Mom didn’t write every day, but I thought I’d record this short account I found in a little notebook. She started this when she was 50 years old, and prayed for all of her children, and little Marti, her niece.

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“I don’t think Madalynne will be coming back with you.” Those were the words of our dear visiting nurse, as I told her that we would be leaving Michigan for the winter and coming back in April. Her prediction turned out to be true.

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It’s been a while since I updated this blog, and our lives continue to change. But Our Father walks behind and before us, and knows each bend in the road.

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Madalynne loved the big ten-foot-wide picture window that dominated the living room of the house where she had lived most of her life. Looking out now on the tidy row of post-war ranch homes that had changed little over the years since 1953 when they were built, it seemed hard to believe that she was really here.

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Although Mom’s parents had come from New England, she was a Michigan girl, raised in Ferndale on East Woodland Avenue. Dad was originally from Bellaire (“up north”) but came down to the city to find work as an electrician, after taking an electrical course at Coyne Electrical School in Chicago. Mom and Dad each had one sister, and we had four cousins. I probably would have had lots more cousins if tragedy hadn’t intervened early in Dad’s life.

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Garry, Dottie, and I were blessed to live in a kind, loving family, as the majority of children in America did during those years. Mothers mostly stayed at home and concentrated their energies on caring for their children while the dads supported the family financially.

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I am hoping to share, each week, a little of my personal history of growing up in Clawson, Michigan.

 Our first home was in Berkley, Michigan, where Mom and Dad built a small 2-bedroom house on Ellwood, taking advantage of the new GI loans available to servicemen returning from World War 2.  For some reason, two-bedroom houses were popular then, but in 1953, with their third child on the way, Mom and Dad decided to sell and move to Clawson. I was six and my brother Garry was four. 

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