

She has walked into the kitchen of the hotel. What have you been doing, Claire? says Aunt Esther (or Gert).

Talking to Baba in her room.

What's she doing up there?

Cutting her toenails.

The aunts fly past her. Mama mustn't do that—she has ingrown toenails! She'll make a mess of them!

Mother, Jim, David and Claire are at supper. Daddy is absent. Suddenly, her mother goes to the wall phone and cranks it. Dr. Stirret, I think it's time, she says. The children are urged to finish up quickly and get right to bed. Jimmy and Claire protest; David is angelic and too young to complain. If you go right to sleep like good children—Mommy will have a lovely baby sister for you when you wake up. It worked!! A darling baby sister named Dorothy was lying cradled in Mommy's arms next morning. Thus, Claire's first awareness of the miracle of birth. She is delighted and in no way jealous. She is also the queen bee, granting largesse to her drones: if playmates are very nice to her she rewards them with a peek at her baby sister; exceptional acts of friendship merit a viewing at nursing time. She is also the Havelock Ellis of the preschool set: All you have to do is go to sleep right after supper, Claire advises her envious friends.

Baba Wodlinger died, Claire's mother tells her with tears in her eyes. Later, in bed, she hears her parents talking.

She kept saying her hands and feet were so cold; she asked me to rub them, her father said, but I couldn't rub them enough to warm them—I guess her circulation was gone. (What was circulation and where had it gone?) I just kept rubbing them until she died, her daddy sobbed.

Don't, dear, it's best this way, her mother says.

Claire falls asleep, vaguely aware that something special has happened. The next morning she joins friends at a neighbour's house. My baba died, Claire announces proudly. I think you'd better go home, says the neighbour. She goes, for the first time in her life feeling a sense of shame. She knows she's done something wrong but she's not sure what it is. Her brother Jimmy explains died to her. It means Baba can't talk any more and she's in a hole in the ground. Claire doesn't believe him and begins to cry. Her mother finds her and straightens it all out. Her body's in the ground, but her soul is in Heaven. Baba's happy now. So is Claire.

Merry Christmas! Claire hears—whatever that means. Merry Christmas, Rose, Merry Christmas, Hy! people shout gaily to her mother and father. Same to you, Merry Christmas, Ruth, Merry Christmas, Fred! her parents call back. The family (including snugly wrapped baby Dorothy) has joined the happy throng of sleighers and tobogganers on the big Second Avenue hill. Claire's nose runs from the cold and she wipes it on her fur sleeve. The intense sparkle of sunshine on the vast stretch of snow waters her eyes, causing the colourful scene to blur and almost disappear. She blinks hard and it returns to focus. The hill is peppered with shiny sleighs and brightly clad riders. Claire is intoxicated by the colour and activity, and fascinated by the jets of steam escaping from everyone's mouth when they talk or laugh. She blows puffs of air and looks cross-eyed at her own steam. Isobel, a playmate, spots her in the crowd. Look what Santa brought me for Christmas! She shows Claire her shiny red sleigh. Can I have a ride? Claire asks. Turning the sled to the crest of the hill Isobel flops on it face down. You lie on top of me and hold on," she instructs. Claire's parents hesitate, then grant permission.

Daddy gives the sleigh a long push and they're off. Claire is breathless with fright but exhilarated by the smooth, swift ride to the bottom. Eagerly they climb back up. Can I do it myself? Can I steer? she begs Isobel. Her friend agrees, but takes Claire to the side of the hill where it's less crowded. Momentarily she's forgotten about her parents and they about her. She remembers them subliminally as the big tree looms in front of her just before she crashes into it head first. She sees disaster approaching but makes no effort to steer out of danger. She lets it happen. Fortunately, she's not seriously hurt but is returned to her astonished parents with her face badly cut and bleeding—her nose too, which terrifies her.

Later, in bed, sipping warm milk and honey (her mother's cure for everything!), Claire asks, Who is Santa?

He's a jolly old man who brings gifts to Christian children, her mother explains.

Why didn't he bring us any?

Because we're not Christian—we're Jewish . . . we gave you gifts at Chanuka, remember?

What is Chanuka?

Well it's a sort of Jewish Christmas, her mother informs her ineffectually. Claire tries her dad. What is Merry Christmas?

It's a greeting people use on Christ's birthday. We say it to our friends to be polite but we don't believe in Christ, we believe in God.

Alone in the dark, Claire tries out Merry God and even Merry Godmass but it didn't have the same satisfying ring.

That's it, my darlings. Those are all my distinct memories up to the age of six. I have a few other fleeting glimpses of things but no other complete pictures. Why don't you write yours for your grandchildren while they're still fresh in your minds?

