A to Z April Challenge: I is for Imagination

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 imagination.

You have to admit it: I was pretty darn cute as a kid. But that cuteness extended beyond the adorable face with a dimple in my chin. I had an imagination that kept my parents on their toes.

Wendy about 1953
at Grandma and Granddaddy Davis's house in Cradock

Like the time I toddled into the bedroom and asked Momma, “Who’s that man in the kitchen?”  Poor Momma, probably only 24 years old.  She was petrified.  She found a baseball bat or club or something and inched her way to the empty kitchen.   Did I make this man up?  Or was there really a stranger in the house?  Momma never knew for sure, but since there were often “hobos” riding the rails through Charlottesville, she believed he was real.

Or like the time I told Momma there was a kitty cat under the bed.  Momma did not like animals in the house, particularly cats.  She looked and looked but found no cat. 

Or like the numerous times they had to set the table for 4 to accommodate my imaginary friend, Bobby Cox.  (No, not the coach of the Atlanta Braves – he hadn’t been invented yet.)  They always wondered if Bobby Cox was a boy or girl.  I don’t know either.  I have no memory of any of this, just their repeated stories amidst laughter.

Yep, adorable.

Wendy probably Easter in Harrisonburg, VA 1953

If you are so inclined, you can inspect other imaginative and innovative blogs at the A to Z April Challenge.

© 2016, Wendy Mathias. All rights reserved.