JOAN CRAWFORD RINGWOOD
THE SUN STILL RISES
The Life of Joan Ringwood
I was born June 27, 1930 in Auburn NY. I was the baby of the family. My mother was in her forties, which was kind of risky in those days. I think I was quite a surprise to my mother and father, but I guess it worked out all right. I have three older sisters and one older brother. Another brother, John, died in 1923 at the age of two. My brother’s name is Donald; he is six years older than I. My oldest sister is Margaret, she was born in 1916, Helen in 1917 and Nancy in 1918.
My parents were John Crawford of Auburn and Teresa McDonald of King Ferry. My father was a prison guard at Auburn, which was good because it was a secure job during those depression years in the 30’s. When I was born we loved at 47 Augustus Street. It was the only house I lived in growing up. I was there until I was married.
My father was a quiet man, very fastidious about his work ethics. He was a man of routine, he did things the exact same way every day. My mother always adhered to that, she gave way to his routines. He ruled the roost, a firm father but a good father. He wasn’t very outgoing, he didn’t show his love outwardly, but you always knew you had it. If I had a problem I would go to him, he was very understanding and wouldn't make a big deal out of it if I got into trouble. He was just a solid person. He did things the way they should be done, without a lot of show.
His parents were known to me as Grandpa George and Grandma Annie. They lived in Auburn on Academy Street. Their street once led to the Auburn Academy High School but was eliminated when the arterial was built. My older sisters visited them many times when they were growing up, but because of my being born so much later I didn’t do it.
I don’t remember Grandma Annie very well, she died when I was quite young. She suffered a stroke, and I can remember very vividly that she couldn't use her right arm. But she would hold a potato in the crook of her right arm and peel it with her left hand. That was always fascinating for me to watch. Her maiden name was Notal, and she was from the Auburn area. I was told she was quite pretty. She was sort of a merchant, she liked to buy and sell things to make a little extra money.
I remember my Grandpa George very well. He was quite a character, he liked to drink and was very social. When I was growing up I think he was a bit of a problem to my father, he had to bail him out of trouble a couple of times. Every summer my grandfather would go up to the Adirondacks to work for a wealthy family from New York City. He worked on their estate as a gardener and made good money for the times. After Grandma Annie died, and after my mother died, Grandpa George came to live with my father and me. He was in his eighties by that times but still active. He liked to take the bus downtown to visit with his cronies and swap stories. The one story I remember him telling was about the tourist boat THE LADY OF THE LAKES which ran from the northern end of Owasco Lake down to Moravia.That fascinated me because it was no longer in existence in my day.
My other grandparents were Margaret and Owen McDonald. They were both born in Ireland. I never knew him, but Grandma McDonald scared the wits out of me. There is a story from when my mother was a child, and her father was away from the farm. Her mother went out to milk the cows, but came running back into the house and said, “Quick, lock the doors, there are Gypsies in the barn.” The Gypsies helped themselves to the eggs and left.
Owen and Margaret had six children; Anna, who died at 16, Ella, Joseph, Agnes, Teresa (my mother) and Lillian.
I don’t know when they immigrated to this country. They are listed in the 1880 census, where Owen is listed as a laborer, which means they didn't’ own the farm yet. My sister Nancy liked to visit the farm, and lived there for a year.
My mothers older sister Agnes, known as Brickie because of her red hair, was one of my favorites. She was a nurse in one of the very first classes at St. Joseph HOspital in Syracuse. Nurses did everything in those days, the laundry, meals, etc. She was a private duty nurse.
She and her sister, Lillian, who was also a nurse, moved to Chicago to work for a time. While there Aunt Brickie met Leo Bettelheim, and married him. He was Jewish and no one approves of that. When they moved back to Auburn, Aunt Brickie opened a nursing home in her house (that's how they used to do it). She was the main provider for her family. Leo was always trying to invent something or other.
She was a wonderful lady and always willing to help. While out in Chicago she became close to one of her cousins, Hannah, who was also a nurse. Hannah moved back to Auburn and after my mother dies, she married my father.
