Page 36 - Always Virginia

24 Virginia Day Fritscher

Mail route, I’d proudly show him and be rewarded with a quarter,
which was lots of money in those days [mid 1920s]. We used to get
15 cents every Saturday if we were good and get to go to the movie
in Kampsville, which cost 10 cents, and spend the other nickel on
goodies. My favorite movie stars were Bob Steele and Clara Bow,
the “It Girl” of the 20s.
When I was smaller and the rest of the family, or rather part
of the family, would go to the show, I’d stay home and be happy if
they brought me a “load” of gum. That’s what I called a package
as it was stacked like the loads of wood we would get many times
a winter to burn in our Heatrola in the living room and cook
stove in the kitchen. The boys had to keep the wood chopped and
we girls would carry it in and put it in the woodbox behind the
kitchen stove.
One day when my brother John, who was twelve or thirteen
years old, was chopping wood, it was almost dusk and very cold. I
was out watching him sitting in my swing and he kept telling me
[age four or five] to go in as it was too cold, and I’d say “I’m rough
and I’m tough, and I’m hard to bluff!” This would make him very
angry, as he didn’t think it was too ladylike to begin with and was
afraid it was, really, too cold.
On winter evenings we’d sit and watch the fire burn in the
Heatrola and make out different images it projected on the little
windows of the door. On Saturday night a tub of hot water was
brought in and set to warm up by the Heatrola and there we’d take
our baths. Saturday everyone shined shoes for church in the A.M.
(I can still smell the shoe polish.)
One morning when I was five, my Mom and Daddy were
getting ready to go to Church. I was in the kitchen and I cut off
one of my curls. I disliked my curls as it hurt to have them twisted
around a hot curling iron. And I threw the curl under the icebox,
but Norine ratted on me. Mom couldn’t tell my curl was missing
as I had so many, but I was reprimanded. Speaking of curls, I was
never so glad or so proud to have them cut off by “Casey Jones,”