My Story

Who am I, where did I come from? I was born and to my parents in Yonkers, NY and was almost born in a stable to hear my mom tell it. You see, my dad and grandfather were Harness Horse racers and were at Yonkers raceway at the time. So, I had a natural tendency when my mom over the years would shout about open doors if I was born in a barn to pop off with...'almost!'

I lived up and down the east coast and my siblings of which there are 3 were born in different states. My brother who is under me in age by about 17 months was born in Rhode Island. My parents had a handful then as he was born with a club foot and I had heart issues that were as of yet, not discovered.

My oldest sister who is younger than myself was born in Toms River, NJ and I do not know if she was born before of after my surgery but I know I had heart surgery at the age of 2 at Deborah Heart Institute in Toms River and I am sure somehow those two things correlate in someway.

My baby sister was born in Orange, FL and I remember a lot from my childhood, but the one memory that stands out is getting my little bottom blistered all the way home when I stole a gold coin (it was a token) out of my moms jewelry box because she was crying my baby sister had no milk.

In my 5 years of wisdom, I took it and walked to the store and told them I needed milk for my baby sister. Now the store was at the end of our block, so don't panic. Those were the days before CPS and what did I know I was only 5.

From there we took a train to Bridgeville, Delaware and living here were some of the best times in my life. I got to spend lots of time with my cousins who were way older than I was and who spoiled the heck out of me, my aunt and uncle (who loved me in spite of eating all the cherry tomatoes out of their garden one day), my great great grandmother who was blind but still drove the car with me as her eyes....my grandmother and many other aunts and uncles and cousins.

I had my own room, we had a converted attic to play in and it was set up as a miniture house. We also had servant stairs from my room to the kitchen or thats what I think they were called. We didn't have servants, but the house had this magical secret staircase that all of us kids loved.

My great aunt drove the school bus and on Fridays sometimes I could ride with her and then go out to her farm where she and my uncle raised pigs and chickens and I am talking a huge barn full of chickens, I could play and run and be a kid the way so many kids can't today because they are plugged into the tv, the IPOD, video games...my aunt was awesome.

My cousins Adele and Chuckie would rock me to sleep when I spent the night and then argue who would carry me to bed. Adele usually woke me up which caused Chuckie to tease her, but really, I faked sleeping and waking up just to hear them argue because it was funny for a 6 year old. They took me places, they read me stories and I was never treated like a little kid or not wanted. They just loved me and my Aunt Florence and Uncle Biddy were simply the most loving people in the world.

When we moved to Monticello, NY I actually made a long distance collect call to Aunt Florence and cried and begged for her to come and get me. Yup, you guessed it, another whupping! We moved to a farm set up for harness horse training and it was huge, however the neighbor liked little girls...me in particular and the memories from living there are not pleasant.

My parents were never really happy that I can remember, they fought a lot, my dad drank like a fish and my mom hung out with us kids. One day, dad went to work, mom and my aunt Pat Myers packed up the car, us kids and off we went 4 kids no car seats back then or seat belts across country to Arizona.

I wondered many times what my dad must have thought. Did he know before we left? Did he know the day we left, did he think we were coming back? We thought we were just going to visit our grandparents, little did I know how that trip would change my life!