FROM MY BACK PORCH

By: Joy Grogan of the Summersville (MO) ‘Beacon’ Newspaper:
  
Article appeared in the May 30^th edition:

When I was a child, my parents and I lived for a time in St. Louis, Wellston, actually, and my parents worked at Wagner Electric.
I have a wonderful picture of my mother, Lucille Williams, in what appears to be a uniform, not unlike a WAC or WAVE would
have worn. (pictured to the left) Evidently she wore it to work.

While we lived there, I became ill with infected tonsils. The doctor, whose office and
surgery was in his home, prescribed a huge bottle of tonic for me to take before the
tonsils were removed. It was yukky stuff and I balked at taking it. My parents promised
to buy a teddy bear for me if I would take the tonic. I reluctantly agreed. I believe the
flavor was the same used in today’s Dr. Pepper.

On a day, at the end of the bottle, I was forced to return to the doctor’s office for surgery.
I can vividly remember fighting the nurses who were trying to sedate me. Finally, one
devious wench convinced me to allow her to rub some salve on my nose. The next thing
I remember is waking up and asking for the jello and ice cream I had been promised.
And I did get the teddy bear.

Living only a block from the school where I began kindergarten, I was allowed to walk to
class. We lived in what I remember as a beautiful neighborhood with large shade trees
overhanging the sidewalk. My teacher’s name was Miss Brick which fit her personality to
a T. One day on my way to school, I felt something hit the top of my head. Upon investigating
with my hand, I discovered it covered with some gross white goop: a bird had made a
deposit in my hair. My initial reaction was to bawl and run back home to tell my mother
how I had been violated. She calmly used a washcloth to sop the bird doodoo from my
hair and sent me back on my way. It was my first traumatic experience.

My parents and I would sometimes go to Wellston in the evenings to walk and shop in the stores. I especially enjoyed going into
Kresge’s Dime Store to order ice cream. This was during World War II, so there were giant search lights placed along the street.
I can still see those huge lights scanning the skies for enemy planes that might have entered the United States.

One of the funniest events (at least to me) that happened when we lived there was a joke my dad pulled on his brother, Frank, who
lived next door to us. When Uncle Frank sat in a chair and took a nap, his head would fall back and his mouth would fall open. One
day when Uncle Frank was sleeping soundly in such a position, my dad laid a slice of tomato in Uncle Frank’s mouth. Uncle
awakened immediately, jumped up, knocked over his chair, and began spluttering and spitting and coughing good tomato all over
the place. No doubt it was a traumatic experience for him.

After attending kindergarten at (she believes) Lincoln school in Wellston, Joy went on to become a graduated from Summersville
(MO) High School in 1957.