Childhood Summer Vacations

When I was almost eleven years old, we moved from Milwaukee, Wisconsin where I was born to Kansas City, Missouri. We moved because my father had to have hip surgery, and this caused him not to be able to work his decent paying construction job. His family was in Kansas City, Missouri and my mom’s relatives were about 130 miles away in Junction City, Kansas and about another 100 or so miles away in Wichita, Kansas. This meant we would be close to family. My father was concerned about us being in Wisconsin, with him not at his best without any family near us. He had to go on disability, and this caused him a lot of mental anguish for a while. My father was a proud man and not working his regular job to provide for us bothered him.

As soon as he mastered how to use his crutches, he went to work part-time for some old friends who owned billiard parlors and other recreational businesses. Oh yeah, he grew up in Kansas City, Missouri and he knew a lot of people in the city. When he was young all the black people lived in the same area because of segregation. The doctors, lawyers and other professionals knew the people who were common labors and lived on the same street as many of them. The only difference is that the professional black people homes were larger with better furniture. The businesspeople all knew each other or had a relative who knew someone, etc.

This was a new experience for us we lived in a predominately black neighborhood in Milwaukee however there were a few bi-racial families and always one or two immigrant families nearby. As a child I just knew we did not live in the projects, we had nice clothes, ate well and always had a decent looking car that ran well. The only time we rode the bus is when we went downtown to shop. This way we had our freedom to explore. It was the same way in Kansas City. Sometimes if it were raining or other inclement weather dad would drop us off and then pick us at our rendezvous location.

Although it was a time of some peril in our lives, we were not fully aware of it. Since we were around family, we were not concerned about it. Now there were times I would hear my parents up late at night talking and having some intense conversations about what was going to happen to us. Mostly they would be cheering each other up. My dad told us we were the four musketeers one for all and all for one. We must stand by each other to make it. We now had cousins, aunts, great aunts and a grandparent nearby that we would see often this made our lives so much better. The move was not as traumatic as it could have been if we did not have them. My mom told us we were going on an adventure when we boarded the train in Milwaukee to go to Kansas City. This is what it was for us an adventure.

My first cousins became my adopted brothers and sisters. Now I had seven brothers and three more sisters. Some of them were much older so I really only saw them and were around them at family gatherings. We would crowd into my aunt Ruby’s and uncle Oddis’s two-bedroom apartment a couple of times a year. Then we would go over to my aunt Willa’s and Uncle Leroy’s house about two times a year. It would be at least 30 people in and out of those places during the holidays. Those women could cook up some food and set a table fit for royalty. You would have never known the women did what was called day work (worked as maids) and the men were considered common laborers or retired military (non-commission ranks) the way the table was full of food, elegant serving dishes, table linens, flatware, etc. My aunt Willa even had silver and gold flatware with the serving utensils I mean the real stuff. She also had real porcelain China serving bowls and platters.

We lived below my aunt Odessa in her two-story colonial home on the corner of 24th Terrace and Chestnut Street. She had a full basement that was not complete. It looked very spooky and was cold and damp. It did not help that the neighborhood kids thought she was strange to say the least and told us she had killed her husband and stashed him in the basement. This was not an easy thing to have to live with at school. The reality was that she was a bit on the strange side. She was probably bi-polar she just had these unpredictable mood swings. At times she was happy and laughing the next she could be a terror. Our uncle Lewis according to the family just left her one day and went to live with relatives in Oklahoma according to my mother and father.

My cousins had various stories about her punishing them that sounded like torture to me. Also, at times if her cute Cocker Spaniel dog named Jessie did something to displease her, she would beat him without mercy. The poor dog would holler like it was dying. Because of this behavior my mom was extremely concerned about us being with her for any extended period of time. She had her rules about her house and some of them were peculiar to say the least. So much so I am not going into any detail about them in this story. My father told us to always respect her and remember she was making sure we had a place to live. The downstairs where we lived was adequate a lot smaller than we were accustomed to living in however we had a roof over our heads, place to be warm in the winter and cool in the summer. Plus, this was not going to be permanent both my parents made sure we understood that we were only going to be there temporarily.

Our school was two blocks away at the end of a very steep hill. This made it easy for us to walk to school with mom watching us on top of the hill. She would go with our aunts to do day work (maid work) sometimes when we first moved to the city. She could see us from the top of the hill cross the street. We only had one small alley way to cross and at the large street Prospect Avenue the crossing guard would be there to help us get across. There was a small store on the opposite corner on the same side of the street across from the school. It usually had the basic food items and of course plenty of candy. We were warned not to go to the store unless we had permission. The teachers at the school would do candy check when the students arrived in the mornings. They would confiscate the candy and return it at the end of the school day with a note to your parents letting them know that the store was off limits to students.

Now my favorite vacations were when we went to Junction City for a couple of weeks or the entire summer. It would depend on what we were doing in the way of day camps and other activities in Kansas City how long we would stay. Junction City was just outside of Fort Riley, Kansas this is where my mom’s aunts worked. Our great aunt Inez worked at the laundry and my great aunt Lessie worked at the hospital in the janitorial department. For a while I thought she was a nurse because she wore a white uniform like a nurse, white stockings and white nurse shoes. Both of my uncles were retired Korean and World War II Army veterans. I am now just realizing that I have about three or four more short stories I can write based on my summers visiting them.

When we went to visit them during the summer there was a man-made lake built by the Army Corps of Engineers that we could not wait to visit. Lake Milford was close to their home about a 15 to 20-minute drive. You could fish, swim and take a boat of almost any size onto the lake. I loved that beach. The sand was very beige and thick, every easy to build sandcastles and other structures. We could play in the sand, daydream about faraway places like we saw in the movies and meet new friends. In fact, I had a boyfriend (that I was not supposed to have) I would be with when I went there. Our relationship lasted from age 11 to 18. He was fun, very attractive and nice not pushy about kissing, etc. His younger brother would hang out with us sometimes especially at first. After I turned age 15, we did not have any younger people hanging out with us. He was the only boy my father would let me ride in a car with at that time. For some reason my sister did not go with us. She would hang out with my aunt Inez most of the time. I guess she found a way to have fun with a woman old enough to be her grandmother. My sister was always referred to as an old soul.

Now both of our aunts were fun to be with and our time with them were just wonderful. However, I liked having people my age to be around. Again, there is another story to share about our exploits during the summer that I may write someday. Our summers in Junction City were filled with going to church and all the activities the church offered for young people, the carnival, swimming at the lake and sometimes fishing when my grandfather would come down to visit. He was also a great person to be with he would tell us stories about our mom when she was a child, talked about fishing and taught us how to fish. It did not take much to entertain the two of us.

When we returned home to Kansas City, we had wonderful stories and photos to share. Going to Junction City for the summer was like stepping into a scene of the Andy Griffith Show the only difference the people were mostly black or other people of color. By Junction City being close to the Army fort you had a lot of bi-racial families and people from other places around. A lot of the women were from Japan, Korea, the Philippines with a few from Latin America. My aunts called them war brides because their husbands were soldiers and brought them back to the US after their tours of duty were completed in foreign countries.

Some could barely speak English however their children were fluent and did the interpretation for them. It was my introduction to knowing people from other places in the world. In fact, my boyfriend Zeb’s mom was from Japan. His father was a soldier stationed in Japan during the Korean conflict. Zeb had a wonderful dark tan color, goal black thick slightly wavy hair and was tall like his father. His smile was brilliant white and very warm. I heard he went into the Navy after graduation from high school. I bet he looked great in those white Navy uniforms. The last time I saw him was the Thanksgiving holidays of 1972 in Junction City.