My mother’s names was Teresa McDonald. She was a wonderful person and marvelous seamstress. She grew up on a farm in King Ferry. She had a number of sisters and one brother. She went as far as sixth or seventh grade and then she came into Auburn. Can you believe it, at that age, twelve or thirteen, came into Auburn and lived at the Women’s Union, which was an industrial home for working women. She learned the dress-making trade. She worked for some of the wealthy families on South St. as a live in seamstress. She told wonderful stories. They’d take her to NYC to pick out fabric, look at the windows and see what were the latest fashions, then come back to Auburn and sew for the ladies. She was a very, very talented woman. I grew up with the best looking clothes because she would whip them up so quickly. She was loads of fun. She was good at everything. She was a wonderful cook, she canned, gardened and painted. The story was told how she decided to open up the space around the staircase, so one day she knocked down the walks herself.
She met my dad when she was living in Auburn at the Women’s Union. I am not really sure how she met hims. I think it was through her friend who was his cousin. He courted her at the Women’s Union. He would come and meet her in the parlor. That was their courtship. There was always some story in the family that every once in a while He'd get a postcard because they didn’t have phones, but he’s get a postcard that said call the Women’s Union, so obviously she liked him a lot. I think they were both 25 when they married. My mother was older by only by a few months. They lived in Dannemora when my father first went to work for the prison. In fact, that’s where some of my siblings were born. I wasn’t born until they bought the house on Augustus St, where I always lived.
Growing up I had three older sisters who fussed over me. My brother wasn’t crazy about me. He wanted a brother instead of a sister, but we got along well. Everything always sort of revolved around my sisters. They were teenagers and they had beautiful clothes my mother made for them. I couldn't wait to be that grown up. The big thing to do then in Auburn was on Saturday afternoon go downtown and guy what you had to buy and have a soda. Sometime they would take me and that was such a big treat. Sometimes I’d get a coloring book. We would go to the Busy Bee, an ice cream parlor. The Boston was another one. Poolos’ was a wonderful restaurant. They had a marble soda fountain counter and pretty old ice cream chairs. Going to the movies wasa big thing. I had a neighbor friend who would go. In fact one of my best friends grew up next to me on Augustus St., and we’re still best friends.
My mother would think nothing of converting part of our home into an apartment. It was a nice big house. It had a back stairway that could be private. When she had a chance to rent an apartment, she turned the house into theirs and ours. I often came home and found everything from my bedroom in the hallway because I was going to move in with someone else. That was the end of my bedroom. Not a big problem. It was a busy house with so many girls.
Everything revolved around homes. My parents were family oriented. We didn’t have a car, my father walked to work. We always took the bus. In those days the streets were so safe. We played baseball on the street. There were wonderful neighborhood kids. We played dick-th-can and things like that.
For elementary school I went to a little neighborhood school called Evans School , from kindergarten through third grade and that was neat. I remember all my teachers so well. Miss Boyle, Mrs. McKinney and Mrs. Hoyle, and Miss Pfeiffer my kindergarten teacher was the best. I was a pretty good students. I got along well in school and of course I had all my neighborhood friends. I remember in kindergarten they had this big wooden slide.
It was wonderful but I don't think we got on it more than twice during the whole school year. I can remember sticking out when I tried to go down. It wasn’t as much fun s I thought it would be.
I remember the art teachers. I want very good in art, but I wanted to do well so I tried hard. I always wanted to do well. During recess the girls were on one side, the boys on the other. There was a place that was open, a cemented place, maybe an extra exit out of the basement but there was no way to get out of there unless you were a big person. That was the trick. Some of the kids liked to put somebody else in there all the times. I was always afraid of that, but it never happened to me. We had a maypole dance in the spring. Those are the things I remember besides learning reading, writing and arithmetic.
After third grade we had to move up to a larger school, the Fulton Street School. I went one year to Fulton St. school because even then I was having some ear problems. My mother was told that they were going to teach lip reading, but they never did. The next year I went to parochial school because that was my parents focus, Catholicism. U went to St. Mary’s school and that was also a very good experience. Now I was with an entirely different group of young people that I didn’t know and they all lived in a different area of town and there were some ethnic backgrounds that I want’ familiar with, but it was a good educational experience. The nuns were, again, happy to have me because I was a pretty good student and it was a good experience.
