On a typical day at 8th and Geary we would go to school, come home, and then go outside and play with Nancy. There was a little boy we'd play with, too. I don't remember his name but he had to have been on our block. We'd go outside and play kick-the-can, hide-and-seek and that kind of stuff. Then we'd go down and play with Nancy and not jump in her hole.

One time in San Francisco, I had a jump rope and I was skipping across the street. As I walked down the street, I started walking backwards, and I fell into a hole outside a bank. A manhole cover had been taken off and there was nothing around it to keep anyone from falling. I was going backwards, and I fell. I hit my head on a ladder, but it was lucky I did since it broke my fall. It probably would have killed me if I hadn't. They took me to the hospital, and I remember they washed my mouth out with soap because I wouldn't stop talking while they were reading a story.

Another time around then, Carol and I had our tonsils out. At the hospital, they promised we could go in the playroom and have ice cream, but our throats were so sore that we couldn't eat the ice cream. Carol went in first and had her tonsils taken out. When they brought her back in the room, she was out like a light, and I thought she was dead. I was so scared they had to put the railings down on the bed and force my hands off so they could take me in. To this day, I remember the ether they gave me. My heart went ta-pukka, ta-pukka, ta-pukka.

I almost drowned one time, back then. Well, I guess I didn't almost drown, actually. I don't remember the person I was with at the time, but there was a little girl there called Betty Jane. And my name's Betty Jean. My mother knew we were at the beach in San Francisco, and she got a phone call that I had drowned, but it was Betty Jane. I'm not sure what happened after that phone call, but I don't remember any hugs when she met me. My mother was not a huggy type, not demonstrative at all. Sometimes people go the opposite way, and I guess that's why I've always been a huggy one.

There are lots of things that might have happened that I don't recall. For example, I don't remember sitting down as a family for dinner in the evenings, or having a Christmas tree or going on vacation. But I'm sure we did. My mother and father never took us to church or anything like that, although my sister and I did say our prayers We had an aunt--not a real aunt, but someone we called Aunt--who took us to the Christian Science Church. There was a big room. In my mind, it had something like booths in it. I only remember going there a couple of times, though we probably went more.

I might not remember about Christmas trees, but we did celebrate Christmas. One Christmas, when we were opening our gifts, Carol and I each had a doll. We probably had more than one, but we had these baby dolls we particularly loved. It had eyes that opened and closed and a stuffed body. There wasn't any plastic in those days so I guess the face was made of cellulose. Anyway, whatever it was made out of, we loved those dolls. And when we opened our gifts, there were two little trunks, and we opened them, and there were doll clothes for those dolls. Mrs. Morferd who lived upstairs sewed the clothes, though whether she was paid or not, I have no idea. And then my sister went and poked the eye out on my dolly. Oh, I was heartbroken, and it scared me. I scared easy, I guess. But it got fixed. I was told it was taken to the doll hospital. And Carol's doll was taken too. But where they really went was to Mrs. Morferd, I guess, to fix the eye.

As I said, I scared easy back then. My cousin Lucille (she was the daughter of Ruth, my father's sister) lived in another part of San Francisco. She was older than me but she would come over once in while. We'd play outside, and she'd dress us up. I loved to dress up in an Oriental costume. And she had an umbrella that was turned inside out. It wasn't like the kind of umbrellas we have today. It was like a Japanese umbrella with wood and fabric, and she wanted me to hold it like a fan. I wouldn't touch it. It scared me! She did everything in the world to get me to hold it. She said, "If you won't hold that umbrella fan then you can't wear the clothes." Well, I took them off because I wasn't going to touch that thing.

I didn't see much of my father's sister, Aunt Ruth. They were busy and they lived in a very wealthy section of San Francisco. Her house had a pull cord on the wall. I don't know whether it rang or not, but it probably did. She had a dog named Rex, a German Shepherd, and he slept under the stove in the kitchen. The stoves were on legs in those days and Rex slept under the stove. Rex eventually went bye-bye because he bit my aunt. She'd had him a long, long time and something was probably wrong with him. But he bit her and the dog went away.

My uncle Ralph was her husband, Ralph Goldsmith, and he was killed by a streetcar as he was coming home from work. After that, they had to leave their lovely home, because she had two children to take care of, Lucille and Oliver. Later, I know that Oliver became a photographer for United Airlines, but I don't know where they went. I don't ever remember going to see them again. But I do remember Lucille telling me one time that she vowed then and there she would never be poor again. That stuck in my mind. She wouldn't.

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