In late 1945, the house my parents rented was sold. Housing was scarce in post-war America. A temporary solution was to move in with my father’s mother, Baba. Mitzi and Dorothy went to live with relatives. Mitzi went to live with Tete. (Tete, in Croation, is an aunt who is a sister of your father. Over the years we came to refer to only our Aunt Mary as Tete Mary. This later shortened to Tete.) In later years it was often said that Mitzi never got over being spoiled during the time spent at Tete’s.
Dorothy lived with Aunt Helen. (We always referred to the households of the extended family by the name of my father’s sibling who was part of that marriage. It was never Uncle Joe’s house, it was Aunt Annie’s, but it was Uncle Frank’s and not Aunt Bertha’s.)
My brother Emil and I slept in the living room of Baba’s house.
The move from Braddock Avenue to Buena Vista Street was 147 steps. Some of the heavier items were loaded onto a trailer hitched to the car and driven from one house to the other. Many items were simply carried up the 147 steps. I remember my grandfather carrying a chest of drawers; he showed off for the children by carrying it high over his head, with both arms extended.
My second grade teacher was an elderly woman who had taught most all of my cousins, and even my Uncle Joe. I told her we were moving and she said she was sorry to see the family go. When I came back to school the next Monday she was surprised. When I told her where we had moved, she laughed and said she was glad we were staying in the neighborhood.
These living arrangements were short lived. Emil was able to rent the house next to his mother’s and our family was back together again. Emil and Mary were to live next door to Baba until her death. In many ways it would have seemed a good situation. It wasn’t, especially for my mother. A stormy relationship had developed between the Mary Beggs, and between my mother and some of my dad’s sisters.
When we moved next door, I again, told my teacher we were moving. This time she asked “where?” I responded, “next door.” For the rest of the year she was wary of any personal information I offered.
My parents would live in that house until 1968; I would live there until 1964.
1945 was a tumultuous year. I remember the excitement of VE day. I guess it was a big deal to me because of the reaction of the adults, more than for what it was. VJ day was another thing. It became a community celebration. The volunteer fireman drove the fire engines through the streets, with sirens blaring and bells ringing. People joined in an impromptu parade. Many more stood along the streets cheering. Teenage boys were throwing rolls of toilet paper over the telephone wires creating streamers. The mothers stood by scolding, (toilet paper was rationed and in very short supply) and hoping they hadn’t thrown out the Sears catalog.
To us the war had been ever present. We had seen friends and relatives, each when called, go off
to the war. Roy Johnson, Kippy Kramer, Joe Begg, we had been lucky, all came back.
My brother Emil and I would play soldier. If we were lucky, one Christmas toy would be a play gun. If not, a stick sufficed. In the spring, the clumps of soil in the overturned garden made great hand grenades. We would hold one up to our mouth, pull the pin, and hurl it across the garden. On a dry day the puff of dry soil could easily be imagined to be an explosion.
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At night we would have blackout drills. The air raid wardens would come by to check and see that no light was coming from the house. Dad said it wasn’t real; there were no planes that could get that far from Germany or Japan. He would light a fire in the fireplace and we would sit, listening to the radio. It was much like many nights, except someone would be outside tapping on a window or knocking at the door, if he saw some light.
One other wartime duty was sleeping at Baba’s. When Uncle Joe left for the Navy, it left Baba alone. She was in her late 60s and Dad felt it best that she not be alone overnight. I always thought it kind of funny that this woman who could terrorize not only grown men but teenagers as well, needed someone to be there overnight. Especially a 9 year old with his 7 year old little brother. But, on designated days, we would walk the 147 steps and sleep in Uncle Joe’s room. One major benefit was breakfast. Our mother provided a good breakfast; cereal, hot in the winter, cold the rest of the year. Baba made eggs for breakfast. Fresh eggs from the chicken coop, often gathered by Emil and me. She would cook the eggs on an old coal stove in the basement. Her son had long ago bought her a gas stove for the kitchen, but she kept the old coal stove in the basement. I really liked that basement, except when she was butchering chickens.
So, the war had seemingly little direct effect on me. We followed its progress. I specifically remember the last months of the war in the Pacific. Uncle Joe was on a cruiser, and the family was worried by reports of heavy damage being caused by the kamikaze attacks. (We were later to learn that Joe’s ship had been hit by a kamikaze during the battle of Okinawa. He was below decks in the engine room and was unhurt.)
There was concern for those in the services, and hope that the war could be ended soon. When the war ended, surprisingly, with the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it was a relief. I do not remember, then or later, anyone feeling regret over the dropping of the A-bombs. It meant that friends and relatives in danger, were now out of danger, and would be coming home.
As the end of 1945 neared, we were back together again. The Christmas ritual of putting up the electric train layout had begun. Things were returning to normal for us and for our extended family. A pattern of life that was to see me and four of my siblings to adulthood was established. We were back on the street where my grandfather had chosen to live. I, for one, have always been grateful to him for that.
In 1953 my sister Donna was born, and two years later my brother Dan. They were the only members of my family born in a hospital. We were, in many ways like three families. The three oldest all within four years of one another. The next two, four years later, three years apart. Then, after eight more years, Donna and Dan, two years apart. We three oldest referred to the middle two, Mitzi and Rene, as “the kids.” The name stuck, and even Donna and Dan would occasionally refer to them as “the kids.”
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