I went to St. Mary's; Church in auburn. That’s where I received all the sacraments and where I was married. Msg. Cowan was the pastor. At that time there were a lot of priest and St. Mary's had three assistance. Father Tormey was wonderful. There was FAther Lynch and FAther Downs who is now a retired priest in Auburn. Father MacManus and Father Hickey who became Bickey. I can remember my dress for first Communions. Mother made it. It was a pretty little organdy dress with an Irish crochet lace. Somebody probably gave her a dress with this lace on it. We took the bus to my First Communion. Of course there must have been fifty of us. This is what I really remember, I had to go for instructions because I didn’t go to Catholic School at that point. I took the bus to instructions, downtown from my house and walked to St. Mary’s Church. What seven year old would do that now or what parent would allow it? Those were different times.
Growing up during the Depression never really affected me. We never had a lot of money, but we always had all the necessities and a few of the luxuries. I couldn't do things like go to summer camps like some of the kids. Going to the corner store, Eddie Flynn’s was the big thing. The wonder would let up sit on the steps and drink out sodas and that was where we hung out. We'd go out for a loaf of bread and come back in an hour. One day I remember asking my mother for a nickel and she said no. And I said, “I want a nickel,” being very persistent. She started to cry and she said, “I can’t give you a nickel, I don’t have it. I can give you a penny.” Now, even today, that memory makes me sad.
The holidays were always special. When I was a little girl my father often had to work on Christmas Day, so we would wait until he came home to open out presents. It was four o'clock in the afternoon before he got home, and that was hard. My first bike was a Christmas gift and that was so exciting. A nice big blue bike and it didn’t have a kickstand but rather the kind you had to put being the back wheel. It lifted up and then you put it down. I must have been about eight when I got that because I remember riding it to my first school. Back then you didn’t have to lock your bike sup, just put it in the bike rack.
I remember one Fourth of July at my best friend, Sue Northway’s house and they had sparklers and her mother’s dress caught on fire. Her father put it out right away. That was very visid in my minds. It was scary.
When my two grandmothers died the calling hours were at our house (that’s how they did it back then). I remember staying overnight at the Northway’s. Mrs. Northway brought me right to their house.
Being a teenager was great. I had a wonderful high school experience. First of all, I met my husband in ninth grade. We were high school sweethearts. I was a cheerleader, which was a big thing in those days, a status symbol. He was a football player. He was an everything player. We just had a good time and I did well in school. I was in the plays. Our senior play was YOUNG APRIL. I was April, the lead, and it was about a young girl and her parent and her boyfriend.
I remember my high school teachers vividly. We had such wonderful teachers. One of my favorite was Miss Hallahan. She was out Latin teacher. Miss Parcell taught English. My social studies teacher was Miss Milligan. It was a nice size school. I think there were about 125 in our graduating class. Everybody knew everybody..
Of course, one of the things we always did was listen to the radio. Frank Sinatra was wonderful. Hit Parade was on Saturday night. We listened to see which tune was number one on the Hit Parade.
I did a lot of babysitting. I starting working as a teenager. I spent one summer working as a nurse’s assistant at the hospital. That was quite an eye-opener. I found out that I really didn’t want to be a nurse. Then I worked in retail in downtown Auburn. First at the local department store and then in a lady’s ready to wear, upscale dress store, Kalet’s, which is now closed. That gave me a little pin money. I continues to work there when I was in college.
World War II made an impression on me. My brother went into the service, the Army. He was drafted after he graduated from high school. In fact, I was in grammar school when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. No one said anything to me. They were all quiet and I could sort of pick up on it, the conversation between my father and mother and brother and sisters. When I went to bed that night I was so frightened because I thought those bombers were going to fly right over Auburn, NY. That had quite an effect on our lives. There was rationing and you had to be careful about your shoes and meat and butter. Also, Sampson Naval Base was over on Seneca Lake and there were a lot of naval men in Auburn. Probably that is when my mother started renting her apartment. So, they were on the streets and you weren’t supposed to talk to those sailors when they were in town. I do remember the day the Japanese surrendered, all of Auburn went bananas. Great celebration! That night everybody in the world was downtown parading on their own.
