Vignettes from the Thirties

by Elizabeth Larrabee

DEDICATED WITH LOVE TO THE CLASS OF '43 AND TO THEIR CHILDREN'S CHILDREN

TO MISS WILLIAMS

Introduction

These vignettes are meant to restore our faith in hard times; to remind our children that, should poverty come their way, it need not be the end of their dignity. I learned while growing up in the thirties that the child who learns the meaning of self-denial becomes the adult who can adjust to life's setbacks with a sense of humor.

This little book did not start out as a treatise on ethics and sacrifices, but as one memory led to another, I could not help but conclude that having Mama at home made all the difference. And how could we have been lacking when we had teachers who cared, policemen who were really our friends, and neighbors who looked over us? Poverty, yes. But all the wealth in the world was nothing as compared to mine?

My riches were in my friends who shared the life and times; not missing what we didn't know we were missing.

My thrill was in the velvet stroke of the hungry kitten my Mama let me take in.

My delight was in the praise of the English teacher for a few words placed one after the other, tumbling into rhyme.

My excitement, all I needed, was in the dancing feet that came with the package when I was born.

My happiness was in knowing Mama and Papa loved me.

And what gave me strength, in a world that knew no Beethoven or Rembrandt or Shakespeare, was the tingling warmth of a kind word; what made my spirit blithe was learning in the natural course of my childhood that no color, no religion, no race was inferior; and what I am is in the embrace of everyone who touched me and made me part of them and they part of me.

E.L.

Earliest Recall | Lady Slippers | How Poor Were We? | Free Food

The Smaller The Bigger | Mud Flats | Speaking of Smells | Random Pieces

Growing Up the Hard Way | No Bogey Man | Green Apples | Poor Buster

Up and Down | True Friends | Moving | Rosie's Hangout | Crystal Ball

You weren't so Hot After All | Haunts | On Acting the Way You Feel | Amen

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