| I also spent a great deal of time with my father's family who were settled in and around Perth Amboy. My father was the third oldest of eight children which means the younger ones were more of my generation than of my parents' generation. I have first cousins now who are young enough to be my children and I think they look at me as being part of "the old guard."
The last of my father's family died a year ago, which helped bring me up short and prompted this attempt to record memories. My mother's brother, also Dave, died two weeks ago. He lived in Florida and I hadn't seen him in years but he, too, was the last of the line. It's rather a jolt to realize something like this, especially when I don't really feel all that old.
I have two younger sisters, Janice, 3 years younger, and Sydney,
seven years younger, each of whom has married and had children of
her own and grandchildren. Janice retired about 4 or 5 years ago
after 43 years of nursing at Perth Amboy General Hospital, which
is now called Raritan Bay Medical Center.
I remember when I was a young girl my uncle had an ice cream store... a candy store, really, and they lived in an apartment that took up the back and the top and I can remember standing in the doorway looking straight out to what was then the main entrance of the hospital with lots of lawn and trees, almost a park like atmosphere. The building that now houses the parking deck was once the site of the nurse's home and I remember watching the young nurses walking across the lawn to the hospital with their starched white uniforms and navy blue capes and caps that set them apart... they looked like, to me, at the time, like angels. Now the building is growing again, and it seems to me it grew like, well like Topsy who "just grew." I remember so many things that have changed, some for the better, a lot for the worse.
I worked after high school at the Raritan Arsenal, as did so many
people. The war started in December 1941 and changed the lives
of a lot of people. I worked at the Arsenal for about two years
then went on to other jobs. When I was 24 I went to Reno to work
for the summer, I thought, met a man and married him, bore his
children. When he died I came back here to live and that set off
a whole rash of "I-remember-whens" because there were towns now
which I had never heard of before, streets that I had never known
about before... a whole town north of Smith Street (I think it's
north.. maybe it's east and west.. I don't know ).. the
thing is that so much changed.
5/10/97 Copyright 1997  by rgc  |
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