© 1958 
 
ILLINOIS HISTORICAL SURVEIT 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2012 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/lindaOOwass 
 
S(S~^:>X. 
 
 LINDA 
 This is a First Edition 
 
 Copyright, by 
 
 ELEANOR B. WASSERMAN 
 
 Baltimore, Maryland 1958 
 
 No parts of this book may be reproduced in any form. AH 
 rights reserved. No dramatization in lectures, radio, or 
 TV permitted in any form. International copyrights secured. 
 No reproduction of illustrations. 
 
 ©- 1958 
 
 The size of this book was determined by the amount of space 
 needed to display clearly the illustrations of the Angels. 
 
 Privately Printed in Baltimore, Maryland 
 
LINDA 
 By 
 Eleanor B. Wasserman 
 
 Easter 
 April 6, 1958 
 
 £} 1958 ELEANOR B WASSERMAN 
 
© 1958 ELEANOR B. WASSERMAN 
 

 This is a true story. 
 There are proofs of its authenticity; the picture from the vault of 
 the church, the minister's acceptance and encouragement, the 
 "coincidental" criss-crossing of persons , incidents and periods 
 of time, and a decided and contemplative conviction by many 
 that the "Finger of God" moved the pattern of all the events that 
 took place from early in 1951 to this spring of 1958. 
 
 Eleanor B. Wassermian 
 April, 1958 
 
TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 Page 
 
 Introduction .... The Author I 
 
 Preface The Very Reverend James Stanley Cox, 
 
 Dean of St. Andrew's Cathedral, 
 
 Hawaii II 
 
 Part I Let Linda Tell It 2 
 
 Part II Easter 47 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 1. Cover for Book. Linda at the age of six. 
 
 2. First sketch of angels soon after vision 59 
 
 3. Painting made in art class at Towson High 68 
 
 4. Photograph brough from vault of church 69 
 
 5. Letter about color of wings and garments 103 
 
 6. My Pets. Story by Linda. . 105 
 
 7. Easter basket. Drawing by Linda 107 
 
 8. Short concerto. Music by Linda 107 
 
Introduction 
 
 HOW THE STORY CAME ABOUT AND WHY 
 
 For many months after the death of my little girl, in 
 November of 1950, when the miraculous vision and the church 
 records coincided, I told the story to many people. They all 
 wanted to listen. 
 
 But, after awhile, like Coleridge's Ancient Mariner, I 
 grew exhausted. I began to leave things out. 
 
 I still felt, however, the tremendous impulse to tell it. 
 I was impelled to tell it, for I could hot hold it within me. I 
 wanted to help others believe as 1 had been shown how to believe, 
 particularly parents. 
 
 When I was granted, quite suddenly, a voice scholarship 
 at the Music Academy of the West, in Santa Barbara, California, 
 with the great artists John Charles Thomas, and Madame Lotte 
 Lrchmann, in the summer of 1951, I rode out on the Atchison, 
 Topeka and Sante Fe and returned by the Northwest Passage on 
 the Milwaukee Road, the train company kindly rerouting my 
 ticket. 
 
 In Seattle , Washington, I had a sister. Celeste, whose 
 husband is Dr. Morton E. Bassan. He arranged that I tell the 
 story into a dictaphone and he had his secretary type it. He 
 tested me for extra- sensory perception, at the same time. 
 He is interested in ESP, as many people are today. Nothing 
 significant was found. 
 
 Thus the twenty-two pages, the nucleus of a book, sud- 
 denly were there in my hands. 
 
 From this, all the writing has stemmed and has grown 
 into three separate books, the first one completed being "LINDA", 
 
 Eleanor B. Wasserman 
 
Preface 
 
 When the author first came to me some time after the 
 death of her daughter, I knew her to be struggling with a grief 
 too great to bear without some effort on her part to justify the 
 bitter pain of bereavement - to find some working answer to 
 the enigma of human existence. Her quest led her over a 
 curious path but through the same valley of decision and faith 
 countless others have encountered and will encounter. It is 
 to help the latter that she was led to write her book. 
 
 Somie may have some difficulty in accepting the author's 
 interpretation of the events after her daughter's death. I do 
 myself, although I was to some extent involved in them. I still 
 remember my astonishment when she produced the crayon sketch 
 of the Church seen in her dream. It was the pre- restoration 
 Church of which I was then Rector and which she could never 
 have seen. Whatever the valuation placed on this incident, it 
 was the turning point in her life, but it does not in any way 
 affect the validity of the Christian position she reached through 
 her Judeo - Christian background. 
 
 Some will find their chief interest of the book in the 
 thorough knowledge of Old Testament religion revealed by the 
 author, and how she found its fuUfillment, and hers, in the 
 Christian Church. Others will be moved by the personal expe- 
 rience of the author and, perhaps, find hope in their own 
 situation. At least they will feel that a deep experience shared by 
 them has been put into simple and expressive words, and be glad. 
 
 James S. Cox 
 
 Dean of St. Andrew's Cathedral 
 
 Honolulu, Hawaii 
 
 II 
 
TO THE GLORY OF GOD 
 
 - 1- 
 
LINDA 
 PART I 
 
 LET LINDA TELL IT 
 
 -2- 
 
PART I 
 
 LET LINDA TELL IT 
 
 My name is Linda. I was born on March 2, 1942. My 
 mother's name is Eleanor, and my father's name is Earl. 
 
 The place where I was born was Urbana, Illinois. It 
 was in a hospital. The doctors said I was the best baby they ever 
 had in the nursery. I never cried. I weighed eight pounds and 
 four ounces. I was born at 1:40 P. M. at the Carle Memorial 
 Hospital. Dr. Bodine was Mommy's doctor, Dr. Gillespie mine. 
 I was fat and red and they thought I was very healthy But I had 
 a little red birthmark on my left shoulder. 
 
 Ford Doolittle was in the crib hext to me. He cried all 
 the time. He was long and large-boned. He left the hospital 
 before I did because he was born in February, His Mommy and 
 mine both got beautiful birth certificates of us with a picture of 
 the hospital on the front and on the back a poem about angels and 
 a picture of one. The G. C. Willis Co, Store gave it as a present. 
 
 Ford's Mommy, Mary, and my Mommy were good friends. 
 Ford and I always knew each other. When I was eighteen months 
 old, we moved next door to Ford, to the "little white house" at 
 113 W. Pennsylvania Avenue. It was in September, in 1943. 
 
 Before that, we lived in the house I went to when I left 
 the nursery. It was rented. It was on South State Street in 
 Champaign, the twin city to Urbana, We lived at 7.15 South State 
 Street until September 1943, We had a tremendous garden there 
 because the lot was over 200 feet. It went 'way, 'way back to a 
 road. There were eleven cherry trees. We grew lots of vege- 
 tables. Mommy put the fruit and vegetables up in jars. 
 
 The most beautiful cherry tree was in the middle of the 
 lot in back of the house next to a grape arbor the landlord built. 
 There were red cherries on the tree. 
 
 The other cherry trees were Royal Anne, They were 
 yellow. All of the cherries were delicious. There was one 
 apple tree. It had two kinds but only two apples on it. It was 
 grafted. We ate the yellow one. A horse came through and ate 
 the red one. 
 
 We had peas and tomatoes and lettuce and carrots and 
 string beans and okra and corn and soyabeans and all kinds of 
 things from the garden. We had angel food cake a lot because 
 Mommy gave me the yolks of eggs and used the whites for the 
 cakes. 
 
 Eleanor, the girl next door, was old enough to stay with 
 me sometimes. There were the Hyde girls, too. One said I looked 
 like Shirley Temple, She liked me and she was very jolly. She 
 stayed with me lots of times. Her name was Margaret. 
 
 Another neighbor. Miss Lawson, said I would be a preacher 
 
 - 3 
 
because I always stood on the screened- in front porch talking 
 and pointing up to the sky with my index finger. 
 
 My finger curved under very far when I wanted it to. 
 Mommy's did too, but nobody else seemed to be able to do this. 
 Just Mommy and me. We liked to show people how we made 
 our finger look like a half -moon. I had one special toe I called 
 "Putzer". I talked to Putzer all the time. 
 
 The landlord wanted to move into his home after a while. 
 We had to find another house. The only house we could afford, 
 because houses cost so much money, was the house next door 
 to Ford, 113. He lived at 115 W. Pennsylvania Avenue with his 
 mother, Mary, his father, Warren, and his sister, Cathy, and 
 a beagle dog. Mommy met Mary and Warren when they first came 
 from Florida to Urbana because our mothers belonged to the 
 Artists' Studio Group above the Busey Bank. 
 
 It was a funny coincidence. Ford and I were next to each 
 other in our bassinets in the nursery in the hospital, and then we 
 lived next to each other in Urbana. 
 
 When we lived in Champaign, the city next door to Urbana, 
 I sucked my left thumb all the time, because there weren't any 
 friends there like Ford. I was lonely. 
 
 Mommy went to see Mary one day to have a visit when I 
 was twelve months and two weeks old. They talked about Ford 
 and me, and said we might walk before long. 
 
 I was home with Daddy. He put me in a corner, and took 
 everything away from me. Then I had to walk. I screamed. But 
 then I knew I could walk and run without falling and I ran to the 
 door to meet Mommy when she came home. Her eyes nearly 
 popped out when she saw me running to the door. She was so 
 proud. So was I. She called Mary on the telephone to tell her 
 about it. 
 
 Not very long after that, my friend Ford got to be my 
 very best friend. We lived next door, so we played together all 
 the time. We had games nobody else knew about. 
 
 We had all kinds of games with our "imaginations". Nobody 
 else ever could even dream up such games except Ford and me. 
 We liked to play together more than with anybody else. I never 
 played with anybody else like Ford. 
 
 There were many other children on the block and I liked 
 to play with the very little ones sometimes. There was one little 
 girl, Elizabeth Ann, especially. She let me decide when she had 
 quarrels with the other children. 
 
 Her mother said Elizabeth Ann "sensed" I was fair and just. 
 That was very nice of her. Later on I decided who was right when 
 all the little children had quarrels and they listened, too. I loved 
 them very much. 
 
 When we moved to the street in Urbana, I could walk and 
 run and I could talk in long sentences. Mommy went around 
 smiling because I was only eighteen months old and I was able to 
 
 -4- 
 
speak "perfect grammatical sentences, involved and complex". 
 I didn't know what that meant, but I was glad that I could talk 
 clearly. Everyone understood what I meant. 
 
 Cammy lived on this street. She was my girl friend. 
 There was Denny and Elizabeth Ann and lots of other little 
 children. We all played outside most all the time. I had a gym 
 set with swings and bars that the little girl who lived in my little 
 white house had before I moved there. 
 
 We all had different collections. I had coins and dolls 
 and stamps and fuzz- -lots of fuzz- -green fuzz, blue fuzz, tan 
 fuzz, pink fuzz- -to tickle my nose with and to hold onto to make 
 me feel warm. 
 
 We had lots of parties on this street, where we lived in 
 the little white house. One party was a sugar-plum tree party. 
 I asked Mommy one day where the sugar-plum tree was. 
 
 She invited all the children to come to find out and there 
 was a tree with a gingham dog that Mrs, Dougherty, the landlady 
 in Champaign, gave me when I was very little. There was a 
 calico cat, and all the sweets the poem tells about. Here is the 
 poem: 
 
 "Have you ever heard of the sugar-plum tree? 
 
 'Tis a marvel of great renown; 
 It blooms on the shore of the Lollypop Sea 
 
 In the garden of Shut- Eye Town; 
 The fruit that it bears is so wondrously sweet 
 
 (as those who have tasted it say) 
 
 That good little children have only to eat 
 
 of the fruit to be happy next day. 
 
 But in that tree sits a chocolate cat, 
 
 And a gingerbread dog prowls below 
 
 And this is the way you contrive to get at 
 Those sugar-plums tempting you so. " 
 
 It was by Eugene Field and all the children dreamed about 
 the tree after the party. 
 
 All the children on the street came to the party. There 
 were Cammy Kearns and Marianne and Denny and Ford and 
 Elizabeth Ann and all the others. 
 
 Donna Lee Strong wasn't there. She was my best girl friend 
 until she moved away. I had lots of fun with Donna. I cried very 
 much when she left. She went to live near Chicago. We loved each 
 other. 
 
 Her mother, Arlene, was with us a lot. She liked athletics. 
 She helped Donna and me with lots of games. 
 
 We had mothers with "motherality" on our street. Cammy's 
 mother, Denny's mother. Ford's mother, all the mothers had 
 "motherality". They all looked out for all the children. Nearby 
 
 - 5- 
 
Gail lived. She was a little older, but we liked to have her with 
 us whenever she came. 
 
 We had a Hallowe'en party. All the children came to 
 listen to records. It was "The Sorcerer's Apprentice". We 
 heard the broom in the music and we heard all the sounds of the 
 story as Mommy told it. 
 
 We all had costumes on, I was little Red Riding Hood. 
 Ford was an animal with a long tail. We all sat around in a 
 circle and listened. Nobody made any noise. We paid attention. 
 Then we ate ice cream and candy and caJce and then all my friends 
 went home. 
 
 Ford and I were always running in and out. We were 
 always adding to our treasures. 
 
 We collected silver foil from anything we could find. 
 We rolled this into balls. 
 
 I had all Mommy's old jewelry and old pocketbooks in 
 my collections. Ford liked to draw. So did I. So we had lots 
 and lots of boxes of crayons and pencils and chalk. 
 
 I collected combs, too, for my dolls and for my friends 
 and me. I had charms from everywhere, especially from bubble 
 gum machines. One charm is a ship. Ford gave it to me. 
 
 A lot of charms were presents to me. One charm 
 bracelet had scissors that opened and closed, a ground roller, 
 a diary that opened. 
 
 When I had to stay in, if the weather was bad or if I had 
 a cold, I could see out xny corner bedroom windows. It was on 
 the first floor. One window looked at Ford's house. One window 
 looked at my little ash tree with red berries and lace leaves. I 
 liked to look at the white snow, and the rain, or we made cookies. 
 Aunt C'eleste sent cookie cutters and a pastry tube to make fancy 
 cookies. She knew Mommy and I were always making cookies 
 in the green kitchen. 
 
 Mommy and I had one mother -and- daughter set. It was 
 a pinafore, one for me, one for her, with ruffles. We always put 
 them on. 
 
 Then we made the dough. We rolled the dough. I had my 
 own toy utensils. I loved to roll the dough that Mommy gave me. 
 I put all kinds of fancy things on top. We had colored sugar to 
 sprinkle on, and silver balls to put on top and chocolate jimmies. 
 
 And while I rolled the dough, I always chewed bubble 
 gum. When I wasn't chewing bubble gum, I was chewing on a 
 balloon that I blew up every once in a while. I loved balloons 
 and chewing gum. I liked Dentyne, and I also like using pretty 
 toothpicks to play with. 
 
 One day I was outside. I saw Mommy standing at the 
 door, laughing and laughing. I was skipping and while I skipped, 
 my hat was falling back on my head and a balloon was hanging 
 from my mouth. She thought it was funny. She was always 
 
 6- 
 
watching me and I liked for her to. 
 
 Every once in a while I blew up the balloon and plucked 
 on it with my fingers. 
 
 Ford and I had a pretty good balloon collection but none 
 of them lasted long. 
 
 When Ford and I got older, we added to our collections. 
 We had stones and rocks and rubber bands and paper clips. Ford 
 had lots of fishing poles. We found sticks he thought would make 
 good fishing poles. We played with all kinds of objects in our 
 sand piles. Ford always talked about Christopher Robin who was 
 his friend. 
 
 I played in my sandpile in the driveway on the front 
 lawn where it was first and I loved it so much that one day Mommy 
 came home and I didn't even see her. She stood there watching 
 me a long time, she said. I was wearing a dress she made for 
 me out of a tan and green polka dot dress she wore before I was 
 born. She made me a hat to match that tied under my chin. 
 
 I had a grey coat Mommy made out of a grey tweed 
 shirt she had before I was born and it was trimmed with blue 
 velvet from her wedding dress. 
 
 My grandmommy and granddaddy sent me clothes and 
 so did my aunts, but Mommy liked the clothes she made for me. 
 They reminded her of when she didn't have me and then she could 
 think how happy she was to have me. That's what she said. 
 
 Mommy and I took walks every day and we talked about 
 God. When I was two years old my Daddy went in the Navy to be 
 on a ship as an officer; 1944. 
 
 We made cookies for him every week and we sent them 
 to the ship. We were in our little green kitchen so many times, 
 and one day I told Mommy all about God. 
 
 I knew all about God because He is my Father and He 
 always takes care of me and of Mommy, too. But I wanted her 
 to know how God really lived far away and knew more than any- 
 body here will ever know. He is the only one who really knows 
 everything. Nobody else can know as much as God. He knows 
 the end of everything in the very beginning. He made the world. 
 
 I pointed up to the sky. I told Mommy how great, how 
 wonderful God is. I told her how much we have to love Him 
 because He gives us everything. 
 
 I was glad I could talk in long sentences because Mommy 
 understood me. She sat down on the kitchen chair at the curved 
 green corner table and she was very quiet. 
 
 When I went out to play, whe was still sitting there. 
 When I came back she was still there. She looked very serious. 
 She looked at me with a strange look. Then she picked me up 
 and loved me and kissed me and hugged me. She couldn't tell 
 me right away. Then she said, "God sent you to me, my baby, 
 and He is letting you teach me". 
 
 - 7 - 
 
We always knew what we thought after that. We knew 
 we must always think about God first . 
 
 Mommy started to read and to study because she 
 wanted to know more and more. I wanted her to tell me every- 
 thing she learned. 
 
 We had long conversations that were very serious. 
 But then we had laughing games too, and we were very, very happy. 
 We had such good times in the kitchen together, cracking nuts and 
 eating them and rolling them for the cookies. 
 
 We played most of the time but we read, too. We both 
 had lots of books. Mommy started reading to me when I was six 
 months old. I loved looking at the pictures. I learned to turn 
 pages. Daddy read to me, too. 
 
 I had Book House for Children, and the Books of Know- 
 ledge. Ford had the Knowledge books. They were his greatest 
 books , he said. 
 
 Mommy bought the Knowledge Books for me when 
 Daddy was away. She wanted me to have My Book House and the 
 Book of Knowledge. Then I had all the beautiful literature and all 
 the facts , too. The Heritage Club Books for Juniors were special 
 presents. There was Little Women , and Huckleberry Finn , and 
 The Wind in the Willows and they were all protected by boxes we 
 kept them in. I took very, very good care of all my books. For 
 a while I liked my beautiful Babar the Elephant books best. 
 Raggedy Ann stories were my favorites, too. And the little golden 
 books and the Giant Golden Books, and Pinocchio and Walt Disney's 
 stories. 
 
 I had a special pin that said "Member of the Junior 
 Heritage Club". I was a charter member in the club, it said. 
 
 Ford and I loved books as much as we loved our games. 
 They were our best friends. We compared all our books. 
 
 We played with clay and with candle drippings. We 
 could make lots of things from soft wax and the candles were 
 different beautiful colors. We could make lots of little things, 
 because our fingers were little. We molded the wax and the clay 
 into all kinds of shapes. 
 
 Ford's sand in his sandbox was brown and we could mix 
 it with the special pure white sand Mommy bought for my sandbox. 
 His was heavy. Mine was fine. 
 
 I got lots of presents. Mommy's Uncle Morris came to 
 see us from St. Louis where he used to live before he retired to 
 Florida, and he gave me a beautiful pink and white fawn. 
 
 Granddaddy gave me a scooter and a music box and a 
 doll carriage when I lived in Urbana, I rode my scooter in my 
 yellow pinafore all the time on the block. We had a sloping pave- 
 ment in one place in front of our house and I always had to follow 
 the dip. I loved my scooter Granddaddy gave me. He knew what 
 I liked. 
 
 The music box played a beautiful tune. It was blue and 
 
 - 8- 
 
children moved up and down in front in a little glass case while 
 it played. 
 
 My dolls were able to sleep in the beautiful carriage. 
 It was brown and it was not metal at all because it was wartime. 
 
 Ford liked bottle-tops for a collection, too. But I 
 didn't. So I gave him all I could find. We stopped collecting 
 them after a while. 
 
 We both liked our trading cards. All the kids liked to 
 trade cards. It was one of our mostest fun. We liked "Old Maids" 
 card game and Tinker toys. I had a Hoot- nanny game to make 
 designs with from Knowlton & Bennett, a store in Urbana. 
 
 My doll-house furniture collection grew and grew. 
 Grandmommy sent the doll-house. It was white, like 113. 
 Daddy put that number on the door of it. Aunt Dorothy sent the 
 wonderful sink and refrigerator and stove for the kitchen. 
 
 I had a jeep that Ford loved. It was a real model of a 
 real jeep. I was very proud of owning it, for Daddy rode on a 
 jeep when he was away. 
 
 I had a tool kit with all the tools - child- size screw 
 driver and pliers and everything else. 
 
 I had a peg set that I used to concentrate on a lot of the 
 time miaking letters. 
 
 We went to California to see my Daddy when his ship 
 was stationed at Long Beach. I was almost three years old. It 
 was January in 1945. I took along my soft rose colored rabbit 
 that I loved. He wore overalls and had nice cuddly velvet skin. 
 
 It was a long trip and I walked up and down the train 
 almost the whole time. Mommy sat and talked to people. She 
 still didn't feel very well from the fall she had on the ice in 
 Decemiber. 
 
 But we were both so happy to see my Daddy. I wore 
 my red sailor hat and my blue and white sailor blouse and skirt 
 and my white gloves and I carried my little red patent leather 
 pocketbook. 
 
 I ran all over the ship and Daddy played with me and 
 made more funny drawings for me. He always made them to 
 be like a dictionary, to explain things in a funny way like a comic 
 book. He carried me "Piggy-Back", too. 
 
 One of the other officers was our friend, Ralph Sorvig. 
 He was very good to us. One of the crew had a pin made for me 
 out of a piece of metaL It was my name, "Linda". 
 
 We were there for a few days and we went to the beach. 
 It was my first time at the ocean. In Urbana we didn't have any 
 water near us. 
 
 It was foggy and damp but I took off my shoes and 
 socks and walked in the wet sand. 
 
 I saw a seagull, I said, "There's the dove with the 
 olive branch!" Mommy and Daddy read the story of Noah to me 
 
 -9- 
 
lots of times and I always stopped them to talk about the dove. 
 
 They told me it was not a dove, but a seagull with sea- 
 weed in its mouth. 
 
 We visited the stores near the beach. I rode on a merry- 
 go-round and Mommy and Daddy watched me. 
 
 Then I wanted to go home to see Donna, my little friend. 
 I was lonely for my white house. 
 
 We met all the officers and the men. Daddy explained 
 how his job as communications officer was a very busy one. We 
 had dinner on board the ship. 
 
 When we left him, I looked back from the train to see 
 orange groves. I asked Mommy about the trees with all the oranges, 
 I learned how they grew. I loved to eat oranges, and there they 
 were growing on the trees. 
 
 I picked up some pretty shells while I was on the beach, 
 so all the way back I played with the sea shells. 
 
 Daddy sent me more shells from the Islands when he 
 went to Okinawa and he sent a Japanese war doll who looked real, 
 with a sword and a frightful helmet; a Samurai warrior. 
 
 I got soap wrappers at the hotel where we stayed. So 
 I had another collection. I had flags, too. There were little paper 
 flags from all the different countries. I pasted them on cardboard 
 sticks. I had coins from different lands too. 
 
 Daddy sent them from all over the Pacific. 
 
 When I got back. Ford and I talked about the trip. We 
 talked about Peter Rabbit all the time, too. He was a real person 
 to us. We made snow men whenever it snowed. We played in 
 the snow all day. We rolled in it and ate it when it first fell. It 
 was very clean and white. 
 
 I had a sled. It was wooden, red, white and blue, and 
 USS Linda was painted on it. Daddy's ship was USS Rockingham, 
 APA229. The sled was made like a boat with sides on it so I could 
 never fall off. A friend of Mommy's made it for me out of hard- 
 wood. 
 
 For a while, I went to a nursery school. But a little 
 boy pulled my hair out and I had colds, so Mommy kept me home. 
 I met friends there who came to play with me - Michael Tepper 
 and Bobby Sink. 
 
 I went to another nursery school, a music nursery 
 school, on West Green St. in Champaign, later on. Mrs. Foster 
 and her daughters were in charge of it. They taught me my 
 first piano lessons. I liked them very much. 
 
 When Daddy came back from the navy, I played there 
 in a recital. 
 
 It was very cold in Champaign- Urbana, but I had lots of 
 warm clothes. I had a leopard muff and hat trimmed in leopard 
 fur that Aunt Lorraine once had when she was a little girl, I 
 had another muff. It was a golden brown fur with a puppy's face 
 
 10- 
 
on it at the top, with floppy ears and with brown eyes almost 
 hidden by the fur. 
 
 I liked perfume and bubble bath and fancy powder. I 
 had a powder mitt that Mommy always dusted on me after my 
 bath. She always wrapped me in a big white soft cotton cloak with 
 a hood so I wouldn't get chilled. 
 
 The knitted wool clothes Daddy's mother made I wore 
 when I was little. They kept me warm and they were beautiful. 
 
 When Daddy came back, we both toasted marshmallows 
 and we ate lots of popcorn and peanut butter because he liked these 
 things , too. 
 
 We both liked the same things to eat. We liked tomato 
 soup, spaghetti, and corn, and milk, and hamburgers, and tuna 
 salad, and mushrooms, and french fried potatoes, and potato chips, 
 and pancakes, and french toast, and scrambled eggs, and toast 
 and cheese, and apples, and seedless grapes, and crunchy cereal. 
 We liked chocolate pudding better then any other dessert. I helped 
 stir it. I usually had a good appetite. Mommy and I both liked 
 licorice and to eat raisins out of boxes. 
 
 I loved picnics. We had lots of them, in the back yard. 
 I had my friends and we sat at my little white table. 
 
 Ford and I often went to the park near us in Urbana. It 
 was called Carle Park and we liked to look at the statue of Abraham 
 Lincoln at the entrance on Race Street. 
 
 There is a wonderful playground there. We liked the 
 swings and we could run all over the soft grass. 
 
 One day we had a picnic there. We packed our wicker 
 basket and took our jug, too. We stayed all day. We had lots of 
 fun. 
 
 Ford ran so fast he almost fell over himself lots of times. 
 I laughed and laughed because he was so funny. We looked at the 
 different kinds of trees. They were all sizes and shapes. Some 
 were straight. Some were crooked. We talked about the kinds of 
 trees there. 
 
 Ford and I went to the Leal School Kindergarten together, 
 when we were five years old in 1947. We walked to the school. It 
 wasn't far. We liked it very much there. I went to Sunday School 
 at the Jewish Temple in Champaign and I rode on the bus to get 
 there or drove there with friends. 
 
 We had a circus at the Leal School. I played the piano 
 for the rocking-horse bareback rider. It was the Leal School 
 Circus. There was a write-up in the paper by Bobby Sink's father 
 who was the editor of the Urbana Courier. Bobby was an animal 
 trainer. His big cat was in a box and was the lion in the circus. 
 Bobby's mommy was my mommy's close friend. 
 
 Bobby's father's paper gave us free tickets to a real 
 circus, too. 1 saw clowns and dancers and all kinds of acts. 
 Daddy took me and the newspaper photographer took our pictures. 
 
 « 11 - 
 
The clown was very queer. He made faces. I thought everything 
 was puzzling. 
 
