Happy Birthday

Birthday Party [Dec. 1954]
Originally uploaded by midgefrazel

You Can Go Home Again! Use City Directories....

This is a photo of the only birthday party I had as a child. Having a December birthday has always annoyed me. People actually have given me Christmas decorations for my birthday gift. I read somewhere that if this happens to you, you should go right out and buy a decoration for that gift giver and give it to them for their spring, summer or fall birthdays until they get the message.

Sadly, I have lost track of three of the little girls in this photograph. All of them were neighborhood friends. The "bigger" little girl is my Facebook friend, Linda Worcester Chappell who lives in California. She tells me she remembers this party. I do remember this dress and that my mother fixed my ponytailed hair with a bow. Hey, I am only 7 years old (it is 1954). Fashion was different then.

I have no idea why my mother is opening my gifts. She loved parties. I love being alone, doing what I like to do without doing what others tell me I should be doing. I am 62 today and plan to do exactly what I want all day. [Pout!]

I have studied the Cranston, Rhode Island City Directories [via Ancestry.com] for my old neighborhood (and of that of my grandparents too) They are a real genealogical treasure. It lists the parents names of these little girls. One of these girls had a terrible family. They moved out in the middle of the night. Twenty years later, the neighbors were still talking about it.

Oddly, my parents are not listed in the 1950 directory even though they bought the house and moved into it in September of 1947. ( I found the title to the house after my parents died!) The rest of the years listed, are a fascinating look at life in a neighborhood plat where all the houses were built within two years. They even put a tiny telephone symbol next to the houses that had telephones. How antique!