My Roots and Blossoms: In Chapter and Verse

By Diantha Ain

In the early twentieth century in the United States, times and activities were radically different from the present day. The pace of everyday life was considerably slower, and children were allowed much more freedom, especially in country towns like Colonia, New Jersey, where this story begins. As a new development of custom homes emerges in this pastoral setting, new friendships and families grow with it, allowing their lives to mix and blend with each other. This was the world that Diantha Ain lived in as a child.

In this collection of stories and verse, share in the joys, troubles, and sorrows that life brought to her and her family. The stressful news of the world interrupted daily life only in brief segments on the radio. Ain recalls a simple, four-room schoolhouse with six grades that offered exceptional opportunities for young minds and spirits. In My Roots and Blossoms, you will follow a precocious little girl through the Great Depression during the 1930s, as she finds the inspiration, creativity, courage, faith, and ambition that eventually shape her entire life.

This charming collection of remembrances, poetry, and memories of years past will charm young and old alike.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jul 19, 2011
• ISBN: 9781462026500

Diantha Ain

Diantha Ain is an award-winning writer, poet, actress, songwriter, artist, and educator. She has written haiku, seventeen syllable verse, for thirty years.

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In writing about her childhood and early acting career Diantha Ain paints vivid, charming and compelling picture of growing up in the 30s and 40s.

Margaret Brownley,

Author of the bestselling Rocky Creek series

"Diantha Ain is one of the most fascinating people you’ll ever meet. A film and stage actress, book author, illustrator, poet, songwriter, wife, mother, and licensed pilot, Diantha has packed more life into her eighty years than most people could ever dream about. Her newest book, My Roots and Blossoms, is a journey through a portion of this amazing life. You’ll laugh, reminisce, and learn first hand what it was like to live through the time of the Hindenberg, The War of the Worlds broadcast, and more. The last page will come too soon, and you’ll be left wanting to know what happens next. And for an adventurous, talented, fun-loving lady like Diantha Ain, that could be anything! (But you’ll just have to wait for the sequel.)

Martha Bolton,

Emmy-nominated writer and author of 84 books

"Roots and Blossoms is a deeply personal, courageous and ultimately optimistic account of the ‘growing’ of a creative spirit."

Alexis O’Neill, Author

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Mary S.H. Pattison, my grandmother, as I last remember her in 1948.

My Roots and Blossoms

in Chapter and Verse

a memoir

DIANTHA AIN

iUniverse, Inc.

Bloomington

My Roots and Blossoms

In Chapter and Verse

Copyright © 2011 by Diantha Ain

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4620-2648-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4620-2649-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4620-2650-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011909308

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 07/08/2011

Table of Contents

Quotes

Preface

Acknowledgments

I

The House O’Four Winds

II

Family Experiments

III

Real Dolls

IV

My First Alma Mater

V

Extracurricular Activities

VI

Model Kids

VII

Fun and Games

VIII

I Believe in Santa Claus

IX

It’s All Relative

X

Let It Snow

XI

Bad Things Happen

XII

Comings and Goings

XIII

A Stitch in Time

XIV

Eight Was Great

XV

Welcome 1938

XVI

Winter Wiles

XVII

Easter Time

XVIII

Taking a Dive

XIX

Stay Tuned

XX

Making Music

XXI

Stepping Out

XXII

The Thorns of Guilt

XXIII

On the Move Again

XXIV

The New Kids

XXV

Making a Mark

XXVI

Carrying On

XXVII

Sum and Substance

XXVIII

Dreams Come True

XXIX

Remembrance

Who’s Who in My Life

More about the author

Other books by Diantha Ain

For Umma, my beloved grandmother, who subtly shaped my character and honed my creative talents while I was busy growing up.

Preface

At the turn of the twentieth century, my paternal grandparents were one of five prominent families that settled in Colonia, New Jersey. They were active in the cultural, educational, civic, social, and recreational growth of the tiny, country town on the Pennsylvania Railroad’s mainline to New York City, where my grandfather and his brother had an electrical contracting company.

My grandmother wrote a biographical history of the town in her eightieth year. Her book, Colonia Yesterday, was published in 1949 under the pseudonym of An Early Resident Emphasizing the Half Century Prior to 1949. Some of the profits were designated to go toward the COLONIA MEMORIAL IN HONOR OF THOSE WHO FROM COLONIA HAVE SERVED THEIR COUNTRY. The brass plaque stating this was attached to a huge stone, located on a triangle of land cut out by the two main roads merging and bisecting. Across the street from the curving section of the road is the Colonia Library, for which my grandmother helped to lay the cornerstone in 1937.

In 1986, I returned to the area for my fortieth high school reunion and revisited many of the places in Colonia that were still vivid in my memory and took photographs. Most of the homes my father had designed and built in the 1930s looked just as I remembered them, as did the school, but it was just a warehouse by then. My grandparent’s beautiful, brown-shingled 22-room home was the greatest disappointment. It had been turned into an apartment house many years before, cut, spliced, and painted white. It was hardly recognizable as the magnificent house it originally was, but seeing it set me to thinking. I felt the urge to somehow capture the glory of those past years, so that other people could appreciate them with me.

In 1988, I began writing poems addressing the highlights of my childhood, but soon realized the poems most likely would need some background information for readers to truly understand and value their messages. So I tucked them away in a file and went on to other creative ventures.

