So, Tell Me

By Janice Ireland

Have you ever wondered what a life of travel was like at a young age? Have you ever wondered how it would be meeting new people all the time growing up? Could you imagine strangers helping to watch you while your mother was sick? Can you fathom never making friends because you knew those relationships wouldn’t last? How grown up was a child expected to be or not be? Feelings of adventure, fear, sadness, and pure love all wrapped into this real-life story.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Nov 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9781685622893

Janice Ireland

Janice Ireland has embraced many new adventures and people in her lifetime. She has moved many times and through her travels, she always learned to do her best at all she endeavored, in which were babysitting, typesetting, modeling, artist, radio host assistant, carpenter, PTA Mom, costume designer, EMT, and campaign manager.

Book preview

About the Author

Janice Ireland has embraced many new adventures and people in her lifetime. She has moved many times and through her travels, she always learned to do her best at all she endeavored, in which were babysitting, typesetting, modeling, artist, radio host assistant, carpenter, PTA Mom, costume designer, EMT, and campaign manager.

Dedication

I would like to dedicate this book to all of my family and to everyone who’s ever had questions about life in the 1940’s through the 1950’s era. May it give them a sense of real-life adventure.

Copyright Information ©

Janice Ireland 2023

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

All of the events in this memoir are true to the best of author’s memory. The views expressed in this memoir are solely those of the author.

Ordering Information

Quantity sales: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Ireland, Janice

So, Tell Me

ISBN 9781685622862 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781685622879 (Hardback)

ISBN 9781685622893 (ePub e-book)

ISBN 9781685622886 (Audiobook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023914115

www.austinmacauley.com/us

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

40 Wall Street, 33rd Floor, Suite 3302

New York, NY 10005

USA

[e-mail]

[phone]

Acknowledgment

I would like to thank my youngest daughter Toby, who’s always been most inquisitive, always wanting to know about my life.

I would also like to thank my niece Holly, who has dedicated much of her time to help me setup and research writing a book.

Preface

Once upon a time, long ago and far away…no, no, no. It was not so long ago or so far away. Unlike most fairy tales, this story is all true. I had quite an interesting childhood, maybe a lot like others but maybe not. My most curious and inquisitive child has given me a title and a surprising place in time to start telling my story. I begin with a day that will forever have a place in my mind and heart.

Sometime in September

The day that lives in my memory started exactly like so many others. As usual, Kelly was the first one up. She was always awake at the crack of dawn, somewhere around 5:00 am. Since she was the alarm clock for the rest of us, learning to tell time was an early accomplishment. It had to be. It was the only way we could live with such an early bird. Learning the television dials was also important to her. She could turn on the early cartoons and turn down the volume. Kelly could also wake us all up at the proper time because there was a clock on the wall by the fireplace.

We lived in a small two-story colonial style house. On the first floor there was a small kitchen, small dining room, and large living room with a fireplace. The second floor consisted of a small bathroom, two bedrooms, and attic space across the back of the house. The basement also had garage space that was under the kitchen and dining room. It had not been my choice, but it was home.

On that fateful morning after our routine of breakfast, Bud leaving for work, washing faces, brushing teeth, brushing hair, and getting dressed, it was time for Kelly to catch the school bus. That bus stop just happened to be in front of our house. Kelly was a kindergartner. That morning Toby and I walked her out to the street and waited with her. Bret chose to stay indoors. He was almost five years old. Both Bret and Kelly had birthdays in November, just one day apart. It would be Bret’s turn at kindergarten next year. Toby was disappointed that she had to wait so long to go to school.

On the way back to the house, Toby said, she thought her sister was lucky because she got to wear short dresses and cute socks. I asked her why she said such a thing. She looked serious when she said that when she went to school the last time, she had to wear a long dress that she tripped over and very long itchy socks that fell down all the time. I wondered if last time had anything to do with the bad dreams that Toby had been having. These were dreams that had her crying in her sleep. When I would wake her up, she would say, My name is not Toby, it is Julie. However, I didn’t say anything about that to her, it was just speculation delete.

As soon as we got in the house, Toby abruptly changed the subject. You were a baby too, weren’t you, Mama? And then you grew up, huh? So, tell me, She rattled on before I could catch my breath. This kid was amazing to me, she would not be three until February. She always spoke very clearly and concisely, beginning to talk at eight months of age. She had a lot to say, and she wanted to make sure she was understood. Toby even played interpreter when Kelly would get excited and run all her words together. She would talk so fast I couldn’t understand her, but Toby seemed to. Bret had heard Toby as he was coming down the stairs from the bathroom. So, tell me too, he said. I hesitated, then asked where they wanted me to start. At the beginning, they both chimed in.

There were a lot of chores to be done, there always was. I told the kids to follow me and help me and I would Start telling them about my early childhood. As we were pulling off bedspreads and blankets, taking sheets off beds, and cases off pillows, I began to tell them about being born. I said I didn’t remember it, but I was born in Fox Hospital in Oneonta, New York on January 9th, 1942. How big were you? Bret asked.

Well, my mother said I weighed six pounds and I was 19 inches long, I told them.