 My last party in Urbana was a May Pole Party. Mommy 
 and I made streamers of different colors and we all danced around 
 like little fairies, dressed in our party clothes. There were little 
 presents attached to each streamer. When the dance was over, 
 we pulled down the gift with the streamer. 
 
 Everybody got all tangled up in the paper crepe and we 
 all screamed and giggled while Mommy kept on playing the piano 
 for us to dance around to. 
 
 Our piano just fitted into the very little dining-room. 
 It was next to the window. With the window open we could hear 
 the music of the piano. 
 
 Mr. Linton made the piano out of two old pianos for us. 
 He had a shop in the twin city Champaign. There was an old big 
 rosewood grand piano, and a Henry F. Miller piano from Boston, 
 100 years old. The piano has a rosewood case made from the 
 grand piano. 
 
 The piano cost some money, and Mr. Linton was willing 
 for Mommy to put in old clothes and jewelry and old shoes. 
 Mommy took her confirmation ring and her old watch and her high 
 school ring to put in because we wanted a piano so much. 
 
 Mr. Linton had a second-hand shop, and he also made 
 old pianos over for people. He made us a beautiful piano to fit 
 the corner in the alcove. With the front door open and the window 
 open in back of the piano. Mommy could see, while she sat at the 
 piano, the front lawn and the back lawn. She could always see me. 
 
 We played and sang all the time at the piano. The stalf 
 that holds the music is the most beautiful wood, real rosewood. 
 Mrs. Linton wanted it for a coffee table top but Mr. Linton decided 
 to use it on our piano. Mrs. Linton is very, very kind and she let 
 him do it. 
 
 The day of the May Party, the piano was part of the fun. 
 The streamers were so many pretty colors. The crepe-paper could 
 be made into many other things. 
 
 I decided to trim a hat for Mommy with the paper. It 
 was a hat I liked on her but it was getting old. The next day I fixed 
 the hat. 
 
 She laughed and thanked me when I made a ribbon to go 
 around the hat with a big paper rose at the top. The colors were 
 deep pink and bright yellow and pale green. The ribbon paper was 
 deep pink. 
 
 It was Ford who knew what I always meant, though, more 
 than anybody. We always had a new game. We made people out of 
 things and things out of people. We had special names for every- 
 thing and we liked to find treasures. We could find them anywhere. 
 
 Most of all we wanted to find the magic treasure. So 
 we looked everywhere. 
 
 - 12 - 
 
We were still looking for it when I went to see Ford and 
 I was almost grown up, when he lived on the island during the 
 summers. 
 
 I liked my school, The Leal School, in Urbana very- 
 much. The principal, Miss Flossie Wiley, is very good to all 
 the children and the teachers made us very happy. Mrs. Fletcher 
 and Mrs. Houser were my kindergarten teachers before I left 
 Urbana in 1948. 
 
 I didn't want to leave Urbana, because of my friends 
 and my school but in February 1947, Granddaddy had been badly 
 hurt and Daddy was asked to teach there in Baltimore. 
 
 So we went. I cried to Mommy one evening, coming 
 home from my music lesson, about rt^y friends, but I. found new ones. 
 I loved my new grown-up school, too, the Roland Park Public 
 School, in Baltimore. 
 
 That's when I really started to be a grown-up, in 
 Baltimore. We lived in an apartment house near Valerie for a 
 while. Then we moved into one that we lived in for a year, the 
 Chadford. The first one was the Bradford. 
 
 Barbara and Pat stayed with me sometimes at the 
 Chadford. They were pretty and very nice to me. Pat taught 
 me some ballet dancing and we sewed together, too. 
 
 I went to see Granddaddy and Grandmommy a lot. They 
 were always glad to see me. 
 
 My Granddaddy was a doctor. Dr. David Franklin, and 
 he worked very hard, much harder than anybody else. He got up 
 at night to go out in the rain and the cold to help people, and many 
 times in very, very deep snow and ice. 
 
 Daddy was in the navy from 1944 in the springtime to 
 March 2, 1946. He flew in an airplane and he didn't like the ride 
 when he came home. He met us in Chicago. 
 
 We had been staying with Grandmommy and Granddaddy 
 in Baltimore the last six months Daddy was gone. We closed up 
 our little white house until he came back. 
 
 We went back to Baltimore in February 1948. We were 
 there on the night of February lOth,, Granddaddy started to remember 
 again what happened to him on February 10th, 1947. He groaned 
 and groaned. We heard him. Mommy said he was re -living Ihe 
 terrible tragedy and the terrible pain. He always had pains in .his 
 head after he got hurt. He slept on six pillows, propped up high, 
 and he was hard to awaken when he took his afternoon nap. 
 
 After this. Daddy got the job teaching in Baltimore, and 
 so Mommy and I left Urbana forever, the two of us together, in 
 June in 1948. 
 
 Daddy came to Baltimore in August. We were at the 
 Chadford then. 
 
 Bus #29 took my Daddy and me to the university when 
 we saw "Heidi". We went to the plays at the Johns Hopkins 
 
 13- 
 
Children's Educational Theatre together. "Heidi" was on 
 October 22, 1948. 
 
 We saw all the stories children love. They spoke 
 their own lines, just naturally, without studying written parts. 
 Mrs. Bowen directed the plays. 
 
 "Treasure Island" was another play I saw, by Robert 
 Louis Stevenson. It was on January 15, 1949. I liked it because 
 it was exciting and I remembered Ford and me looking for 
 treasure. 
 
 I liked Heidi because her grandfather loved her and 
 wanted to help her. She was a very good little girl and she didn't 
 like to be unkind to anybody. "Heidi" was a story Aunt Celeste 
 sent me with lots of pictures, and Mommiy and I read it all the 
 time. 
 
 It made me think about my own Granddaddy. 
 
 We had quite a distance to go to see my grandparents. 
 They lived in Forest Park and we took two buses and a street car 
 to get to see them. One bus was the #22 bus. It went past Carlin's 
 Park and there was a big glass case with a huge laughing woman 
 with a hat and heavy clothes on. She was artificial. We heard 
 her laughing a block away. It was fun to hear the cheerful laugh. 
 We got off the bus at the end of the line, Liberty Heights Avenue. 
 
 Mommy and I rode on the buses a lot. We took the #10 
 in back of the Chadford on Roland Avenue and we rode all the way 
 down town. We often rode to the Lexington Market. It is the 
 biggest market in Baltimore. It has more stalls then I ever saw 
 before. We bought lots of seafood because we didn't get any in 
 Urbana except when Granddaddy sent it express to us. He sent 
 barrels of oysters and crabmeat and fish from one of his patients 
 in the Seafood business. It was delicious. The Mace Sea Food 
 Company sent it to us. 
 
 The #29 bus rode in front of the Chadford to my school. 
 I got on across the street and it left me off at the door. When we 
 moved out to Towson, Mommy paid to keep me in the school 
 because I was happy there. That was the second grade, the second 
 year I was there. She came for me every day, and I waited in 
 front of the school. I always bought a Good Humor or a popsicle 
 from the Good Humor Man for Mommy and for me. The truck 
 was in front of the school every day at three o'clock. 
 
 We had a very hard time finding a house when we were 
 at the Chadford, Mommy's friend, Betty Conklin, rook her every- 
 where to find one. She's a real estate agent. ThaJs how we met 
 her. Her little girl, Mary, went with us too. She's a very good 
 and very pretty little girl. Charles is her brother. I liked him 
 very much. 
 
 We went everywhere to look at houses. We saw 
 Mr, Blanding's Dream House on Bellona Avenue near Charles 
 Street, the very house in the movie with Cary Grant, who was 
 
 - 14 
 
Mr. Blanding. 
 
 There was a house near my school I wanted. But we 
 didn't get it. 
 
 Finally, somebody showed Mommy a house that was 
 beautiful. It was big and it was near a brook with trees hanging 
 over. It was brick and there were ^ig rooms and there w^re two 
 bathrooms and there was a bird's nest in the basemient with baby 
 birds in it. It was all new. 
 
 We all wanted that house. We put down the down pay- 
 ment because we sold our little white house in Illinois. 
 
 Suddenly the builder went bankrupt. He had built lots 
 of houses and he didn^ have enough money. So the house was to 
 be sold at auction by the pepple he owed money to. 
 
 Mommy and Daddy were told it was a big risk to invest 
 in the house because of the dangers in lawsuits. 
 
 Later on the house was sold for much miore money than 
 we had agreed to buy it for and the brook was all tiled up and 
 sealed over. We drove over to see. I wasn't sorry then about the 
 house. 
 
 But Mommy had stayed all sumnner with me to take care 
 of getting ready to move and she even planted beautiful evergreens, 
 because in the v^inter they make you feel better when the trees are 
 bare. 
 
 Well, she suddenly decide^ after all this to-do, that 
 we'd take a little vacation into New England, where it was cool. 
 Daddy was teaching in Urbana for the summer school and the 
 climate was very hot there. He didn't want u6 to come. He had 
 a room in Elizabeth Ann's house while her mo'ther and father and 
 the rest of the family were gone. 
 
 I w^s glad we didn't go, because Mommy took mie to 
 see Ford and Judy and Dr. Havens and all the beautiful sights in 
 New England. We had a wonderful ten days' trip. 
 
 We even went all the way to Jaffrey, New Hampshire, 
 to see Dr. and Mrs. Beriibaum, who were so very kind to nSj 
 They live near a beautiful mountain and we sat on the porch and 
 looked at it. I didn't want to leave there. They are wonderful 
 people and he was Mommy's teacher.. We talked about interesting 
 things. 
 
 We had to take a bus to get to them when we got off the 
 train. They live in the White Mountains. The early morning air 
 was so cool and fresh. We had a btoakfast with Mrs. Bernbaum. 
 She pumped the drinking water out of a pump that was on the sink. 
 It tasted so good. The silverware shone so brightly and so did 
 the sunshine into the dining- rpom. We had the best toast and 
 jelly and milk and water and everything that I ever ate. It was 
 calm and peaceful there. 
 
 We took a train up to New England, and we went to 
 Boston and then to Jaffrey. We went by boat to see Ford. We 
 
 - 15- 
 
were very happy to see each other, again. 
 
 On the way a lady was on the train who liked to do 
 needlework. I made a paper design with some paper as I sat in 
 the train. I listened to the lady describe fancy work for pulls to 
 pull down blinds in front of windows and all kinds of things and I 
 started working out a design. 
 
 "She works well with her hands", she said to Mommy. 
 
 I liked to weave things and to sew and I liked very 
 delicate patterns. 
 
 The lady said she would make dainty blind pulls for the 
 window shades for my room when we moved. But we never wrote 
 to her. 
 
 It was beautiful in Massachusetts and Rhode Island and 
 New Hajnpshire. New Bedford was where Judy Bedrick was. Her 
 mother came from Fall River and we met them in Urbana. They 
 were good friends. 
 
 I added to my soap wrappers and soap collection a lot. 
 We went to Newport, too, and we saw all the fine boats and all 
 the sailing vessels sail iUong the ocean. We rode all over Newport 
 and saw the fine old estates. 
 
 When we went to Jaffrey, it was a small town. We had 
 a chocolate soda while we waited for Dr. and Mrs. Bernbaum to 
 call for us and then they drove us to their home. The drive was 
 through beautiful countryside. 
 
 When we got back, Daddy was at the Chadford. He was 
 tired and he rested. In a few days we bought a new automobile 
 with the money he made teaching in the summer. It was a Nash 
 with beds in it, so I could rest in it. 
 
 Then we were able to drive around to look for a house. 
 We had a hard time because houses were "restricted". I never 
 heard of that before. I wondered about lots of things older people 
 decide. They don't seem to be from God. 
 
 One day we were driving in our car and we drove down 
 Mt. Royal Avenue near Druid Hill Park. There is a large statue 
 of a man standing with a book in his hand. 
 
 "Who is that?", I asked Mommy. 
 
 "That's Martin Luther", she said. 
 
 "Tell me about him ! " 
 
 "Well", she said, "under the statue you can see there 
 is written 'A Mighty Fortress is Our God'. It is a magnificent 
 statue, isn't it? It looks so strong, so imposing and awesome. 
 
 He was a man who loved God very, very much, so much 
 he was a mountain of strength. Those who have lived their lives 
 working for God are like enduring mountains. 
 
 Luther said he had to reform some things, change some 
 things, that had crept into the worship of God. The book he holds 
 is the German Bible for all to read. Before the Bible was written 
 in Latin or Greek and few could read it. 
 
 - 16- 
 
He was very religious. He had his own ideas about God. '* 
 
 "There are many things I can't yet tell you, Lin, dear, 
 about Luther'', said my Mommy. "There are many things I don't 
 understand yet myself. " 
 
 I asked her, "Why are we Jews? Who was Christ? Tell 
 me, Mommy!" 
 
 Mommy hesitated again. "Lin, d,ear, Christ w^s cru- 
 cified on the cross and then the Christian Church was founded. We 
 Jews don't believe the way the Christians do, that Jesus is the 
 Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God. We believe He is yet to come. 
 The Christians believe He came as Jesus and will come back again. 
 I wish I knew more to tell you, darling, but I need to learn almost 
 as much as you do. " 
 
 Mommy tried to satisfy me, and she loved rne so much 
 I knew how hard she was trying. But I didn't stop, because I thought 
 about lots of things and I had to find the answer. 
 
 "Well, Mommy, I know this much. It's not right for one 
 perspn to say another is not as good as he; is because he isn't the 
 same color or the same religion. God wants everyone to be alike. 
 We are all human beings. There is only one God and we are the 
 same to Him. Colored people are good and so are the people who 
 have a different religion. Those are my own ideas !" 
 
 "Linda", Mommy said, "I'm sure they must be God's 
 ideas, too. Remember the poem we read about the Little Black 
 Boy,' when I was studying William BlaJce with Dr. Bernbaum ?" 
 
 "Yes, the poem was from the "Songs of Innocence", 
 about children, and I remember part of it", I answered her. 
 "My Mother bore me in the Southern wild. 
 And I am black, but O! My soul is white. 
 White as an angel is the English child, 
 
 But I am black, as if bereaved of light 
 
 And we are put on earth a little space. 
 
 That we may learn to bear the beams of love; 
 
 And these black bodies and this sun-burnt face 
 Is but a cloud, and like a shady grove. " 
 
 "Thus did my mother say, and kissed me; 
 
 And thus I say to little English boy, 
 When I from black, and he from white cloud free, 
 And round the tent of God like lambs we joy 
 
 I'll shade him from the heat, 'til he can hear 
 to learn in joy upon our Father's knee; 
 
 And then I'll stand and stroke his silver hair, 
 And be like him, and he will then love me." 
 
 We drove all through Druid Hill Park as soon as we got 
 the car. Grandmommy and Granddaddy always took Mommy and 
 
 - 17- 
 
her sisters there so she knew all about the park. 
 
 As we rode around the lake we saw a monument to 
 Wallace, a Scottish martyr, and a statue of Columbus. We stopped 
 to look at'it. There is a map in his hand. 
 
 Mommy told me how he thought he had discovered India 
 when he had really discovered America, ,how he landed at San 
 Salvador on October 12, 1492, and didn't know about our continent 
 at all. He thought he was claiming rich India for Spain ! 
 
 She told me how the centuries since the Nina, Pinta, 
 and Santa Maria had travelled the ocean with a band of outlaws, 
 were all leading to the greatest democracy in the world, our 
 United States of America, where all men are created equal, where 
 children can enjoy parks and play without being molested, protected 
 by law and order. They are equal, too, because one is just as the 
 other, and they balance each other:- Law and order. 
 
 There are several smaller parks in Baltimore. One 
 is called Patterson Park. One day when we walked in that park 
 an old lady came along. She said, "I don't know what I'd do with- 
 out this park. Some days I just don't feel well and then I can come 
 over here. I feel so much better then. " 
 
 They have meetings for the old people when they have 
 recreation. The director told us she makes them forget their 
 troubles and they stop thinking about all their aches and pains. 
 
 They dance, they play Hoki-Poki, they sing and they 
 have fun. 
 
 "Isn't it wonderful to have places like this to help 
 the older people who don't have much to do?" That's what I said 
 to Mommy. She agreed. 
 
 The largest park is Druid Hill Park and the large lake 
 and reservoir in it is called Druid Hill Park Lake. At the end of 
 the lake is an old shot tower. Mommy told me they rolled the 
 cannon balls out of it in the wars. 
 
 Young and old people enjoy the park. Boys and girls 
 ride their bicycles around the lake and many adults park their cars 
 there to look at the circling skyline and to enjoy the breeze and 
 relax. 
 
 "No other park in Baltimore is so extensively wooded 
 and so beautifully planned as this park", said Mommy. 
 
 "Why is it called Druid Hill Park, Mommy?" I liked to 
 know the history of places. I liked to learn about the days of yes- 
 teryear, the days of the past. 
 
 She couldn't answer the question; sp we got a little booklet 
 published by the Board of Park Commissioners on public parks. 
 Number 3, on Druid Hill Pa?:k. 
 
 "To begin with, the search for a record fixing a definite 
 time when the name Druid Hill first was used to designate the estate, 
 has been unrewarded. Nor can any record be found crediting to any 
 one of its owners through several generations the appropriateness 
 
 - 18- 
 
of thus associating its venerable oaks and their mistletoe with a 
 priesthood which revered the oak as sacred, and professed to see 
 in the mistletoe a symbol of immortality. It is written that the 
 Celts in early Gaul and Britain, whose priests the Druids were, 
 worshipped the Sun, the Wind, the Thunder, the great Forces of 
 Nature, rather than its beauty, yet one who drives through, or 
 luckier, has opportunity and leisure to stroll through Druid Hill 
 Park, when the dogwoods are in blossom or when the autumn leaves 
 are in their glory, well may be pardoned a sensitiveness to God in 
 Nature, quite apart from Revelation, and be something of an aes- 
 thetic pantheist, worshipful but unafraid. The name fits well. " 
 
 The park is in the center of Baltimore City. It is built 
 on rolling hills, extensively wooded. On one side of a high hill the 
 skyline of buildings and church steeples and railroads and industry 
 can be seen; and on the other side, old Woodberry Mills, one of the 
 oldest mills in Maryland. 
 
 Mommy and I wandered all through the park. We came 
 to the Bird House of the zoo. We walked in and a big black bird 
 from Java said, "Hello!". I laughed and laughed because Mommy 
 stood there talking to it. 
 
 Then when I saw the exotic colors and plumage of the 
 other birds from all over the world, I grew very excited and called 
 to Mommy to come to see every new exhibit. The birds are in 
 panel- decorated glass cases. The bird from Java is called the 
 Talking Mynah. The black and shiny green body of the Greater 
 Mynah is very interesting to see, for the yellow-winged crest of 
 smooth velvet skin folding back like a hat on the head with its orange- 
 yellow beak, is a contrast to its body of black and green. 
 
 This bird comes from the South pacific in the South Seas. 
 The Java Islands are bordered by the Indian Ocean on one side and 
 the Pacific Ocean on the other side. We looked it up on the globe. 
 
 There is a white fleck on the back wings and the bright big 
 black eyes of the bird shine with real intelligence. 
 
 I waited for Mommy at the next window. There the bril- 
 liant colors and the flaming scarlet, yellow and blue and green tails 
 of the South American Macaw filled the cage, as their loud screeching 
 "Hello's" filled the room. 
 
 Mommy said the bird house and the monkey house are 
 "labyrinths" winding in and out. The building has been redecorated 
 because it is an old building that used to have a stuffed collection of 
 animals and skeletons, years ago. 
 
 When Mr. Arthur R. Watson came on March 1, 1948, to 
 be in charge of the zoo, the bird house was begun at the end of 1948 
 and finished in 1949, when we went there. Later on, the apes and 
 the monkeys were placed in the monkey house joining the bird house. 
 
 When we left the outer room with the Mynah and the 
 Macaws, we entered the Hall of Jewels. It is a winding, dim, long 
 hall lit by the colors of the birds and the lamps behind the glass cages. 
 
 We looked at the Bleeding Heart Doves of the Philippines. 
 
 - 19- 
 
for a while. They had soft gray plump bodies with a blood- red spot 
 on the middle of their breasts. 
 
 Next we saw the weird- looking black and white Pied Hoi^n- 
 bill of India, with a huge overhanging beak. There are fir^ches, too, 
 and waxbills, and weavers, and whydahs from Asia, Africa, and 
 Australia. Many of thenn had the brightest red beaks. They are 
 small and dainty and delicate in color and in their flight. There are 
 beautiful green lovebirds from Africa. One is "masked". It has a 
 red mask covering over all the throat and the front of the head. 
 
 The blue magpie from the Himalayas sits perched on a 
 limb with its long curled tail, black and white and gray, swinging, 
 as the gray and black bird sits and listens. 
 
 Near the end of the Hall of Jewels is the Apricot Cock- 
 of- the- Rock from South America. We liked its name and its beau- 
 tiful soft color that glowed deeply in the dim light. Then we left 
 the bird exhibits enclosed in their glass cases. 
 
 Mommy said, "The notes of a bird are as gay or as 
 mournful as the most happy or most tragic things in life. " 
 
 She read somewhere a description of the peculiar notes 
 of a bird heard by night on the shores of the Amazon River in 
 Brazil. The Indian guides call it "The Cry of a Lost Soul". This 
 is the story, as Mommy wrote it down: 
 
 '^An Indian and his wife went out from the village to work 
 
 their chacra, carrying their infant with them. The woman went to 
 the spring to get water, leaving the man in charge of the child, with 
 many cautions to take good care of it. When she arrived at the 
 spring, she found it dried up, and went further to look for another. 
 The husband, alarmed at her long absence, left the child and went 
 in search. When they returned, the child was gone; and to their 
 repeated cries, as they wandered through the woods in search, 
 they could get no response save the wailing cry of this little bird, 
 heard for the first time, whose notes, their anxious and excited 
 imaginations syllabled into pa-pa, ma-ma (the present Quichua 
 name of the bird). The Spaniards heard this story, and with that 
 religious poetic turn of thought which seems peculiar to this people, 
 called the bird 'The Lost Soul'. " 
 
 In the monkey house, there is a little dainty monkey 
 named "Babs". A little flowered dress is hanging near her window. 
 It's just her size. Many dresses are made for her by her radio 
 friends. She is on television with Mr, Watson on the program 
 called "This is Your Zoo", over WAAM. 
 
 I loved to watch Babs. I always watched the program 
 and I could look at her for hours. It was fun every minute. 
 
 She has little hops and skips and jumps and she has 
 pouting, dainty manners, and she is dressed in her fancy new out- 
 fit every week, with a bonnet and everything. 
 
 All the time she eats the bananas that she loves so much 
 and she pokes her delicate monkey fingers into the sawdust to find 
 
 20- 
 
food tidbits. She likes lettuce and greens and she picks very care- 
 fully every little piece of food. I wanted Mommy to buy me a pet 
 monkey and she said she'd try. Babs gets jealous of the attention 
 Mr. Watson gives some of the other monkeys. '^Dr. Tom" is a 
 favorite of all the children, too. 
 
 One day Mommy started to talk about a man named Darwin 
 who said we come from monjceys. 
 
 She said, "When I look at these monkeys, I know positively 
 that Darwin is wrong in calling them the origin of our species. If 
 we're descanded/frommohkeys, , why are the r.e„ monkeys still, and 
 why haven't they kept on evolving? We'll believe in Adam and Eve, 
 Linda. God put lots of different kinds of animals and humans here, 
 but He made us like Him and He made us perfect first , in the begin- 
 ning. Then sin changed us. I don't think there ever was a 'Missing 
 Link'. '• 
 
 "What's a 'Missing Link'?", I asked. 
 
 "That's a skull of a half-man, half-monkey creature, the 
 scientists say they found. I don't believe there ever was one. They 
 say they found it in Sussex, England, and call it the "Piltdown Man", 
 and they call it an extinct human species , Linda. " 
 
 I was glad to agree with Mommy, for I think monkeys are 
 cute and I wanted one to make a pet out of, but I wouldn't want to 
 think we ever really were one. 
 
 I liked the Reptile House, too. Mommy didn't, but I liked 
 the crocodiles and the huge snakes and the terrapin and all the other 
 crawling things. 
 
 The zoo was the best place, though, where the monkeys 
 and the zebra and the elephant perform and you can watch all their 
 motions and the way they look. 
 
 One day the hippopotamus wouldn't come up out of the 
 water but he did finally. When he came up, all huge and leathery, 
 and he was snorting, I thought it was very funny. I enjoyed it very 
 much and I laughed a lot. He was quivering all over, he was snort- 
 ing so much, and he made a lot of noise plunging up out of the water. 
 
 I fed Mary Ann or Minnie the elephant, and I watched her 
 perform in a dance at two o'clock. She is called Mary Ann, the second 
 a big old wonderful elephant. The first Mary Ann came to the zoo in 
 1922 and she was more popular than all the other animals. She lived 
 there for 20 years, then she fell down while she was asleep and 
 sprained her insides, and she died. She was the first elephant the 
 zoo had. She was a baby when she came, and 2, 000 boys and girls 
 who were members of the Jungle Circle group raised $700. 00 to- 
 wards paying for her. 
 
 The duck pond is beautiful. We spent lots of time there 
 watching the duck families bathe and walk around and preen them- 
 selves. It is shaded by big old trees there and it's always cool. 
 
 There are lots of different kinds of birds there. There are 
 all kinds of ducks and heron and geese and they quack and quack and 
 splash around all the time'. I loved to watch them swim around and 
 
 - 21- 
 
duck down into the water and then come out and sun themselves and 
 spread their wings. I always stayed a long time there. 
 
 Around the pond there is a tall steel wire fence and the 
 fence curves because the stream does. It winds around under the 
 beautiful trees. It's a lovely spot. 
 
 The crown herons and the flamiingoes were on my list. 
 One day I made a list of the animals and the birds of the zoo. 
 Mommy helped me. I never got tired of hearing their names; the 
 pnes we use and the zoo names, too. I learned all I could about 
 them. I liked to describe them. There was no zoo in Urbana and 
 I was very happy to see all the animials and birds I read about. 
 
 The flamingoes are rose-pink. There is a lacy fringe 
 on the top of the Crown Heron's head. Both birds have stick- pole 
 legs and they are very colorful. They are a "novelty", because 
 the other members of the bird clan are not as unusual. Maria, who 
 has the beautiful Italian restaurant in Little Italy near the Port of 
 Baltimore, gave the flamingoes. 
 
 All the winged creatures scramble quickly to the spot 
 when children push food for them through the fence. They forget 
 how very proudly a minute before they stood and smoothed their 
 feathers and they fight for the food with ruffled feathers. There 
 are some very beautifully feathered peacocks , too, strutting around 
 with greenish bluish-colors and tassels on their heads. 
 
 We went to all the historical places in Baltimore. One 
 day we went to see the memorial house on Amity Street where 
 Edgar Allen Poe lived, here in Baltimore. We climbed up narrow 
 circular stairs to the second story and in a very small room there 
 was a big bed with big feather pillows. The home is on a narrow 
 street in a colored neighborhood and a little colored girl with long 
 wiry pigtails and big red bows said, "GoUee, did dat man sleep in 
 dat bed? I'd sure like to sleep in dat myself", and she started 
 thumping the bed before the guide could stop her. It was very 
 amusing. I smiled and laughed to myself. 
 
