ANNA M. POWELL
MY STORY
My memories of Oregon are pleasantly set against
the rich green of grass and shrubs, with great old trees; flowers in abundance,
especially roses, blooming everywhere in gardens and growing wild along
the roadsides!
True, all this beauty comes at the price of a great
deal of rain, but on this subject most Oregonians have always been and
are philosophical.
My early years were overshadowed by World War I;
it was reflected in our family life. I recall my parents discussing influenza;
we stayed safely at home until this plague had passed. No one entered or
left the house; the delivery-boy brought our groceries to the back door.
"Doughboy" and "Kaiser" were part of my vocabulary.
My generation was encouraged to eat all our vegetables, because of the
"starving Armenians."
The maid, Imelda's, sweetheart was my favorite young
man, handsome in his uniform. I called him "Soldier Boy," and when he went
off to war, I missed him sorely. When he returned safely from service,
he and Imelda were properly married, and I think I felt my first pangs
of jealousy.
My mother spoke German as well as English,
so that I was bi-lingual, what speaking I did at age 3. However, never
again did we utter a word of German in public after a street-car incident,
when I stated clearly "Da ist eine Kuh." My mother hushed me, and people
seated near us rose and moved away.
Shortly after I was born my father retired from
active practice. This gave him a lot of spare time, so that when I reached
the age of 4, he decided to teach me to read and do arithmetic. Luckily
I was delighted and eager to learn. Taking turns, we read our way through
all the children's books in the house. By the time I was 6 I had mastered
the multiplication tables and long division, Then we tackled geography
and spelling. I memorized the states and their capitols.
I don't recall ever feeling stressed or bored by
all this. True, Papa was a natural teacher, enthusiastic and imaginative.
What might easily have seemed like hard work was exciting instead. Then,
too, we had time for walks, and shopping, and playing games: cards and
checkers, and Parcheesi.
Still, kind and entertaining though he was, he simply
did not take the place of a playmate my own age; that is what I longed
for! It seems strange, but I really don't remember any children my age
in our immediate neighborhood. The 12 year old girl across the street visited
us now and then; she was more like an older sister, and a bit patronizing.
However, when her class started doing long division,
and she was having trouble understanding it, my father suggested that I
might help. From then on, she crossed the street to our house every afternoon.
I watched out the window eagerly for her to come. All too soon, it seemed,
when she no longer needed my help, it was back to mama, papa, and the cook,
all of whom fell far short of my idea of a playmate.
This little story, from when I was 4 or 5, tells
clearly how desperate I felt. One sunny afternoon my parents and I went
shopping in downtown Portland. We stopped for a bit by a rustic fountain
in the center of an intersection, and there was another little girl, and
we laughed together at the splashing water. I was so delighted I had found
someone just my size!
In a while, of course, it was time to leave. Mama,
taking my hand, said, "We must go now. . .Say Good-bye" Much to her surprise
I shouted, "No, Mama. This is my friend!" But mama was stronger. She shushed
me, and gently but firmly pulled me away. We left the fountain and that
little girl.
In retrospect I realize that my parents simply did
not understand that having a playmate could be that important to me, and
it was a lonely few years until I knew the joys of having neighbor children
to play with; not just once in a while but on a daily basis.
Lest I forget, there was one family,
good friends of my parents, John and Nell Kavanaugh, and their 4 children,
whom we visited of an evening. The younger 2, Patricia and Jack, and I
would play together, but, after a few harmless games, such as "Hide and
Seek", and "Hide the Thimble", one of them would suggest "THE STAIRS!"
Rolling down the hard, thinly-carpeted stairs together, trying to avoid
bodily harm! They cautioned me not to yell, because they had been forbidden
to do this. They were older and tougher and more practiced than I; they
seemed to know how to do this scary thing, hardly hurting themselves. We
did manage not to cry out much, but finally the racket gave us away, and
their parents would come scolding to put a stop to this mayhem at a point
just short of tears for me. So, whenever we went to the Kavanaughs, I went
with some fear in my heart!
By contrast, a visit to Mary Jane Carr's home, a
small farm outside of Salem, was always a wonderful treat! Mary Jane was
a well-known writer of children's stories, as well as of a weekly childrens'
column in the Oregonian. She understood us small-fry very well. She would
have games and picnics and walks in the woods for us. Towards the end of
the afternoon, she would gather us in a circle on the lawn, and help us
to make up stories. Mary Jane told my mother she often got ideas for her
own stories from those sessions with us children.
Of all the People we knew in Oregon,
surely the most interesting were the Bush family. They made such a profound
impression on me, young though I was, that it has stayed with me throughout
my life.
In 1980, after an absence of almost 60 years, I
finally visited Bush House again. It was in a spirit of wonder that I walked
up the old walk-way to the house, and mounted the tall set of wooden steps
to the front porch. I stood some moments before the door, on the threshold
of my favorite childhood place. Back I had finally come, as to a dear,
old friend.
Entering the house quietly, so as, not to break
the spell, I stood in thee hallway, gazing at wide staircase, rising ahead.
To the right, the dining-room; to think that I once sat at this table,
as a little girl! Then, across the hall, I entered the parlor, as beautiful
and welcoming as ever! It was so lovely to discover that in essence we
had not changed, this house and I; we had merely waited through all the
years for this reunion!
NEXT: INTRODUCTION.
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