I went with my husband all through high school. His name was Paul Ringwood. He was a year older and graduated a year before I did. Then we kind of decided that maybe we should be too restricted, maybe we should see other people. We did for a little bit, on and off, on and off, but it turned out to be the right thing for us. I became close to his parents. He was an only child and they would have me over for dinner. It was very tough wen we weren’t on the best of terms. I had to answer his mother and father. He went to Syracuse University and then I graduated and went to LeMoyne in Syracuse. I commuted there. We had out on again and off again times, but it worked out. I graduated from high school in 1948 and LeMoyne in 1952. Paul graduated from Assumption College in Canada in 1951.
At LeMoyne I took social studies. I was a sociology major. My mother dies when she was sixty and I was a sophomore at LeMoyne. That is when my grandfather moved into our house. I was sort of the housekeeper. Everybody else was married and gone so it was just my grandfather, my father and me. My father was still working. I don’t know that the house was clean as my mother kept it, but it worked out. My grandfather would always try to cook, but he wasn’t too successful. My mother’s death was probably the saddest thing that happened to me up to that point. She was the dominant person in my life and a good friend.
After college my husband went right into the Marine Corp. into Officers Candidate School. Now we were in the Korean War. I was a senior in college, he was graduating from OCS, very likely going overseas, so we decided to be married at this time. This did not thrill my father or my sisters, but we had a very nice wedding at Christmas time of 1951. It was the beginning of a wonderful and a happy marriage.
Paul never did go overseas. After our wedding he went back to the service and I went back to school. When he graduated from OCS he was sent to North Carolina at Camp Lejeune. He was stationed in North Carolina all the time he was in the service. That was wonderful. He came home for my graduation from college and I joined him in North Carolina. I didn’t put my degree to work for me because we started having children right away and that was most of my life until my forties.
We lived in Richland, which is a little town outside of the camp. We weren’t there long enough to get base housing. It was a great apartment, a garage apartment and very charming. It was a wonderful way to start our lives. OUr first daughter, Nancy, was born there in the naval hospital in October of 1952. When I was pregnant I can remember thinking “Anything else in my life I can get out of. I can’t get out of this.” Then I remembered that my sisters had babies and it turned out OK. I was just frightened. When I was in labor I can remember the Navy doctor coming in and saying, “I hope this doesn’t last very long, I have to go to a cocktail party.” I thought, “The heck with you.” The naval hospital was like a machine. They were churning out baby's right and left. You were allowed to stay about two and a half days, which is not unusual now, but in a regular hospital during those days you would stay for a week.
With my first baby I was bewildered about what I was going to do. My husband's mother and father came down and stayed with us for a little while and that was nice. It helped me a lot to have his mother there. She helped me a lot with the baby. Theri names were Bernadine and Leo Ringwood. Bernie was the dominant person in that family and Leo was very quiet and reserved. A real gentleman; a very dark man. Both in their own ways very dear. After I had Nancy I’ll never forget looking at her beautiful little face and thinking, “this is my baby.” And I felt that way about everyone of them. I had ten.
I was in North Carolina for not even a year. Paul had to go on maneuvers at Vieques, which is part of Cuba so I packed up and came home with Nancy. He went on maneuvers and when he was finished he was discharged and came home to Auburn.
After Nancy my next child was Michael, born on October of 1953. The there was Patty . She was born in November of 1954. Next was Thomas born in July of 1956. Jack was born in Auburn of 1957. Then Teresa was born in December of 1958 and Paul in August of 1960. David was born in May of 1962, Peter in January of 1966 and then Bob in November, 1967.
