ON CLEMENS

I was born in St. Louis in 1945. We lived at 5820 Clemens. If I look for that address now in Google maps, it doesn't exist. There is a 5800 Clemens, which includes the site, but all the apartments have been torn down. A new housing development is supposed to be built, but it isn't there yet.
I already had a big sister when I came home to that apartment. We lived on the third floor, in a one-bedroom, walk-up apartment. There was no air-conditioning. When it is hot in St. Louis, it is really hot. If it got too bad, my parents would, like a lot of other people, take the family and go to Forest Park to lie on the grass to cool off and try to sleep.
(Last week --in 2006-- we were in California during a heat wave. Like St. Louis in the 1940s, lots of people in the Bay Area do not have air-conditioning. So in San Jose, people were going to the parks to try to sleep. Fortunately for them, it doesn't get really hot very often there.)
My parents had their beds in the living room, and there was also a couch in there. I can remember jumping from one bed to the next bed and then onto the couch and then to the floor. I can also remember the time I banged my chin on the end of the bed. I still have a little scar on my chin.
When I was 4 1/2 my little brother was born. Then there were three of us sharing the bedroom. The apartment was REALLY crowded. We weren't allowed to make too much noise, because there was a neighbor on the second floor beneath us who worked at night and slept during the day. At least, I think that was a true story. Maybe Mommy made it up to keep us a little bit quiet. Sometimes we would play on the roof of a lower part of the apartment building. It was covered with tar and pretty icky.
I can remember that my mother sometimes washed clothes in the bathtub if she couldn't get down to the basement. In the basement there was a wringer washer which Mommy warned us was dangerous if we got too close. We were careful to stay away from it. Here is a picture of a wringer washer, though probably older than the one we had downstairs.

(Picture courtesy of kiddharma on Flickr)




The apartment was just a few blocks from a grocery store called Moll's. I remember that they had lemon-layer cake which was very delicious, but that was only for a special treat. We used to walk over, me in my stroller, my mother pushing, my sister holding on to the handle. I can remember mommy telling me not to drag my feet on the ground when I was riding in the stroller, because shoes were expensive and I was wearing them out.
Me in my Taylor Tot, 1947, with my sister.
Thank you, Mae.