Dolores Marie ( Ochylski ) Waurzyniak Dec. 14, 1926
My mom told me, she kept all the bottles from the medicine she took, trying to keep me from being bom too soon. Mom said she fed, dressed, and sent Claire and Chet off to school, and had hurried to fasten all those tiny black round buttons on their shoes. Our neighbor, Doctor DeNike dashed over. Mom hardly had time to get to bed. I shot out like a bullet. Mom said I was always in a hurry, even being born. I tipped the scales at a whopping ten pounds Claire was eight, Chet was six, when I arrived on the scene, December 14,1926.		Some of my earliest memories are of my brother Chet. He teased me all of the time, well maybe just most of the time. I slept in a crib, to this day I recall, it was cast iron, painted white, and placed in HIS room. He was not thrilled having me share his domain. Getting me in trouble was fun! Each night, he would call to my mom, saying I was out of my bed and getting into his. One time mom creeped up the stairs, just as he began his nightly complaint, and turned on. the light. That ended that! I was about three, he was a teasing nine. One thing I must add, all those years growing up, he was my protector. Although I was only three, I remember the start of the 1929 depression One cold morning a old man, icicles hanging from his gray breard, formed by his own breath, came to our door asking for work in exchange for food. Many people were fed at our house. Mom never turned any one away, work or no work. There were soup kitchens set up, churches fed the poor. The depression lasted many years. Franklin Roosevelt seemed to be president all my life, from 1933 to 1945. He was very instrumental in stabilizing the economy. My thoughts skip to another time. In summer, the ice-man would come down our street with his truck, making deliveries. The kids would run behind, grabbing
Dolores Marie ( Ochylski ) Waurzyniak Dec. 14, 1926
a chunk or two. There were always lots of chips. He would chop off as much as a person ordered, with his ice-pick, and the chips would fly! Each customer was delivered the chunk right into his ice-box. It would last a few days, and God protect you if you opened the door too often. My mom was one of the first to get a refrigerator on the block. All the kids in the neighborhood came for ice-cubes. Some times mom would sweeten and flavor the water, a fore runner to popsicles I guess. This was a special treat. We could hardly wait until they were frozen! The Haymons lived across the street. Mrs. Haymon was as round as she was tall, a sweet and gentle person. At Christinas time, their tree was kept in the parlor, this is like a living room no one used. We didn't have a parlor, all the rooms in our house were used! Only on special occasions were we allowed to enter their parlor the heat was off so the tree would stay fresh longer. Cookies hung from the branches. The lights were only lit while we were in the room. The cookies were even cold! This was not like our house. Our tree was a blaze of lights all day. Maybe that's why, as we watched and listened, we could hear needles falling like rain on the sheet, mom had		placed on the floor. My mom didn't like messes, but never minded this. It was a part of Christmas. During the winter, there were the quiet activities like home work, drawing, and putting together jig-saw puzzles. Out side there were snow ball fights, sleding, and later, when I old enough.. ice skating. I loved winter as did my mom. She told us stories of wearing many petticoats, and long dresses and coats, to shield her against the harsh winters of the north country, where she was raised as a child. Mom loved walking on a winters day, with the snow crunching under her feet. Another fun thing we were allowed to do, when I was in the first and second grade, was wax the sanctuary floor in church. This was a large room with paneled walls and clothes closets for the priests vestments. We would wrap clean clothes around our feet and sorta skate around the floor, under the watchful eye of our nun, until the floor gleamed like glass. It's too bad the waxing machine took away this most joyful activity. We called our Paster, Father Sam. His last name was too hard to pronounce. Note: Father Sam's name was Skrzyski An English family named Molners were a few doors
Dolores Marie ( Ochylski ) Waurzyniak Dec. 14, 1926
