Mom, A Life: Part One

The Roaring '20s
Woodrow Wilson was president. The average wage was $15-$20 per week. Rent (3BR, 1B) was $25 per month. Despite the availability of electricity, the house was heated by a coal-burning kitchen stove which was never allowed to go out. Coal was bought a ton at a time and delivered to the cellar in 80lb. bags. Gasoline was 5 gallons for $1.00.

Mom was born in West Haven, Connecticut, a suburb of New Haven, in a "private surgery" in a Victorian house, delivered, apparently, by a Dr. Henry Rodgers, the second (living) child and eldest (living) daughter of Charles Chester Davis and Fredericka (Freda) Farr. (Charles' and Freda's first-born daughter died in infancy.) Mom was born Katherine May Davis on June 7, 1920. She was originally supposed to be "Frances" after a grandmother but was named for an aunt instead. She hated her middle name, and especially being called "Katie May" as a child, so never used it and went by Katherine Davis Rosinus (unhyphenated) once she married.

She had an older brother, Chester a.k.a "Chet," and a kid sister, Shirley with whom she shared not just a bedroom but a bed. Her father, Charles, was originally an auto mechanic although sometime in the 1920s he became a motorman on the New Haven streetcar system which was lucky since it proved to be a steady job throughout the Depression.

Her mother, Freda, worked, after she was widowed, as a hosiery buyer for the W. T. Grant department store. (I remember, as a child, visiting her there with Mom, where she showed off the ladies' dress gloves.) Freda met Charles when they both worked in a different department store owned by Charles' father.

When Mom was four, she had her tonsils removed. Her tonsillectomy, however, was not done in hospital. Back then doctors made house calls, even for surgeries and Mom had her tonsils out at home, on the kitchen table.

Her parents got her into her pajamas, the doctor came over with his nurse anesthetist, and they laid her out on the table which had been covered with pillows and padding. The nurse put a wire cage type mask over her face and covered that with a cloth laced with ether. She woke up without tonsils but with the promise of ice cream.

Mom suffered from mastoid infections throughout her childhood and underwent four operations at ages, 7, 9, 10 and 13. All were performed in hospital.

West Haven was home to Savin Rock, a shoreline amusement park agglomeration of carnival-type games, rides, roller coasters, food vendors and a long fishing pier with a restaurant on it. Mom's grandmother would come into town once a year for a "shore dinner" consisting of chowder, lobster, little neck clams, corn, potatoes, salad, rolls and dessert. Price $1.00. One year the roller coaster, made entirely of wood, went up in a spectacular blaze. Charles, who it seems was something of a fire-bug, bundled up the kids in the middle of the night and drove down to Savin Rock so they could all watch. The fire was way beyond the capabilities of the fire department and the coaster, part of which looped out over the ocean, burned to the ground.

There was a balloon factory across the street from Mom's house but it went out of business sometime in the late twenties and was torn down in 1928 or '29. Mom and her sister would go into the empty field to pick wild strawberries for themselves and greens for their pet rabbits.

The Great Depression

Mom was nine when the market crashed. As a kid the Depression never hit her as hard as it did the adults in her life. Fortunately, her dad kept his job with the Connecticut Company as a trolley motorman. In fact, he saved enough money that the family, which had been renting until now, could afford to buy a house of their own. The downside was the girls could not keep their pet rabbits at the new location and gave them to the neighbors before moving only to find out the neighbors rather enjoyed a good rabbit stew.

Despite being employed, money was still tight. Charles owned a metal cobbler's last upon which he repaired the family shoes. Replacement half-soles were available at the local five-and-dime store. Ladies from the Eastern Star came by one day with food donations but Freda informed them in no uncertain terms that "we can take care of our own." Mom played basketball (guard) in school and triangle in the school band.

(It was around this time that Mom's future husband brought home to his mother one of the first loaves of sliced bread offered in the area. She was furious considering it an insult implying she was too lazy to slice her own bread.)

Once a year the church youth groups would all pile onto special trolleys for a day-trip to Double Beach in Branford with singing, dancing, swimming and picnicking. Literally hundreds of laughing, screaming, crying kids of all ages plus their parents/chaperons took part and Mom wondered why her father never volunteered for that run.

One winter in the mid-1930s, New Haven harbor froze over from shore to shore. If not for a shipping channel cut through the ice it would have been possible to skate across the entire harbor. Charles took his kids as far out from the West Haven side as they could manage.

(In a true "Christmas Story" moment, Mom came home one afternoon to find her mother bashing her brother Chet's BB gun to useless shards and screaming, "You'll never see another gun again!" He had shot himself in the finger. Chet later became a Marine and was wounded at Iwo Jima.)

Hallowe'en in the '30s was almost entirely tricks and very few treats. The tricks were mostly innocent (depending on the age of the perpetrators): ringing doorbells and running, peppering victims with spitballs and peashooters, and the responses usually consisted of being chased with brooms and doused with buckets of water. The older kids could get creative, however, including disassembling fencing and wagons and reassembling them elsewhere (with the favorite place for vehicles being the roofs of barns and garages).

Mom had already graduated high school and was working edging lenses and assembling eyeglasses for a local optometrist when news of Pearl Harbor came.

To be continued . . .