 Down the street not far from there is the graveyard 
 where the great writer is buried, the Westminster Presbyterian, 
 and also at Fayette and Greene Streets is the Edgar Allen Poe 
 School, named in his memory. I was eager to see where Mommy 
 taught at this school after graduating from college, and I had to 
 hear about it all. I was very interested. Mommy told me about 
 the class- "children" from fifteen to fifty. She taught night school 
 there, high school English, and many students were employed 
 people. How proud I was of that! Everything Mommy ever did I 
 wanted to know all about and I never tired of listening. Another 
 great writer is buried in the Episcopal Church cemetery on Green- 
 mount Avenue. Her name is Lizette Woodworth Reese. 
 
 We sat in Mt. Vernon Square and looked at the people 
 and the pigeons. There are green benches there. And we looked 
 at the George Washington Monument which is in Mt. Vernon Square 
 with heavy blocks of uneven large paving stones all around it. We 
 
 -22 - 
 
went to the Pratt Libraries and the Flag House and the old Shot 
 Tower near the Peale Museum, that is all the way downtown in old 
 Baltimore. We went to the Peabody Library and saw many interest- 
 ing exhibits. Mommy did most of her studying there when she went 
 to John Hopkins to college for her teacher's degree. There are 
 fine study desks in back and it's very quiet there. 
 
 We went to hear concerts in the Peabody Concert Hall 
 and we heard the Baltimore Symphony at the Lyric. I remember 
 the Vienna Boys Choir singing beautiful Christmas music. I liked 
 to hear choirs sing and I liked to listen to Mommy sing, too. 
 
 I liked to study all about the cities in America and all 
 about the colonies, too. Our trips to Washington and to Annapolis 
 taught me a lot about our history. 
 
 We took a trip to Washington one day so I could see the 
 buildings of the capitol. I saw George Washington's signature and 
 I copied it, when I got home, because I remembered it. 
 
 We went to Thomas Jefferson's memorial. Just think, 
 he wrote the Declaration of Independence. 
 
 When we walked up all the steps leading to the building 
 I thought how great a man he was and how much he did for our 
 country. I was very quiet, thinking about it, I looked at the beau- 
 tiful dome and the white marble and I was very serious because 
 he was one of the fathers of our country. When we got up there, 
 inside we read the writing on the marble walls. 
 
 Mommy said, "These walls are warm with the love of 
 humanity and sacrifice for ideals, Linda. "■ 
 
 She read the words aloud: "I have sworn upon the altar 
 of God eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the 
 mind of man. "^ She explained what it means. No one should try 
 to be a tyrant over anybody else, but love God and try to do good 
 for Him, and love our fellow-man and help him. 
 Then she kept on reading: 
 
 WE HOLD THESE TRUTHS TO BE SELF- 
 EVIDENT: TPIAT ALL MEN ARE CREATED 
 EQUAL, THAT THEY ARE ENDOWED BY 
 THEIR CREATOR WITH CERTAIN INALIEN- 
 ABLE RIGHTS. AMONG THESE ARE LIFE, 
 LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. 
 THAT TO SECURE THESE RIGHTS GOVERN- 
 MENTS ARE INSTITUTED AMONG MEN. WE 
 SOLEMNLY PUBLISH AND DECLARE THAT 
 THESE COLONIES ARE AND OF RIGHT OUGHT 
 TO BE FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES 
 
 AND FOR THE SUPPORT OF THIS 
 
 DECLARATION. WITH A FIRM RELIANCE 
 ON THE PROTECTION OF DIVINE PROVIDENCE, 
 WE MUTUALLY PLEDGE OUR LIVES, OUR 
 FORTUNES AND OUR SACRED HONOR. 
 
 - 23- 
 
ALMIGHTY GOD HATH CREATED THE MIND 
 FREE. ALL ATTEMPTS TO INFLUENCE IT 
 BY TEMPORAL PUNISHMENTS OR BURDENS 
 ARE A DEPARTURE FROM THE PLAN OF 
 
 THE HOLY AUTHOR OF OUR RELIGION 
 
 NO MAN SHALL BE COMPELLED TO FRE- 
 QUENT OR SUPPORT ANY RELIGIOUS WOR- 
 SHIP OR MINISTRY OR SHALL OTHERWISE 
 SUFFER ON ACCOUNT OF HIS RELIGIOUS 
 OPINIONS OR BELIEF. BUT ALL MEN. SHALL 
 BE FREE TO PROFESS AND BY ARGUMENT 
 TO MAINTAIN THEIR OPINIONS IN MATTERS 
 OF RELIGION. I KNOW BUT ONE CODE OF 
 MORALITY FOR MEN WHETHER ACTING 
 SINGLY OR COLLECTIVELY, 
 
 GOD WHO GAVE US LIFE GIVE US LIBERTY. 
 CAN THE LIBERTIES OF A NATION BE 
 SECURE WHEN WE HAVE REMOVED A CON- 
 VICTION THAT THESE LIBERTIES ARE THE 
 GIFT OF GOD? INDEED I TREMBLE FOR 
 MY COUNTRY WHEN I REFLECT THAT GOD 
 IS JUST, THAT HIS JUSTICE CANNOT SLEEP 
 FOREVER. COMMERCE BETWEEN MASTER 
 AND SLAVE IS DESPOTISM. NOTHING IS 
 MORE CERTAINLY WRITTEN IN THE BOOK 
 OF FATE THAN THAT THESE PEOPLE ARE 
 TO BE FREE. ESTABLISH THE LAW FOR 
 EDUCATING THE COMMON PEOPLE. THIS 
 IT IS THE BUSINESS OF THE STATE TO 
 EFFECT AND ON A GENERAL PLAN. 
 
 I AM NOT AN ADVOCATE FOR FREQUENT 
 CHANGES IN LAWS AND CONSTITUTIONS. 
 BUT LAWS AND INSTITUTIONS MUST GO 
 HAND IN HAND WITH THE PROGRESS OF 
 THE HUMAN MIND, AS THAT BECOMES 
 MORE DEVELOPED, MORE ENLIGHTENED, 
 AS NEW DISCOVERIES ARE MADE, NEW 
 TRUTHS DISCOVERED AND MANNERS AND 
 OPINIONS CHANGE. WITH THE CHANGE 
 OF CIRCUMSTANCES, INSTITUTIONS MUST 
 ADVANCE ALSO TO KEEP PACE WITH THE 
 TIMES. WE MIGHT AS WELL REQUIRE A 
 MAN TO WEAR STILL THE COAT WHICH 
 FITTED HIM WHEN A BOY AS CIVILIZED 
 SOCIETY TO REMAIN EVER UNDER THE 
 REGIMEN OF THEIR BARBAROUS ANCESTORS. 
 
 - 24 
 
Then we walked into the outer halls and I saw some beau- 
 tiful pictures of Thomas Jefferson's home, Monticello, in Charlottes- 
 ville, Virginia, in a Vumaster slide machine. I just had to have it 
 because there are all kinds of pictures you can look at in it. I wanted 
 it so very, very much, 
 
 I opened up my little green money purse and I took out the 
 money to buy it. Mommy bought the slides for me. After that we 
 looked often at the Jefferson Memorial and other Vumaster picture 
 s tories. 
 
 I had a nice little collection of slides after a while. It 
 is a wonderful education for children. They look so real, the 
 pictures do, and the machine is small and easy to use. 
 
 Mommy stopped one day at a seafood stand on the road 
 to Annapolis. It is not far from Granddaddy's office in South 
 Baltimore. 
 
 Sometimes we could ride as far as the Baltimore & 
 Ohio Camden Station on Bus #22. That was near 122 West Lee 
 Street where Granddaddy had his office. The #10 trackless trolley 
 went all the way downtown, too. 
 
 One day not long ago Mommy drove there, again, to the 
 seafood stand. Mommy saw a man come out in the cold. 
 
 She thought he was one of the owners. She spoke very 
 gaily to him and asked him how he was. 
 
 I guess he was surprised, for he had just finished eating 
 six Ocean Cove oysters and he was a customer like Moinmy. 
 
 But he liked her being friendly like that and he said,. "I 
 always stop here when I come from Virginia. They have the best 
 oysters. " 
 
 Mommy didn't say anything about thinking he was going 
 to wait on her and she said, when he asked her how she fixed the 
 jumbo shrimp she bought, '"Oh, I split them down the back after I 
 take off the shell and fry them in butter. 
 
 He said, "Don't you like to cook them in egg and cracker 
 meal?" Mommy said, "Sometimes. " She thought he was a very 
 kind man and she said, "Do you always buy seafood here?" 
 
 He said, "I'm a captain with the National Bulk, a federal 
 line, and I like to buy the shrimp here. We get oysters that are 
 just as good in Virginia. " 
 
 "What part of Virginia?", asked Mommy. "I don't know 
 much about Virginia, but my grandfather settled a colony there 
 somewhere, when he came from Europe. " 
 
 "Oh, I'm one of the early settler's families. I own a 
 royal grant of land in Gloucester County", he said. "I'm related 
 to George Washington and to the Queen of England. " 
 
 Mommy perked up her ears and said, "Oh, that's very, 
 very interesting. Will you tell me all about it?" 
 
 "I will be very happy to", he said. 
 
 "My name is Captain Deal, I am descended from John 
 
 - 25 
 
Robins who came in 1642 to Gloucester, Virginia, first cousin to 
 Augustine Warner. Margaret Smith was related to Augustine 
 Warner's family. Margaret Smith married the 13th Earl of 
 Strathaven in Scotland and the family name was Bowes- Lyon and 
 that is Queen Elizabeth's family. 
 
 Augustine Warner was the great grandfather of George 
 Washington. Margaret Smith was the daughter of John Smith of 
 Purton in Gloucester County, which first became a county in 1650. 
 It is north of the York River in Virginia. This river was najned 
 after the Duke of York. It was known earlier as the Charles River, 
 after King Charles II. The county was then called Charles River 
 County. Gloucester County was the first county established north 
 of the York River in Virginia. The colony was settled by the 
 English. 
 
 Mildred Warner, the daughter of Augustine Warner, was 
 the great- grandmother of George Washington. Queen Elizabeth is 
 also as closely related to Robert E Lee as any person who was not 
 directly descended from him. She is as closely related to George 
 Washington as any living relative other than those descended from 
 his brother's children. 
 
 George Washington didn't leave any direct heirs. Robert 
 E. Lee left direct descendents. He was the husband of George 
 Washington's step- granddaughter . 
 
 The estates of Warner and of Robins are taken care of 
 by the Society for the preservation of Virginia Antiquities. 
 
 The first charity school to be built in the world was 
 Bottetourt, in Gloucester, Virginia. It was built on part of a 
 royal grant to John Robins, which was sold to Augustine Warner, 
 who left it to found a charity school, " 
 
 After this, Mommy thanked Captain Deal and said it 
 was a great pleasure to meet him. He said, "It's quite mutual", 
 and just before Mommy left with her oysters and shrimp, he said, 
 "I have spent time visiting most maritime countries on earth. I 
 see how they live, what they have. Knowing what we have here, 
 I know we've the finest country on earth for everybody. Every- 
 body, that is, who wishes to take advantage of their opportunitj.es. 
 We give more of our divine gifts to all, therefore we receive more. 
 We are all able to be divinely led. There are more ways to follow 
 freely God's own pattern for our lives here in this great land of 
 ours. I would fight for that right to death!" 
 
 I remember now how, when we went to Washington to 
 go sight- seeing, I drew George Washington's name the way he 
 wrote it. I wish I could have known him. He was a great man. 
 He was the father of our country. I liked to study all about the 
 presidents but mostly George Washington. In Washington, I read 
 how President George Washington laid the cornerstone for the 
 National Capitol on September 18, 179 3. 
 
 We went to Washington to visit, too. My Mommy's 
 
 -26- 
 
sister, Aunt Dorothy, has two daughters, Barbara Sue and Joann. 
 We were each two years apart and I am the youngest. All their 
 clothes came to me. I had lots and lots of clothes. $orne times I 
 had too many clothes. I couldn't decide which to wear. 
 
 Aunt Dorothy gave me very pretty dolls, too. She always 
 buys good things and she shops very carefully. She gave me a tiny 
 little doll with long wavy hair. I named her CoUyflower, after the 
 vegetable we eat. It's a pretty name. It has music in it. Barbara 
 said, "Linda certainly is one for names !" 
 
 I never knew about Easter until I visited my cousins when 
 I \vas five years old. Then we filled an Easter Basket for each one 
 of us. All the school children in Washington did this. This was the 
 Easter of 1947, the Easter of the year Granddaddy got hurt. I was 
 staying at his home with Mommy, to help take care of him. 
 
 My cousins and I talked about Easter eggs and rolling 
 them on the White House lawn in Washington. We learned how, in 
 Dutch Colonial days, there was the custom of "cracking eggs" in 
 New Amsterdam on Easter Monday. One person held a hard-boiled 
 egg in his hand, while another one tried to break it. The winner 
 got the broken egg as a prize. Before Easter came, the shops in 
 the colony were sure to place eggs in their Windows. These w^re 
 tied with red or blue ribbons. Some were colored. On Easter 
 Monday, many persons ate nothing except eggs. 
 
 I always had Hallowe'en parties and I had a little Chris- 
 tmas tree every Christmas. It was my little baby tree and it wasn't 
 real, like the one I had when I had my tonsild taken out. But I 
 never had an Easter party. I knew Hallowe'en was for fun. I knew 
 Christinas was for Santa Claus to bring presents. I c^idn't know 
 then all about Easter, what it means, like I do now. I didn't know 
 Santa Claus is Saint Nicholas, who loves children, and I didn't 
 know lots of other things, then. 
 
 Mommy always read " 'Twas the Night Before Christmas" 
 to me and I knew all about reindeer. I always wanted to see real 
 live reindeer. They're so big and so graceful with their beautiful 
 long hair and big horns all twisted 'round each other. Dasher, 
 Dancer, Prancer, Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen were 
 my favorites. I hung Mommy's red iceskating:3ocksL that are all 
 fuzzy over the fireplace mantle. We played "Rudolph The Red- 
 Nosed Reindeer" on the victrola and on the piano. 
 
 Barbara and Joann didn't celebrate Christmas. They had 
 Chanukah, instead, and it is called the- Festival of Lights , with, the 
 first candle lit at the top of the lights that go up, like steps, eight 
 of them to the top one, the ninth in the middle of them, the one you 
 light the other ones with. That is the way the Jewish people have 
 Christmas. Mommy liked Christmas because Granddaddy always 
 gave her presents then. 
 
 Easter meant new spring outfits to them, and they made 
 Easter baskets. The Easter I went to stay with them a couple of 
 
 27- 
 
days, I felt very grown-up. I packed my little suitcase Mommy 
 gave me and I kissed her and Grandmommy and Granddaddy and 
 Aunt Lorraine good-bye and left. 
 
 I left Mommy only three times in my life. Once when 
 I went with my little suitcase to visit Aunt Dorothy, once when 
 Mommy went to New York for two days and I stayed with Grand- 
 mommy, and once when I stayed one night with Sandra. We were 
 always together, Mommy and me. 
 
 My uncle drove us ii^ the car to 9 Normandy Drive where 
 they lived. This was in Silver Spring, just outside the city. My 
 cousins had a playroom with lots of toys and a big doll house that 
 had electricity in it. They had a wonderful dog named Skippy. 
 
 She was a black and white cocker spaniel. Her grand- 
 sire was "My own Brucie". She was a "connoisseur", Joann said. 
 She was very particular about her food. She couldn't be bothered 
 with bones. You had to hold the bone for her so she'd eat the meat 
 off of it. She lay down and rested on her back with her paws up in 
 the air. 
 
 Her name was really Skippelina Ruth. Her real birthday 
 was January 14, but my cousins made a mistake and had her birth- 
 day parties on February 2. 
 
 Aunt Dorothy boiled all the eggs for our Easter party. 
 I cut out lots and lots of little pictures out of an Easter egg paper 
 cut-out book and I pasted a dozen pictures on one egg. 
 
 We had chocolate bunnies and yellow sugar baby chickens. 
 How happy I was with my first Easter basket! 
 
 I wouldn't let anybody eat any of the chocolate bunnies or 
 little chickens. They were too pretty. They all got stale, but I 
 didn't care. 
 
 Aunt Dorothy tried to turn my light off at night, but I 
 wouldn't let "her. I always had a little light on at night. Mommy 
 let me. She never let me be afraid. 
 
 We went to lots of miovies and some of them were scary. 
 But I was never afraid of the most horrible mystery stories. I liked 
 comedies and mysteries best. 
 
 Abbott and Costello and the Marx Brothers are funny and 
 all the Walt Disney movies are wonderful. I liked Cinderella best. 
 Willie, the whale, who song at the- Met, was amazing. We saw his 
 vocal chords when he sang. They vibrated. It was- really Nelson 
 Eddy who was singing, though! 
 
 We went to see "Great Expectations" in the Rose Garden 
 at the Baltimore Museum of Art. I was so glad when Pip was able 
 to be happy, because his life was sad. He was an orphan. 
 
 "The Razor's Edge" was sad. I was very sorry for the 
 poor mother who lost her child. There was a song in it called "La 
 Vie En Rose". It was my song and Mommy's. We always thought 
 about the movie when we heard that music. But there was some- 
 thing very beautiful and happy in the movie, too, when we saw the 
 holy man in the mountains and the music swelled up so sweetly. 
 
 -28- 
 
Then we could think of God, and how He makes everything all right 
 if we trust Him and love Him. 
 
 We took lots of drives and we went out the Reisterstown 
 Road all the way to Manchester, Md. We knew when we reached 
 it because in the country-side ahead we could see two church stee- 
 ples above the houses. We always stopped at Oursler's ^here for 
 milkshakes and ham sandwiches. It's very clean and everything 
 tastes good there. The people are very pleasant plain country folk. 
 
 A few times we drove to Westminster, Md. It's called 
 the little city of faith and security. Mommy said three-quarters of 
 the city is banks and churches. There's lots of security there, and 
 lots of faith. 
 
 I like to study about all the countries in the world. One 
 day when Mommy and I went for a ride out the Reisterstown Road, 
 we stopped at a fruit stand. 
 
 We went there often because we liked to drive out that 
 road a lot. When we stopped on this day, a lady got out of her car 
 and she gave me some coins. 
 
 She said she traveled all over the world. There were 
 Canadian coins and an Egyptian coin. The Canadian penny had a 
 maple leaf on it. We all talked about travel. 
 
 Mommy told me Canada is a free country like we are. 
 "Our values are spiritual ones, Linda, and we believe man is the 
 child of God. Our government is based on cooperation, not orders 
 or commands. We need an honest law-making body to manage our 
 affairs for us. Then we have balance of values in a free way of 
 life, Uke Jefferson said." 
 
 "India and Egypt can have a democratic way of life like 
 ours, too", said the woman who gave me the coins. "They can 
 have self-government and peace and the same traditions and way 
 of life, to strive for what is just and best for the common good of 
 all the people. " 
 
 I saw how the people of other lands live when we visited 
 the museums. At the Walters Art Gallery, I saw an Egyptian 
 mummy in a glass case. I asked Mommy about it. "They used 
 an embalming fluid to preserve the body, and then wrapped it to 
 keep air from it", she said. "It's thousands of years old. " 
 
 "Doesn't it smell?", I asked. 
 
 "I guess it would, after it's opened. But it's inside the 
 wrappings and hasn't decayed. That's how the Egyptians buried 
 people. " 
 
 We saw lots of coins there, too, thousands of years old. 
 One was a boy riding on a porpoise. Mommy said it was a coin 
 telling about a myth or legend. 
 
 The best way to learn about yesteryear is to go to muse- 
 ums. At the Peale Museum, we learned about the artist Charles 
 Wilson Peale, and about early Baltimore, and saw fine paintings 
 by Baltimore artists and at the Maryland Historical Society, we 
 saw how people dressed a hundred years ago in Baltimore. They 
 
 -29- 
 
had parasols an4 ruffles and all kinds of fancy decorations. Mommy 
 said those are the Victorian period and she told me about Queen 
 Victoria and her husband, Albert, and their children. 
 
 When we took the trip to Annapolis and to the Eastern 
 Shore , I learned all about the colonial days in Maryland. Daddy 
 and Mommy and I went to Annapolis together and we went sight- 
 seeing. Daddy told us about the history of the navy, and he talked 
 about the Attack" Transport he was on in the war. 
 
 As we drove towards Annapolis, I saw the green dome 
 of the State House. I don't know why it seemed to me I had seen 
 it before, in a dreaxn I had in Urbana. I didn't tell Mommy about 
 that until much later. The view was so beautiful, with the waters 
 of the Severn River reaching out before us, all shining. 
 
 First we had lunch in the coffee shop at the Carvel Hall 
 Hotel. Then we went to the Naval Academy Chapel where the 
 father of the American Navy, John Paul Jones, is buried. The 
 big American flag is draped over his tomb. This chapel is domed, 
 too. I once dreamed about buildings with domes, like these domes 
 in Annapolis. 
 
 The guide in the State House in Annapolis told us, "It 
 is the oldest capitol in daily use and it was finished in 1774. George 
 Washington resigned as commander-in-chief of the American army 
 in the room of the old senate chamber. In the same room, the 
 Continental Congress ratified the treaty with Great Britain that 
 ended the war. 
 
 The dome that tops the building is the only all- wooden 
 dome in America. In the building is the only American Flag, "Old 
 Glory", that was carried in the Revolution and the War of 1812. 
 
 The capitol of Maryland was first at St. Mary's City in 
 Southern Maryland. The early settlers from the Ark and the Dove 
 had landed at St. Clement's Island on the 25th of March in 1634. 
 There were 320 people who landed from these two ships that left 
 Southampton, England, November 22, 1633. The Indians were 
 friendly and there was lots of food, for the land was rich and the 
 streams and bay full of fish. A Jesuit priest, Father Andrew 
 White, said mass. " 
 
 St. Mary's City had the first State House. The State 
 House in Annapolis was built from 1772 to 1774. Annapolis has 
 circles and narrow old winding streets and it's quaint and quiet 
 and peaceful and lovely. The sidewalks are uneven bricks and 
 there is ivy over the old buildings. 
 
 Annapolis is on the Severn River at the mouth of Chesa- 
 peake Bay. I liked to watch the sailboats in the breeze. The guide 
 gave us two booklets. One told how Maryland was started, the 
 other one all about the State House. I learned a lot of history from 
 them. 
 
 "Maryland was founded in 16 34 by Cecelius Calvert, 
 second Lord Baltimore. The charter was granted in 16 32 by 
 Charles I of England to George Calvert, first Lord Baltimore. 
 
 30 - 
 
Maryland was named for Henrietta Maria, the King's wife, and 
 Queen, and Princess of France Preedom of worship was the rule 
 Lord Baltimore made for the colony. In 1649, the Religious Toler- 
 ation Act was passed. Maryland was the only spot in the world where 
 worship was free and not commanded. Maryland is called 'The Free 
 State'. Maryland was one of the thirteen original colonies and the 
 seventh to join the Union. 
 
 Maryland is bordered on the north by Pennsylvania, on 
 the east by Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean, and on the south and 
 west by Virginia and West Virginia. 
 
 There is an old limestone boundary stone separating 
 Maryland and Delaware, It stands nearly four feet tall and twelve 
 to fourteen inches in width It was placed at 'Middle Point', the 
 halfway point between the Atlantic Ocean and the Chesapeake Bay 
 by Mason and Dixon in 1768. 
 
 'Middle Point', marked the spot from which a line drawn 
 to the north sliced Delaware from the original Maryland colony. 
 The stone has the seal of William Penn on its north and east sides 
 and the seal of the Maryland Calverts on the west and south sides. 
 
 The line was settled after a lot of meetings between Lord 
 Baltimore and Willian Penn. 
 
 At this Middle Point, the Eastern Shore was divided by 
 a line running to the north. It ends now at the Pennsylvania State 
 line. 
 
 Today the stone marks the southwest corner of the State 
 of Delaware and is the guide point for boundary lines separating 
 Maryland and Delaware. " 
 
 "My, all the argument states had about boundary lines 
 is like the lines setting our property apart from our neighbors. 
 There are lines drawn everywhere" , I said. 
 
 • "As long as it's settled peacefully, it's all right", said 
 Mommy, and went on reading out of the book about the State House. 
 Then she said, "The green dome is green because it's covered 
 with copper that has weathered with age and storms. " 
 
 Then she said in surprise, "Our Maryland flag is supposed 
 to have a cross on top, for that is what the first one had. It's the 
 same colors as the coat-of-arms of the English Church, the Anglican 
 Episcopal Church. In 1692, that was the State Church. The first 
 service was held by colonists at St. Mary's City in Maryland in 16 34. 
 Red and white and black and yellow, they are the colors of our 
 Maryland flag and the red and white crosses in the flag stand for 
 'Cross Lands'. They are crosses 'Botonnee'. 
 
 The first church service in America was at Jamestown, 
 Virginia, in 1607. The church began on May 14, 1607. One hundred 
 and five men landed on the shores of what was to become Virginia. 
 In establishing Jamestown, Virginia, the first English settlers 
 brought the Anglican Church to America. One of their first acts 
 was a worship service under an old sail hung between two trees with 
 
 - 31 - 
 
a bar of wood for an altar rail. One of the first buildings was the 
 church. " 
 
 After a little while we drove all around the town again 
 and passed the St. John's College on King George Street. It was 
 built in 1696 and is a Great Books college. It used to be called 
 King William's School, after the King of England. It is a very- 
 beautiful school with fine old buildings and old trees and beautiful 
 lawns. 
 
 We went on home. I was very tired but I enjoyed the 
 trip. I got in the tub with bath salts out of the glass bowl container 
 with woolen eyes and eyebrows on it that Cammy made for me as a 
 present and with Sally Swan, my beautiful floating toy for my bath, 
 made out of white and blue plastic, and I soaked and rested. Then 
 I went to sleep. 
 
 I'm glad we took a lot of trips and drives to interesting 
 places. We bought the car in August in 1949 and I went back to 
 school in September. In October we found the house on Providence 
 Road in Towson. We moved in around November 1, 1949. It is in 
 Loch Raven Valley. 
 
 Mr. Laird and Mr. Rock were the builders and they had 
 almost finished the house, except for painting the bedrooms. Mine 
 was painted blue to match my blue and white French Provincial 
 furniture and Mommy's and Daddy's was painted green to go with 
 their Chinese Chippendale bedroom set that Granddaddy gave Mommy 
 for her eighteenth birthday. 
 
 Granddaddy gave me beautiful porcelains of squirrels 
 and rabbits and girls and boys and an orchestra of Hummel children 
 to decorate my room. He gave me a tiny little tea set in china. 
 
 He paid to have Mommy's evergreens moved from the 
 house with the brook and she was grateful to him. 
 
 The man who moved the evergreens for us put some- of 
 them in the far back of the lot where there are lots of trees. They 
 are oak trees. 
 
 There are oaks in front, too, and a beautiful tall birch 
 tree with whitish bark. He put the biggest evergreen of all on the 
 top of the slope near the road. He put my little one I called my 
 evergreen, it was so perky and green and I liked it best, on the 
 slope next to the biggest one so close they grew into each other 
 later on, and they leaned on each other all the time. 
 
 There are lots of acorns all over the ground because of 
 the oak trees. They are fun to gather. There are lots of squirrels 
 because of the acorns and they make homes in the tall trees. There 
 are many different kinds of birds, some with beautiful songs, and 
 some of bright colors, too, red especially. 
 
 Mommy and me love evergreens and flowers, Grand- 
 daddy loved them, too. Around his house he made rock gardens 
 and a big pool with water running over rocks. Ferns grew around 
 it and all kinds of woodland plants. 
 
