Thursday, April 7, 2016

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

25 comments:

  1. Amazing childhood memories. I used to love playing out in our street and there were a lot of us kids. We had a blast! We even transformed the street into a horse jumping circuit at one point which we all had to navigate - our legs were the horses and a stick from the neighbours tree was our whip. I remember the adults peering out at the strange horsey sounds echoing through the neighbourhood. Those were the good ole days, before video games, social networking etc. I very rarely see kids playing out in the streets anymore. It's a shame.

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    1. My girls could have joined you on the horse jumping circuit. My daughter has 2 step daughters, and she made a jumping course for them. The three of them galloped through the yard like in a regular horse show. My daughter was embarrassed when the girls' mother drove up, but I bet their mother never plays with them like this. HA HA.

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  2. My friend and I used to spend hours setting up houses with string on the carpet floor and the people for the houses were cut out of catalogues. I also don't really remember playing with them after the "set up" - the fun was all in making our houses. We made the outline of houses in the fall outside, with leaves.

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    1. String houses sound much like our pine straw houses. (More about that with Letter "J")

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  3. It does sound like such a wonderful childhood! Ick on the project for school with the bugs though, 50 of them! I can't imagine being able to find 50 different bugs in one's neighborhood.

    betty

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    1. I know - 50 is a LOT! I can't believe we did it.

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  4. A great post, I come from a village and we had similar families where all the kids played together regardless of age and gender, the older kids looked out for the younger ones. we were in and out of each other's houses and we could get scolded by any of the parents if we were misbehaving.

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    1. Oh yes, other parents were quick to set us straight.

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  5. Wonderful memories and how cool you are facebook friends even if you can't be near each other! Great post!

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    1. I've been hearing from all of them thanks to my sister linking this post on Facebook.

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  6. You had so many playmates! I grew up on a farm and especially during the summer it wasn't very often I had kids other than my siblings to play with. Barbies and brothers do not mix. Enjoyed reading about your childhood friends!

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    1. My husband grew up on a farm too. Much of his playtime was with brothers and sisters, but on Sundays lots of kids came home with them after church.

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  7. I am extremely grateful at this moment for computer printed bug pics. We didn't have to collect real ones for my eldest daughters science board. Thank Heaven! ;)
    A to Z
    Katy Trail Creations
    http://slfinnell1965.wordpress.com

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    1. My daughters seemed to have more sophisticated science projects too.

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  8. Sounds like your childhood, and friends, were very similar to mine. The girl next door was right in between my sister and me in age and her name was Mary. And we loved to play paper dolls (Prudence was my favorite) and set up Monopoly under the ping pong table covered by a sheet. And we were also allowed to play in the back of Mary's station wagon parked in the garage. What lovely memories!

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    1. Nothing better than a tent indoors - makes every game better. But playing in the back of a station wagon INSIDE the garage sounds like something that should come with a warning. LOL

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  9. Such a fun group of neighbors. I remember my neighborhood being like when I was groing up that but sadly, times change and the neighborhood we are in now had fewer kids to play with for my children. thanks for sharing such great memories.

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    1. In our current neighborhood, everyone has grown up, but as residents die out, young families are moving in. It's nice to see kids again.

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  10. What a great memory you have of your childhood! I was thinking while visiting my grandchildren this past week, that this kind of moveable-feast of playing and parenting in a neighbourhood seems to have vanished. My kids had it, but not this generation. Is it that there's less trust, too much busy-ness and activities, or just fewer homes with kids? Or more families with cars mean they can visit more widely?

    Like you I loved the paper dolls but don't think my granddaughter would like them. On the upside she and her cousins have great inventive games and are very close. It would never have occurred to me to play at being an archeologist, for example.

    @cassmob from
    Family History Across The Seas

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    1. My daughters didn't play with paper dolls. In fact, it seems to me that paper dolls were no longer paper - they were static cling things. Part of the fun of paper dolls for me was cutting out all the clothes.

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  11. Great Memories Wendy! We lived on a small part of an island cut off from the rest by the highway. The only business was a grocery store at one end of town with a convenience store in the basement, where we took our found bottles to trade for penny candy.
    Everyone in town knew everyone and watched out for all the kids. I lived on a dead end street with all boys and me. we played Tarzan, War and C&I in the forest behind our house, often gone all day. Sometimes the kids on the nearest streets would join us. My kids had the same kind of free upbringing in another small town. They are trying not to bring up bubble-wrapped kids and doing a pretty good job.

    My Genealogy Challenges

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    1. Good for your kids. I hope my daughters don't let their babies rely on iPads for entertainment.

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  12. It does sound magical Wendy! I grew up out in the country and didn't have neighbors, just my brothers to play with. I tried my best to keep up with them and as a result had many injuries from falling out of trees, wrecking on mini bikes etc. I did have barbie dolls and paper dolls and loved playing with them.

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    1. I think you got good training for keeping up with a big family!

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  13. As you say, the creating was the fun bit. Great memories Wendy. What a happy place that sounds in which to grow up.

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