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Archiver > IA-IRISH > 2002-01 > 1010024491


From: "Cathy Joynt Labath" <>
Subject: [IA-IRISH] Walking to school, no meat on Fri, air registers, coal furnaces, books and avon sachets!
Date: Wed, 2 Jan 2002 20:22:40 -0600
References: <200201020703.g0273XZ18987@lists5.rootsweb.com> <004101c193aa$dcbecde0$4144b1cf@oemcomputer> <014601c1945b$c0de1840$f951c418@oemcomputer>


I'm not that old, but remember just having the knee highs to wear with my
uniform to keep my legs warm on the one mile hike to mass then school every
morning. I really wanted a pair of tights, but never got them. Our Catholic
school was tiny (St. Mary's in Davenport, IA) and there definitely were no
school buses and the hike, as I still tell my children (they don't believe
me, even though I have driven them over the route I took for proof) , was
almost exactly one mile each way. I think it was about a half hours walk
when I was very little. I think we were kind of poor as I don't remember
having either slacks or snow pants to wear. We didn't have many clothes. The
school uniform and a couple of white blouses was the mainstay of our
wardrobes. My legs would be red for a very long time, almost until it was
time to walk home in the afternoons. Our boots would be full of snow and
our socks and shoes wet. We sometimes put bread bags inside our boots over
our shoes, especially when it seemed the boots would be getting a little
small. Mass was still in Latin then and you couldn't eat meat on Fridays. I
sometimes had a plain mayonnaise sandwich for my lunch on Fridays, believe
it or not.

And, we had the register on the wall. I remember lying on the floor in the
living room most of the winter reading a book (usually Trixie Belden or
Nancy Drew from the bookmobile) with my feet next to the register to stay
warm. Of course, that was when we had a coal furnace and I remember
shoveling coal into the furnace after school and then putting the cinders on
the sidewalks when they were icy.

In the summers we spent our time on the farm with our grandparents in
Emmetsburg, Palo Alto Co, IA and I remember grandma liked to get to church
VERY early. It was so hot in church (before air) and the combined smell of
her avon wrist sachet and the heat always made me feel like puking even
before church began. I distracted myself by trying to figure out what the
Latin in the missile translated to in English. (I think it helped in later y
ears learning Spanish and French) I hate the smell of perfumes to this day
and sometimes get sick when I am at the library doing research for this list
if an old, smelly lady sits next to me at the microfilm readers!

Cathy

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