This will be a periodic posting about my life and/or the
lives of people I have known.
After spending the WWII years with their paternal
grandparents in Los Angeles, the girls’ mother remarried and they returned to
Portland, Oregon, with a new stepfather and a working mother. The younger girl
was about seven and her sister about ten.
When they left for California they were too young to have made friends
in the neighborhood, so they were at loose ends for things to do. At that time kids roamed their worlds without
fear, but it wasn’t any fun alone. The
house behind theirs on the cross street had new owners, the Lyons, who hailed
from Kansas and who loved to garden, both produce and wonderful flowers. The ten year old was of an age that a seven
year old was beneath her attention so she was lonesome for company.
She had been looking at the Lyons garden and enjoying their
flowers but had not met anyone. One day,
at desperate loose ends for something to do, she quietly went up on the porch
and peered over the windowsill to see a man working inside. She ducked down and then popped up
again. This time the man saw her and
opened the door. “Hello, who are you?”
he asked. “I am Diane Spencer,” she
replied, “and I live next door. Do you
have any little girls I can play with?”
“ We do have a girl, but she is eleven years old.” Elmer replied. “My sister is almost eleven, maybe they
could play together.” “Charlotte has
gone shopping with her mother, but you could bring your sister over this
afternoon.” “Okay,” said Diane as she
ran down the steps and headed home to find her sister, Marie.
Ever after Elmer told about looking up at the window and
seeing a head with pigtails tied up in loops on either side of her head and
bright brown eyes. Then she was gone and
then she was there again; like a Jumping Jennie. Marie and Charlotte became best friends and
did everything together, including trying to get away from Diane. Sometimes Elmer and Lucille, Charlotte and
Marie and tag-a-long Diane would go to the beach and stay in a little tourist
cabin where Elmer taught them all how to play poker using burnt matchsticks for
money. The girls would be gone most of
the day – sliding down the dunes, wading in the surf and building things with
driftwood decorated with shells and sea weed.
When the older girls were in high school Charlotte was diagnosed with
leukemia. There was no treatment for the
disease and Charlotte died within a few months.
Marie never completely recovered from the loss and never had a best
friend again in all her long life. Diane
remained a solitary figure with many friends but never a tight bond like Marie
and Charlotte.