 When Mommy was at home with him before I was living, 
 
 - 32 - 
 
she went out at six o'clock in the morning with him to woods in the 
 country of Maryland to find wild rock plants and flowers. They 
 brought them back and planted them together. She had her own 
 little rock garden with a pelican standing next to her little pool, with 
 lilies and goldfish in it. She studied all about plants and fish. The 
 fish lived under the ice in the winter time. 
 
 Once they took a trip to Lily Pons, Md. It is named after 
 the opera star. The Three Springs Fisheries are there and Mommy 
 and Granddaddy bought lilies and fish. Mommy said it was most 
 beautiful. She described the lilies and the lotus flowers to me, how 
 they were lovely colors and rose up above the pads of leaves, and 
 looked so cool. 
 
 When Mommy and I took the trip out to Fork, Md. , to 
 the Stony Batter Nursery, she bought some holly plants to put at 
 the new house and we bought jonquils on the Falls Road, at the 
 Valley Nursery, to plant in front. They are my Birthday Flower. 
 They were big ones; King Alfred was the name. We bought coral 
 bells and other flowering plants with blue flowers that bloom a long 
 time at a place on the York Road. We lived way out the York Road 
 when we moved. It's a funny coincidence. When Mommy and Daddy 
 first got married, they lived on the beginning of the York Road in 
 the city for eight months. Then they went to Urbana. I went with 
 Mommy and Daddy to buy the home at 1 1 3 and to buy the home at 
 602. 
 
 I sat and watched everybody sign. This house is a stone 
 house. There are lots of stone quarries near us. The house in 
 Urbana was of all white boards. 
 
 In our new house I had the furniture Mommy bought for 
 me and that I never had used. It is grown-up and the room is big 
 enough for it here. I had my baby furniture in Urbana. 
 
 Mommy bought me curtains and a spread in rose color 
 to match, and the furniture, and put it all away. It fitted perfectly 
 in my new bedroom. She was glad she had it, so I could have a 
 pretty room. 
 
 Daddy sent me a little rocking chair when he was in the 
 navy. It plays Rock-a-bye Baby, He sent it from the Bon Marche 
 store in Seattle. It's next to my bed with a big doll in it Aunt 
 Lorraine won at bingo. 
 
 I got lots of presents. Aunt Celeste sent beautiful story 
 book dolls to me that I put on my shelves. One was a Valentine doll 
 with a heart-shaped hat all in red. Aunt Celeste is a Valentine baby, 
 born on February 14, herself. She gave me books. The best one 
 was "Heidi". It's beautiful. 
 
 Aunt Lorraine always gave me lots of presents, especially 
 at Christmas time. Once when I was very little and we were at 
 Grandmommy's house, Aunt Lorraine dressed up as Santa Claus and 
 I was so surprised when I went into the living-room to see Santa 
 Claus there. I kept on asking how be got in. They told me through 
 
 - 33- 
 
the chimney. He looked very big to have come that way, but I 
 wantTed to believe it. So I did. 
 
 She gave me a cash register and puppets and a puppet 
 theatre, a toy milkshake mixer, and eggbeater, and a toy fountain 
 for all kinds of drinks. She bought bowler hats for me and pocket- 
 books and ornaments and dolls. She cooked special dishes for me, 
 too. We were always in Grandmommy's kitchen together. 
 
 I learned how to make good scrambled eggs. I wrote 
 down the recipe. Mommy found it and said she'd keep it in a cook 
 book scrapbook for me. I had my own size pyrex baking dishes. 
 
 I liked Chinese food, too. Egg rolls are good with duck 
 sauce, made out of peach jam and garlic and red pepper and french 
 fried mano clams are wonderful. Howard Johnson's Restaurants 
 have mano-fried clams. We ate them at the one on Cold Spring 
 Lane. I liked their ice-cream cones better than anybody else's. 
 I liked to drink Jasmine and Ming tea and cocoa. These were my 
 favorites. 
 
 Our kitchen is big and yellow. Mommy and I wanted a 
 kitchen table to make things on. We didn't have one, so we looked 
 in the stores. It took a long time to decide on the right one. We 
 put up pretty curtains and to pull blinds up and down, little tea- 
 kettles on cords that are made for kitchen blindpulls and that are 
 pretty, and Chinese prism chimes are the pull on the window 
 facing the woods in back that we never pull the shade down on. 
 They tinkle when the breeze blows in. 
 
 I put my big carriage that I had when I was a baby under 
 the back window in my room. I had two pink blankets for my babies 
 and two pillows. I loved to take care of my dolls. 
 
 I had lots of utensils for washing them and brushes and 
 combs for their hair. Lots of times if I had to stay home because 
 I was sick I washed their clothes. 
 
 It was cold water I washed in. I never liked hot water 
 at all. I felt better when I used cold water. 
 
 I combed my dolls' hair so much it always came off, 
 especially Wendy's hair, that was real, and we had to glue it back 
 on. 
 
 I liked combing Mommy's hair, too. It's long and curly 
 and thick. 
 
 I liked to dress up in Mommy's high heels and clothes, 
 especially in her silver fox fur piece Granddaddy gave her. 
 
 She has lots of hats that are very dressed up hats. I 
 loved to put them on. They have pearls and feathers and sparkling 
 rhinestones. 
 
 One day I crawled around on the floor with the silver fox 
 pretending I was an animal. One day later on Mommy saw the paws 
 coming off and she was a little bit angry with me. But she knew I 
 didn't mean to hurt it. I was just playing a game. 
 
 She was sorry for me because when we moved there were 
 
 - 34- 
 
no girls near my age around there except Kitty. Kitty came over 
 to skate with me after we moved. But Mommy was always afraid 
 I'd fall. Kitty always came every weekend morning with our post- 
 man, Mr. Wilkinson, on our route. He is a very cheerful, very 
 kind mailman. 
 
 I was sick a lot after we moved. The doctor thought it 
 was my tonsils. 
 
 We went to see different people who had little girls. 
 Mrs. Laird and the builder had a nice little girl. Mommy and I 
 went to see her and they were very kind to us. They had collies 
 for sale in their home. We went to see thern at Christmas time 
 when there was a beautiful tree in the livingroom. 
 
 Their home was further down in Loch Raven Valley, in 
 Providence Village. We live at the top of the valley on Providence 
 Road. There's a little old white church at the end of the road. It's 
 pretty and very quiet- looking, and peaceful. 
 
 We went to see Cynthia Neesemann. Her family lived 
 next door to Granddaddy and Momnny when she lived at the office 
 at 122 West Lee Street. Cynthia and I played together. 
 
 At Christmas time I had my tonsils taken out. The doctor 
 said they were very bad. I had a big, big» enormous Christmas tree 
 all lit up with an angel on top. Mommy dragged it in to the house. 
 It was too heavy for her to lift. But she made up her mind I would 
 have a real tree. 
 
 I had two big, tremendous new babies. Their najnes are 
 Baby Snooks and Robespierre. They were put in the big carriage 
 and that was their own bed, too. I took the best care of them. They 
 were my little brother and little sister and I love them with all my 
 heart, like real live babies. 
 
 They came to me on December 20, 1949, the same day 
 Granddaddy was born in 1887, sixty some years ago, and the same 
 day exactly that Aunt Dorothy moved into her new home in the city, 
 that she made all the plans for. 
 
 I felt better after a while and I ate a lot again and liked to 
 be outdoors. I had a new picture to put in my room where I stayed 
 when I had to be indoors so much. 
 
 Mrs. Bernbaum, whom we visited, came to see us in 
 November, on the 15th. In December she sent me a beautiful pic- 
 ture of yesteryear, one hundred and twenty years old. It was made 
 in 1829. It's blue and has ladies in blue gowns. It's called "Chapeau 
 de velours. Robe de satin garnie de tulle", and "Le Conseiller Des 
 Graces". 
 
 I was in the hospital when it came and Mommy and I opened 
 the package. Mrs. Bernbaum knew what would look pretty in my 
 room, which is French. 
 
 At Christmas time. Miss Barkalow, who lived next door in 
 a white house, brought me a gingerbread man. The Dollenbergs, 
 who have Ann and Dougie , gave me presents, and they all came to 
 
 - 35 - 
 
see me while I lived here. They are the neighbors who live on the 
 other side. Next door to Ann, Lynne Swann lives. Next door to 
 Miss Barkalow are the Gakenheimers and their three boys. 
 
 We took lots of drives out the Harford Road. We drove 
 to places near us to look at the scenery and get the fresh air so I 
 would be strong again after the operation. 
 
 The water supply of Baltimore comes from Loch Raven. 
 It's a reservoir. The water is gallons and gallons from Gunpowder 
 falls. There are 2 3 billion gallons. 
 
 The lake winds in and out for miles and miles all around 
 and near us. 
 
 The Valley of Jehosophat is the other valley. We are 
 between two valleys. In colonial times, the land was sold to Daniel 
 Dulaney in November in 1724. That's why it's called Dulaney's 
 Valley. The word Jehosophat is called Jehoshaphat in the Bible. 
 
 There are bible names all around here. There's Joppa, 
 and Providence, and Jehosophat. We are near East Joppa Road. 
 A sign there reads. "The Joppa Road was originally an Indian 
 trail used in 1695 by a troop of rangers from the garrison fort to 
 keep back the Indians. Later the Highway to Joppa Town, the 
 county seat of Baltimore County from 1712 to 1768 and the rival 
 of Baltimore. " 
 
 From where we are you can see far, far away. The valleys 
 are sometimes in a mist and then the hills and dales look very dim. 
 
 But when the sun is rising or when it's setting or when 
 the moon is brightly shining, the colors of rose and blue and purple 
 and pale orange and yellow all float into each other and the hills 
 turn different beautiful colors. 
 
 It's very, very beautiful to look at the quiet lake of Loch 
 Raven Valley. It's very peaceful, and sometimes when the sun is 
 shining in midday, the waters sparkle like diamonds, millions of 
 diamonds, and the sunbeams float down to the water and up again 
 to the sunshiny sky. 
 
 The Eagle's Nest is land that is part of the Valley of 
 Jehosophat. Mr. Dulaney got half of this in 1747 and half in 1767. 
 We have history all around us here on Providence Road. 
 
 But at the end of the Revolutionary War, it was taken away 
 from him and sold. Thomas Marsh bought it in 1788. It still 
 belongs to his descendants. 
 
 The Eagle's Nest has a big house with trees entirely hiding 
 it, like the way an eagle builds a nest high up and hides it with 
 boughs and branches and leaves. 
 
 There are lots of beautiful hills and dales in the valleys. 
 Further out the York Road is the Pretty Boy Dam. The falls are 
 tremendous. My Daddy and I walked right up to them. Then we 
 had to climb hundreds of steps to get back up to Mommy, The roar 
 of the falls stopped up my ears. It's so big, bigger than any falls 
 I ever saw. 
 
 The Loch Raven Falls is not very high but it's fast when 
 
 - 36- 
 
it runs over the concrete dam and it's cool in the heat, and all the 
 needly, shimmery pine trees smell cool and look cool and feel cool 
 in the groves. 
 
 Sometimes when Momimy drove, she put her arm around 
 me and kissed my face and kissed my hand. She was always telling 
 me how much she loved me and that God sent me. I liked to hear 
 that, whenever she said it. I knew we would always love each other. 
 
 I soon went back to school and studied. When the weather 
 grew warmer in the early spring, I played a lot with a new friend. 
 
 Her name is Sandra Perellis and she lives in back of 
 Grandmommy's house. 
 
 Of all my friends, I liked Ford and Sandra best of all. I 
 didn't play imaginary games with Sandra and we didn't play much 
 with dolls. We studied about the stars and we talked about science. 
 
 She is a year older than I am and she was my first real 
 grown-up girl friend. 
 
 We liked to dance in the big driveway between our houses. 
 There is a brick wall and red roses climbing all over it in the late 
 springtime. 
 
 Sandra's mother took movies of us one day in front of 
 the roses. I had on nny red skirt and peasant blouse and white slip- 
 pers. I picked them all myself, at Allan's store in Forest Park, 
 where Grandmommy lives. 
 
 I learned to ride Sandra's bicycle there, and we danced 
 folk dances like the hopskotch polka. We also played hopskotch. I 
 love Sandra very much. She is a true friend. 
 
 When we danced, I wore white ballerina slippers. I picked 
 them out at Hess's. They were exactly what I wanted. I wore them 
 all the time. 
 
 I started to grow very fast around this time. The chart 
 Mommy bought to keep a record of me as I grew up got shorter than 
 me, all of a sudden. She put it away. It was pretty, with a measure 
 you pull out and pictures all over it. 
 
 Sandra and I went to the Forest movie on Saturday after- 
 noons. Mommy used to go there when she was a little girl with her 
 girl friends , especially Rena. 
 
 Mommy made Grandmommy's maid, Mary, walk along 
 with us, to see that we crossed all right. She watched us 'till we 
 came to the movie, then she came for us when I called Mommy to 
 tell her I was out of the movie. 
 
 Sandra called me "Linchester" and I called her "Sonchester". 
 We played together in her house a lot, too, and had long conversations. 
 She has a very beautiful room and I stayed with her one night. 
 
 She likes figures to put on stands and she has lots of them. 
 I told her about mine. She didn't come to see me until later on. 
 
 Mommy took us to the Academy of Sciences on Thursday 
 nights. We looked through the telescope at the moon and the planets 
 and we saw educational films. Sandra and I liked this better than 
 
 - 37- 
 
anything. We started to read all about the stars and we got library- 
 books about them. We looked out of the window of Sandra's bed- 
 room and talked about the tremendous universe. We also liked to 
 play checkers with red and black checkers on a red and black 
 checker board and Jacks, too. Mommy only liked to plfiy Chinese 
 Checkers with marbles. 
 
 We played until the end of June, and when Sandra left to 
 go to camp, she gave me a white leather strip to keep as a friend- 
 ship present, like the chain Ford gave me, when I left Urbana, 
 except this was leather, that was metal. We wrote to each other. 
 She sent me letters on pretty stationery with flowers on it. 
 
 Mommy and I were at Grandmommy's a lot in the spring 
 of 1950, from April to August. During the four months. Aunt 
 Lorraine needed lots of help to get her restaurant started. 
 
 It was called "The Seafare". She started it in a little 
 place and the customers packed into it because the food was very 
 good. Then she fell down some steps and broke her arm and 
 Mommy and I helped her. We took charge of it for her. I liked 
 to kill flies in there for her and charged five cents a piece. I 
 also liked to go get change for the cash register and punched the 
 keys sometimes. I ate lots of food. 
 
 When I didn't go down there with Mommy, I stayed with 
 Eunice, Grandmommy's laundress. She did up all my dolls' 
 clothes for me. They looked beautiful. I liked Eunice and Mary 
 a lot. They were very good to me. 
 
 Once a week Mommy went to the radio stations. We were 
 writing our program together. Mommy went to the radio stations 
 to learn how to write a radio program and how to produce it. She 
 saw what the engineer does and learned about sound effects and 
 proper production. 
 
 I went with her a few times. We sat together at WBAJL 
 when Mr. Rock talked about writing for radio and all the different 
 things in the history of radio. It was very interesting. I helped 
 her write down notes about it. 
 
 Mommy went to WFBR and Mr. Spatz talked to the class 
 there. 
 
 The year before, when we first came to Baltimore, Mr. 
 Roeder helped Mommy. He's at Station WCBM. It's over the 
 Sears Community House. 
 
 Mommy didn't like for me to listen to a lot of soap operas. 
 That's what she called the stories when everybody falls in love 
 with everybody and suspects everybody. She says it makes children 
 think too many wrong thoughts. That's why she started working on 
 the idea. 
 
 My favorite programs were ones that were funny or mys- 
 terious or how everybody good was helped and the bad ones were 
 taught their lesson. Here are my favorites on the radio: 
 Meet Corliss Archer 
 
 - 38- 
 
The Shadow 
 Dragnet 
 
 The Great Gildersleeve 
 Sam Spade 
 
 The Adventures of Mr. &t Mrs. North 
 People Are Funny 
 The Beulah Show 
 Let's Pretend 
 Suspense 
 CXir Miss Brooks 
 The Quiz Kids 
 Baby Snooks 
 
 Fibber McGee and MoUie 
 My Friend Irma 
 
 Mr. Keene, Tracer of Lost Peraona 
 The news and about flying saucers 
 The Adventures of Ozzie aad Harriet 
 Here are my favorites on TV: 
 Henry Aldrich 
 Thi8 is Your Zoo 
 Arthur Godfrey 
 Mr. Imagination 
 Kukla, Fran and OUie 
 I Remember Mama, with Dagmar 
 I liked all the comedians who make people laugh a lot- 
 Joan Davis and Bob Hope and Fred Allen; also Bergen and McCarthy 
 and Rochester and Jack Benny and Groucho Marx and Eddie Cantor. 
 
 The Sears store is next to WCBM. That's where we 
 bought all the evergreens. In front of WCBM is the firat ahaft in 
 memory of Christopher Columbus in this country. 
 
 I went up there a lot with Mommy. She waa writing the 
 atory being told by one person mostly, with the little aonga in the 
 atory about the music and poetry. It was a little old for children. 
 Now she writes it mostly for children and young people. 
 Mr. Roeder helped her a lot. He was very, very kind to ua. 
 
 I took piano lessons in Baltimore right after we got here. 
 Mia a Flora Patti Evans (her father named her after Patti , the opera 
 atar) gave me lessons. 
 
 I played in a recital at the Sears Community House and 
 I wrote out a program to remind Daddy about it. It was in the 
 apring, in 1950, in May. Some of my school friends came with me 
 to hear me play. Valerie was one of them. 
 
 Miss Evans came to see me later on when I got sick and 
 had to go to the hospital. Sandra came to see me at my house. 
 
 1 began to have stomach aches a lot in the apring, too. 
 But I atill had lots of fun. 
 
 We went to see my aunt and my cousins one day again in 
 the apring. I was almost eight and one-half years old. We played 
 
 - 39- 
 
ping-pong in the club basement of the new home. Barbara and Jo 
 bought me a squirt gun. I never had one before. It was lots of fUn. 
 I squirted Mommy all over her legs with cold water and she jumped. 
 
 When we went to the zoo in Washington in Rock Creek 
 Park, I had a bad tummy ache. Mommy wouldn't let me have any 
 of the popcorn or soft drinks. She made me eat all soft food and 
 warm milk. 
 
 I looked at the big monkey house and the gorillas and at 
 the bears in their outdoor pools, and their caves and we saw a lot 
 of the great big zoo. It has an eagle exhibit, too. I looked at them 
 hard. I never saw one before, except on dollar bills and twenty- 
 five cent coins. And on nickels is the home of Thomas Jeffierson, 
 Monticello. All the coins have "Liberty" on them and "In God we 
 Trust", and, of course, The United States of America. 
 
 Later on after we rested, I felt better and we saw the 
 Lincoln Memorial. We went inside and I looked at the enormous 
 statue. He is a kind man. I liked his beautiful soft look. He loved 
 all the poor people and tried to help them. And he was very brave, 
 too. Mommy told me how he got shot. I remember the statue in 
 Urbana in the Carle Park when Ford and me played next to Presi- 
 dent Lincoln. He said "God must have loved the common people.. 
 He made so many of them. " 
 
 It was late when we s<.w the building and as it got dark, 
 it was lit up with lots of lights streaming out. Then it was even 
 more beautiful. It shone all over with the light and the lights 
 danced over the beautiful lake in front of the memorial. 
 
 We rode past the Washington Monument and saw that 
 brightly shining and the capitol, too, all lighted up in the dark, and 
 I was proud of being in my own capitol of my own United States of 
 America. 
 
 One more trip is all we took before I got sick, really 
 sick, and had to go to my doctor. Dr. Wilson Grubb. 
 
 It was a trip around the Bay Country. We saw the early 
 churches with the Uttle steeples and burial vaults like the one at 
 St. Anne's Churchyard in Annapolis. They are above the ground. 
 In St. Anne's Cemetery in the circle Sir Robert Eden, who was 
 the last colonial governor, is buried. The day we went to Annapolis 
 was a beautiful day. The sky was very blue. On the river we saw 
 a boat unloading clams. 
 
 The Eastern Shore has all kinds of seafood. The only 
 thing is, they don't have lobsters. They're very, very good. In 
 New England we had lots of them and they didn't costmuch. 
 
 We saw Loblolly pines. They are all over the Bay Country. 
 They are very tall evergreens with all the green at the very top tip 
 of the tree. 
 
 Sometimes there are flocks of wild swans in the air. 
 There are lots of ducks. There are canvasbacks, and mallards, 
 
 - 40- 
 
and black ducks, and pintails. In the winter the skies are filled 
 with Canada geese. 
 
 There are oysters and clams and crabs, and shrimp and 
 diamond-backed terrapin, and two-hundred different kinds of fish. 
 The Chesapeake Bay is full of herring, too. They are there only 
 three months of the year, but they can be caught and salted or can- 
 ned. Granddaddy talks about how good herring are for you, all the 
 time. 
 
 He believes in eating foods that contain vitamins. Fish 
 contain more brain foods than others. Maybe that's why his brain 
 is so good. Mommy says the human brain reaches almost its full 
 weight in the seventh year. So I already have all my brains that I 
 will ever have, because I'm eight and one-half. She says all I have 
 to do is use them. They are there. And feed them right "thinking 
 food", too. 
 
 The bay has the world's largest crane. I didn't see it, 
 but one of the clammers told me about it. He said warships use the 
 bay to reach the world's largest naval base, around Norfolk. 
 
 It's very quiet around most of the bay. There are big 
 distances. Nobody crowds you. There is lots of food. I like it. 
 
 The man said there used to be mountains of oyster shells, 
 piled up in places along the wharves. Now the State of Maryland 
 uses half of all the shells to replant oysters os we won't lose too 
 many of them. They are called "oyster beds". 
 
 Lots of people own cottages and beautiful boats, little 
 ones with cabins and big yachts, too. They sometimes live on the 
 boats. They cost a lot of money and are made out of the hardest, 
 shiniest wood. It would be wonderful to have one. 
 
 Maryland is a state with everything to be proud of: a 
 State House, and a flower, and a song, and a flag, and even a tree. 
 The flower is the Black-eyed Susan. The song is "Maryland, My 
 Maryland". We already said about the flag. 
 
 There is a big tree in a State Park. It's called Wye Oak 
 State Park. It's in Wye Mills, in Talbot County, in the Bay Country. 
 
 It's near an old church called Old Wye Church, that was 
 finished in 172 1. 
 
 The Wye Oak was there before the Ark and the Dove, the 
 solid English oak ships, came into the bay in 1634. 
 
 It is a white oak tree, not like our oaks at 602, that grew 
 very high and very thin. 
 
 This one spreads. It is wider than any other white oak 
 in the country. 
 
 It is on Highway 622. The state put it in a one-tree 
 State Forest, and put white fences around it. It is fed, and trim- 
 med, and wired, all the time. We are pround of the Wye Oak Tree. 
 
 It is nearly twenty- eight feet wide, ninety-five feet high, 
 and it spreads one-hundred sixty-five feet. What a great tree ! 
 
 When I got really bick, I lay in bed a lot. Mommy sang 
 
 -41- 
 
to me. She sang, "Sweet summer breeze, whispering trees, kiss 
 xne , kiss me, again". 
 
 After I started to have my tummy aches, I got a terrible 
 pain all the time in my left leg. I lost a lot of weight all of a 
 sudden. 
 
 Mommy was crying in the doctor's office because she 
 knew I was really sick. The doctor thought I had something in 
 back of my left kidney that could be giving me the pain in my left 
 leg. He wanted me to go to the hospital, in the children's ward. 
 
 I went, but Mommy couldn't stay with me. They took 
 tests on me and Mommy couldn't come to see me. 1 was very 
 sad because she left me a note that she couldn't be there, until 
 Sunday during the visiting hours. 
 
 When she came she was sad, too. I could see she had 
 been crying a lot, I said to her, "Mommy, I don't care what they 
 do to me, as long as you can stay with me. " 
 
 Mommy got Grandmommy to the hospital to help get a 
 private room for us to be together. Then we were happier. My 
 doctor helped us get it. He was good to us. 
 
 He called another doctor who is a urologist. Dr. Hugh 
 Jewett, and this doctor gave me sleeping medicine and examined 
 me. 
 
 I had a hard time coming out of the anesthetic, but I 
 finally heard Mommy calling to me and I came. 
 
 She looked at me as though she wanted to say something, 
 but she didn't. 
 
 The doctors decided that another doctor, a surgeon. Dr. 
 Warfield Firor, should operate on me. I didn't know about it 
 until Mommy came over to my bed, that was next to hers, to tell 
 me the doctor wanted to move a little bit of insides over a little to 
 make me feel better. 
 
 She talked to me and then I wasn't afraid. She found my 
 nurse, Mrs. Mary Thomas, who is like Mommy. I wasn't afraid 
 when we went up in the elevator together for the operation. 
 
 I was very peaceful when I came down. 1 felt better. The 
 pain was almost gone in my left leg. 
 
 Granddaddy came every day to see me. He brought me 
 presents and he tried a new treatment of B12 in a needle. 
 
 A friend of his, Mr. Stephen Seth, gave me a small tele- 
 vision set to put in front of my bed, I saw all of my favorite pro- 
 grams. Another Tri^nd, Dr. Grant Ward, wanted to help me, 
 
 Betty Conklin, Mommy's friend, came to see us. She 
 brought Charles, her son. She brought me flowers. I was very 
 happy to see her and to see Charles. I showed them the charm 
 necklace I had strung and the green and white plastic belt Daddy 
 and I wove together. 
 
 One day a friend of Granddaddy's , Dr. Hundley, who is 
 a doctor, came to examine me. Afterwards, Mommy went out in 
 
 42- 
 
the hall to talk to him. 
 
 All of a sudden she came back in. She looked very, very 
 queer. I asked her, "What's wrong, Mommy?" She said, "Nothing, 
 nothing, my lamb. " 
 
 Then she seemed to be gasping a little for breath and she 
 started to sing to me. She sang "Kiss Me Again". She kissed me 
 and straightened my sheets and loved me with her look. 
 
 After this, I started to get out of bed and get in a wheel- 
 chair and I went for treatments with an x-ray machine. 
 
 That doctor, Dr. Whitmer B. Firor, was very nice to 
 us, too. Everybody was. I went with Mrs. Thomas and Mommy 
 and Daddy several days, from the hospital. 
 
 Then they said I could go home. I had to take all my 
 presents with me, because they were memories from friends. 
 But I left the Vumaster Aunt Celeste sent me with the Johnston's 
 Children's Ward, where I first was, because I had one I bought 
 myself. I thought they would like it. I took all the presents Grand- 
 daddy's friends gave me. 
 
 Mrs. Malone called every day to send me her love and 
 she sent notes and she and her husband. Dr. Malone, who teaches 
 at Daddy's University, sent me a frog vase with a plant in it. I 
 liked it, because I could think about the sound frogs make on sum- 
 mer nights near 602, down in the valley. 
 
 Mommy and I made friends in the hospital. Mr. Marye, 
 who is at the Maryland Historical Society, came to see me one day. 
 He and I talked about cats and how cats and cows are holy in some 
 countries. We read it in a Life Magazine. We talked about India 
 and my Sweet Meat Bells of Sarna, hanging on my bed. 
 
 Eloise Lee was there, too. Mommy went in to see her 
 often and talked about me to her. She couldn't do anything because 
 she had twisted her back and she had to lie there. She was glad 
 to have company. Mommy told me about her, and one day I rode 
 past in the wheel chair and waved to her. 
 