With all of the children there had to be a routine in our house. Everyone was expected to make their beds, not that they did. We had a laundry chute up on the second floor and all the laundry went down to the basement. I would find books and baseball bats and everything you could think that had been thrown down that chute. Sometimes clean clothes that hadn’t even been worn. They did know what to do with them so down the chute they went. I remember vividly one day counting the towels and there had been twenty towels used in one day. We didn’t have too many more than twenty towels. So there had be a lecture about all of this. My husband was a very good disciplinarian. He want’ unkind but he was firm, and he could be heard! He traveled so I was on my own a lot during the week and unfortunately some things had to be told to their Dad when he came home. Then they knew they were in trouble.
But, we did have a routine. The girls had to take their showers in the evening because the boys all took them in the morning. They had to have a routine on that. Get in and out of that shower. We had three bathrooms but only one shower.
There was a regular bedtime. The littler kids went early and then the older kids. The younger dis ent at eight and the older kids at nine or whenever they were ready. They always knelt down and said their prayers before they went up to bed. In their prayers they always remembered their grandparents and each other. They always kissed you goodnight.
There was homework and dishes to be done. The boys did the yard work and the girls the housework. Teresa had to dust when she came home from school, Nancy put the dishes in the dishwasher and talked on the phone the whole time she was doing it. They all had their own chores and they were good about it for the most part. As a result, they’ve been more efficient as adults having learned a few things along the way. They had a lot of fights, particularly among those boys. We had a big playroom and it was a PLAYROOM! That’s one of the reasons we bought the new house. It was located at 124 Owasco Street. It had six bedrooms and three baths and a playroom and den. The playroom was like a solarium. Lots of windows and shelves, so all their toys were supposedly on the shelves, but mostly on the floor. There were many broken windows in this room. There were many windows and throwing balls around. One time when Jack ews in first grade he was going to be in a play school. The Sister said, “Now I want everyone to have a new pair of pajamas because you’re going to be listing children dusting stars.” Jack went up to her and said, “I don’t think I can have a new pair of pajamas, there are too many broken windows in our house. I’ll have to sear my old pajamas.” So he got the message about broken window. There were always a lot of bicycles around and kids in the yard. And always a basketball net on the garage and to this day that’s what signals me the start of spring, the sound of a basketball bouncing on the ground.
We always ate dinner in the dining room and we always ate by candlelight because it was my theory that candle light quiets the atmosphere. We had a buffet type dinner. I put everything on the kitchen table and they brought their plates to the dining room. That way they took what they could eat and they had to eat what they took. No one left the table until my husband said, “Thank you Joan; that was a lovely dinner.” That was the signal that they could leave the table. This didn’t just happen, we had to enforce it.
Sunday was family day. Nobody could have friends in the yard on Sundays. They could go someplace, but normally they didn’t. We belonged to Skaneateles Country club so we would often go over there and have picnics. It was a wonderful to get away from the phone. The kids had phone calls all that time. That was the busy part.
Holidays were always spent at home. Who would invite us. Because my husband was an only child we had to provide holidays for his Mom and Dad also. There were wonderful. We had two Christmas trees, one in the living room and one in the family room, the playroom. That tree was for the young ones. The older children (and Paul and I) had our gifts under the living room tree. As the kids grew older they could say up and open their gifts after midnight. So when you became about sixteen, you could do that, otherwise the toys were out in the playroom.
We would go to church first in the morning. We tried midnight mass once, but here were too many little ones. We got up for the 7 o’clock mass and believe me, it was bedlam getting out of the car and into the house after mass, but it was better to do it that way. The I would cook and we’d have Christmas dinner and the everyone would be so tired. I was looking at some pictures of Christmas morning and I just looked like the wrath of God. I could hardly hold my head up. They had nice Chrismasses. Too many things, but I think that's even more true of my grandchildren.
Thanksgiving with
my kids was always at home. One year my sisters and my brother and I tried to organize a family dinner as a restaurant but nobody liked it. A restaurant just isn't the same. One year when we lived on Owasco Street, I did have my sister Helen and her family and my sister Nancy and her family and there were always various mother-in-laws who came. My brother’s mother-in-law was alone so she and my sister’s mother-in-law was also so she came but that was too much. There were too many people and we could all fit at the same table. So we never tried that again.
