Happy Boxing Day

             This morning was a perfect example how the days get away from me. It started out with getting an E-mail out to my sister. I had to do a bit of research for some pictures which had me doing searches on my journal site and hard drive. Got that mail all put together and I vowed to get off the computer once I did one last check on my Facebook page.

My Pandora station was playing good tunes and just as I went to sign off Facebook I read a posting about “Boxing Day” being today. The memories that term brings to mind: Here we go again to my paper journals.  December 1987. I remember like it was yesterday.

ARRH!!! I must be on the repeat cycle. I just double checked my documents and realized……I was just about to repeat a boxing day entry I did this time last year! Am I predictable or what??

My sister sent me pictures of their Christmas. My niece received a framed wedding picture of mom and dad in uniform. There are no pictures of the wedding or dinner which happened in October of 1943. Because mom was an officer, and dad was below her in rank this marriage was done on the quiet. The Army was never notified of this wedding! Mom would only say it would have caused too much paperwork during Wartime. Yeah, right Mom!! I am laughing as I proofread this as I am from the same mold!  Don’t tell me I can’t do anything!!

It was not till moms last years she really began to open up and talk about her life. Her generation was pretty tight lipped. I remember her telling me that for the wedding dinner they had liver and onions! That sounds horrible on the face of things, but then you have to take into account this was peak wartime and meat was rationed. Mom’s family was not rich by any means, money was very tight. Mom and Aunt Fran lived with their maiden Aunt Marion.

Mom had lost both parents by the time she was a young woman. The family got together to send mom to nursing school and Aunt Fran to business school so they would be able to be independent. Aunt Marion took on the position of both mother and father for mom sending out the invitations and all.

When mom was in nurses training they lived on the East side in the low 30’s by 1st ave. They then moved to Queens to East 42nd St right by Queens Blvd. Aunt Bess and Uncle Jack had a row house by here. They then moved to an apartment on E 40th St if I remember correctly.

 I dug out a trinket I’ve had for as long as I can remember. It is a crude bisque figurine of a soldier and his girl. I’m thinking this could have been the topping for a hurried wedding cake made in October 1943. I’ll never know for sure, but it sounds good.

I’ve got to contact my niece to see if she would like to have this bit of family history.

Stumpy finally got off the bed. Now I can strip it down and vacuum and dust here in the bedroom.