We took turns having a lot of fun throwing dirty laundry down the stairs. A discussion started about what weighed six pounds and exactly how long 19 inches was. We trooped downstairs, laughing as we went, and carried the laundry through the kitchen to throw it down the basement steps. It was the rule, my rule, that nobody carried anything down the stairs if they could not see where they were going. I had fallen when I was six months pregnant with Toby and had no desire to do it again, nor did I want anyone else falling.

The yardstick had a home behind the basement door. We got it and the kids saw for themselves how long 19 inches was. Bret put the yardstick away and down the steps we went. Sorting the laundry into piles, we put it closer to the washer and dryer. All the while we talked, discussing how January was a cold time and just after Christmas. Bret also observed that 1942 had to be a long time ago since it was now 1967. I didn’t know how he knew that, too much television I guessed.

Most of the toys were in the basement, so the kids got busy playing and seemed to lose interest in what I had been telling them. I used the time to start a pot of vegetable beef soup for supper and do the laundry. I kept an eye on the kids, running up and down the steps from basement to kitchen and back.

When the laundry was finished, the kids and I carried folded clothes upstairs and stacked them on the sides of the steps. Whenever someone went up to the bathroom, they could take a small stack with them and put it in the proper bedroom. Bret’s bed was in the dining room, a day bed in the corner. The coat closet was no longer a coat closet, it was his closet. He had been assigned a couple of big drawers in the buffet for his folded clothes. So. he just put his clothes away. I carried the hanging clothes and put them away in the proper places. We didn’t bring up the sheets, they were folded but still on the dryer. Things that needed ironing were put in a basket. As it was lunchtime by then, we fixed some sandwiches, poured milk for them and another cup of coffee for me.

During lunch we talked some more. I told them my mother said Grandma Leola had sent my dad a telegram telling him that I had been born. I was considered a war baby. Daddy was in the Army. He had enlisted when America entered the war in Europe. World War 2 started when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. I went on to tell them that Pearl Harbor was in Hawaii and back then it wasn’t a state. I told them that the Navy’s Pacific Fleet was stationed in the harbor and the ships got bombed. But you will learn a lot more about it in school, when you have history classes, I promised them.

Daddy got leave and came to see Mother and me. He was the one who gave me my name. They hadn’t already picked a name because Mother wanted a boy. She hadn’t even thought of a girl’s name. Mother always said Daddy named me after an old girlfriend of his, but I don’t know if that was true. For a middle name I was named after my mother’s sister. She was always called Louise, her middle name.

When I was a couple of weeks old, my mother and I went to live with my dad’s family. They lived on a dairy farm called Sleepy Hollow Farm in the community of Delhi Stage, over the mountain from Oneonta. It is about 70 miles from New York City, in the edge of the Catskill Mountains. I told Bret and Toby we would get out the atlas later and I would show them where I was talking about.

Well, we had eaten lunch and I still had things to do. Turning the burner on the stove to warm to keep the soup hot, I took Bret and Toby outside.

The grass wasn’t going to get any shorter by itself, so I thought I would do some mowing. I put the kids in their triangle shaped play yard. It was made of a roll of wire fencing stretched around three trees. I hadn’t been happy with the construction. Placed in another area with fence posts and a gate, it would have been perfect, but my husband didn’t care what my opinion was. The fence did its intended job of keeping the children safe when I was busy. Without a gate, I needed to lift the kids in and out. By taking the fencing loose from one tree I could get the mower in the play yard to keep the grass mowed down. I mowed for a little while, stopping once to let the mower cool so I could safely put more gas in it. While I was waiting, I got the three of us some Kool Aid, we were all thirsty.

Soon it was time for Kelly’s bus, and we went out on the front porch to wait for it. When she got home. we all went inside. Toby and Bret turned on the TV and Kelly and I went upstairs so I could help her change her clothes. She wore braces and needed help getting them on and off. She was a Shriner’s kid and spent time in their hospital in Lexington, Kentucky whenever she needed to. The Shriners were wonderful. We never got billed for any of Kelly’s appointments with doctors (there were many), braces (several pair), operations (several), or hospital stays (sometimes months). Her shoes were even paid for. Every visit that we made with Kelly to the Shriner’s Hospital included a trip across town to a special Shoe Store. I felt that we could at least pay for her shoes, but they said no, it was something they did for all the Shriner’s Kids.

When we got back downstairs Kelly was immediately bombarded with questions from her brother and sister. What did she learn in school?

And did she have any work that they could help her with? As they talked, Kelly was told what they had learned about me. Bret remembered a lot more than Toby, and I had to help them out a few times. Bret was the one who said he thought it was funny that the farm I talked about was in a place called Delhi. Isn’t Delhi Hills right here where we live? he asked. I told him that was what was called a coincidence. They all talked at once about things they had heard called coincidences.

I thought Kelly might be interested in hearing what Toby had said about her dress and socks. When I told her about it, she said, Maybe Toby has before dreams, just like I do.

What do you mean, what are before dreams? I inquired. She told us that they were just like having a memory of something and not like dreams at all. We asked her to tell us about one of them.

Kelly said the before dream she had the most was about her being an Indian girl living by a river. She said she was older, 16 or 17, and she had a boyfriend who was tall, had beautiful dark skin, dark eyes, and long shining black hair. I have dark skin and eyes and hair too. She seemed to suddenly remember. She had to be talking about her before dream because she was blond and hazel eyed.