 One day just before I left the hospital, I heard Mommy 
 talking to the doctor who was the surgeon. 
 
 She was telling him about the red birthmark I had when 
 I was born. One just like it came on my right shoulder in the 
 same spot, as it was on my left shoulder when I was a baby. This 
 was when I got sick with the tummy aches and the pain in my left 
 leg. It finally disappeared all by itself in a few weeks. 
 
 We went home in the automobile, two weeks before 
 Mommy's wedding anniversary on October 15. It was the end of 
 September, 1950. 
 
 I went for my treatments but finally I couldn't eat any- 
 thing. I drank tea. 
 
 I had a nauseated feeling all the time. I read and lay in 
 bed. Once in a while I dressed myself, when I felt better, and we 
 went for rides in the car. 
 
 - 43- 
 
I read and read about Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, 
 and Winnie the Pooh by A. A. Milne , and about Heidi and lots of 
 other books. Whenever I heard our teakettle whistle I knew Mominy 
 was making tea for me. 
 
 We bought our whistling teakettle at Jenkins Hardware 
 store just before I got sick. 
 
 We went in one day and we bought all kinds of utensils 
 for our kitchen. We bought the copper Trig kettle. 
 
 I liked the sound. It was cheerful. 
 
 One day I was very, very happy. Sandra caifne to see 
 me. She brought me lots of charms. After she was here for a 
 while, I didn't feel very good and I had to lie down on tihe bed. We 
 did mirror writing and dressed dolls and played tic-tac-toe and 
 crossword puzzles. 
 
 Then we said good-bye. I felt sick, but I wanted to 
 walk to the door with her. I said, "Good-bye, Sandra", and I 
 threw her a kiss. She said, "Good-bye, Linda", and threw me 
 a kiss. Then Mommy drove her home. 
 
 One day a man came about a kitchen table. We had 
 talked to him at Sears store on North Avenue. He showed us one 
 we liked in a catalogue and he came this day to show it to us again, 
 and Mommy called to me who was in the living-room. 
 
 I got up out of bed and I put on my plaid blouse and my 
 blue jeans with my cowboy belt that is leather and has shiny horses' 
 heads on it, and I walked into the living-room and sat in our Mr. 
 Boston rocking chair. I wanted to be sure Mommy got the right 
 table. 
 
 The man wrote it all down. It's a gray and shiny chromium 
 Beautychrome set 63RP/#915 and it has red Chinese writing on the 
 cornerfi( of it, and nice smooth rounded edges. The chairs are red 
 with chromium legs and beads around the gray shadowbox inside the 
 back of the chair, with a red Chinese letter inside. There is white 
 piping around the back. The edges are all round and smooth. We 
 ordered three chairs. 
 
 One day Aunt Dorothy came to see me. She heard I wasn't 
 better and couldn't eat. She made oatmeal for me. I didn't eat it. 
 While she was talking to mommy about how to feed me, I suddenly 
 ached so from my head to my feet, I screamed, "Get me up off of 
 this bed!" Mommy ran to me, white as the sheet. She lifted me. 
 But I still screamed. 
 
 She called the doctor. She wanted me to be in the hos- 
 pital where she could make me more comfortable. He said it was 
 a good idea. He told her to call an ambulance in Towson. 
 
 She called the Fire Department. They have a bright red 
 ambulance that they keep so shiny and clean and looking like new, 
 called County Ambulance #1. Mommy said, "Linda, dear, they can 
 help us more there in the hospital. You and I will ride there together 
 in a beautiful ambulance. You can tell all your friends about it when 
 
 - 44 
 
you go back to your school. " 
 
 I couldn't talk, but I nodded my head. We took my blue 
 blanket and my rubber-foam pillow and the man who came laid me 
 gently on the stretcher. Mommy sat with me and held my hand. 
 It was night-time and we rode slowly to the hospital. 
 
 It was Hallowe'en time. I didn't know, then, that Hal- 
 lowe'en means Hallowed Eve. I thought Hallowe'en only meant 
 parties and fun and tricks or treats. 
 
 When we got there, I had to be taken to the Children's 
 ward, the Johnston Ward. But they let Mommy stay. She sat up 
 all night on a chair. 
 
 The next day was Hallowe'en, October 31, 1950. There 
 were lots of children. I watched while Mommy helped make a 
 party for them. 
 
 We had bought lots of Hallowe'en plates and napkins and 
 things at Hochschild Kohn's at Belvedere Ave. , while I was feeling 
 well one day. I helped pick them. Mommy took them when we left 
 the house, telling me she would give me a Hallowe'en party. 
 
 She used all these things at the children's party. They 
 were all sick children, but they enjoyed the party. 
 
 In a couple of days, we were given a private room. 
 This time it was on a higher floor, the fourth floor, in Room 412, 
 
 Granddaddy came to see me every day. Mommy stayed 
 with me. She never left me except on voting day and that is a very 
 important day. Then Mrs. Thomas came and stayed with me a 
 litte while. On Tuesday, November 7, 1950, Mommy went all the 
 way to Towson, but a man gave her wrong directions and she 
 couldn't find the voting place. She ran into the house and brought 
 me a few things instead. 
 
 Mommy rubbed me with cocoa butter and took care of 
 me. I felt very, very bad part of the time. She could always 
 make me feel better by soothing me, though. 
 
 One day when Grandaddy stood near my bed, I ached so, 
 I groaned and Mommy soothed my head and my legs and I couldn't 
 make any other sound to let her know she helped me. We always 
 had helped each other, when I was home. 
 
 One day I put my arms around my Mommy and I said, 
 "Mommy, I want you to live forever. " 
 
 "Oh, but I'll get old and I won't be pretty. '' 
 
 "I'll always love you. Mommy, no matter how old you 
 
 are. 
 
 I wanted Mommy to know I'll never stop loving her. 
 I know she will never stop loving me, too. 
 
 - 45 - 
 
LINDA 
 Part II 
 
 EASTER 
 
"Come back, Linda, come back!", I heard Mommy cry 
 out. You see, I was leaving here and we both knew it, all of a 
 sudden. Soon afterwards, I knew why, because God showed me and 
 I wanted to help Mommy see why. She didn't have anybody to talk 
 to about God, the way we did together, after I left, and she was all 
 lost and sad. 
 
 When I went back to the hospital on the night before Hal- 
 lowe'en, I stayed only until November 16, 1950. That was the day 
 I left. It was on Thursday and the time was 1:35 p.m. 
 
 Then the nurses took Mommy out of the room. She 
 couldn't stand it, being away from me while I was leaving her. 
 But in a little while she knew in her heart I was with God, that He 
 had sent for me to come to be with Him. And she loves Him so 
 much she felt a little better. 
 
 For several days before I left Mommy, on the back of 
 my door in the hospital there hung a dress and slippers. Aunt 
 Dorothy visited me and wanted to make me happy so she asked 
 Mommy what she could bring me. 
 
 Mommy knew that for a long time I had wanted a ballet 
 costume that was all spangles and white, all shining. 
 
 She told Aunt Dorothy what I said. "I want a ballet cos- 
 tume all white satin and tulle, all fluffy, with a little pink and 
 white on it", I told Mommy when she asked me. I wanted some 
 pink on it because I wanted pink ballet slippers, too. Aunt Dorothy's 
 eyes sparkled because she could do something to make me happy. 
 
 That same day, Aunt Dorothy called two places in 
 Washington, where she lives, where they make ballet costumes. 
 One place didn't have what I asked for. 
 
 At the other place a woman answered on the telephone. 
 "Come right over; I have a ballet costume here that will fit your 
 description exactly, and it's the exact size for the child. " 
 
 When she got there, there was a funeral parlor on the 
 first floor. The lady's husband was an undertaker and they knew 
 all about illness. 
 
 Aunt Dorothy told her about me and that I had a lump 
 in me that was called a long name. She told my aunt about an old 
 doctor in Canada who had claimed to cure many people from it 
 with a serum he would not send out of the country. He said it had 
 to be given only under the conditions he gave it under, called the 
 Hett Treatment, at 1441 Sandwich Street, East, Windsor. 
 
 While Mommy listened to this, they sat together in the 
 waiting-room, Aunt Dorothy and Mommy. They heard a lady 
 there talking about the same thing. Mommy went to talk to the 
 woman and she gave her a little booklet about the work the doctor 
 had done. She wanted to take me there but there wasn't enough 
 time. 
 
 Everybody knew I would be leaving soon, but Mommy 
 kept begging them not to give up hope about me. They did every- 
 
 -49- 
 
thing for me that they could. 
 
 But God wanted me to come. The white ballet costume 
 was my burial dress. That was the beginning of my new life. 
 
 Everybody said I looked as if I were just sleeping, in my 
 white satin bodice with little pink and white flowers all over the 
 top, with a beautiful white, fluffy tulle skirt, very short, showing 
 my legs all the way from the top of my thigh to my feet in pink 
 ballet slippers and all over the skirt were sparkling rhinestones. 
 
 Soon after I left, things that were very unusual began to 
 happen to my Mommy. Each time that something made her very, 
 very unhappy and sad and she would lose her strength, something 
 would happen to bring her back and give her a little more strength. 
 God wants her to be strong and do things for Him and He knew how 
 she wanted to see that I was really very near her and happy and 
 living in another way than when I was with her. She wanted to find 
 out more and more about the things people should know about Faith. 
 
 Mommy has good friends who believe the way she does, 
 and they all help her. I told her once never to forget her friends, 
 for friends are very, very important. 
 
 I never forgot mine. That's why I wanted to go to see 
 Ford. He gave me the little ship- charm with sails that moved to 
 remind me to come to see him at Block Island some summer. I 
 promised I'd come. I'm glad we went. My friends were all very 
 true. 
 
 Mrs. Stella Ivey, who worked as a secretary in the Uni- 
 versity, where Mommy met her, is a true friend to Mommy, and 
 she told her about a dream she had of me in a ballet dress. She 
 never knew about the real ballet dress I wore until I left here, but 
 a week before that, before I went, she had a beautiful dream. She 
 saw me in the dancing costume, dancing with thousands of children, 
 laughing and singing and very, very happy. She told Mommy much 
 later on. Mrs. Ivey knew me and we were together, the three o£ 
 us, when I was with Mommy a few times, when ihey were together. 
 
 Not long after I left, and the strange things began to hap- 
 pen, Mommy had a dream. It was during the night. She was 
 dreaming, but the dream was like awakening. 
 
 Mommy and I were together in Mrs. Ivey's apartmient. 
 It was very real and she was seeing very clearly, 
 
 I was seated in a chair that was an antique mellow kind 
 of chair with spindle legs. There was a light shining from way up 
 high on the wall and I was sitting in the chair, holding a blue gob- 
 let, and the goblet was shining very brilliantly. The blue was so 
 tremendously bright that Mommy asked me about it. 
 
 I said, "Mommy, this beautiful blue glass look at it 
 
 carefully this is the beginning of everything wonderful and 
 
 beautiful for you. " 
 
 Mommy knew I was really there because it was all so 
 real and she saw the furniture and everything there so clearly. 
 
 - 50- 
 
The next morning Mommy wrote a letter to Mrs. Ivey. 
 She couldn't keep the dream to herself. She told her the dream and 
 my being there with her, and about the furniture and the blue gob- 
 let and the light shining from the wall near the ceiling. 
 
 Mrs. Ivey was very surprised because Mommy had 
 never ever been to her apartment and she had described a chair in 
 her apartment, the one I was sitting on, and she had described the 
 china closet. And the light from the windows, little transom win- 
 dows, was coming from 'way up high. They were sort of attic win- 
 dows through which the light just streamed down. 
 
 She asked Mommy to come to her place to have lunch 
 with her soon after that. She was a little afraid for her to come 
 but she wanted her to. She was afraid because she didn't know 
 how shocked Mommy might be when she got there. The Episcopal 
 Church Emmanuel is just one block away from the building, on 
 Cathedral and Read. The apartment is on Cathedral and Madison 
 at the corner, and the little top windows look out on the tower of 
 Emmanuel Church. This is important to remember. 
 
 Mommy climbed up the three flights of stairs and walked 
 in and there she had been before, with me, in her dream. 
 
 She felt very, very happy but very, very mystified. 
 They had lunch and Mommy suddenly felt she wanted to write. 
 
 She walked over to a bookcase and started to look through 
 
 the books this was just a few weeks after I had gone away from 
 
 her and she saw a little book. It was Ralph Waldo Emerson's 
 
 Birthday Book and she opened it to a page and there it said "March 
 the second" — that was my birthday. 
 
 And there was a little poem there that Emerson had 
 written: 
 
 The world rolls 'round 
 
 Mistrust it not 
 Befalls again what once befell 
 
 All things return, 
 Both sphere and mote 
 
 And I shall hear my bluebird's note , 
 
 And dream the dream of Auburn Dell. 
 You see, a few days before then. Mommy and Daddy had 
 driven to the cemetery and they drove up to the top of the hill where 
 there is a memorial park where there aren't any tombstones. 
 
 I had told Mommy lots of times, "I like a cemetery that 
 looks like a park because then you don't think about death; you think 
 about life and beauty". 
 
 There is a beautiful plaque and it says, "He maketh me 
 to lie down in green pastures'". 
 
 "Linda Suzanne Wasserman 
 Born March 2, 1942 
 Died November 16, 1950 
 There is a beautiful rose next to my name. I love roses very much. 
 
 - 51 - 
 
The day they drove there, as they came to the top of the 
 hill, there were bluebirds, hundreds and hundreds of bluebirds, 
 circling around the place where my name is. After a little while 
 they flew away. They have never been there since. 
 
 Mommy picked up another book aiter awhile. It was 
 Shelley's poetry. She found his "Ode to the West .Wind". She felt 
 very close to me as she read it. Suddenly, she decided to start 
 writing a play with me in it, with music and poetry, carrying on 
 our ideas together for the radio program to help other children 
 like to learn about beautiful music and poetry and all about God. 
 
 That was really the beginning for Mommy of many won- 
 derful things. She made a little ceramic tray for Mrs. Ivey with 
 a bluebird on it to bring her happiness, too. For the new writing 
 led to her taking a trip all the way to California in the summer of 
 1951, and she was happy. 
 
 She got to work on the program. She decided to write 
 to Mr. John Charles Thomas to ask permission to use his recording 
 of "The Lord's Prayer" as the ending for the program and she told 
 about her idea. 
 
 One day she found in the mailbox a catalog from the Music 
 Academy of the West. Mr. Thomas had just been made the new 
 director. Next she received a letter from the secretary telling her 
 she could apply for a scholarship at the Music Academy. She mailed 
 the records made from the program to Mr. Thomas and then he 
 wrote her a letter giving her the scholarship. She sang a few little 
 songs on the records. Mr. Thomas wanted to help her. 
 
 She was very happy about it, but she couldn't decide 
 whether she should go. There was someone who helped her to 
 decide to make the trip to Santa Barbara. 
 
 The girl, Laura, met Mommy around the time this hap- 
 pened. Laura was about twenty- one years old and she liked to have 
 fun and see people dress up and be gay. 
 
 They met each other because one day Mommy went to 
 call for her books on the history of making chinaware that she had 
 loaned a friend who had ceramics, too. The friend lived near a 
 drugstore in downtown Baltimore, near the Washington Monument 
 and Walters Art Gallery and the Peabody Conservatory of Music. 
 
 The woman, who was supposed to be home waiting had 
 gone out unexpectedly, and Mommy left her a note saying she'd be 
 back, and wrote her name - Mrs. Ian Ross MacFarlane - on it. 
 
 She walked over to the drugstore and had a coke, and 
 then she decided to sit down at the table where a girl sat with an 
 older woman. 
 
 They had just come from a church. The girl was talking 
 about the color of the vestments of the priest. Mommy was partic- 
 ularly interested in the colors used in churches, and the meaning 
 of the colors in the churches, because of something wonderful and 
 tremendous that happened to her after I left her, a few months later. 
 
 - 52- 
 
Mommy had a vision that was close to God and she 
 thought about it all the time. The girl in the drugstore started 
 talking about a vision she had in November, 1950, when she had 
 been sort of half awake and half asleep, and smiling. 
 
 Her sisters couldn't waken her. She dreamed she was 
 in a church, the St. Alphonsus Church on Pa»rk Avenue and Saratoga 
 Streets, and an angel in the radiant chapel glistening with light 
 beckoned to her to come to the altar. She was afraid. She didn't 
 want to go. That part of the church is to the right of the altar. 
 It's the Purgatory Chapel. 
 
 Finally, she went and the angel said to her, "Do you see 
 this woman standing here?" 
 
 The angel pointed to a beautiful woman in a lovely, white 
 satin wedding gown, holding her arm bent for the arm of a man who 
 was not there. 
 
 The angel said, "Say these fifteen prayers for this woman 
 and you will receive great graces in heaven. " 
 
 Laura said the prayers but she didn't know why it was, 
 or why it happened, and nothing had ever happened to explain it, - 
 nothing at all. 
 
 Then Mommy told her about her dream, her vision of the 
 angels, and Mommy and Laura became very good friends. 
 
 Laura liked to walk in Mount Vernon Square and all day 
 she had wanted to take a walk there but she didn't have anyone to 
 walk with and there Mommy was, the answer to her prayer. 
 
 They took a walk in Mount Vernon Square and looked at 
 the pigeons and talked and wandered around. Mommy told her all 
 about me. 
 
 Suddenly the scholarship at the Academy came about. 
 Mommy couldn't decide if she should go. It was going to be a big 
 expense and she didn't want to ask for any help and she knew she'd 
 have to if she went. 
 
 Laura was eager for her to take advantage of it. She 
 felt Mommy was really supposed to go. 
 
 Laura decided, too, to have eternal prayers said for 
 me. She is Catholic. Catholics give lots of money to the church 
 to be used in different ways. 
 
 She wanted to give some money to the church and have 
 masses and prayers said for me. So she took Mommy over to the 
 Catholic Church 'way out in West Baltimore. It i^ a monastery 
 called St. Joseph's Passionist Fathers. 
 
 There is a chapel next to the monastery, an old church. 
 After Laura gave the contribution of her money she worked hard 
 forv Mommy was given a certificate of eternal prayers being said 
 by the fathers for me. 
 
 Then Laura said, "If Linda doesn't need those prayers, 
 she can give them to someone else who will. Let's go into the 
 church right by us here. " 
 
 - 53- 
 
They went in together, through the chapel into the church. 
 Laura took holy water and blessed herself with it. She told Mommy 
 to do it. Mommy did, but not very seriously. ..... She didn't do a 
 
 very good job, because she kept thinking, "I wonder if there are any 
 germs in this holy water: all these people are dipping their fingers 
 in here, and after all, all those fingers being dipped in there, you 
 know there must be lots of colds and things to be gotten from it. " 
 
 She knew she really shouldn't be thinking that, but she 
 was, anyhow. They said some prayers and came out into the little 
 place that held the holy water font. 
 
 They stood between the font and the racks of periodicals. 
 Laura picked one up. In it was a story about Pope Pius X and the 
 story was about his trip. He had to borrow mioney, he had to pawn 
 everything he Had, but he made this trip that ended in his becoming 
 Pope Pius X. 
 
 He was a wonderful man whose name had been Sarto, and 
 he was a tailor. He loved children very, very much and he is called 
 the Children's Pope. 
 
 He was always in debt because he always gave everything 
 he had to others, or to anybody who needed his help. 
 
 Laura was reading this paragraph, and they were standing 
 right near the holy basin where the water was kept. 
 
 While she was reading about the fact the Pope had to bor- 
 row money to make the trip, water was suddenly sprinkled all over 
 Mommy. She stepped back and, looking up at the ceiling, wondered 
 where the water could be coming from. 
 
 She called the sexton. She said, "Sexton, the ceiling 
 must be leaking!" He said, "It can't be, because the organ's up 
 above. " Mommy said, "Well, it must be my imagination. " 
 
 Then Laura went on to the end of the paragraph and 
 suddenly she too was sprinkled with water, and she looked all 
 
 around her and she couldn't believe it she couldn't understand 
 
 it. 
 
 In this particular church, the holy water is kept in the 
 vestibule rather than inside. It's a very old church. 
 
 Laura hadn't paid any attention when Mommy felt the water. 
 But she herself felt it on the back of her right hand and wrist. It was 
 a light sprinkle of water. She jumped and said, "Eleanor, did you 
 feel water just then?'" Eleanor said, "Yes, I did, on my forehead 
 and on my wrist. " 
 
 Laura said, "Oh, well, that's nothing!" 
 
 Then she was sprinkled again on her right hand and wrist. 
 Then she believed something very mystical had happened. She said 
 to Mommy, "We were both sprinkled very much like when the priest 
 takes the silver thing and blesses with holy water, I thought at first, 
 Eleanor, you had doused yourself with the holy water. " 
 
 Well, since this was one of Mommy's first real visits to 
 churches, she didn't know anything at all about what happens in 
 
 - 54- 
 
churches. So she listened. 
 
 Next, she decided to borrow the money to take the trip. 
 After this she decided that she had to be baptized before she went. 
 She couldn't take any chances on not joining me, if she left every- 
 body, too. 
 
 So all these things she decided to do because of Laura's 
 giving the $5. 00 gift for me, to the church. 
 
 At the same time, she began to want to give as much as 
 she could to churches, because they all work for God, and for 
 helping people. 
 
 She started out with a gift from me. When we moved to 
 the house in Towson, I helped carry all the magazines and news- 
 papers into the basement. We stacked them all together. 
 
 She and Daddy heard a choir concert at the Faith 
 Presbyterian Church one night, just by chance. In their program 
 they asked for papers to sell to help build their new church on 
 Loch Raven Boulevard. The Reverend Mr. Jackson was the min- 
 ister. The new church is near Woodbourne Avenue. 
 
 She called them the next day, They came to get the 
 papers. Whenever she rode past the new church, later, she 
 thought, "My papers must have bought a brick or two. " 
 
 Mommy thinks we should help all the churches, for the 
 money given to a church becomes holy and blessed. Churches are 
 a sanctuary to worship God and love God. They should all be our 
 best happy places, and invite everybody to come in and pray with 
 love, forgetting everything except our Father Who art in heaven, 
 and be thinking always about God first . 
 
 Momimy was very glad the church helped her decide to 
 go to California. She found real happiness again for a little while, 
 in music and in song and in so many beautiful thoughts and so 
 many wonderful people. 
 
 But she never stopped thinking about the vision. She 
 wanted to write all about it, just as she had wanted to paint the 
 picture of the vision. 
 
 When she left California, she took the Northwest Passage 
 back home. She went to see Aunt Celeste and her children and 
 Uncle Morton. 
 
 She stayed with them a week. She told the story to Uncle 
 Morton. He wanted Mommy to write it all down. 
 
 He is a psychiatrist and he has a big clinic and a secre- 
 tary. So Mommy went with him next day to his office. She told 
 the story into a dictaphone and the secretary typed it. It was 
 twenty- two pages. 
 
 That was the beginning of this book. Uncle Morton was 
 interested in "extra-sensory perception", something about knowing 
 about things we don't see around us, but Mommy was interested 
 only in getting the story told. She just couldn't keep it to herself. 
 She had to tell it. This is the way she told it, like the way she 
 
 - 55 - 
 
talked about it, because she told it into the machine, and a lot of 
 sentences run into each other. Mommy likes to talk a lot but I 
 don't mind it. I like it most of the time. 
 
 These are the twenty-two pages: 
 
 "Linda became ill in June of 1950. A few weeks before 
 she became desperately ill, she had asked me to find the little 
 book in the set of the miniature "Golden" books that she had loaned 
 to a friend of ours, a woman who had a little girl named Suzie. 
 The woman's name was Louise Miller. Linda suddenly requested 
 that I try to find Mrs. Miller because she wanted those little books 
 very badly. They had been given to her by a friend in Urbana, 
 Illinois, a Miss Foltz, a woman there who took care of children, 
 who had become very fond of Linda and of whom Linda was very 
 fond, and it - the little set - had been given to Linda as a parting 
 gift when we had left Illinois to come to Baltimore to live. She 
 wanted me to find Mrs. Miller and I made an effort to but it seemed 
 that the woman had moved away from the apartment building where 
 Linda and I had been living for a year, and she was not to be found. 
 Later on Mrs. Miller asked to keep the books after hearing about 
 Linda's death so that she could feel close to Linda, but then she 
 didn't know how close ! Linda became suddenly terribly ill in June 
 and died in November. I had forgotten completely about the little 
 books because of course, I was with her all the time and there was 
 no question about them again. She seemed to have forgotten. 
 November the 16th she died. She died a beautiful death; she was 
 happy and she went to her rest with a smile on her face and her 
 last words were, "Go rest, Mommy, and smile. " 
 
 I, of course, was exceedingly distraught and I felt that 
 I couldn't find an answer after the child had been taken away - she 
 was a wonderful child, an only child, I sought many ways, many 
 places, to find some peace, and one day a very good friend of the 
 family, a very good, kind sort of person, Edward T. Norris - 
 who sat at the kitchen table with us . dined there with us as we 
 all sat at the table Linda and I had ordered shortly before her 
 death. The table and three chairs were delivered almost exactly 
 at the moment she died on November 16. Of course we weren't 
 there, we were at the hospital. It was brought back to the house 
 much later on, weeks later. 
 
 As Edward ate with us , he told me that he thought it 
 would be good for me to attend an Episcopal Church in the city of 
 Baltimore, where he had been going all of his life; he had been 
 taken there when he was just a little tot by his mother. I decided 
 that it might be a very good thing for me to do and I went to the 
 church on a Sunday morning, and there I prayed very deeply that 
 I would receive some help from God because I desperately needed 
 it to go on living after losing Linda. A few days later, I was taking 
 a little rest in the afternoon at my home lying in the s"ame spot where 
 Linda lay in her last illness, half asleep looking at the top of the tall 
 
 -56- 
 
oak trees, and I saw suddenly so clearly up above in the sky, I 
 
 suppose I just saw it, like a vision enclosed in a white mist, 
 
 the top of a church on which were ensculptured all these figures of 
 the Christmas story and around the circle within the white mist 
 were circling many, many white Angels, Angels whose feet were 
 all crossed in exactly the same way. The feet were strong, they 
 looked like our feet, the feet of people like us, people here on 
 earth, but they were extremely strong and well formed; the hands 
 v/ere all folded in prayer; the clothing was exactly all alike; the 
 hair was drawn back in exactly the same way with a sort of a bun 
 at the back of the neck; I couldn't tell what sex they were by their 
 facial expression or form; they all looked the same, and, too, 
 there was a feeling of complete stability, absolute poise, peace, 
 and happiness , of contentment, and reassurance on their faces, 
 especially the one large Angel in the center who stood po-ised for 
 a little while, looking at me with an expression of complete as- 
 surance. I felt that I was smiling, I felt so completely happy that 
 I knew real peace for the first time since I had lost Linda. That 
 Angel suddenly came very close to me - a motion not perceptible 
 in space ! 
 
