| Chapter One: The Early Years
Before I start. FACT. Pop-pop died on Jan 16th (the day this project began). I forget the year and can't find his obit, although I know I put it in a book somewhere. Editor Fact: Lois Eleanor Seaman born February 5th, 1927. I can remember little things about my life as a child. I remember getting stuck in the snow next door and nobody heard me or came to rescue me. The snow was almost up to my neck and I couldn't move. Uncle Bud (Charlenes dad) came to get me. I remember sitting on the porch of 42 Dewey street (the house my mother and father built) and looking up in the sky and seeing this HUGE silver thing on the sky. I had never seen it before and it came right over my house, very low and scared me to death. I ran into the house and hid in the coat closet. My mother couldn't find me and thought I had been kidnapped. I later learned it was the maiden trip of the GRAPH ZEPPLIN. A few days later I looked out the window and saw this huge silver thing in the driveway and thought the dirigible had come back. That turned out to be our neighbor's having their furnace cleaned out. Big things scared me, along with the dark. I always needed a light in the upstairs hall on at night or I wouldn't go to bed. I remember slamming the bathroom door (of our 8 year old house) SOOOO hard when I heard my father was leaving home that ALL the tiles on one wall fell off and crashed to the floor. Boy did I get a licken for that with a hairbrush on my bare bottom! I can remember my father hitting my mother and knocking her down on the floor (knocking her out) and I was petrified. I was 6 years old. I remember trying to tell Billy what was going on (he was 2) but he didn't understand me. Also during was The Depression and I was having my picture taken. I had on new white buck shoes that my grandmother had bought me, and after it was taken I went outside and saw a bucket of maroon paint (the trim on the house was being painted) and some idiot left it out and I proceeded to step in it. I never lived THAT down and got another spanking for that. My mother was devastated. I remember my first day of school bringing Rose Marie Teti (Ro) home from kindergarten because she looked just like Little Orphan Annie with her freckles and red curly hair. Her mother had no idea where she was but fortunately my mother knew her and called her mother and took her home. Ro and I both remember that day and laugh at it still. My father left home and went to New York for two years (with Grace) and I never heard from him. One day I was at my grandmother house (just over the hill on Broadway) when the mailman came. (They used to come TWICE a day for 3 cents!) I recognized my fathers writing and got his address from the envelope. I wrote him a letter and stole a stamp from the office of my grandfather, which was in the house on Broadway. The following week as I was walking over the hill on my way to school. I saw a strange car in my grandmothers driveway with different license plates than my grandfather had on his car, I raced down the hill and into the kitchen to find my father! I was so happy to see him. He deiced to come back to Long Branch to wait for his divorce to come through so he could marry Grace. Of course I didn't know that then. One night after JW Seaman and Son moved their business downtown (over the pawn shop) my father took me down to his office and showed me a picture of Grace, I recognized her as his ex-secretary. I didn't know why he did that then. We went to the ALPS to eat supper. I had my first ham and lettuce sandwich and I was hooked. I LOVED ham! My father got his divorce and won me in the settlement. My mother got screwed. She lost her home and only got $10.00 a week child support. It broke her heart, as she really loved my father. I remember walking down the street with my father and Grace and around the corner came my mother and Larry and I went over to give her a kiss and Grace went ballistic. She called my mother a battleaxe and smacked me in the face. I hated her from then on. I was told to NEVER speak to my mother in public again when Grace was around. I was 9 years old. We moved into a house two houses from the railroad tracks on Broadway (across the street from the YMCA Club). Graces brother moved in with us. He was the nicest guy I ever met. I often wondered how two siblings could be sooooo different. He had a great sense of humor, SHE had none. He was compassionate, she was not. THE OFFICE moved into a large room in the front of the house. One day (I was 12 or 13) I went ice-skating. I was walking up to Franklin Park Lake when my mother and Billy came driving by. She stopped and picked me up and took me up to the pond to watch me skate. As I was walking down the grass embankment to get on the ice (I thought my skate would dig into the ground BUT it was frozen) and I fell onto the ice and broke my left wrist really bad. My mother took me to the hospital, and my grandmothers neighbor (DR Blaisdel) set it. They gave me ether to knock me out, and then she drove me home. I was groggy so she helped me out of the car, onto the porch and rang the bell. My Grandfather came out surprised to see us followed by Grace who shoved my mother off the porch and she fell. My grandfather got really mad and shoved her back into the house. I got grounded for a month for being with my mother. Grace was such a bitch! Along with putting up with Grace, I was also one of the first kids in town whose parents were divorced. It was a rare thing in those days and I was treated like a freak sometimes. I spent more time at my grandmothers than I did at home. Life home was miserable. Living with that NUT was horrendous. As a kid in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades I spent most nice days after school playing "kick the can' on Hampton Ave, or climbing Bobby Demarees cherry tree (her maiden name was Woolley she and lived on Hampton Avenue). Her sister Dolly was one of my best friends. Her mother and mine played bridge every week together, so I've been a friend with her over 70 years. ...Next! |
| T h e L o v e l y L o i s S t o r y A Biography of Lois Eleanor White |
 |
 |
| In early 2005, I began emailing various questions to my mother on her life. I worked off of an outline in my head, and saved each email as they came in. From time to time, I'd transfer the various mailings onto one master document, and then took on the challenge of making it readable. At the time of this writing, it is late in the year. There are several more chapters to be added to the collection, but you are free to read along as you like at this point. Anyone who knows "The Lovely Lois" will know this is not for the thin skinned. It is her 'no holds barred' opinion on the many people and issues of her life. Consider yourself warned... ~ Chris White (December 2005) |
|
 |
 |
| Baby Lois: Circa 1928 |