About Little Claire: like most Canadian children and thanks to Central School in Swift Current—she suddenly became literate. So I'll let her describe the next few years in her own words.

Swift Current

September 1924

Dear Diary: You are my frist one. My frend Minny Davidner gave you to me for my brithday. I am 7. My name is Claire Pearl Wodlinger. My muthr is Rose and my fathr is Hymy and my big bruthr is Jim and my litle one is David and my babe sisstr is Dorthy and that's all. I go to Centrl Scool. I am in grade 2. My best things I licke are speling, riting and reeding and not verry much arthmutic. My best thing at reecess is the maypol for swinging and if I haf muny for jah-brakrs. The dog of the candy stor lady has one blou eye and one is broun. If my best frend has a penny she givs me a jah-brakr. Her name is Mary Elen Hays. She has a litle bruthr to and he is Davids best frend. His name is Billy. Grampa Hays is very cross in the gardn. MaryElen issnt afrade of him but I am. Goodby.

September 1924

Dear Diary: My mothr sais you shood tell everthing to yore diary even if it is bad, And also if you think something. The bad thing I did was I toled Minny I was gowing to haf a party and she came but I didnt haf one and she brout me this diary and I took it withowt a party. And she had on a party dress. My mothr was mad wen I toled her but Minnys mothr sed I could keep the diary becus it was a mistaik and I rote in it anyway. And anyway Minny isnt my best frend. But I haf to taike her to a moving pitchr of Harld Loiyd and isecreem next Saterday for beeing bad. My other best pressant is a book The Tale of Henriette Hen. My Unkle David gave it to me. I think I can reed most of it by myslef so it is my frist book. Yore suppost to rite all spechel things in a diary so if Im to bissy I dont haf to rite somthing. So some dais I wont. Mommy sais I can spell eny way I thinnk. Goodbye.

September 1924

Dear Diary: Dad got very mad at Jim today and a litl bit mad at me but David was to yung so Dad sed it wasnt his fawlt. What the trubble was we startd a fire on the grass on the mptee lot. Jim just wantd to start a litl fire but it went so fast in a big surcol and we got scard and ran for Dad. And he got the fire indjun becaus he culdnt stop it. The fireman sed the grass was so dry becaus no rain but Daddy spnked us for plaing with machs. My stumak aked becaus I was so scard and I fergot to pull my litl bruthr away from the fire. He ran away by hiself so I was lucky abowt that. I put this in here becaus it is speshel but I dont like it. I cant go to sleep becaus wen I close my eys I see the fire berning the grass and making it blak and are fense to. Jim and I wont play with machs any more in are liffe. Goodby.

October 1924

Dear Diary: If I think of speshuls from befor wen I didnt haf you can I put it in? Becaus my Daddy let me go to his stor and wasch him aftr scool and Saterdays. His store is for nales and cloth and kullard thred and strah hats and rubbr boots. And it has brumes and shuvels fly swatrs mowse traps candls pails and wurk overals and shurts and appels and flowr and a pile of othr stuff. I like to wasch him tye up the pakijes for peepl. The string corns down from on top but it starts at the cowntr and gose up frist. Som persons give Dad muny and som dont haf eny so Dad puts numbrs in a book. Somtims I see litl girls like me onlie they ware blak stokings and hie blak shoose. And hankkies on thare hedds and long skurts and sleevs even in sumer. And thare Mothrs to. Thare Fathrs have big blak hats and beerds. And the boys to but not eny beerds. They takk funy to my Fathr but he takks the same to them. Daddy sais it is Jermin. It is anothr langwich. They are calld Mennunnites. They haf horses and buggees and the childern sit on a shelf on the bak. And they dont fall of.

Goodby.

October 1924

Dear Diary: Daddy took Jim and me for a long wak all the way down CenrtI Avenu to the stashun. We wasched the trane com in. The injun is verry big and blak and a mownten of steam. It made so mutch noys I hided behind Daddy but he wusnt afrade. Nobody got of. Daddy sais nobudy gets of in Swift Current they just get on. But we saw a trane man in a uniform and he was kullerd brown but he takkd to Daddy the way we do. He was a negrow. Daddy sed negrows dont live in Swift Current but they are just the same as peepl but thare skin is darkr. We were gettin cold so he took us to the Carlton Tea room for isecreem. Daddy sed we wont be abl to do that eny more this yeer becaus wintr is in the ayre. The Carlton has chares with thin wire legs and tabls to. And the seeling has tin flowrs in it. If you sit on a stul at the cownter