Halloween is my least favorite holiday of the entire year. To this day it is my least favorite. I didn’t make costumes. I didn’t buy costumes. People gave us costumes. Everything was up in the attic. They’s go up there and tear around and see what they could find. One time, Bob the baby, was very upset because he didn’t have a good costume. Jack said, “Come on Bob, I’ll take you up in the attic and we’ll fist you up.” I must have had a ton of fabric because he wrapped Bob up; legs, body, head and arms. He said, “He’s a mummy.” Fortunately he left his mouth open.
When I was a kid out Halloweens were more destructive. Soaping windows, tipping over garbage cans; it was terrible. I don’t remember doing a whole lot of it, but I did some. We didn’t collect candy or anything like that. We’d ring the doorbell and then run away. Big deal. Annoying. One time my mother and I were driving down Augustus Street during Halloween and she drove over something. She said “Oh Joanie, I just drove over a body.” Sur enough some kids had fixed up a dummy and threw it out in the road, but it made her feel so badly. That was their prank. That’s what I remember about Halloween. Going to the door five mission times and then the kids would come in with their bags of candy. It was awful. I didn’t like it and I still don’t.
Most of our summers were spent at Skaneateles. They had a day camp program for the kids on Tues, Thurs, and Fri from 10am to 3pm and I took them over there. It was the best opportunity for them to have swimming and archery and ball games. They met a lot of nice friends. Now, I always had little babies who were too young to go so I had to pack everybody in the car and drive over and back twice a day, but it was worth it. It kept them busy and outside. Sometimes I ‘d take the babies and go to the picnic area under the trees and take a book and read while they took naps,. It was nice.
The kids are still very close; ad I’m grateful for that. They do a lot together, they don't always have to do things with me. Once a year the boys have a golf tournament. They go someplace different every year that they spend the weekend. There are seven of them and they make the eight person their father. They always give him a score and he gets to be the eight person on the score sheet. My daughters and I have a mother/daughter weekends once a years. We get together at one house or another. We have a great time. We have wine and char. Last year Ted and I were in Florida and the girls came there.
My mother-in-law had lived alone after her husband died. She was very frightened. She thought she was having heart trouble. She was a little bit paranoid about things and on the phone constantly. Some of our kids were grown up and we didn’t need all the room in the house so I finally said to Red, “Couldnt we fix an apartment in the back of the house and bring your mother over to live with us and then she might feel more secure. She would still have her own part, her own room and her own bathroom.” I think he was relieved to do it and we did.
She had a lovely apartment in the room where all the windows got broken. We lost the playroom but we still had plenty of room. The set-up was that she would fix her own breakfast and lunch and then she would eat dinner with us. That worked out very well. But she always had somebody there for the most parts. There were advantages too because if we went away there wasn't the temptation for the kids to have parties. They couldn’t get away with that. One time they did have a party; we were all there. They had hooked up their music to her outdoor light in the back of the house. They took the light bulb out and hooked up the stereo. She listened to that music just about long enough and she went over and flipped the switch in the house and it turned the music off. That ended the party. I thought, “Good for her.”
So, she was there when Paul had the heart attack and it was so hard on her. He was an only child. I was 42 when my husband had a massive heart attack. We were on a business trip in Baltimore. This was after Thanksgiving. He went off to work and the next thing I knew someone called me and said “Your husband has been taken to the hospital. Someone is going to be picking you up.” He had wonderful care at Baltimore City Hospital. They had a nurses home attached to the hospital where you could rent a room. I went and stayed there. My older sisters who lived in South Jersey came and spent a lot of time with me while I was there, especially when he was in danger of dying.
He had a massive heart attack, but he survived that. It changed our lives significantly because his health was never the same. Our priorities changed. A lot of things we thought were important weren’t important after all.
When he was on the mend I had to get home and see who was taking care of the kids. It was helter skelter. I came home and left him; that was a hard thing to do. I got on the plane and was sitting in a seat facing somebody and they were talking about the holidays. I thought, “Nobody understand that I just left my husband in the hospital.” I wanted to scream at them.
