Page 40 - Always Virginia

28 Virginia Day Fritscher

I wasn’t coming over, but she kept begging me. So I picked up a
rock, went over to the gate—I was about four, I believe—and said,
“Come here, Eliz,” and hit her in the head with the rock. Needless
to say, my Mom soon heard of it and I was punished. The worst
punishment though was when I walked into Church the next day.
Father Faller shook his finger at me. I thought, “Oh, he knows.” I
was embarrassed. I never again hit a priest’s housekeeper’s daughter
in the head with a rock.
I used to get into a few interesting wrestling matches and
fights. One fight was with Kermit Suhling. “Kermie”did something
I didn’t like, so I beat him up. My Mom kept saying at the door,
“Shame on you, a little girl fighting a boy.” Well, Kermie gave
me no trouble from then on. He lived in a beautiful home in the
park, as I recall, where there were three homes owned by wealthy
families. We were allowed to go to the park every night if we had
behaved and we used to ride the “Ocean Wave” like a “Merry-Go-
Round” that rocked. Our Daddy saw us and said, “Don’t ride the
‘Ocean Wave’ any more.” He was afraid we’d get hurt as big kids
used to push it and get it going so fast. Well, about six weeks later
we figured it was OK, but he saw us. He came over and got us and
gave us a spanking then and there. We did not ride the “Ocean
Wave” anymore.
One evening, Norine and I [six and three] decided to build a
little fire under the front porch, because the boy next door (who
wasn’t exactly normal) dared us to, but Daddy caught us and
spanked us. We used to kid him in later years and say, “Daddy, we
got punished just for trying to start a fire under the front porch.”
There wasn’t a fire department in Kampsville.
We had a big swing on that front porch and used to enjoy
many a happy hour there. I would swing my puppy and then he’d
get sick. We had two dogs, one Jimmie’s hunting dog and one our
pet and they both had pups at the same time and we had about
sixteen dogs all at once. We kept the sassiest pup and named him
“Teddy” and how he loved the woods. When I was eleven in 1930