Not until I was interviewed for a profile in a friend’s book in 2009 did I seriously consider pursuing the project again. One of the questions in the inquiry was, Is there anything you haven’t done that you would still like to do? My answer was, The one thing I would still like to do is finish a collection of poetry and prose capturing my childhood memories from when I lived in Colonia, New Jersey, in the 1930s. When Martha Bolton’s book, If a Woman’s Hair Is Her Glory, Why Am I Tweezing My Chin? showed up in my mailbox, I knew the time had arrived for me to accomplish my goal. I thought, I’m in my eightieth year (like my grandmother was), and if not now…when?

So I set to work gathering the poems I had written, any old photos I could find, my grandmother’s book, and a bucket of courage. I had written and illustrated a book of poetry in 1981, I’d been published in anthologies, magazines, and other people’s books, but I still wasn’t certain I could write a whole nonfiction book by myself. Nevertheless, I started writing. Some chapters were designed to suit the poems I had written in 1988, whereas other poems needed to be written to fit the new subjects I was covering then. I had to stretch my memory back over seventy-five years, so please forgive any factual lapses you may find. It is my life as I quite vividly recall it, and I have attempted to capsulate it in this memoir, My Roots and Blossoms: In Chapter and Verse. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I have enjoyed creating it.

Acknowledgments

The daunting task of capturing people and events from more than seventy-five years ago had me in a state of trepidation. Thanks to the encouragement of my beloved husband of sixty years, Bob, I started my quest. He has always had more faith in my abilities than I’ve had, for which I am eternally thankful.

I spread the news of my project to anyone who would listen, and Jim Boyle and Joan Schuster offered to be willing prodders via e-mail from across the country when they heard my plans. I reported my chapter-by-chapter progress to them, which kept me focused, determined, and grateful.

My grandmother’s book, Colonia Yesterday, was an enormous help in adding more precise details to the adventures I remembered so clearly. I think she would be as proud of me as I am of her.

When I finished the first draft, four of my most talented, creative friends agreed to proofread the manuscript for me and gave me invaluable critiques, most of which I incorporated into my book. My heartfelt thanks go to Cheryl Talbot, Margaret Brownley, Martha Bolton, and Alexis O’Neill, who all helped to make my story better. Between them, they have written more than a hundred books.

Angelina Dorogi, a gifted photographer, came into my life just in time to prepare the pictures for my book. Some of the photos were taken a hundred years ago, some in the 1930s, the 1940s, and 1986. My cover photo is the only one she took in 2010 at our sixtieth renewal-of-vows celebration. Thanks to her incredible talent, they should help to further clarify my story for you.

The Pasadena Playhouse gave me permission to use the photo I’ve had since 1949, taken during the production, Elizabeth the Queen, starring Jane Cowl.

Finally, I want to thank the friends in my life now, who unwittingly feed my creative soul, and my friends in the Women’s Artistic Network who inspire and encourage creativity wherever they go.

I   

The House O’Four Winds

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. Charles Dickens undoubtedly had good reasons for describing his times like that, and I feel the same way about the 1930s. The United States was feeling the brunt of the Great Depression in 1933, but I had some of the happiest, most adventurous times of my life. That was the year our family moved from Middletown, New York, where I was born, to Colonia, New Jersey, into my grandmother’s twenty-two room house, which she called The House O’Four Winds.

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The House O’Four Winds circa 1910 welcomed neighbors and notables.

It was a stately two-story home of brown, weathered shingles. It looked like it had been there forever. A huge roofed terrace went off the living room to the left, and a smaller building adjoined the house on the opposite end. The front entrance had a roof that offered visitors shade or protection from seasonal changes in the weather and caught any moisture that might fall from the main roof, which sloped toward the front of the house. Its huge expanse was only broken by the chimney that served the fireplace in my grandfather’s library.

My grandparents had the house built in 1907, and it was designed for them to entertain large numbers of friends and business associates, and to host community activities, which they did for many years. My grandfather, Frank A. Pattison, and his brother Charles were two of Rutgers College’s earliest graduate electrical engineers. My grandfather graduated with high honors and a Phi Beta Kappa key in 1887. They had an extremely successful engineering company, Pattison Brothers, in New York City. They were busy electrifying many of the important buildings and homes going up in the area at that time. My grandparents lived in New York City until their home in Colonia was completed.

My grandfather had retired from his business by the time we arrived, but my grandmother still busied herself with political, social, educational, and community activities. Their son, who became my father, was an architect and builder. He was planning a development of custom English Tudor and Normandy-Provincial homes in Colonia. My mother was his girl Friday, doing whatever needed to be done to assist him, so my brother Munn and I learned initiative at very early ages. It was a time when children were expected to be seen and not heard, which was easy to do in such an expansive environment.

My curious nature was fed with a big spoon. There was so much to see and do inside the enormous house or outside in my grandfather’s well-manicured yard. I was never bored. From the terrace adjoining my bedroom, I had a full view of the carefully landscaped backyard and the coach house. There was a tall, thick brier hedge separating it from our play area that I discovered to be an excellent hiding place, but the thing that impressed me most was the enormous circle of lily of the valley. When they blossomed in the spring, they immediately became one of my favorite flowers, and the whole park-like setting became a playground for my brother and me with lots of trees to climb.

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Umpa’s pride and joy was our amazing playground.

A long horseshoe driveway led from the street to the front