Sunday was different. Mother had me then for the whole day. In my early years,
Daddy and Mother sometimes took me to her parents’, the Wallaces’, home on the
West Side. When I was a little older, Mother would take me to Mass, show me off
afterwards, then proceed down Fayette Street hill to Wallaces, where we spent the rest
of the day. Though happy enough in my familiar surroundings on Baltimore Avenue,
on the East Side, with my playmate and the grandmother and aunt I felt so
comfortable with, I dearly loved to go to Grandma Wallace’s.
Grandma was warm and gentle, not the hugging and kissing type, but clearly
loving. Pop was strict - to raise nine children he had to be - and often gruff, but he
too had a warm side. He didn’t pay much attention to me when I was young, except
when I was bad, but even then he only chastised me verbally and told my mother that
she had better use the hairbrush!
Mother’s siblings still living at home were Bud (Francis), Margaret, Dorothy,
Madelyn and Regina. They must have liked me, or at least tolerated me, for I have
only happy memories of being among them in those early years.
One of my earliest memories of Sundays at Grandma’s is the time the family
kitty eluded my torments by running into the sewer. But nobody besides me had seen
what happened, so after that, it was always: “Billy, do you remember when you threw
the cat into the sewer?"
The next five years hold memories of Sundays at Grandma’s which I cannot
associate with any particular age.
Ah, the memory of Sunday dinners! The grand weekly feast was at midday.
Nine of us squeezed around the kitchen table, or, when any of the other Wallace
children came for dinner, extension leaves were added to the dining room table -
where we were similarly squeezed. Sometimes there were so many that we ate in two
shifts. Grace was said in unison. Bless us, O Lord, and these Thy gifts... The meal was
almost predictable: chicken, fried or roasted, or beef and pork roast, always with
mashed potatoes, kraut, cole slaw and homemade bread, plus homemade cake
(usually yellow cake with chocolate icing) or fruit pie. Kids’ chatter was permitted,
as long as it didn’t get too loud, but serious conversation, even on the part of the
parents and adult children, and humor were largely lacking. We were there to eat,
period. Pop was not fastidious, but one rule he did enforce: no elbows on the table,
especially to support the head. “What’s the matter, is your head heavy.!"
After dinner I would go out to play. But not before my Mother’s inevitable
command: “Now go upstairs and get those good clothes off, Billy. You ruin that outfit
and you won’t get another one any time soon!" She didn’t quite mean that. She had
to soften her extravagance a little in front of her thrifty parents.
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