An Irvington Childhood in the 'Forties. Audubon Rd. My memories of those first few years in Irvington are scant. I recall playing with Priscilla and a boy my age called Jerry Pickard who lived across the court we made snowmen and played Superman with dishtowels attached for capes , tagging after my sister and the older cousins, sometimes spilling over into the alley between the court and the imposing Second Empire Layman house next door—the name Eleanor Layman sticks in my memory, though not the person attached.
Guinnie had a pet worm that she kept in a tiny matchbox and held a funeral when it succumbed, most likely to absence of soil.
I think we both attended the Hibben School , a pleasant preschool run by two kind sisters—but I remember only a pond and ducks. Three weeks before my fourth birthday the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Then, I think all the men in the family tried to enlist, but they were mostly too old and all except Father were 4-F. Hawthorne Lane , son of a friend of Aunt Guinevere. Mother sublet the Audubon Court apartment and we were quartered first in the Somerset Hotel in Chicago, then at a house in Lake Bluff where I was allowed into first grade at the wonderful village school, and then a large old house on the base itself.
Those were good years for us children. Father was in contact with many famous athletes while being denied the sea duty he so yearned for.
Finally, he received orders to go to Pearl Harbor; Japan surrendered almost immediately, and Mother returned with Charlotte and me to Audubon Court, where Charli entered high school at Howe and I third grade at school Father returned to us in November with shell necklaces, leis, a minuscule grass skirt for me, and a coconut whose shell no implement would crack—not a hammer, axe, nor hatchet.
Finally, it was dropped from a third-floor window, whereupon the sidewalk beneath was cracked but not, alas, the coconut. It has been changed a great deal but was then a charming Dutch colonial with a screened porch looking out on the side yard with its birdbath surrounded by phlox and back-corner fish pond, which had a lovely brick back wall with copper insert and a number of large gold and speckled fish, one at least a foot long.
Father was greatly annoyed every day-after-Halloween when he had to search the neighborhood for the roof of the doghouse. Behind was a paved area fronting a large brick wall with fireplace where my friends and I roasted marshmallows and hotdogs on occasion and I was tasked to burn the trash--never my favorite chore.
Gable, now accompanied by younger brother Bruce, with an enormous cat that was said to be 21 years old and possessed of false teeth. When the boys visited, we played outside, as Mrs. Caroline Hall University Ave. Our block was populated mostly by boys; thus, sports played a big part in my life outside school, and not only at home. Fortunately, there was always a girl near my age in the house that had the large side yard where we all played baseball after supper in good weather, and Jane Vogt Oak Ave.
Should anyone make a noise, the music would instantly stop and a terrifying frown search out the culprit. Afterward, we had to cross the street to catch the bus home and would visit the fascinating City Market, where I always bought a bunch of sweet peas and a bag of caramels. Hecker was a printer, a kind man who wept at the funeral of their elderly cat.
He himself died suddenly shortly before we left the neighborhood, as had the father of John Wright Oak Ave. Having four sons within a range of eight years or so, the Eberts gave over their back yard entirely to youthful pursuits; we even rode bikes there, pretending to be drivers. I can still hear Mrs. Young Davy was allowed in our confirmation class at Irvington Presbyterian Church because it was the last for Dr.
John Ferguson, who had confirmed his older brothers. I remember Dr. Ferguson coming into the sanctuary when we were rehearsing, I looking up and up and up into the benevolent face of a very large man whom Dr. Ferguson introduced as his successor Dr. Howard Stone, telling us we would like him.
It was not so much a remark as a command, but we found the order had been unnecessary. The Vogt Family resided at Oak Avenue. In this photo, Jane and Chuck Vogt posed next to a new bike in I was taken to the mile race at age eight, to the first race after the war, and would continue to attend through my college years, so I could tell the other children whatever I could learn from a pretty low vantage point.
I can remember watching him across the track eating box lunch with Loretta Young, her large white pumps parked on the wall of the pit area, and wondering what my mother was thinking beside me in the paddock. The broadcast went only to military bases overseas and other places at a distance because Mr. Hulman feared local coverage would lessen attendance, as he did for a long while with television. When I was at Duke in I drove halfway to Raleigh to be able to hear the race.
After Shaw was killed in , Tony Hulman, a shy man, had to be persuaded to open the race, and he did so on condition that Father would rehearse him and be with him at the start. Hulman rehearsed with Father and held his hand for support while she started the race. Of course, he did return for 35 straight years. Despite the dangers, the allure of the speedway proved irresistible.
Three years after his IMS debut, he won the first of four Indianapolis s, as his legend grew and grew. Yet, Foyt said, he never felt completely comfortable at Indianapolis. May 30, , was a beautiful day, a vivid late-morning interplay of blue sky and bright sunshine and an ascending rainbow of balloons, charged by the buzz of anticipation. It all turned to horror on the first lap of the 42nd Mile Race.
I lived with it for laps," grim-faced race winner Jimmy Bryan said before ducking away from reporters that day. The crash occurred when Ed Elisian spun in the third turn, He took out pole sitter Dick Rathmann and the first two rows. It was instant mayhem. Jerry Unser's car ran up over Paul Goldsmith's and cartwheeled end over end over the wall, where it landed upright. O'Connor's car hit one driven by Jimmy Reece. It flipped, landed hard upside down, skidded across the track and burst into flames before rolling back onto its wheels.
The race continued under caution. As the wrecks were cleared and O'Connor's body was transferred into an ambulance and slowly driven away, the horror on the track took hold in the crowd. Facebook Twitter Email.
0コメント