Chapter 1 of my Family Memories Project-earliest memory

 

What is your earliest memory?

 

Lorraine: I remember putting a mouse down my sister’s back.

John: Jim and I were about four or five and we went to the hop fields with dad and mother. They were picking hops to make money in Oregon.

Marcella: I was three and we had relatives visiting from Canada. Someone bought five kids ice cream cones, and I was the only one who got it all over me. I was embarrassed.

Arlie: The first day of first grade. Neighbor girl was supposed to get me on the right bus. She didn’t so I walked home. We lived in the country then (out on Hastings Avenue) and that was a long walk for a six-year-old.

Denny: Most of my early memories are of our home on Hastings Avenue. Everything from eating onions out of the garden to having the mean rooster land on my head as I came screaming out of the chicken coop. Also a homemade sled dad made that Arlie and me towed over into the fields across the street to ride down the hill. Finding an injured bird between Dave Worley’s house and ours and getting the heck pecked out of me trying to pick it up. Painting the neighbor’s dog, Silver, and getting into lots of trouble for it. Christmas – getting homemade wooden trucks from dad. Another time I got a stuffed horse that I rode until his head fell off. Remember the airplane with pedals. Memories run together from 3 to 6.

Joyce: The first day of school. I was so scared. I clung to my mother crying for her not to leave me. A chain hung across the school entrance and I grabbed it, refusing to let go and enter the building. I wouldn’t go down the slide in the playroom (basement of the Lincoln Building). Also remember sitting under a willow tree on 22^nd street, eating potato chips. Recall getting a brown teddy bear for Christmas at maybe age 5 or 6. The dog chewed a piece of the ear but I rescued it and kept that bear until I was an old woman.

Dale: Seeing a garter snake behind the house dad and grandpa built on Hastings Avenue. I was three years old. I don’t know how old the snake was. I suppose it’s dead now.

Janie: Dad and Aunt Velna meeting me at the airport in Seattle when I returned from my mother in Pennsylvania. We went to Sears and Roebuck to shop.

Jimmy: I remember my mom and dad breaking dishes trying to get me to hear. I was one. That’s when I lost my hearing. Hard to believe but it’s true.

Sue S: My earliest memory was when I was around four when mom went to Mothers Singers at the Rec Center. I got to play with other kids—Elizabeth Pray, Margo Neville, Mike Pray. I also recall some kids were chosen to accompany the Rhody Queen in 1955 or 1956. My dress was pink with white flocking on it and I wore little gloves without fingers. I kept one of them for a long time. I also remember a janitor named Digger at the Rec Center who was very nice to all of us.

Lill: My biological dad’s mustache and my mother’s smile (age 4). Getting mail out of the neighbor’s box that was not mine (4 or 5) Putting a plastic bag on a hot oven door not knowing it would melt (6 or 7) Riding the tricycle of a neighbor girl when visiting maternal grandparents (age 4)  Discovering that vanilla extract was not some exotic color or flavor. Wanting another popsicle or ice cream cone (age 7)

Marlee: A day in kindergarten. The class went for a walk around the school and a few of us ran ahead on the way back. Our punishment was to miss snack time and get out our “rugs” and lay down to take a nap.

Cindy: I have always thought I could remember being baptized as an infant. I remember my mother handing me to the reverend and I could see the church members staring. I was very afraid and I cried. I wore a pink dress. No one believes I can remember that far back but I have an incredible memory.

Bill: A family vacation in Key West, Florida. My grandparents, Lyall and Elva Arey, had flown down to be with our family. We stayed in a house on stilts over the ocean. I also remember going to see “Flipper” and getting to ride a raft that the dolphin was pulling.

Bonnie: Moving from the print shop in Bellingham to the farm. I was in a white car with mom and lots of boxes stacked behind us. I was about four.

Sue W: I remember a Bugs Bunny Halloween outfit with my Aunt Terri.

Mary: Going to the bowling alley when my parents were in a league in Kirkland. We’d have to go to the daycare room. The woman there was large and would make us lay down on mats to rest. She would walk around and drop graham crackers on our stomachs. I remember running away to the Aragons up the street. I recall dad brought my clothes up to their house to teach me a lesson. I was shocked. I remember having to sing “Away in a Manger” at a church Christmas program. All the kids choked up and the only one singing was the teacher. I was 4 or 5.

Joe: I remember a bookcase in mom’s bedroom at the F Street house in Port Townsend. It pulled out to reveal a secret room. Also recall the black cow at the F Street house. Dad told me it was my cow –and then he had it butchered.

Tiffany: I was three and we had moved to Salem, Oregon. My brother and sisters were playing hide and seek among some of the houses in our neighborhood on Coloma Court. The houses were not finished and our house was one of the first built. The houses were just skeletons and it was kind of spooky but I was with Andrea. I’m sure I was more a tagalong pest than an actual player of the game.