 There were certain very striking qualities about these 
 heavenly figures, these Angels, which I as vividly recall now as I 
 did at the moments I saw them. The most precious gift is one that 
 cannot ever perish; said a Scottish poet, George MacDonald, and 
 "If instead of a gem or even a flower we could cast the gift of a 
 lovely thought into the heart of a friend, that would be giving as the 
 angels must give. " 
 
 There was a lastingness, an everlasting unendingness 
 about them. In communicating to me, no words were spoken, but 
 I understood, with another sense, the message they brought. The 
 intellect of the Angel was manifested by the power of projecting 
 thought in this way. It was the one Angel who came closer - mov- 
 ing towards me in a motion (of immobility and transposition at the 
 same time there in space) that we humans cannot have, for instead 
 of my seeing the movement, the Angel was suddenly much, much 
 closer, and bigger - this Angel it was who placed this tremendous 
 healing within me. The warmth of great love during this vision, 
 the communication without spoken words , the force drawing us to- 
 gether into this harmony of love and understanding and strength 
 and the placidity and intensification of a bit of earthly time into a 
 never ending timelessness of creation, so that a new significance 
 is attached to everything little or big; these were the most sharply 
 vivid memories that stay every moment with me. As the constant 
 circling never diminished within the white clouds of mist and no 
 unnecessary motion disturbed their tremendous concentration of 
 movement, they brought their message. 
 
 The unvarying uniformity of these Beings was like snow- 
 flakes falling heavily through white floods of snow, laden with 
 
 - 57 - 
 
heaven-sent whiteness and bulk, but as each snowflake we know is 
 different in its own perfection and intricacy and pattern, each of 
 these Angels had a completeness and unity within itself while being 
 part of an undisturbed harmonious whole, a quiet splendour. 
 
 The intensity of this experience stemmed from the height- 
 ening of 'the senses and the use of a sense beyond our known senses 
 and perception. The snowflake and all other small parts of this 
 earthly universe become much more intense, have more meaning, 
 because of this overflow of intensity, understanding and awareness 
 in quiet, of the existence of these spiritual beings. 
 
 Their bodily immobility and the gracefulness of their per- 
 fect placidity, this lack of needless motion enabled no interference 
 to their ability to project the message. As in an illness our bodies 
 through lack of motion allow our minds to see with much more 
 clarity, it was through this that they centralize their spiritual 
 nature. 
 
 Summarizing the qualities most dominant in the 
 
 vision: - 
 1. COMMUNICATION 
 
 Ability to project message through a sense we don't or- 
 dinarily use - no language but a unity of understanding - a union in 
 a different sense than seeing, hearing, speaking. 
 
 2. HARMONY 
 
 Lack of interference with communication - no motion 
 apparent disturbing the strength and power and stability - poise - 
 lack of any ineffectual motion in concentration of motion in cir- 
 cular movement - no disturbance of simplicity of motion directed 
 to giving message - the actions completely subordinated to con- 
 stant flow in ordered procession - the movement closer of the 
 Angel in the center did not stop the train of movement of cloud. 
 Particles simply became magnified and closer and then farther 
 away. Not like any motion we ourselves as humans use in our 
 movements through space. 
 
 3. INTELLIGENCE 
 
 A knowing not striven for, already there - a learning not 
 gradual - but instantaneous - no reasoning, no hesitation or strug- 
 gling to apprehend - simple apprehension - a truth, a reality - a 
 living vital knowing, not learning. 
 
 Next I wanted very badly to put this beautiful vision down 
 on paper so that it would be a remembrance to me of the happiness 
 I had felt during that vision, visitation, or whatever it can be called, 
 and I made a little sketch on a little piece of paper I had around the 
 house and used just a plain, ordinary pencil, but into that picture 
 I put every line and every feature that I could have seen and remem- 
 
 58 
 
.•«r 
 
 'VHs^-^r 
 
 I 
 
bered, as clearly acs I possibly could,, but I. tried so hard. I smeared 
 the central ^ngel's face and couldn't get ihe feet crossed the way 
 they really were. Then I wanted so badly tq make a large painting 
 out of it because it was so beautiful I wanted others to see it and 
 I wanted to be able to put it into color, but I was tired and J didn't 
 have any real desire to do anything much. I was worn out from 
 caring for my little girl for months and I just let it go, an4 then a 
 few days later I was called by the Art Department of TowsQn High 
 School to substitute. This is the high school in the county where 
 we live. I had been there many times in many department^, but 
 never before in the Art Department or in any other departrpent for 
 more than a day or so at a time, because, of course, the teacher 
 always carr>e back when I got under way and really got the kids to 
 respect me, not throw things at each other, and so forth. So there 
 I was, in the Art Department. I looked around me; there was every 
 material that anyone could possibly need for a fine painting and, 
 too, I had the material for a class in composition because I had 
 the idea and I had the composition design of straight line and cir- 
 cular line, and so forth, and I thought that this was the best way 
 I could possibly teach sornething in this cla^s easily,, by Standing 
 up there and showing them how I myself wo\;ild go about painting 
 a picture. It was quite successful and they did many things. The 
 class itself responded beautifully and I got my painting done. On 
 the last day, when I wanted to put the angels' wings on, I couldn't 
 decide whether I should put white or yellow wings; 1 saw no yellow 
 in those Angels, I saw only white, but, because I saw yellow wings 
 on a study by Blake, the idea came to me - perhaps I should put 
 yellow wings there instead of white ! It was an unspoken thought 
 and I stood there for quite a while thinking about it. Well, finally, 
 I put the white wings there and I took my picture and I left. I went 
 to the Faculty Club of the University where we have dinner quite 
 often and I happened to meet this friend who had sent me to the 
 church. We had our dinner and then I asked this frienJd to come 
 over to the car to look at the painting and tell me how he liked the 
 way I had painted the church. He came over to the car and I took 
 the painting out, showed it to him, and he just stood there and he 
 looked so mystified and so perplexed that I asked him what was 
 wrong. He finally said, "Why, Eleanor, you've painted the in- 
 terior of the church exactly as it was more than thirty-five years 
 ago, before the church was completely remodeled. " I was mys- 
 tified then, as he was. That was before I was born! I said, "Do 
 you mean these angels look exactly like the ones that were on the 
 walls over there?" He said, "They were circling around just like 
 
 that; they were large; and they were I don't think the pose 
 
 was the same, there are certain things not the same. . . and they 
 were clothed in garments that were tinted. " He said, "that is, I 
 think they were; I was a little boy and I can't remember exactly. " 
 It mystified me so and amazed me so that when I got home my 
 
 - 61- 
 
eyes seemed to become almost blind from the shock and I went 
 around the house turning on all the lights because I felt so in the 
 dark about the whole thing. Meanwhile, many other incidents had 
 happened all surrounding the little books, the little Golden Books, 
 that Linda had wanted just before she became so ill and the wome^n 
 who had borrowed the little Golden Books. 
 
 Soon after Linda's death, I was told to go out and take 
 regular walks. I didn't want to take walks - I didn't want to do 
 very much of anything - but soon after Linda's death, I had had a 
 very tired, worn out feeling, a desperate sort of feeling of loss 
 and I really didn't want to do anything very much; it was an effort 
 to do anything; and I was having difficulty in breathing because I 
 had a rapidly beating heart that was bothering me and tying me 
 down so that I couldn't seem to get out and take the exercise that 
 I needed, and found out that I did need because I went to a heart 
 specialist in Baltimore who examined me and said, "The thing for 
 you to do is get out and take walks - take little trips and take walks, 
 and some light exercise such as swimming. " Well, the advice was 
 excellent; however, I didn't follow it right away, until one day I 
 happened to be driving my mother downtown and she happened to 
 have a want-ad section of the paper lying on the front seat. When 
 she got out to do her errand, I picked it up and started to look at it, 
 and as I looked at it, I saw, "Young lady wanted to do some walk- 
 ing for photographer and to assist in learning the business", and 
 I thought, "How wonderful!" There is the advice Doctor King gave 
 me. I think perhaps I will go in and see this man. " It so happened 
 that the place itself was just about four doors away from where my 
 car was parked, so when my mother came back, I a'aked her if she 
 would stay in the car a few minutes and I'd run up to see about this 
 idea of photography. All I had left of Linda to look at was her pic- 
 tures, and it meant so much to me that I thought to myself, "It's 
 probably the best way for me to help others;" after all, you never 
 know what is going to happen and those pictures were more valuable 
 to me than anything that existed in the world, because there was 
 Linda. I could look at her and I could feel that she was with me 
 and, yet, of course, she wasn't. Well, I went up to see this photo- 
 grapher, Mr. Lynch. He was a short man, of very slight stature, 
 and he impressed me as being very assiduous on his job and that 
 he would expect a great deal from anyone who did work for him, 
 and I thought, "This is one way of getting out and getting some ex- 
 ercise; I don't know whether it will be just what I had expected"', 
 because he told me that the actual job was to get out and just walk, 
 walk, walk, and get these women with new babies to sign up for 
 free pictures. Of course, that appealed to me very much because 
 I thought, "After all, every mother with a new baby has begun to 
 feel the attachment and the desire to retain the memory of each day, 
 and the love and the care that we give to our beloved children", and 
 I thought to give these free pictures to these new mothers was a most 
 
 62 
 
wonderful thing, exactly what I wanted to do. I said, "All right, 
 I'll start; out in the morning then. " He said, "You start out and 
 I'll find the section", so he turned to a map of Baltimore City and 
 on that map he picked the place where Linda had gone to school. 
 I thought, "That's a funny coincidence, but I'm so glad because 
 I'll be walking in the same area where Linda and I used to walk so 
 much and I'll recall some more of the wonderful memories I have 
 of her. " We decided that I would start off in the morning; he gave 
 me the list of places and told me to go ahead and named the streeets, 
 and so forth, where I was to start. It just so happened that it was 
 January 1951, but the weather had suddenly become April weather, 
 or May weather - it was "Springtime in January", and I started 
 out; I shed my coat and hat and walked briskly along; I was so happy 
 because here I was remembering Linda when she was with me, 
 and I was striding along, not burdened by a lot of clothes, and I 
 was doing something that would bring happiness to other people 
 with little children. Along about three or four o'clock I began to 
 drag quite a bit; I was becoming awfully tired; shortly before that 
 I had gone into a home where I saw my Aunt Pearl and Uncle Lou's 
 picture on a table, to my surprise. That was on Wadsworth Way. 
 This was the home of Dr. Eleanor Scott, the daughter-in-law of 
 my aunt and uncle, I had gathered many appointments, but I felt 
 as though, "Oh, my heavens; I don't know how much farther my 
 feet are going to carry me. " Well, along about four-thirty, when 
 I was due back in his office at five o'clock, I sort of dragged my- 
 self onto the wrong street and suddenly I looked up and, crossing 
 the street, was the woman who had borrowed the little books from 
 Linda. 3he was just amazed, as I was to see hex, and asked me 
 to come in to visit with her for a few moments. I went in to visit 
 her and there I had a tremendous experience. I told her about 
 Linda; she hadn't known; she was terribly hurt and she wept and 
 then she told me, "Eleanor, your child has appeared to me. " She 
 said that several days before I came to see her, she had awakened 
 from a terrible sweat from head to foot and she had seen Linda, 
 who had appeared to her in tremendous brilliance, so biright and 
 so shining and clothed in a beautiful light of a soft, rosy color, and 
 she was dancing and laughing and she said, "Go find my Mommy 
 
 and tell her that I want her" No, she didn't say that; she said, 
 
 "Go find my Mommy, she is terribly upset and you've got to help 
 her. " Well, when I heard that, it was just sort of a climax to a 
 day of complete readjustment for me, back in the old places where 
 Linda and I had walked and talked and been happy together, and to 
 hear this- -that Linda had appeared to this woman- -but the strange 
 thing about it all was that Louise Miller had awakened from this 
 terrible cold sweat holding the little book about the little kittens 
 out of the set of Golden Books, and it was a revelation of some 
 sort to me that she would have been holding the same little book 
 out of the set that Linda so badly wanted before she became very 
 
 63- 
 
ill. I felt rather unable to cope with the tremendous happenings at 
 that moment when I was dreadfully tired; I had to get back to the 
 man's office and turn in the appointments for the next morning, 
 so I said, "Louise, I'm so grateful to you, I just feel so completely 
 happy and completely sad at the same time that I'd better say good- 
 bye just now and then see you again soon. " So I left and I turned 
 in all my receipts at the Little Folks Studio, and he was glad that 
 I had worked so hard, and so forth, and he wanted me to come 
 back but, when I got home that night, I had a terrible chill because 
 I had gone ahead and shed my coat and hat, and then I came down 
 with the flu right aiter that, and I was in bed for three weeks and 
 nearly got pneumonia. I never did get back there, never got the 
 money that he was supposed to pay me, but I didn't want the money. 
 I felt that my reward was so tremendous that I didn't want a cent 
 for anything I had done. Just to have heard that brought me hap- 
 piness which was not to be bought at any price. I had found her - 
 the contact had been made, and she knew where I was living; I 
 knew where she was living, so when the incident about the painting 
 occurred, she was able to get in touch with me. She called me 
 on the telephone the day after this friend and I had realized that 
 the painting was an identical thing from the past and she said to 
 me, "I want you to tell me what man so completely mystified you, 
 or startled you last night, so that you went home and turned on 
 all your lights. " I thought for a moment and I was so amazed to 
 think that she had known something that she had no way of know- 
 ing about, that I couldn't speak for a moment, and then I realized 
 it. She said, "It was about eight o'clock. " She knew the time. 
 She described the man, described him very, very carefully, and 
 I just couldn't understand how she could have known. Well, she 
 went on from that. She said, "I knew that this had happened to 
 you. Last night Linda appeared to me again. She came in the 
 same tremendous brilliance and I awoke from a cold sweat, hold- 
 ing the same little book, and she said to me, "Go find my Mommy 
 again - tell her to go back to the church and look up the history 
 of the church and put yellow wings on the angels. " I cried over 
 the 'phone and I was so completely mystified and yet so completely 
 happy at the same time, that I just wept and wept at the release 
 from tension, the terrific tension that was built up while she was 
 telling me this, because the mystery of it was so tremendous. I 
 put yellow wings on the angels and I went back to the church and 
 I talked to the minister, a very fine man who is a sincere person, 
 who gives all the help he can very freely and does it in a very 
 beautiful way, and I said, "I've told you this story and how can I 
 find out what she's trying to tell me, what Linda's trying to do 
 for mie? Where is it all leading?" He said, "It's most unusual 
 that your child, so soon after her death, could be doing this for 
 you and could have such tremendous powers for you, but it is most 
 possible. She must be a very strong spirit of some kind. I think 
 
 64- 
 
she must have found great happiness. " That was what I wanted to 
 hear; I felt such tremendous happiness to hear those words, and 
 he really meant them, too. He really did mean them. And then I 
 thought, "I'm going to try to do everything that I can if in any way 
 it's going to bring her peace and in any way going to bring me the 
 happiness she must want me to have", and I asked Mr. Cox, the 
 minister, "Do you think you could look up the history of this church? 
 Do you have the history of this church?" He said, "We do have 
 certain reports, and so forth, but the church was done over, you 
 see, a certain number of years ago (which corroborated the state- 
 ment of this friend of mine) and when this church was done over 
 some of the records were misplaced but we do have in our vault a 
 picture of the angels that were painted in the church thirty-five 
 years ago. " I said, "May I see it?" He said, "Of course". So 
 they got this picture out of the vault and I saw that there was a 
 great similarity between it and the painting. In the ceiling over the 
 altar there was a round window, brilliant with the light shining 
 through it, as I had seen it in the dream before the visit to Mrs. 
 Ivey's apartment. He said, "But I want to tell you this. I feel 
 that what is meant is that you should go back in the history of the 
 churches maybe two- thousand years. " He said, "Any revelation 
 of this kind coming from God to help you means something great - 
 it can't be just one small thing - it can't be just one church - it 
 has to mean something big because it wouldn't have happened other- 
 wise", and he said, "You must go back maybe two-thousand years 
 in the history of the Church and there you will find certain answers 
 to your questions. I can't answer you just now about why you should 
 put yellow wings on the Angels or why the feet of the Angels looked 
 the way they did and why they were crossed in the sajne way, nor 
 why they were circling in a white mist. It sounds something like 
 Dante - The Circles. - You must go back and study the history of 
 the Church. " God had used Linda to bring me back to the church - 
 a sure way to get me there ! 
 
 I saw His Hand in the evolution of the painting. He had 
 to bring me back to the church! He used different people and many 
 different ways and the placing of the tools in my hand for the paint- 
 ing. 
 
 There were many bypaths - Louise, Mr. Lynch, the high 
 school, and the roads I walked - before I found out clearly that I 
 was mean t to return to the church! And the second visit had come 
 about. I knew now that next I had to study. 
 
 I got started. For the first time at Walters Art Gallery, 
 a course was being offered, beginning in February, by Miss Dorothy 
 Miner, an authority on the medieval, illuminated manuscript, which, 
 of course, takes you back to the beginnings of the Christian church 
 and the history of the Jewish church. Being interested in painting 
 and wanting to learn all about the illustrations of the history of the 
 Churcli, I was very lucky that she had consented to give this course. 
 
 - 65 
 
She was starting in a couple of weeks, so I signed up for the course 
 and started to study the history of the Church by studying the medi- 
 eval illuminated manuscript. And then I started studying the his-^ 
 tory of the Christian and Jewish churches , and then I found through 
 the assistance of one of the professors, Dr. George Boas of Johns 
 Hopkins University, the references to the use of yellow and other 
 colors in the Church, and yellow, the color of gol-d,' me aQ.t .always 
 from the very beginning, a direct revelation fromi God. St. Peter 
 was always clothed in yellow for that reason, and yellow means the 
 goodness of God, and it has many attributes. Then the feet of the 
 angels - in the writings of Pseudo Dionysius, the Areopagite. There 
 are two. One, Dionysius, the Areopagite, was the first convert 
 of St. Paul, Saul of Tarsus, the Jew, who wa« converted and or- 
 dained by Christ to teach the message of the gospel, and traveled 
 all over the places where the message was to be carried, and was 
 one of Jesus' appostles, of course. He is mentioned in Acts 17:34. 
 
 The next Areopagite is Pseudo- Dionysius. There are 
 some quotations I found in my digging for material for a paper for 
 Miss Miner on the history of the angels. In just a minute I'll get 
 them out of this little notebook I brought with me and read it. 
 Here they are ! 
 
 '"It was Dionysius who first gave the Church a complete 
 angelology. In his Celestial Hierarchy, he presents an organized 
 angelic world, harmoniously coordinated in a descending ladder 
 from Seraphim to simple angels. We can only offer a brief sum- 
 mary of his treatise hercu First, we may say that he considered 
 all the heavenly spirits to be of the same nature, but differing in 
 rank according to their particular order, knowledge, and function. 
 Their purpose in existence is to attain the closest possible likeness 
 to God and be united to Him as closely as possible. Each single 
 order of the heavenly hierarchy profits personally from a purifica- 
 tion, illumination, and perfection received from God, which it then 
 communicates to the order below it in due measure. Angelic know- 
 ledge comes either directly from God or through an infused vision 
 that is in accord with their rank in the hierarchy and their close- 
 ness to God. They know divine truth before men, since it is they 
 who bear it to man. They communicated divine revelations to us 
 through the Patriarchs, through Moses, the Prophets, Zachary, 
 Mary, Joseph, and the Shepherds. All the members of the heavenly 
 orders are messengers by nature, but only the archangels and 
 angels are properly so called - ad extra; ad intra-, among them- 
 selves, all the orders are messengers handing down to one another 
 divine illuminations. 
 
 The number of angels surpasses all our conceptions; it is 
 known only by God. There are nine orders of angels, joined to- 
 gether as links in a chain. Each order has a name denoting the 
 functions of its members. Seraphim, Cherubim, Thrones; Dom- 
 inations, Powers, Virtues; Principalities, Archangels, Angels. 
 
 -66- 
 
The nine choirs are divided into three hierarchies of three orders 
 each, from the Seraphim, closest to God, down to the Angels, 
 closest to men. Dionysius makes no mention of individual Guard- 
 ian Angels, but does say that each nation has a particular angel 
 presiding over it to guide it in following out the course of God's 
 Providence. The care of the Jewish nation has been assigned to 
 the Archangel Michael. Besides possessing their proper perfecr 
 lions, each order has those of the orders inferior to it, but the op- 
 posite is not true. Dionysius presupposes the absolute spirituality 
 of the angels as intelligent, intelligible, simple beings without the 
 least material quality of figure. The closing chapter tells us that 
 the corporeal terms applied to the angels in Scripture are only 
 accommodations made to sensible men. Elsewhere it is aaid that 
 the angels were created in eternity, men in time. Angels are the 
 measure of eternity (since they are closest to it), and men of time. " 
 
 That's all I copied but it helped me understand about the 
 orders of angels. The angels are also described as circling around 
 
 the throne of God at the highest circling around above at the 
 
 highest point above the throne of God is the group of angels called 
 the Seraphim; the lowest group of angels, the ones that are the 
 nearest to us on earth, are called "the angels", and they are the 
 direct messengers to us from God. They are described by 
 Dionysius, as encircling continously in tremendous placidity and 
 stability, and a white mist always surrounded them, circling con- 
 tinually around the throne of God, and the various spheres, of 
 course, circle around just in the way they're supposed to be in the 
 Hierarchy - like a ladder, sprt of like a Jacob's ladder where the 
 top angels are nearest to God and the lowest are nearest to us, 
 and it is somewhat like the Old Testament of the Jewish Shechinah 
 where, in this complete absorption in the mysteries of the celestial 
 holiness, the Jew forgets everything except the mystery and the 
 tremendous wonder of the throne and the various powers and dom- 
 inations of powers through which the nnessage of God deacends 
 from the throne of God down to us. Then there is, too, the idea 
 of God's removal from us perhaps seven heavens away. With the 
 fall of man, the sin of Adam, He removed himself one heaven 
 away and each time that man has sinned since the beginning, He 
 has removed himself another heaven away, until now He is seven 
 heavens away from us, and, through this seven, this celestial 
 hierarchy, this must come to us, you see, through various mes- 
 sengers, the lowest being the angel, the direct messenger to us. 
 And the explanation of the feet being so strong, so beautifully 
 formed, wonderfully poised and almost, oh, just tremendously 
 powerful- looking, tremendously graceful-looking, and yet like our 
 feet, except that no one on earth has feet with quite the same pro- 
 portion of strength, and in this there is a reference to the fact that 
 angels' feet are so important because they must be very strong to 
 be busy on the divine errands constantly. And then the whole mat- 
 
 - 71 - 
 
ter seemed to be coming into th^ foreground as a sort of pattern, 
 a pattern of learning, a pattern of assurance, and a pattern of 
 living that I was to follow because everything that had happened 
 
 has been for good, to help, and, lets see I was so busy with 
 
 all of this research I was doing, so engrossed in it all, that I 
 wasn't surprised when one day, when I was sitting in the library 
 stacks at Hopkins, completely lost in the study of the angels, I 
 suddenly became terrifically hungry for a piece of candy. I wanted 
 that candy the way I've never wanted a piece of candy - the way I 
 wanted it that day - two minutes later over came a rabbi. Rabbi 
 Martin Kessler from Chambereburg, Pa. , to me, with a skull 
 cap on his head, and he handed me a bar of candy. He said, "I 
 just want you to have the candy, " I was so amazed by the fact that 
 all I had to do was to want candy to have it come to me that I thought, 
 "Good heavens, what is this ?" I forgot all about th$ candy and then 
 I realized that here was a man who could tell me where to find 
 every reference to the angel in the Old Testament. I was following 
 through, I have all of those records and am following through to 
 get it all completely organized, the history of the angel in the Old 
 and New Testaments. So he brought a Concordance over to me 
 and he translated the Hebrew for me and, by the time he got through 
 thought. "This is worth -far more to me' than a piece of candy", and 
 I knew when he came over and offered me that candy there must be 
 something else besides just can)dy - things like this just don't hap- 
 pen every day. I was very happy to have all the references to the 
 angel and I incorporated that in the paper that I gave to Miss Miner 
 at the end of the term. She read the paper and she told me there 
 was so much work in the paper that I was "wallowing in this up to 
 your ears", and I'd have to read it over when I'd copied off a little 
 bit and pick out the part I most wanted to work on. Well, meanwhile 
 a lot of other things had been happening. 
 
 I had been working on an educational program for radio 
 combining music and poetry and I had to get it ready for May 14, 
 when I was to put it on for a group of people at the Stafford Hotel 
 in Baltimore. This had been arranged for by my friend Betty, 
 almost a year before. A week beforehand, I got dreadfully dis- 
 traught because I had to get a record, a sound effects record, which 
 had the sound of the wind on it, and I couldn't get it in Baltimore, 
 and it was getting awfully late and I didn't know how I could get it 
 from New York in time. That evening my brother-in-law Bernard, 
 who lives in Washington, called me up and said, "How would you like 
 to go to New York, all expenses paid, with Dot? Go for three days 
 and have a wonderful time and I'll make all the arrangements for the 
 trip tomorrow, when I go to New York. I won't take no for an answer, 
 you're absolutely going!" 
 
 "Wem.', I thought, "How wonderful!" Another amazing thing 
 - I really wanted that record so badly and was so worried about it, 
 and here, suddenly, appears my chance to go to New York. So I wfent 
 
 - 72- 
 
to New York and got the record, and had a very, very wonderful 
 time, and then, when I came back, I put the program on, but, 
 
 previous to that the real reason I'm telling all this is that 
 
 there is a tie-up with another family of a policeman who had taken 
 Linda across the street every day, who always had a smile for 
 Linda, and she always had a smile for him. But I didn't know how 
 fond he was of her until after he was run over and killed by an 
 automobile in front of his church, the Roland Park Presbyterian, 
 six weeks after Linda's death, near the same school where he had 
 helped her across the street. I visited the family; there was a lot 
 of publicity about what had happened; everybody wanted to help them. 
 1 took a lot of things over when I called on them. The child who 
 opened the door was the eldest child of this patrolman, Roland 
 Morgan. He had been a wonderful father, a kind husband, and was 
 deeply beloved. It was a terrible tragedy to that family. I felt very 
 close to them, closer still when, after I'd been in there for an hour 
 they told me that at Linda's death he had come home to them with 
 tears and told them he felt so horrible because a little child that he 
 dearly loved had died and that he had wanted his children to know 
 Linda. They told me all these things and while I was working on 
 this program, I had ^rewritten it in the form of a little play; there's 
 lots of music and poetry in it and I needed a little child who Would 
 take the part of Linda in the story, and this child, Dorothy Morgan, 
 a lovely, alert girl, very beautiful, with blue eyes and blonde hair, 
 very deeply upset, however, at her father's death, and needing 
 help very badly, was just the child, I felt, for the part. We became 
 \'ery good friends and I loved her very much and she loved me very- 
 much; we helped each other a great deal through our terrible grief 
 and she did quite well on the program and all these several weeks 
 when she and I were working together and having fun together, I 
 wanted so badly to go into Linda's room and go into her closet and 
 take out a doll, a storybook doll, all dressed in lace, in a white 
 box with blue circles on it; I couldn't bring myself to go into that 
 closet, I couldn't bring myself to take away anything there; there 
 was the feeling that Linda was there, though, of course, "she wasn't, 
 but we hold onto things for awhile, and, at the same time, I wanted 
 so badly to go in and take that box out of there, give that doll, to that 
 child, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. Suddenly Mrs. Miller 
 called me; she had found me at my mother's home. She'd been try- 
 ing to get in toucli with me for hours and hours and had tried to get 
 me at my home and I wasn't there,, and she finally reached me at my 
 mother's home. She said, "Eleanor, Linda has appeared to me for 
 the third time. I again was holding the same little book - I awoke 
 in a terrible sweat - I saw Linda dancing and laughing, so gay, and 
 she was saying, "You silly, weak, pretty, funny, lovely Mommy - 
 dearest Mommy - take the box!" She saw my hand, only, stretched 
 out, talcing \;his box, a white box with blue dots on it, the identical 
 box - and Linda handing me the box so gleefully. That was the be- 
 ginning of my release from this bond of trying to hold onto the things 
 
 - 73- 
 
that were no longer Linda's; she didn't want them, she wanted 
 other children to have them and be happy with them. And it was 
 a wonderful help to me. I dashed home lickity- split - I ran into 
 the closet - I grabbed that box - and I took it over to that child's 
 
 house so fast and she was very happy to have the doll and 
 
 the whole episode was really a wonderful help to me. " 
 
 That was the story just as Mommy told it. 
 
