Flashback Time

OK, as some of you know, Mom's health (mentally and physically) has become quite precarious.  In light of this, I thought I'd go back in time a bit, and give you all some of her interesting history...
First part:

Her birthday is 9/5/1937.  She was born 2^nd in a family of 3 girls, at Jamaica Queens Hospital.  Her dad was a salesman with Atlantic Richfield.  She lived in Salem, Massachusetts until 1948, moving to Stratford, Connecticut  at 10 years old. 

Irene graduated from Eli Whitney School, and went to Stratford High School, graduating in 1955. During her last year of high school, she lived with 2 different families as her parents retired and moved to Florida.  The Tristines and the Kilty/Goodsell folks were great to her, and she remains friends with those in both families.  She was engaged to Ken Palazzo before her graduation.

If she had played sports in high school, she probably would have been on the softball team, a soccer player, and maybe even basketball.  Always athletic, and a tomboy, she loved nature and lots of critters.  She had pet lizards and pet mice.  Irene was consistently in trouble at home, getting dirty, playing in the woods and hanging out at the beach.

Irene was a secretary at Wilcoxson School while in high school, going after her classes to help in the office.  Her typing skills in high school earned her many awards and certificates.  Her fastest timing was over 80 words a minute.  This was before electric typewriters.

Her extracurricular activities included chorus, and a cappella choir. 

After graduation, Irene worked for Manning, Maxwell and Moore (which became Dresser Industries).  She married in 1957, on July 13^th.  Kenny took care of her on their honeymoon roadtrip to Florida while Irene suffered severe gallbladder attacks.  She had her gallbladder removed upon arrival in Florida at a Seventh Day Adventist hospital.  Irene then had to recuperate from some quite severe jaundice (the liver is all hooked up with the gallbladder).  Tough cookie! 

Back in Connecticut, they lived with Kenny’s parents until they got a rental apartment at Stonybrook.  Irene eventually got pregnant with her oldest child.  That didn’t stop her much…due in August of 1958, she was on waterskies in the Housatonic River the first weekend of August.  Always tiny, she must have looked funny on skies in the River, with a huge belly!

Not one to be away from the fun, her water broke while she sat on a bar stool one night at the Blue Goose…Kenny was found (who knows how!) and brought her to the hospital.

Her daughter, Judith, was born on 8/25/58, and they bought a house in Lordship in 1959.  On a dirt road, it was small, with a huge sun porch.  A cat was adopted, as well as a dog…Punch, however, proved to be a bit much.  A beagle, he just never learned not to chew on wood and had to be adopted out.  Cat, however, stayed.  He was the first of many. 

Irene had fun with her daughter, staying home and taking her on all sorts of adventures in a wagon.  Down the beach, to the Seawall, and I'm sure, to the bar!  Today, that would be considered abuse.  Then?  The babies would all be parked in the dining room!

1962, on March 5^th, another daughter was born.  Nancy was sickly, continued having breathing problems.  Fortunately, the Fire Department was about a half block up the dirt road and they got accustomed to getting a call from Irene to resuscitate Nancy.  This happened frequently over the next 2 years (daily for the first 6 months), until Nancy finally had her tonsils removed.   Irene always had a thing for firefighters after that!  

The tiny house on Valley Road was sold sometime in the mid 60’s and Mom and Dad moved to a real paved road right behind the little house.  The “Bricks” are a section of Lordship that was built to house supervisors at the Chance Vought Factory during World War II.  Beautiful pine woodwork, with a typical 3 bedrooms up, 4 rooms down, 1 bathroom characterized the homes.  It was a move up for them, with a much larger yard, and an actual dining nook.  A living room and a den were useful, when company came, or one of the many guys who couldn’t drive home room the bar had to sleep it off on the living room floor.  

Irene took in ironing to help with the bills, Kenny worked at the old SNET (phone company), and at Pops – a beer only bar and restaurant down at the Seawall.  That’s where we all hung out, especially to watch color television.   Irene sat at the bar when Kenny was working - unheard of for a woman to sit at the bar back in those days, but Irene sometimes made her own rules.  The Heidi fiasco was seen there, and it was the first time the family watched "The Wizard of Oz" (lights in the bar out, all the regulars sitting there nursing their beers as it was past closing time).

Mom had lots of “tricks” to make it seem she was taking care of her housework chores diligently.  We often skipped out of the house to go for walks, to the beach, fake shopping (never bought anything!), or just to a neighbor’s for the afternoon.  She would throw laundry all over the den floor upon arrival at home, right before Kenny popped in for dinner between jobs.  “Oh, I’ve been working on this ironing all day!  Let’s get pizza/hamburgers.”  And off we’d go to Pops for Pizza, Marnicks for burgers.

Amy was born on June 24, 1966.  Irene suffered from post-partum depression that was unheard of in our little Lordship.  She was tranquilized for at least 4 months, while her mother-in-law stayed to take care of a newborn and a 4 and 8 year old.  Not easy for Irene, or any of the family, but we made it through and so did Irene.  She got out of the depression by being prescribed birth control pills by a psychiatrist.  Her gynecologist would not prescribe them because he was Catholic, and so was Irene.  As Irene was being prescribed tranquilizers by a psychiatrist,  he scripted the pill.  Turns out, Irene was terrified of having another child nearly die every day for 2 years, so she opted out of life for a while.

More to come...we are only in 1966!