I returned to Auburn and arranged the babysitting details. I got some things organized for Christmas and then I went back to get him. That was quite a return home. First of all the weather was terrible and we thought we might have to land in Pittsburgh instead of going on to Syracuse. But that worked out. Of course, when he came in the house the kids and his mother, who was living with us at the time, were so thrilled to see him. He did well. He certainly didn’t feel well. He had no energy and he was out of work for about three months. He had a highly stressful job and he traveled all the time. He couldn't do that anymore and his company knew that and they were very understanding.
Very gradually he got back. He’d go back for half a day and pretty soon he started traveling, but it took so much out of him. When he came home he’d just sit down and put his feet up and that was it, until he had bypass surgery.
There was a wonderful doctor in NJ, my sister’s nephew, and she insisted on Red coming down to see him, and sure enough he had bypass surgery in Philadelphia. He really benefited from that. He had an aneurysm on his heart and it was ready to blow, but they were able to remove that and then the circulation improved. His energy improved and he got back to playing golf and there was more quality to his life which was great.
Of course, during this time there were weddings. Nancy was married, Mike was married and Patty was married. There were college and high school graduations, first communions and all that goes with them. In late July of 1978 we had a Crawford family reunion at our house. It was great. My brother and his family and all my sisters and their families were there and it was a wonderful time. Red really enjoyed it..
In August of 1978, we had been on a business trip out to Cleveland and that went well. On the 12th of August he played golf with some friends and we went out to dinner with all of them, came home and Red went into the bathroom to wash and brush his teeth. I heard this thump. He came back in the bedroom, he was walking, but he had a funny look in his eyes and he said, “I don’t know what happened to me.” I noticed that his teeth were out (he had a plate) and he lay down on the bed that that was it. He died.
A couple of the boys were still up and * called to them and they came upstairs. We tried to give him cardio. We called the ambulance, but he was gone. I know that now. I rode in the ambulance with him to the hospital. He was forty-nice. He would have turned fifty in September. So that was the other big, sad thing in my life. That was a big loss.
Poor Pete and Bob. They were 10 and 12. They do have some memories, but it was tough losing their Dad at that age. I’ll never forget telling them the next morning. We didn’t get them up that night. The other kids all got up in the middle of the night because it was one o'clock in the morning when we took him to the hospital. It was just a terrible things to have to say to your children, “Your father died last night.” You feel like it can’t be true.
After that life went on, as it has to. The sun still rises. There was a lot of paperwork and a lot of adjustments to be made. I had always been the one to do the business stuff in the family so that wasn't a big challenge to me. My husband’s cousin’s husband's husband was an attorney and he was just wonderful. He was right there for me for everything. He advised me financially and maintained me through those years. I still had kids in college and high school. We got through that and I don’t know how. If I had to tell you how I found every penny to do it I couldn’t. But it happened. All the kids finished college.
After Red died and things sort of slowed down; it was so quiet around the house and I really wanted to do something. I applied for a job at the community college in the library and they hired me. It was good. I worked from 1:00 until 4:00. Now isn’t that a big day? It was good for my mother-in-law not to have me there every minute so it was good to get out. There was a cut back in funding at the college and guess whose job got shelved - mine. I was shocked. So I applied for a job at Auburn Nursing Home in their social services department, which was my background in college and I was hired. That was wonderful because now I could put that degree to use. I worked there for fourteen years. I was a one-man department and I loved it. It was good for me and it was the kind of job that was useful. I was an advocate for the residents and their families and I made sure that all their rights were fulfilled and that they were well cared and provided for. I did fall the admissions also. That was the biggest part of my job. It was fulfilling. I retired when I was sixty-five.
I met my second husband when I was about ten. He too lived in Auburn and we used to skate at Hoopes Park. Ted and Paul were great friends. They went to college together and were roommates and then both worked at Red Star. I was also a good friend of Ted’s wife. It was almost inevitable because after Ted’s wife died we were mutually supportive of one another and we just decided that maybe it would be a good idea to be married. We were married in 1998.