 Mommy's stronger now and I think she's been helped 
 enough so that she can really help others now. She teaches other 
 little children and she gives them a feeling that God loves them 
 and He wants to make them happy if they will do good and please 
 Him. That's the whole secret of being happy and useful. 
 
 She was teaching a boy who the principal said changed 
 his whole personality in the five months Mommy worked with him. 
 He stopped causing all kinds of interruptions and got so quiet the 
 teacher didn't know he was there, and he studied hard all the time. 
 Next Mommy taught Nancy. 
 
 Nancy went with Mommy to see a sun dial. It's a very 
 unusual one, because it j.s on a house, in the middle 6f it, near 
 the roof. It is a big sun dial and you can tell the time very clearly 
 on it when the sun is shining. It's at 622 Deepdene Road, right 
 near my school, Roland Park Public School, #2 33. 
 
 It was 1:30 when Mommy and Nancy and Nancy's friend, 
 Jimmy, got there and the sun was shining. Mommy sat and looked 
 at it and she remembered how much we loved the house and the 
 front door that had two parts to it, when the bottomi one was closed, 
 I looked at her out of the top open one and waved to her when we 
 went to see the house. I sat on the benches on the little porch and 
 I was very happy there. I could be very near my little friends and 
 my school. 
 
 Lots of times, Mommy and I went to the Maryland Academy 
 of Sciences on Thursday night to see movies about paper making and 
 fish and all kinds of interesting things. We looked through a tele- 
 scope at the moon and the planets and the Milky Way. I learned 
 there that the Egyptians made the first sun dial. So when I saw the 
 house I liked it for so many reasons. 
 
 Mommy remembered, and then she thought, "1:35, the 
 moment when Linda died, and this is the first time since her death 
 I've come back here ! 
 
 We didn't get the house because Daddy wasn't able to make 
 the arrangements about it with the Veterans' Administration. They 
 didn't approve of it because it was near a railroad, the old Ma and 
 Pa, Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad. 
 
 My school was a big school with high school children, too. 
 We had such good times there - Valerie Ash, and Gary, and Ronny, 
 and Joan Cromwell, and Albert, and Stevie Albrijdge, and all the 
 other kids. I loved it there, and my teachers and principal, too. 
 Mommy decided to put a memorial there for me. With the money I 
 
 - 74- 
 
saved, $55. 00, she bought a beautiful painting of a little girl in a 
 red dress holding a white kitten, called "Chums", by Jane Freeman. 
 Jane Freeman was born in England in 188 3. She studied painting 
 in Paris and later lived in New York. 
 
 My name was put on a gold plaque, and it said I gave the 
 picture. Mommy decided that the children in my class would like 
 the little girl with the kitten and she was right. 
 
 The day she and Daddy gave it to the school, the children 
 sat in a circle and they asked all k?.nds of questions about the pic- 
 ture. There were big hollyhocks and the sun setting and lots of 
 color and things to find. They wanted to know why she held the 
 kitten by the front legs and let it hang down. Mommy said, "That's 
 how lots of little girls carry kittens !" 
 
 She knew one who carried a kitten like that - me ! Just 
 before I got sick, I was given a gray kitten by a lady on a farm in 
 Fork, Maryland, who had nursery plants. It was Stony Batter 
 Nursery. I called the kitten Lucifer, aiter a cat in a story. I 
 always carried Lucifer by his top front legs with my arms around 
 his chest and he hung down. 
 
 Mommy and I saw some little holly plants at the nursery. 
 She brought two to plant them on Providence Road. But they didn't 
 live, so when she went to Seattle and saw the tremendous green 
 and white holly trees with red berries, she feasted her eyes on 
 them. They were beautiful! After the trip to California and to 
 Seattle, Mommy felt better because she doesn't always wake up 
 with tears in the morning, missing me when she" wakes, gasping 
 for her breath. 
 
 Mommy prays a lot and a long time ago, when I told her 
 about God, the first story she told me about the Bible was Noah's 
 Ark, and when Granddaddy Franklin gave me the blue ark with 
 the ladder and all the animals and Noah and his family and the 
 dove, I knew he liked to pray, too. 
 
 At Christmas time in 1952, Mommy went to a cocktail 
 party, and then she really needed to ask God for help, because 
 a man who was drunk walked up to her and said something to her 
 that was worse than hitting her. 
 
 Mommy saw a beautiful book about angels in the house. , 
 It belonged to the friend who gave the party. It was written in 
 French and it was called "Anges" There were pictures of angels 
 that were painted a long time ago, and some that were painted 
 not so very long ago. When Morrtmy saw the book, she was so 
 happy, and talked to the people about the beautiful paintings and the 
 description. 
 
 This man, who has a little living girl, walked up to my 
 Mommy and said, "Put that book down! Forget all about angels ! 
 Forget all about Linda! Don't ever think about her anymore ! 
 Don't talk about her !" 
 
 She couldn't answer him for a little while, then she said 
 
 - 75 - 
 
as quietly as she could, "I don't think I'm supposed to forget about 
 Linda. " 
 
 When he said, "Yes, you are ! Just be an average American 
 citizen and think only about the things you do every day, not God, not 
 about angels, or heaven, or anything but everyday, normal things ! ", 
 Mommy just looked at him, because she wouldn't speak any further 
 and let people know how badly she was hurt. She always taught me 
 to be brave, and smile when things went wrong! 
 
 For three days. Mommy was very sick, because she couldn't 
 understand anyone being so cruel and thoughtless. Then she started 
 going to churches everywhere and praying as hard as she could. She 
 didn't think she was wrong to be happy when she saw the book on 
 angels and to talk about them. After she felt better, she thought 
 about the book, a big book with a blue cover, and she wanted it. 
 She knew it came from France, so she didn't think she could ever 
 have it, but the more she thought about it, the more she felt the 
 book would help her. But she never talked about it to anybody. 
 
 A few weeks later, it was Mommy's birthday, January 31st. 
 She was home one day resting in the afternoon. When she heard 
 the outer front door slam and heard something drop, she went to 
 the door in time to see a mail truck disappear. 
 
 She opened the door and saw a large package. It was heavy 
 a.nd she sat down to open it. As the wrappings came away, she saw 
 "Anges". The book had been sent by Aunt Celeste, Mommy's sister, 
 from Seattle, Washington. 
 
 Mommy couldn't understand how Aunt Celeste could have 
 found the book and she was so grateful for her sending it. Of course. 
 Aunt Celeste is very beautiful and very clever, but that couldn't 
 explain the funny coincidence. She used the book so much when she 
 started writing the book on the angels, for next Christmas, that she 
 decided she was just supposed to have it! So the man was all wrong! 
 So it seems the prayers helped Mommy and she prayed for the man, 
 too, for God to show him how he mustn't forget Him, and she de- 
 cided it was all a test of how much she herself believed. 
 
 And, of course, it proved I don't want Mommy to forget 
 me. I want her to remember me and keep on loving me, the way I 
 remember her and try to help her. CXir prayers help each other. 
 
 Another time, and this was the time that really proved to 
 Mommy we must forgive our enemies and pray for them, was when 
 Mommy was made to leave a job in a flower shop where she was 
 very happy, because a woman came in to work who was much older 
 and wanted to rule her. 
 
 Every time Mommy let a child come in to talk a while or 
 made up original designs of her own, or tried to please a customer, 
 the minute she was alone in the shop with the woman designer, she 
 started arguing and finding fault with Mommy, and telling her what 
 to do, and it was mostly that the woman wanted to get rid of her by 
 sending her out of the way, down to the basement, out to the backyard, 
 
 - 76- 
 
®*^ ^^^ Mommy ordered Christmas cards for the store 
 
 from a crippled man who came around, but the woman didn't want 
 cards except from a "firm of her own choice'.\ 
 
 After a while Mommy told her what she thought of her 
 mean actions and decided to leave, since there wasn't any business 
 after a while and there wasn't enough for two people to do. 
 
 But she didn't want to leave and it made her unhappy, for 
 she was with lots of children there and she loved the plants and 
 flowers. 
 
 She couldn't forget the woman's unkindness and it made 
 her a little bitter against people, because she thought the womar 
 was wrong. One day she walked past the Catholic Church St 
 Alphonsus, and decided to go in to pray. As she walked in, she 
 stood to read a pamphlet, and when she looked up, there stood 
 the woman ! 
 
 All of a sudden she knew she was supposed to see her 
 and their paths were to cross. So she spoke pleasantly to her 'and 
 knelt at the cross to pray, while the woman stood there. 
 
 Mommy was praying to God to forgive the woman for 
 what she did and she was also praying for strength to forgive all 
 her enemies and not hold malice. The woman didn't know what 
 Mommy was praying. I wonder what she'd say if she knew^ She 
 was standing right next to her. When people wrong us, we must 
 ask God to help us forgive them and ask God to forgive fhem and 
 we must try not to give these people a chance to sin again, for it 
 is best to leave than to fight. Everytime we fight, unless it is for 
 God we go against God. for we release sin. so Mommy says If 
 we fight for what is good and right, that's all right. 
 
 The job in the flower shop began and ended with Mommy's 
 prayers. All the things she does happen like that. It was there 
 that she thought about writing this book seriously and even typed 
 a little bit on the typewriter. 
 
 She went to the church in Catonsville on November 16 
 one year after I left her. where she had been sprinkled, to pra'y 
 lor me and help in answering the ad for the job because she really 
 wanted to work with flowers. We both love them so ! 
 
 After she left the church, she got the job immediately, 
 after she left the job. she found peace immediately in church! It 
 started with prayer and ended with prayer. 
 
 Mommy learned something else while working in the 
 flower shop. She had seen a beautiful bamboo bird cage with a 
 yellow stuffed canary bird in it. with the number 25 banded on its 
 leg She decided to buy it and make a tray filled with plants in it 
 and sell it as an original design. 
 
 A lady called up for a little wicker bird cage filled with 
 plants and Mommy couldn't order one from the wholesalers 
 because they didn't have any just then. So she took the one she 
 made out to the lady's house to deliver it. 
 
 - 77- 
 
It was too big for the space she wanted to fill, so she and 
 Mommy had a little conversation, only two hours, instead. The 
 lady was ill and home from work. Her husband had died from can- 
 cer months before, and she thought about him all the time. 
 
 Mommy told her about me and they talked abput life and 
 death and the lady said, "In Christian Science, we think of death 
 as a moment of transition, just an instant, when the soul leaves 
 the body and enters the eternal and life on the other side of the 
 veil. " 
 
 Mommy was very, very interested in this idea of the lady's 
 and she told her of what happened about the angels. She forgot all 
 about the bamboo bird cage until she walked out the door, when they 
 had stopped talking. Then she went back to get it and took it back 
 to sell it later on to a friend who loved the original design. 
 
 Another time, she had to take some plants to an address 
 that was very hard to find. She got lost on a little road. Parkway 
 Road, and ended up at a little quaint house. She knocked at the 
 door and, as she did, she ^aw the most tremendous praying mantis 
 in front of her. Then she looked around and there were dozens and 
 dozens, all praying mantis. 
 
 The neat little old lady answered the knock and gave Mommy 
 directions. Then, in answer to the question, she said, "Oh, these 
 praying mantis are always around here. They live around here. " 
 
 Mommy said, "It must be wonderful to see such beautiful 
 green creatures who never forget to pray. It would be hard to for- 
 get to pray when they're around. It's like having a moving, living, 
 green church around you!" The lady agreed, and Mommy left, 
 
 I remembered the time in the hospital when Daddy asked 
 me, "Linda, do you know how to pray?" I looked at him, ajnazed. 
 "Why, don't be silly! Of course I do. Mommy and I have always 
 prayed together !" 
 
 Then there was our little praying pixie. He's ceramic, 
 not alive like the praying mantis, but he prays all the time, too. 
 And, of course, he really does just fold hands for prayer, not like 
 the jnantis who pr^ys and then grabs everything around it. and eats 
 it up. 
 
 Mommy read about the mantis later and it reminds her that 
 sometimes what looks like real prayer isn't really - but only God 
 can know that ! 
 
 J. Henri Fabre, a French Naturalist studied the Praying 
 Mantis and this is what he wrote: 
 
 "A word on the Praying Mantis, or, as they say in Provence, 
 le Prego Dieu, the "Pray- to- God". Her long, pale-green wings , like 
 spreading veils, her head raised heaven- wards , her folded arms, 
 crossed upon her breast, are in fact a sort of travesty of a nun in 
 ecstasy. And yet she is a ferocious creature, loving carnage. 
 
 "Even in the time of the Greeks the insect was called the 
 divine, the prophet. The tiller of the soil is not particular about 
 
 - 78 - 
 
analogies: where points of resemblance are not too clear, he will 
 make up for their deficiencies. He saw on the sun- scorched herb- 
 age an insect of imposing appearance, drawn up majestically in 
 a half-erect posture. He noticed its gossamer wings, broad and 
 green, trailing like long veils of finest lawn; he saw its fore-legs, 
 its arms so to speak, raised to the sky in a gesture of invocation. 
 That was enough; popular imagination did the rest; and behold the 
 bushes from ancient times stocked with Delphic priestesses, with 
 nuns in orison. 
 
 "Good people, with your childish simplicity, how great 
 was your mistake ! Those sanctimonious airs are a mask for 
 Satanic habits; those arms folded in prayer are cut-throat weapons: 
 they tell no beads, they slay whatever passes within range. Form- 
 ing an exception which one would never have suspected in the harbi- 
 vorous order of the Orthoptera, the Mantis feeds exclusively on 
 living pre\y. She is the tigress of the peaceable entomological 
 tribes, the ogress in ambush who levies a tribute of fresh meat. 
 Picture her with sufficient strength; and her carnivorous app6titt58, 
 combined with her traps of horrible perfection, would maJce her 
 the terror of the country-side. The Prego-Dieu would become a 
 devilish vampire. '•' 
 
 When we bought the evergreens to put in front of the house 
 and in the woods in back, the man gave me a little bowl of plants. 
 I wanted to put a little figure in there, so we went to a flower shop 
 and Mommy and I picked a little pixie kneeling down with his hands 
 folded in prayer. 
 
 We put him in his little home in the bowl and set him on 
 the kitchen window sill, so we could see him every morning. 
 
 On October 13, on Friday, two days before Mommy's 
 wedding anniversary, she was making tea for me while I lay in 
 the bedroom. She looked over at the pixie, and she let out a little 
 scream. The pixie had turned red on his cheeks and the tips of 
 his ears and on the top of his hands, folded in prayer. The red 
 was so crimson, it was like blood. He looked very pretty with the 
 red cheeks and red- tipped ears and red knuckles, as though he was 
 praying out in the frost and the frost had nipped him as though Jack 
 Frost had painted him. 
 
 Mommy could never understand how he could have sud- 
 denly become so beautifully tinted. The color gradually deepened 
 from a deep crimson to the very deepest blood- red in three days' 
 time, on October 15, Sunday, and then stayed like that. She wrote 
 to the company, who wrote her a letter a,bout splotches that had 
 formed "in a few isolated cases" in their pixies faces, but the color 
 on our pixie was not splotched, but very evenly placed, as natural 
 as can be, and the hands were deep blood- red where they were 
 clasped in prayer as tho' they were being wrung hard. 
 
 When I went back for the last time at Hallowe'en time, the 
 end of October, we took our little pixie with us. I held him to re- 
 
 - 79- 
 
mind me to pray and Mommy called me "Little Lamb of God. •• 
 
 Mommy never gives up! When the red ambulance, #1, 
 came to the house, 1 was put on a stretcher with my own blue 
 blanket. We got into the ambulance and we rode on East Joppa Rd. 
 from Providence Rd, , then to the hospital, down Charles St. 
 Mommy told me I could tell my friends in school all about the ride 
 in the new red ajnbulance. She and I both knew that we really 
 wouldn't come that way together again. It was our last trip - with 
 each other here. 
 
 She said, "Your eyes are so beautiful and clear, Lin - 
 we've driven this way so many times. " She was thinking, "Dear 
 God, watch over her. Keep her very close to you. Don't let her be 
 afraid. " 
 
 When we got to the hospital, I lay on the bed while Mommy 
 sat up all night and patted my arms and smoothed my sheets. I 
 was in the ward with the other children, before we moved into our 
 last room together. It was Hallowe'en the next day and Mommy 
 sent for the party things we bought from the Harford Road two weeks 
 before, because she wanted me not to think about how much I hurt 
 all over but about the fun we'd always had on Hallowe'en. 
 
 Every Hallowe'en I had a party, no matter what happened. 
 The first one in 1948, in Baltimore, we had at the apartment build- 
 ing. The Chadford, where we lived for almost a year. I had two 
 teen-age friends there - Pat and Barbara - who sometimes stayed 
 with me. I liked it there because I could ride the bus to and from 
 my school just several blocks away. It stopped right at the door of 
 my apartment and right in front of my school. The party was very 
 small but we had fun anyway. Albert and Lynn came, and we played 
 games and ate ice cream. 
 
 The next Hallowe'en, in 1949, Mommy was moving into the 
 house but she had a beautiful party for me at Delvales's, on Roland 
 Avenue. We had funny ices and all kinds of Hallowe'en molds, pump- 
 kins and stars and candy, and there were lots of girls with very 
 pretty costumes. I was a shepherdess. Afterwards, we went to the 
 Hallowe'en parade in front of my school and Mommy watched all of 
 us parade up and down. One little girl, Karen, disappeared and 
 Mommy worried about her and made us look for her. We finally 
 found her and then the party was over. 
 
 On my last party, October 1950, I couldn't move or talk, 
 but I could watch the children as Mommy set a Hollowe'en table for 
 them. Many of the sick children could enjoy the party and I was 
 glad to watch them. Mommy kept coming over to me and saying, 
 "Linda, Linda, I love you, I love you. " She wanted me to know 
 how sorry she was that I couldn't have fun like I used to. But she 
 knew I'd like to watch the others because they were sick, too, and 
 wanted fun. 
 
 A few weeks before, one day, I felt better, and Mommy 
 took me riding. She went along the Harford Road so I could see 
 
 - 80 - 
 
the school children and she stopped in a little gift shop to buy me 
 Halloween things. She bought a mask and a set of willow ware play 
 dishes and lots of other things, and a pair of silly crosseyed glasses 
 to hide in for a joke. 
 
 But while she was in there, the lady asked why she was 
 in such a rush and Mommy said her sick child was waiting. The 
 lady asked what was wrong and Mommy told her. The lady said 
 there was no cure for it and told her about a man who died from 
 it. So Mommy suddenly felt terribly choked up and breathless, 
 and terribly, terribly afraid and she couldn't walk out of the store, 
 she was so shocked. But she pulled herself together and called 
 my nurse, Mrs. Thomas, who lived near there and chatted with 
 her a minute. Then she was able to pay the lady and leave. 
 
 She didn't tell me why she took so long and I felt very 
 sick while I waited for her. She made me lie out on the back seat 
 and parked the car so she could help me. A policeman came along 
 and told her she couldn't park there, but Mommy told him I was 
 sick and he was very, very nice. He wanted to help but Mommy 
 thanked him and said I had to be very quiet, for a while, then I'd 
 feel better. We were in front of a church and school at Gibbons 
 Ave. , St. Dominic's, on the Harford Road. The children came 
 out laughing and running. 
 
 The policeman went on, and after a while we did, too. 
 I felt better and Mommy started driving home the way we always 
 came. We went past the restaurant where Mommy and I once had 
 sandwiches, and an old man, very tall, with white hair, had come 
 in with a friend. They sat several tables away, and there wasn't 
 anyone else there, except the man who owned the restaurant, 
 Mr. Dubner. 
 
 As we got up to leave, the old man looked at me and asked 
 me my name. Then he said, "I've seen many children, but she 
 looks' more heavenly than any of them. Sit down a minute !" 
 
 Mommy sat down because she saw that the white haired 
 man was thinking something wonderful. He told us about a radio 
 program he heard the night before. It was called "The Portrait 
 of Jennie". Mommy said she had read the book, by Robert Nathan, 
 and the story was a favorite of hers. 
 
 An artist, Eben Adams, met a little girl in the park. 
 Jennie's father and mother were "actors and actresses" he was in- 
 formed. "They're at the Hammerstein Music Hall. They do jug- 
 gling on a rope. " He remembered then that the Hammerstein Music 
 Hall had been torn down 10 years before and he was puzzled. But it 
 was never really explained. All of the time he knew her until she 
 was grown-up, she appeared suddenly and always reappeared after 
 promising to return as she left. They met the last time as she 
 drowned in a storm off the Nantucket Light. Ship on September 22nd. 
 She helped him to find faith and to think about God. It made us 
 think about all the mysteries of life. Mommy saw the movie'T'too. 
 
 - 81 - 
 
The little girl in it lived when the Titanic sank with her 
 parents aboard. But she came back later on in the life of the artist 
 and grew up again to girlhood. The man in the story, the artist, 
 first saw her as a little girl, skating in an old-fashioned velvet 
 skating costume with white fur around the collar and cuffs. He 
 asked her who she was and she said, "I come when the wind blows. 
 Where I come from, nobody knows. " She never told him where she 
 lived, only when she'd come to visit him. She came to see him and 
 then she'd leave, just disappear! As she grew up in her little visits, 
 he painted her portrait, as though he were under a spell. The last 
 time he saw her, she told him she loved him and then he didn't see 
 her again. Jennie had always told him she'd come back when she 
 could, and the last time she wept and said good-bye, and she finished 
 the verse. "And where I'm going everything goes. The wind blows, 
 the sea flows and God knows. " 
 
 He found a clipping telling about a young lady, with her 
 name, who had drowned along the New England coast. He went up 
 there to find out and he saw her drowning and calling to him, and a 
 green scarf floating around her. He tried to save her but she was 
 gone. When he was washed ashore, sick but alive, he held a green 
 scarf. And he had the portrait. 
 
 "Was it really Jennie? Did the scarf really belong to her? 
 What had happened to time ?", he asked himself. 
 
 The man, who told us his name was Mr. Wilkinso^i, Sciid 
 that the whole story left us with one question. Did the man it hap- 
 pened to really believe it? His friends believed it, but he wasn't 
 really sure it happened. 
 
 Mommy said she didn't think about the story like that. She 
 thought it was a story to make us think about what we don't really 
 know. 
 
 Then we got up to go. He stood up and bowed, and he said, 
 "I will never forget you two young ladies. You will be a dream to 
 me. " We thanked him and when we left we talked about the way 
 people we met always wanted to know more about us. Mommy said 
 it was because I was "Different", much older than I was. 
 
 Now Mommy thinks sometimes about my leaving her and 
 how, somehow, Mr. Wilkinson sensed something different in our 
 lives and what would happen to us. 
 
 After we left the Harford Road the last time we rode down 
 there together, we went down the next road, Taylor Avenue, in 
 Parkville. That was the way back to the York Road, and Towson, 
 v/here we lived on Providence Road. The corner where we lived 
 was a cross road to the York Road, Belair Road, Harford Road. 
 
 Many times we rode down before that, past a beautiful 
 cemetery that looked like a park. The entrance to the cemetery 
 is on Tay]or Avenue between Harford Road and Loch Raven Boul- 
 evard. There were flowers all around and once I said to Mommy, 
 "What is that place?" We drove in and it was a cemetery with no 
 
 - 82 - 
 
tombstones, only vases with flowers. "Why, Linda, it's a ceme- 
 tery. The name is Moreland Memorial Park Cemetery, " I said 
 tO'Mommy, "That's the way a cemetery sould be, like a park, so 
 you don't think about death, but life. " She stopped talking, and 
 for a long time she was very quiet. Then she said, "Yes, Ldnda, 
 dear, you are right. " 
 
 Then she said, "Remember our story about the Runaway 
 Bunny? That little bunny always liked to run away and his Mommy 
 said, 'I'll always come and find you! No matter where you are!' 
 That bunny couldn't get far and neither can you, my sweet angel. " 
 
 "I'll always come and find you, too. Mommy", I told her, 
 "wherever you are. " 
 
 My nurse, Mrs. Thomas, lived so close to the Harford 
 Road that we went to visit her one sunny day when I felt pretty well, 
 soon after my first visit to the hospital, when I had gone home. We 
 waited for Mrs. Thpmas to come out to the car, then a plump lady 
 with a very pleasant smile walked by with a big bunch of flowers 
 and some Christmas cards. She came up to Mommy and she said, 
 "Have you seen me before?" Mommy sai-d, "This is the first time 
 we've been on this street. " 
 
 The lady had a beautiful box of cards that Mommy bought 
 and then she walked down the street and disappeared. Mommy said, 
 "Wasn't that strange, for her to ask me that question? Funny things 
 do happen! Like the time we needed money for gas in the car and 
 we walked outside and you saw a dollar bill lying in the driveway, 
 Lin!" Mommy looked at the cards and read the beautiful messages 
 about the Lord to me and about our being His lambs and sheep and 
 we felt very happy. One card was about Bethlehem, The City of 
 the Lord. 
 
 The nurses were all very nice in the hospital and one came 
 in to tell me her patient wanted to give me a present. I decided to 
 write him a note. His name was Mr. Katz, but I spelled it wrong. 
 'Mr. Catts ' , and Mommy giggled at it. I didn't like her laughing at 
 me like that because I'm a sensible person. I said, "Mommy, don't 
 laugh at a sensible person ! " I felt sorry for her , then, because she 
 didn't like being laughed at herself when she was serious and she 
 knew she was being unkind and laughing at a person and Mommy 
 doesn't like being unkind. 
 
 We've had lots of jokes together, but when I was very sick, 
 I didn't want to laugh. I always loved to laugh when I was well. We'd 
 laugh the most at Little Lulu in the comic books and Moon Mullins 
 and Kayo and the other comics. 
 
 When I went to camp the summer I lived at the Chadford 
 Apartments, I laughed all the time, I was so happy. The name of 
 the camp was Happy Hallow Camp, in Brooklandville , Maryland. 
 The bus called for me every morning and 1 kissed Mommy good-bye. 
 We went out the Falls Road and the Padonia Road to the camp. It was 
 eight miles north of the Baltimore city line. 
 
 - 83- 
 
We had hikes and picnics and there were horses and a 
 little path of stone steps down to the pool. I learned how to swim 
 and one day Mommy and Daddy came to visit. I was very proud 
 and happy and I kept waving to them from the pool. He had been 
 away in Urbana all that summer, teaching. 
 
 I showed them the big barn where we did arts and crafts. 
 I made a felt badge with "H" on it and, when I learned to do things, 
 I could sew on a bead. I had four beads. The food was very, very 
 good and I ate and ate and ate. When Mommy came with Grand- 
 mommy and Aunt Lorraine one day to see me, she had some choc- 
 olate milk out of a bottle and we sat on a little hill together and 
 looked at the beautiful view all around. Then we w^nt up to the log 
 cabins to see where the girls stayed who lived at the camp. The 
 last day there was a big party with all kinds of entertainment - real 
 Indian dances with real Indian costumes. My, it was fun! 
 
