A to Z April Challenge: F is for Friends on Frailey

Genealogists and family historians get a lot of satisfaction from chasing their ancestors’ stories. Finding a diary, a message on a postcard, or a photo with a name attached is like the sun coming out after a storm. One day we will be somebody’s ancestor. We need to leave our descendants a little bit of sunshine too. So here is my story told alphabetically, not chronologically: Growing Up in Cradock.

is for Friends on Frailey Place.

Growing up in Cradock in the 1960s was magical. I know that sounds like an exaggeration of how special it was or like selective memory. But trust me – it was the best place and best time to be a kid.

I have written several times about my childhood, so I am trying NOT to repeat. If you have nothing better to do, you can read more HERE and HERE.

On one single block called Frailey Place were 7 houses, 9 if you count my grandparents’ house and the Loudens’ who actually faced Gillis but cornered on Frailey. Six of those 7 had kids around my age and my sister’s age to play with.

Anne, Mary, Peggy, and me in dress-ups

Next door were the Allen girls, Peggy, Mary, and Anne. Mary was probably my closest friend on the block. We usually played outside in her yard, or my yard, or even my grandparents’ yard. Seldom did we play in Mary’s house, but I remember when Mrs. Allen let us play in the attic. There was great stuff in the attic, but the star was a child-size roll-top desk; even after we closed the door to the attic at the end of the day, thoughts of that desk stayed with me, and I longed to be able to climb the stairs to the attic again.

Mrs. Allen is the one who gave Mary and me the idea of playing with boxes, shoe boxes, to be precise. We created rooms and furnished them with furniture crafted from match boxes, jewelry boxes, spools of thread, and whatever else we could find. Each box became a different room. We could arrange the boxes in whatever formation we liked. The funny thing is that once we created the rooms, we rarely played with them. The fun was in the creation.

Mary Jollette and Rusty 

Next to the Allens was the home of Peggy and Rusty Taylor. Their mother Nancy was our mother’s best friend, and very much a second mother to my sister and me. Peggy and I were not very close because she was a few years older and always off to the stables to ride her horse. But she was right there to help me with my bug collection for science class. We had to collect 50 different bugs. ICK. Peggy helped me find and capture them. I didn’t mind watching them suffocate in a jar, but when it was time to pin them to a slab of Styrofoam, I was hopeless. Peggy to the rescue.

Peggy’s younger brother Rusty was my sister’s best buddy. They were always together. Rusty even cut her hair.

Nancy, my mother, and Rusty getting the croquet game set up

Debbie Ellis, Mary Jollette, Donna Cummings

Directly across the street from the Taylors was the Cummings house. When I played with Katherine I always wanted to play with her little pink kitchen set. This was not the child-size kitchen; it was doll-size. The little refrigerator door opened to little shelves; the inside of the door revealed a picture of the food to spark a child’s imagination. The oven door opened as well to racks that could hold a miniature tart pan. The red plastic spigot on the sink could turn. I had nothing like this. Katherine also had a good selection of paper dolls, which delighted me because I loved playing with paper dolls. One of Katherine’s sets that I can still see in my mind’s eye was an unusually large baby paper doll, the size of an actual baby doll. The baby paper dolls and their baby paper clothes were colored in the sweetest pastels with lots of detail. You could almost feel the lace and satin ribbon, but they were paper.

Katherine’s younger sister Donna was smack dab in the middle age-wise between me and my sister. It could have been awkward having her as a playmate, but she was always easy going and would just go along with whatever the plan of the day was.

Mr. and Mrs. Cummings were like parents to the rest of us too. I can still see Mrs. Cummings standing at her screen door watching all the Frailey Place kids running, skating, and bicycling up and down the road. Looking back, I have to smile knowing there was someone watching out for all of us. As they say, "It takes a village," and on Frailey Place, we kids had many parents.

Over the years, the Frailey Place gang have attended the funerals of each of our parents. We are still Facebook friends even if not social in the traditional sense. The bond formed so many years ago has not been broken.

For more Frivolity, Fantasy and Fun, do yourself a Favor and Find your way to the A to Z Challenge. 

© 2016, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.