I lived in a neighborhood full of kids.
I was one of five.
The Shipae's had six.
The Vershouskie's had four,
and there were several other families on the block that with only two or three.
There were no only children!
Most of the kids were girls. I was one of the youngest.
All of our mothers stayed home, and it seemed they were pretty good friends.
One summer my mother somehow acquired a large amount of red gingham fabric.
And she began to sew.
And sew, and sew.
Dresses.
Dresses that all looked the same for all of the neighborhood girls.
I remember they had several sections on the very full skirt, and each section was separated by a ruffle and row of red rickrack.
Miles of red rickrack!
One of the reasons I remember those dresses so well was that I got to wear them for years!
I wore mine.
I wore my big sister, Ellen's.
I wore my bigger sister, Lenore's,
and the hand-me-downs of a few other older neighbor girls.
I think I was in Junior High before I finally grew out of the last of those gingham dresses!
And boy, was I glad.
Audio Version: Merikay tells the Story
A question from the book "A Mothers Legacy" What was your favorite pastime as a child?
That is a hard question, because I enjoyed many things.
One thing I do remember is many happy hours spent drawing.
I loved to draw horses.
When I was about ten I got a big Walter Foster " Basic Drawing" book for Christmas, and I copied the pictures of the horses over and over until I could draw them from memory.
We didn't have very many books in our home.
We had an "Encyclopedia Brittanica" and a set of "Book of Knowledge" books that had some pictures in them.
I would scour them for any horse pictures I could find to copy.
I can also remember walking a long way to the Library with my older sister in the summer. I was very excited to be able to check out books about and with pictures of horses.
I liked to draw many other animals, but horses were always my very favorite subject!
Audio Version: Merikay tells the Story