away. They drank water with there meals, the depression was still going strong, so I thought they did not have enough money for milk. Mom explained to me that this was their custom. We had many different nationalities and people with different ways then us. Mr. Molner seemed to be always cleaning his car. Rose was one of my favorite people. Her mom baked the most wonderful bread, and if I timed it right, would get to her house on Saturday morning just as the bread was cool enough to slice. It was buttered and jammed and was as good as it smelled. All of Rose's family were fat, so was Rose. At that time we said it like it was, no worry about being politically correct. No one took offense. Rose was my age, but twice my size. I ate twice as much as her! A little person (we called her a midget) lived at the far end of our block. Her mom would help her up on the porch swing, and we always stopped to play with her. Her hands were so small, they looked like a dolls. We would play tea party. A game that required no more than imagination. There was a fire station across the street but we weren't allowed to bother the men.		There was a large family, full of fun, who lived a little farther away. They called them selves hill billies, ridge runners and all sorts of unusual names. They told me stories about the cows having two legs shorter than the others so they could walk up the mountains. I believed every word they said. Their mom had a very strange custom. After they had their evening meal, she would cover the table with a cloth and the family would eat the rest of that meal in the morning. My mom told me never to eat anything at their house, because I might get food poisoning. I won't say I did or didn't, but those biscuits sure were good! By the way, all women were called Mrs.(last name) no first names were used. When we were small children, the milk man delivered our milk in glass quarts. On cold mornings the milk would freeze. A tower of frozen cream extended way above the top of the bottle. We loved to eat the frozen treat, leaving skimmed milk. Mom had to mix that milk with another quart because we wouldn't drink it. Today people actually buy skimmed milk deliberately. Times are a changing. In the fall mom would bring some cacoons into the house, place them on her plants, and we could enjoy butterflies during the winter months'. Her plant stand
Dolores Marie ( Ochylski ) Waurzyniak Dec. 14, 1926
was wicker, lined with a metal pan, on tall legs. These planters are popular again... We always had a day girl, but for heavy spring and fall cleaning. Mom hired a different woman. With a coal furnace, the house would get dirty. A darkish film would cover the walls and ceiling. The painted areas were washed with soap and water, and plenty of elbow grease. I remember in later years mom told Loretta to use more elbow grease... she told mom she couldn't find a jar of it! The wall-papered walls were cleaned with a big pink eraser-like substance. They had to keep a clean side exposed. Mom and the woman would use long downward strokes. It worked very well. I liked to play with the stuff. We had one woman, who brought her baby. The baby slept a lot. Mom began to question her. She would say "Good baby Mrs." Mom caught her giving the baby paregoric to make it sleep. Paregoric contained opium! Mom told her to stop it, and we would help care for her baby. All the holydays were special. In the spring of '37 our new home at 5905 Whittier Rd. was completed. When Chet joined the Navy C.Bs. he told me I could		have his bedroom. I was delighted to have a room of my own. I loved to sew, and with the help of my cousin Gerty, we transformed a masculine room, complete with a stuffed owl, wings out-spread, a deer head, and a quantity of undesirable objects, into a dream of rose and blue ruffles. I was seventeen. During the war a lot of boys from school joined the armed services. A lot of them didn't come back home. Every family with some one in service, hung a little flag with a silver star, in the center, in the window. If the boy was killed, the star was changed to gold. The mothers referred to themselves as silver or gold star mothers. Rationing was still in effect, after the war. My brother Chet brought home some prime looking steaks. He fried them up for the family, saying he had already eaten. We licked our lips, steak was still hard to come by, too many ration stamps. After we finished, he asked, "How were they?" Great!! He laughted and told us they were horse meat...No stamps...That didn't make me feel any better. Then to make matters worse, when I saw a horse, he would whinny! Chet came home from service in November 1945. He had been stationed in Hawaii. He was cold until the next summer. His body had to acclimate to the cold
Dolores Marie ( Ochylski ) Waurzyniak Dec. 14, 1926
weather. The C.B.s were a construction battalion that went in first to build air strips for the air force. During the war, Claire not only worked as a riveters at a war plant, she also worked at the Courville Cafe, as a cocktail waitress. It was a neighborhood place. Mom took all the family there on Friday night for fish and chips. The True Life Romance of George and Dolores A Christmas Gift from Luann A Christmas Waltz written by Tom My dear children.......Do you remember? 50th Anniversary written by Tom Michigan morning, from Mike What is a Grandmother?