On the first day of spring, back in 19??, I was born at St.
Francis Hospital in Macomb. It was located at the corner of Grant Street and South Johnson Street, but it no longer exists. The nuns who worked there lived behind the hospital, and that building was turned into apartments after the hospital was torn down. I remember the hospital very well, for I was also a patient there several times as a child. My most vivid hospital memory is of the priest walking around there with a parakeet on his shoulder, back in 1951.
I spent my early years outside of Adair, and I didn’t like growing up on a farm. I couldn’t play with my friends as easily as the kids I knew in town, and I was always afraid of snakes and bugs. There seemed to be a lot of those on a farm. The members of my family called me “a girly girl”— and my sister still calls me that. I also have two brothers, and when I was a kid, they enjoyed teasing me with bugs.
We did eat well on the farm. My family raised animals to produce our meat—beef, chicken, and pork—and we also had vegetables in our garden. I wouldn’t work in the garden because of the bugs, including spiders, so I had to sit with the adults, to shell peas and snap beans. That took a lot longer than obtaining things from the garden, but that was fine with me.
I also have many memories of gathering at one of my aunts’ homes every other Sunday, or sometime during the following week, for a noon-time dinner. They all brought food, and everyone enjoyed the social interaction. Families don’t seem to do get-togethers like that any more, except on major holidays. All of us kids, siblings and cousins, sat together at card tables, so there were lots of opportunities for interaction. We felt deeply connected.
