Let me introduce you to some of the players in this story.I
lived with my grandmother, her two daughters and her son. That would be my two
aunts and uncle. Just wanted to impress you with my understanding of
genealogy. My grandmother’s name was Wilhelmina Fernholz Jungmann (her mother
was Magdalen Gahr), and there was Aunt Rose, Aunt Grace, and Uncle Frank. (Her
other children: Bill, Katherine, Josephine & Joe had already moved out, and
Barnie had died as a small child).
They were all single and lived at home. In
those days it was common for adult children to live at home. The only reason
to leave was if you got married or your job took you out of town, which is why
the other children no longer lived there.
Speaking of town, we lived on the east side
of St. Paul at 1957 East Hyacinth Street. It was a two-story stucco and brick
house with a nice arched, open front porch, and it sat on a large piece of
property with a street on one-side and streetcar tracks on the other.
The lot was shaped like a dunce cap. It had
a nice big yard with mature pine trees, a large weeping willow tree, fruit
trees, and a big garden area with a wide variety of flowers and vegetables. In
the garden, was a round concrete pond with water lilies. We also raised
chickens. Of course, this was an urban setting and chickens were not the type
of pets the neighbors had. Many things in this house were not like the
neighbors.
The house had two stories. On the main level
there was a closed in back porch where I slept on a cot in the summer time. It
had windows on two sides that were screened in the summer, and on the other
wall was a screened door that served as our back door. It was almost like
sleeping outside without the mosquitoes. I loved to lie in bed with the soft
breeze cross ventilating the room, and most nights there would be a symphony
of song from the crickets and frogs by the pond. When it rained, I had to
quickly close the windows or sleep on a damp bed.
With windows closed, it was just another
room. When they were opened, I could be anywhere I imagined. There were
mornings when I was awakened by the sound of, clop, clop, clop, clop, clop. I
knew what that meant; the "sheene" was coming. . .
Read more in the book. . .
TWO
I now had a huge void in my life. The one man in the family
besides me, the person who spent so much time with me, took me places, brought
me things, my “fatherbrother” was suddenly gone.
Aunt Rose had always been there, but she had been unable to
compete with Frank. After all she was a woman. Even so, someone “being there
for me” was what I needed and longed for.
We often went on shopping trips. It was not that we bought
a lot of things, we were just together. She also took me along to visit
friends and relatives. Today this seems to be a lost art, but it was common in
those early 1940 war years.
She had a wonderful sense of humor and she soon became my
favorite. Aunt Rose was seamstress like Grace was. It was not easy work, but
work of any kind was difficult to come by during the war. It was piecework,
which required working quickly to maximize earnings. Rose was good at her
trade, and her paycheck helped support the family.
Rose’s attractiveness came from her beautiful black hair,
which grayed in her early thirties, and dark brown eyes. Her clothes
complimented these features and when dressed up she was a snazzy looking lady.
I have several pictures of Rose that verify my seven-year-old opinion.
Not surprisingly she dated often. Sometimes I was included
on these dates and sometimes very much excluded. She knew I wanted to go, so
she would trick me into doing something, and then I would return to find them
gone. All in all she looked after me in many ways, and she was the person who
ultimately decided I should go to a Catholic grade school.
My first real taste of the outside world was Blessed
Sacrament School. How Catholic can you get? The school was built in 1918 and
considered one of the finest parochial institutions of learning in the area.
It was a red brick three story building, housing eight classrooms and a
principal’s office (that became my home away from home). The top floor was an
open area that could be used for many functions with bingo being the most
popular. The only other rooms were the boys’ and girls’ toilets, and the
lunchroom; there was no cafeteria or meeting room. The property consisted of
the school, the church, the rectory, and a nice big playground. It was about
one mile from my house.
The nuns were of the St. Joseph Order. To me, they all
looked like Grandma, but were not as nice. Their babushka was black and
covered most of their face, exposing only the portion from their forehead to
their chin. If they were younger and I was older, I would have wondered what
the rest looked like. They had a tie around their waist with a large rosary
and Big Crucifix. The rosary beads were the size of my marbles.
Read more in the book. . .
