BLOGdom

This isn't really about growing up in Runnemede, but today I was thinking about what it would have been like to have the ability to BLOG when I was growing up. All that I can't remember would be in my BLOG and you youngsters would have it all set up already.

I would have known what questions to ask my mother and father about their pre-children life, their parents, their grandparents, etc. Now, it's like working in the dark to get just little glimpses of what my parents went through when they were growing up.

My mom grew up very poor. Her dad died when she was a youngster -- I think she was 7 or 8 -- and her mom had to scrub toilets at a mission in south Philadelphia (and I don't even know the name of that mission) to support the family, which at that time consisted of my mother, Aunt Anne, and Uncle Joe. The extended family helped Grandmother Sbaragalia, but it was difficult. My own mother told me that when she was 14 she started working odd jobs to help put pennies into the pot so the family could eat.

To keep warm they would use the oven in the kitchen, basically living in the kitchen in the winter.

My father's family was well-to-do and he was basically disinherited when he became a Christian and when he married my mom, an Italian. His father had a great job -- he was postmaster in north Philadelphia and thus didn't lose his job during the depression -- and had enough money to not only support himself and his family in style, but to have a rather large "savings" account when he died.

The stuff the Drexler family had accumulated during my grandfather Drexler's life was used from time to time to support the younger Drexler family (me and my siblings and my mom) as dad would remove family heirlooms from the jewelry tray in his bureau or from the trunk in the basement and sell them (hock them, pawn them) to get money to support his growing family.

Dad was a giver, so he was smart enough to give all the money he earned to mom and she would stingily parcel it out for food, clothing, bill paying, etc. And she always tithed on the money dad gave her. He kept a very little bit for himself each week -- I believe it was 10 percent or maybe even less. If he knew that the electric bill had to be paid, he didn't get much money for his "giving" to others. I know that whatever little money he had in his purse/wallet he didn't keep or use for himself. He was always giving money, books, and other things to people in need.

Mom would keep the money in envelopes in her dresser -- the electric bill got a percentage of the earnings each week, as did the gas bill, the fuel bill (either coal or oil depending on the year), food got what was left. There was a "tithe" envelope, an "allowances" envelope (a whole dollar was put in there for the children's meager allowances). There was a "savings" envelope, and once a month mom would go to the bank and put what was in there in the "Christmas" club account she had every year when I was growing up. She was very thrifty. She was a wonderful complement to my dad's spending wants and her knowing what needed to be bought and what would need to be purchased down the road. She also had an envelope for clothing, into which she put a small amount each week, saving it until there was enough to get shoes for the children, or some other item of clothing one of us needed.

I just wish I had asked them -- mom and dad -- about their life before I came along. I did talk to my father one night about his grandmothers and grandfather, but I'm not remembering much of the conversation. Most of all, I wish I could remember more of my life in Runnemede.