 I used to like to come home and rest a while, then eat 
 dinner with Mommy. The bus let me off in front of the Chadford 
 and Mommy was always waiting for me, wanting to know what I did 
 all day. She missed me while I was away and hugged and kissed 
 me as soon as I got back. Then, after dinner, I listened to my 
 favorite radio programs. I also had to practice the piano, because 
 I took lessons. 
 
 When we heard Fannie Brice on the radio as Baby Snooks, 
 I'd laugh and laugh and laugh. She was my favorite and so was her 
 Daddy. He got in so much trouble on account of Baby Snooks and 
 her little brother, Robespierre. There were only a few radio pro- 
 grams Mommy enjoyed and that was one of them. They didn't 
 teach me anything good, so we started making up one of our own. 
 We wrote some of it out together and talked about it lots of times. 
 
 Mommy started with some of the songs we knew and then 
 she started telling the story. They were little songs by Robert 
 Burns and she told about his life and the country he lived in - Scot- 
 land. In Urbana, in 1948, our friend Dr. Gordon Ray had given 
 her this idea. He gave her and Daddy a little party with some friends 
 on January 25, Robert Burns' birthday, and his friends sang Burns' 
 songs. 
 
 Later, Betty, Mommy's friend, heard about the idea and 
 thought it would be good for all children to hear. She arranged for 
 Mommy to give the program as a sample to the ladies of the Rotary 
 Club at the Staiford Hotel, in May, 1951. Later on my Mommy 
 thought about St. Paul's Day on January 25th and remembered this mu- 
 sical evening of Gordon's. When I left Mommy in November, she 
 didn't want to do anything but after a while, when she grew stronger, 
 she was glad she had to get the program ready. 
 
 A new idea came to her: to have the parent talk it all over 
 with the child, and make it a little play and have poetry and music 
 and all kinds of sound effects to make it very interesting. There 
 are lots of clock sounds and a Chinese Gong and a story about Time 
 
 - 84- 
 
 I 
 
and about poets and SKelley and the wind and Emerson and Chris- 
 tina Rossetti, and a wonderful big oldmusic box from 1816. First 
 she went to a store on the York Road and bought a recording ma- 
 chine. Then she took it everywhere to get sound effects. She even 
 went almost to the top of City Hall of get the sound of the tremen- 
 dous Lord Baltimore bell, a very beautiful rich, deep sound as it 
 strikes the time in the tower of the building. Mr. Rose took her 
 up there and he was a superintendent. He v^as very kind to Mommy. 
 Mr. Pielert had a clock shop, clocks from all over the world, on 
 the Frederick Road, and he let Mommy and Dorothy Morgan, who 
 played the part of me, get all the sounds and read the lines at the 
 same time. 
 
 Dr. Pickering, a dentist, in his spare time has a glee 
 club, the Patapsco River Valley Squadron Glee Club, and he let 
 Mommy get their singing of "My Old Kentucky Home" and "Sweet 
 Adeline. ** "Music When 'Soft Voices Die'" by Shelley the poet was 
 in the program, too, and Mr. James Lewis who directs the 
 Handel Choir, played the piano for her when she, recorded it on 
 the machine. 
 
 Mommy sang '"La Vie En Rose" and "^The Bluebird of 
 Happiness*^, our favorite songs, with Dorothy on the tape program. 
 When we saw "The Rancor's Edge", a movie, we heard the music 
 of La Vie En Rose and we never forgot it because of what happened 
 in the movie. When we went to see "Song of the South", and we 
 saw Uncle Remus , I wanted to find my laughing-place because he 
 said everybody has one and my Bluebird of Happiness, when we 
 saw it perched on Uncle Remus' shoulder wjiile he sang Zip a Dee- 
 DooDah. But most of all, I wanted to find Uncjle Remus and to 
 listen to his stories all the time. Whenever we saw a bluebird 
 after that, I thought about Uncle Remus and laughing and happiness. 
 
 Mommy wanted to end each program with the best songs 
 of all, "The Star Spangled Banner", to show how we love our coun- 
 try, and "The Lord's Prayer", to show how we love God, and that 
 is the very best song. You see, that was when she wrote to Mr. 
 John Charles Thomas and he gave her the scholarship to the music 
 academy in Santa Barbara. It was the kindest deed he did for 
 Mommy and she will never forget it. 
 
 It was lots of hard work. The machine weighed over forty 
 pounds and Mommy's back is still weak from carrying and lifting 
 the recording machine. She got the wind record in New York, when 
 my uncle and Aunt Dorothy took her along on their trip. So that 
 was easy ! 
 
 Mommy says, "There isn't any child who can't be reached 
 if one gives him spiritual food as well as regular food. Most chil- 
 dren are starved for it, and, after this is fed them, they will learn. 
 It's like conquering disease by first strengthening a very ill patient 
 with a blood transfusion, then giving the cure or remedy. So many 
 children can be saved through love and training in spiritual strength 
 
 -85- 
 
and proper studies and guidance. " 
 
 Mommy uses a "method'^ She shows them where their 
 thinking starts and how this place makes us walk and talk and 
 make pictures in our minds. Then, after they realize this, that 
 inside of us in our brains, is a gift of God, a thinking box of cells 
 and nerves, given to us so that we can try to be like Him and 
 please Him, then the children can start making pictures and images 
 in their minds, first by closing their eyes and really seeing the 
 images. They really know, then, that they are able to think for 
 themselves, and they know where their thoughts begin and that they 
 have a wonderful tool in their little "noodle heads" to make orgi- 
 nal thoughts of their own. They "find themselves". Mommy says. 
 
 Then, when they realize they have great strength of their 
 own, of which they are the masters. Mommy begins to train them 
 in recognition and memory, with phonetics. It really works, too, 
 for reading. 
 
 Showing children how to think for themselves and showing 
 them how beautiful the world that God made can be, if we center 
 our thoughts around Him — that's the reason for all Mommy's 
 experiments with the program. 
 
 She is trying it out still, before she finally decides how 
 to use it best. She didn't get much time at the Music Academy 
 to work on it, because they were more interested in her voice, 
 there, in the way she sings. 
 
 But not long ago, she took the machine into two Baltimore 
 schools to try it out on the children, and get the results. 
 
 The children gathered around and, as the tape played the 
 recording, they listened and asked questions about the wind, and 
 the gong, and the familiar poetry and sang the popular songs with 
 Mommy, also the "Star Spangled Banner", and "The Lord's Prayer". 
 
 These were eleven-year old children. At the end, one boy 
 who never answers in class got up and walked over tp Mommy to 
 shake her hand. "Mrs. Wasserman, I want to thank you for the 
 whole class, for bringing something very beautiful to us here today. " 
 
 Another one got up and said, "I'm going to ask my father, 
 when I go home, to take down those books of Shelley's poetry that 
 no one in our house ever reads, and read them with me. " 
 
 So Mommy learned two things. A child wants to learn all 
 about music and poetry, and he wants to learn it like Mommy taught 
 it on the program, with the help of a parent. The children liked the 
 closeness between the mother and child and they liked the familiar 
 songs as well as the ones they heard for the first time, all woven 
 together like the different colors in the tabernacle - strands of blue 
 and red and purple, winding in and out and lots and lots of beautiful 
 music and sounds and poetry and love. 
 
 Every time you help a child to see God, you do good. 
 Mommy says. The little girl next door, Ann, just came to visit 
 Mommy. She's a very, very good and sweet little girl. She thinks 
 
 -86- 
 
a lot but mostly to herself, but she tells Mommy some of her 
 thoughts. 
 
 She was the last little girl I ever talked to. When I came 
 back from the hospital the first time, she came to see me. We 
 sat on the front porch and she said, "It's so very, very nice to 
 have Linda home again, " She was only three years old. 
 
 Then, when I went to the hospital again and never came 
 home except for the funeral, she wondered where I had gone and 
 Mommy told her with the Angels. Ann said, "Can you see her?" 
 Mommy said, "No, not yet." 
 
 She comes to see Mommy, to tell her about little Pear, 
 the little Chinese boy and the robin who sings, and the butterfly 
 sitting on the leaf of the tree. 
 
 For a few weeks this spring, Mommy saw a robin who 
 didn't chirp, but sang a tune, two notes repeated all the time. 
 So strange ! 
 
 Ann rolled her big gray- green eyes and her pointed little 
 chin raised up high as she looked at the highest limb of the huge 
 oak tree. "There's a butterfly sitting in a leaf!'" Mommy looked 
 and looked and finally she saw the butterfly. It was the color of 
 .Ann's eyes, with yellow along the sides. A beautiful creature ! 
 But hard to see ! 
 
 In the evening Ann brings her book, "Little Pear", about 
 the Chinese boy. She says it's a "magic" book, for at night all 
 kinds of colors appear in it to Ann - blue, green, "mostly red"^, 
 yellow, and purple, and orange, too. 
 
 The colors are all part of the "magic" says Ann, for she 
 alone can see them in the dark night, when they glow for her. 
 
 The mystery of the robin was cleared up when little Ann 
 explained she teaches "I pledge allegiance to the flag" to any bird 
 who will listen. This bird must have listened, because he sang 
 the first two notes of the song Ann sings with all the school chil- 
 dren. 
 
 It sounded like "Get up! Get Out'!" to Mommy and it 
 made her very restless because she was trying to finish the book 
 quickly and she never rested any more, A friend who came to 
 see her said, "I think I'd shoot that bird. Aren't you getting pret- 
 ty tired by now of getting up and getting out?" 
 
 Mommy took a trip to New York, when it was the time 
 of Pentecost, May 22, and she took along the pages she had writ- 
 ten on the book. She went to see some people about the radio pro- 
 gram, "Songs of the Centuries", that we worked out together but, 
 while she was in New York, she had another funny coincidence 
 happen ! 
 
 She got off a bus and went to a drug store to have a soda 
 at Schraft's. Before that, she had copied a list of twenty-five 
 names from a book about editors and publishers for writers. She 
 copied it very quickly from a list of a hundred or more, because 
 
 - 87 - 
 
the place was closing and it was almost 5:30. 
 
 When she had the 'soda, she sat next to a young woman 
 who wanted to be friendly e^nd talked to Mommy, She asked Mommy 
 what she was doing in New York and Mommy explained. She told 
 the stranger about ^he "Songs of the Centuries" and the young wom- 
 an was very interested. She said she was a teacher in the Now York 
 schools and thought the program was a wonderful idea. But she 
 thought the title should be changed to "Songs Since the World Began". 
 Mommy thought that was so clever of her, and she asked her name. 
 It was Madeleine. So in the morning, when Mommy looked at the 
 list, she saw someone named Madeleine. She decided to call her 
 first because of the very pleasant Madeleine in the soda store. 
 
 She went to see her, and she helped her for a while with 
 the story, telling her it should be mostly an Easter story. 
 
 Easter is my favorite time of the year, because it's fun 
 and it's happy and there are Easter eggs and Easter bunnies and 
 there is a song of God who loves us and sent His Son. 
 
 Mommy knows the song now, too, the way I always did. 
 It made me happy too, to see the flowers on the altar and then 
 the next Sunday, on April 12, to hear Mommy sing, the part that 
 announces the angel in "The Redemption", when the woman saw 
 the empty tomb where Jesus had lain. 
 
 "Behold, one that in face was like unto lightning, and was 
 arrayed in dazzling apparel, stood at their side, as they thought 
 thereupon. When the angel appeared, the women were frightened. 
 Then, said the angel to them: 
 
 'Why seek ye the living among the dead? Are the words 
 of the Lord now no longer remembered? But let your hearts be 
 glad, and full of comfort Ye are seeking the Lord, but He is 
 risen again. Behold! the very place where His body was laid. 
 His sacred limbs themselves have these grave clothes been swathing. 
 But depart, and tell His disciples He goeth into Galilee, according 
 as He said; there shall ye see Him again'. " 
 
 In May of 1951, Mommy was baptized by the Reverend 
 Mr, Cox in Emmanual, the Episcopal Church, the "Church of the 
 Angels". 
 
 On Easter of 1952, she was confirmed in the same church 
 by Bishop Noble C. Powell, and Easter of 195 3, she was singing 
 in this church. She thinks often about Mr. Cox's saying, "I believe 
 this training in music in California is being given you as a com- 
 pensation for losing Linda, " 
 
 In 1953 Mommy sang there in the 9:30 communion service 
 and had communion every Sunday, learning more and more through 
 the Holy Spirit. The choir, a young people's choir, is called the 
 St. Cecelia Choir and they wear deep red robes with white collars. 
 
 Every time she walked in there, she lived again the beauty 
 and the mystery of the path we followed to find Christ, our Saviour. 
 Mommy is learning like a little child, seeing things she never saw 
 
 - 88- 
 
before. She is "born again". 
 
 At 10:15, she walked one block over to the First Presby- 
 terian Church, where Dr. John Gardner is the minister. This 
 is a magnificent gothic church with a high steeple. It is one of 
 the oldest churches in the city. 
 
 When we first returned to Baltimore to live, I had to 
 have a tooth pulled out one Sunday. I was in pain. We went to 
 the Medical Arts Building downtown, to a dentist who happened 
 to be there that day. His name was Dr. DabrQwski, and he had 
 a little boy and a little girl that he loved and he was kind, and a 
 good dentist. 
 
 Afterwards, we waited for the #32 streetcar at a corner 
 opposite a church. I looked up at the steeple, towering high and 
 slender in the air, and said, "That almost reaches Heaven !'• I 
 stood there looking at it until the car came. The cornerstone had 
 said the church was made in 1763. It was very old. 
 
 When the strange incident occurred that brought Mommy 
 into that church to sing, she thought often of that Sunday with me. 
 
 One summer day in June 1952, she started out for an 
 audition at a Presbyterian Church. She had spoken to the secretary 
 who had spoken to the choirmaster, who was to hear her sing. 
 His name was Richard Ross. 
 
 It was on Park Avenue and she drove down this pleasant 
 old street in Baltimore, in a leisurely way. She stopped driving 
 w)ien she saw the church on the corner with the steeple. "Well, 
 this must be it!" And she got out of the car ! 
 
 As she walked up the steps, a man jumped out of a dec- 
 orator's truck. He walked up with her. "Is this the Brown 
 Memorial Church?", she asked, feeling sure it was. "Yes, I 
 believe so", he said. "Is Mr. Ross the organist here?" He said, 
 "I think so!" 
 
 He rang the bell and a pleasant lady opened the door. 
 Mommy waited at the entrance while she spoke to the man stand- 
 ing there. 
 
 They talked about the color to be used in painting the 
 entrance, then she said, "It's so very hot, won't you come into 
 the study?" They all went in and the two conducted and completed 
 the discussion of the decorating of the manse. 
 
 As he left alone, she ran after him. "Isn't she with you?", 
 she asked. "No", he said, "she asked for the organist. She wants 
 to see him. " 
 
 He left and she returned. Mommy believed that she was 
 the secretary who had arranged the appointment. She asked, "Is 
 Mr. Ross here? He is at the Brown Memorial Church. " 
 
 "But this is the church, isn't it? The man said so. " 
 
 "No, this is the First Presbyterian Church. I am Mrs. 
 Gardner, the minister's wife." 
 
 Well, they began to talk. They had left the same town in 
 
 -89- 
 
Illinois that we had lived in for ten years, just as we went to live 
 there. They had lost their beloved young son, in the war. 
 
 Mommy was told to get in touch with the choirmaster, 
 Miss Margaret P, Ingle, who summered in Massachusetts, and 
 who later gave Mommy a position singing in the choir. 
 
 The first Sunday that she sang, she was terrified, way 
 up in the massive choir-loft, overwhelmed by the new and great 
 spiritual experience. Just think, singing to God in one of His 
 churches ! And singing all of the great happiness and gratitude 
 for His gifts to her ! 
 
 Being at this church under the guidance she had there 
 and learning the wonderful heritage of music of the best composers 
 of religious music, has helped her in spiritual strength as has the 
 weekly communion in the Episcopal Church. 
 
 The first sermon she heard there was called "Faith 
 answers life". It was such a comfort to hear Dr. Gardner talk 
 about Billy Hicks, who had to go to the ship's loft, the lookout 
 tower of a ship at war, to send the signals. He was overwhelmed, 
 too, with fear. Guns were going off all around him. When another 
 neighbor ship saw signals coming, they were highly mystified. 
 For Billy Hicks was signalling to God. "Please, God, this is 
 Billy Hicks. I've never been up here before and I'm afraid. Make 
 everything all right!" 
 
 She felt much better. She was up in that choir- loft, and 
 she was sending my signals too. God gave her the confidence she 
 needed, when she sang alone, without ^he choir. 
 
 This Easter Mommy will sing at the Maryland Presby- 
 terian Church in Loch Raven. It was the Laird family's white 
 house before. We were in it my last Christmas on earth together, 
 in the living room. Easter is on April 6th, this year, in 1958. On 
 Holy Thursday, 1957, Mommy stopped to look in a bakery window. 
 There was an Easter cake, a hen made of cake with fluted icing, all 
 yellow, with red cockles. It was like a drawing I made of a toy hen 
 I had, that dropped eggs out of her side, little oval red eggs, and 
 cackled when the crank was turned, and she laid the little egg. 
 
 As she stood there, several little girls of about ten or 
 eleven years of age looked at the cake and exclaimed over it. They 
 were dressed in long white filmy dresses, with dark coats thrown 
 over, communion dresses. One little girl had long dark hair, and 
 they all carried red roses. 
 
 Mommy thought about William Blake's "Holy Thursday", 
 from his "Songs of Innocence", and how beautifully he describes 
 children at Easter-time service. 
 
 " 'Twas on a Holy Thursday, their innocent faces 
 
 clean. 
 The children walking two and two in red and blue 
 
 and green. 
 Gray headed beadles walk'd before with wands as 
 white as snow, 
 
 -90- 
 
'Til into the high dome of Paul's they like Thames 
 
 waters flow. 
 O What a multitude they seem'd, these flowers of 
 
 London Town, 
 Seated as companies they sit with radiance all their 
 
 own. 
 The hum of multitudes was there, but multitudes 
 
 of lambs , 
 Thousands of little boys and girls, raising their 
 
 innocent hands. 
 Now like a mighty wind they raise to heaven the 
 
 voice of song. 
 Or like harmonious thunderings the seats of heaven 
 
 among. 
 Beneath them sit the aged men, wise guardians of 
 
 the poor , 
 Then cherish pity; lest you drive an angel from 
 
 your door. " 
 Mommy started thinking about the moving picture of me 
 Sandra's mother took, when I waved good-bye, at the last part 
 of the movie, and there were all the red roses in back of me. 
 She remembered how I bought the clothes I wore and 
 picked them carefully, just as I did for my dolls, Robespierre 
 and Baby Snooks. I never spent too nauch because I wanted to 
 have money to give to anyone who really needed it. I bought 
 their socks and hats and a jacket for Robespierre in a store 
 called Schnaufer's in Towson. I went in with Mrs. Thomas, my 
 nurse, and she said, "You shopped wisely, Linda. You got such 
 good quality with your money you saved. " 
 
 I was very proud of my dolls in the new clothes I bought 
 them. I liked to save my money and shop for them and for Mommy. 
 
 On the last Mother's Day, in 1950, when I went to buy 
 a present, I made Mommy walk away from me in the store while 
 I bought her present with my own saved money, with an extra 
 sum for a beautiful package. Inside were three handkerchiefs with 
 the letter "E" in different colors, one green, one pink, one blue. 
 I just beamed because of her happiness when she saw the package ! 
 
 You see, now I was really grown-up. And when I had 
 to get shots and be a big girl when I got so very sick, I didn't want 
 to help myself feel better by making my dolls get shots, too! 
 
 I did that when I played with Mary Dee, who lived there a 
 few months , at the Chadford. We took a little wooden block and 
 put a phonograph needle in it and we gave our dolls shots every 
 time we bathed them and dressed them. We had Rexi Cross First 
 Aid Bandages and cotton out of a little green bottle for the sore 
 places of our babies. But I never did that to Baby Snooks or to 
 Robespierre. 
 
 I guess I was very grown-up when I left, because by 
 
 -91- 
 
Easter of 1950, I was thinking more and more about other things. 
 
 On my last Easter, Mommy and I sat in the car outside 
 a church and prayed. We both wanted to go in, but we didn't know 
 how. 
 
 We were looking at the Sunday paper, the magazine section 
 of the Baltimore American, It was a story about Golgotha. 
 
 That was a barren hill outside the holly city of Jerusalem. 
 The name means "resembling a skull". It was the Mount of Calvary. 
 
 We saw Jesus on the cross, with His mother weeping. 
 We read how Jesus was guilty of saying He was the Messiah and v/as 
 sent to Pilate to be judged, how His arrest and crucifixion was 
 ordered by Pilate. We read how Jesus stumbled and fell with His 
 crossbar and how Simon lifted His heavy cross. upon. his own 
 uhoulders. We thought about how His body must have gotten very, 
 very sore with places rubbed raw and thought how very hard it must 
 have been. Even the flowers must feel this. 
 
 William Engle wrote this story. It was very simply told. 
 Because of this, we felt a cold terror. It was described so clearly 
 we shuddered at the thought of so great a crime. 
 
 Even the fairest of all the flowers, the Orchid, must 
 'veep and wait to die because of His suffering in shame for the 
 cruelty to our Lord, and in sorrow, He gave us all the beauty we 
 have, all the flowers and the Sunshine, 
 
 Then we cried together when Mary suffered so as she 
 watched her Son's agony and we cried even more because of His 
 great compassion for her anguish. 
 
 I didn't quite understand then, why He died like that and 
 Mommy didn't know either. We talked about it. 
 
 I said, "It's wrong for people to think they are better than 
 others. It's wrong for them to think they know everything that's 
 right or wrong. Only God knows those answers. We are all human 
 beings and we should treat each other as though we are all equal, 
 no matter what color we are or what religion we believe in!" 
 
 Mommy sat and thought for a while, then she said, slowly, 
 "That's why Christ died, because we all have so many sins - pride, 
 hatred, greediness, cruelty." 
 
 Then I asked Mommy to explain more about this. How did 
 Christ die for us? But she didn't know much more - very little. 
 
 But all of a sudden we wanted to tell God how sorry we were 
 for all He suffered and we both said something that I have never said 
 before, and neither had Mommy, but she had tried to make God feel 
 better that all His suffering was not in vain. 
 
 She said, "I take Thee, God. the Father, and I take Thy son, 
 Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost to be with me. " 
 
 "Now, say it, Linda. " 
 
 I already believed and loved God and the words puzzled me 
 because I prayed always with my faith in my heart, not in anybody 
 else's words, for I always knew God, and was His child. Mommy 
 
 - 92- 
 
didn't really know the Creed, but she tried to say the few words 
 through -tears , to let Him know. 
 
 When I was not able to talk or to move in November, a 
 Catholic Priest came in to see me in the hospital. He came 
 because Mommy met a wornan whose husband was there and talked 
 to her about me and the things we thought about God. The woman 
 knew I was close to leaving. 
 
 He made a sign over me and said, "You want to get well, 
 so you can go back to school. Right, Linda?" 
 
 I lay very still, unable to move. Then I heard him say, 
 very low, "In the name of the Father, and the son, and the Holy 
 Ghost", and he whispered some other words I didn't hear. 
 
 I was a little bit bewildered and a little frightened. I 
 knew already, anyhow, that I would be leaving. 
 
 A few days before I left, a priest had said to Mommy, 
 "Offer her suffering up for the good of the world, against the sin. " 
 She was standing near the elevator and he passed by her, on the 
 fourth floor. She didn't know what he meant, then, because again 
 it was "offer suffering for the sins of everybody". She thought 
 and thought about this, and always will, for she feels better if 
 she thinks we are releasing good through accepting terrible suffer- 
 ing and giving it all to God, like the Tabernacle sacrifices, and 
 the Passover Lamb. 
 
 When we sat in the car that last Easter, our first, really, 
 we read about the ninth hour. The ninth hour in Biblical Times 
 was between 12:00 and 3:00 p.m. Jesus cried with a loud voice, 
 "Eli, Eli, Lamma sabacthani ? (My God, my God, why has Thou 
 forsaken me?)" We didn't know how soon, in eight months, I 
 would find my Father again. 
 
 The Easter of 1951, Mommy walked all the way down- 
 town, on Good Friday. She happened to pass Christ Church. The 
 Reverend Butts was the minister. She just turned her steps toward 
 the church and walked in. She didn't even have a hat on her head, 
 and she didn't even know she was supposed to. All she knew was 
 she wanted to go in. It was her very first Good Friday service. 
 She was remembering the vision, and sitting in the car the Easter 
 before, in 1950, and praying at Emmanuel, when she first went 
 there, to Mary as well as Jesus, asking her to pray with her as 
 they thought of all the terrible suffering in the world, and of her 
 Son and of me. 
 
 On Good Friday, 1953, April 3, Mommy sang with the 
 choir in the Presbyterian Church. She was very sad, thinking 
 about the terrible ordeal Jesus went through. 
 
 She thought about Him on the Crucifix and how He had 
 prayed that He might not have to go through the terrible pain and 
 how the angel came to Him in the garden at Gethsemane, near the 
 Mount of Olives, the night before, to strengthen Him for His ordeal. 
 
 All the while Mommy sings in churches, she thinks about 
 
 - 93- 
 
the Angels circling around and she remembers how they looked. 
 She can remember them almost as clearly as she did after she 
 saw them, when she made the painting in the high school. 
 
 One of the students was so interested in the painting, she 
 came up and asked Mommy to let her help tint the folds of the 
 white clothing draped around the angels. Mommy let her help 
 but she didn't tell her or anyone else in the class about the vision 
 
 and sometimes she's sorry they didn't know But it was a high 
 
 school class, and some of them might have been a little smart 
 about it so she just used it as a project lesson and let them help. 
 
 When Mommy sang, "Lovely appear over the mountain 
 vhe feet of them that preach good news of peace", she remembered 
 the feet of the Angels and how beautiful the Angels were in their 
 kindness to her. Mommy was doing just what she wanted to do! 
 
 That's what the girl in the art class at the high school 
 said when she saw the other painting Mommy made while she was 
 teaching there. The picture was of me in my ballet costume, 
 holding red roses, and dancing. The girl walked up and clapped 
 her hands and said, "She looks as though she's doing just what 
 she wants to do!" She was so full of glee for the child in the paint- 
 ing. 
 
 Mommy always wanted me to be happy and do the things 
 that little girls like to do - like looking at the birds, red birds 
 especially, and playing and dancing and singing and having parties 
 and lots of lovely books. 
 
 When I wanted to see my little friend Ford, we went all 
 the way up to Block Island. When Ford and I saw each other we 
 were a little bit shy at first because it was along time since we 
 saw each other. But then we remembered all our fun and good 
 times together, and we ran all over the top of Mohican Bluffs. I'm 
 glad we went, for I never saw him again. Mommy and I went to 
 Martha's vineyard, too, and we took the big ark Granddaddy gave 
 me with Noah and the dove and all the animals in it. We picked 
 bayberry and we rode all around the island. It was beautiful. 
 Granddaddy and Grandmommy both gave me lots of presents - a 
 music box, and beautiful figures in china for my room. Grand- 
 daddy teased me a lot, but we loved each other. 
 
 He always brought me boxes of lollypops and presents 
 when he bought his detective stories magazines that he liked so 
 much. Granddaddy was always joking and he liked to make fun 
 dancing the Highland Jig. He'd hop and twirl his foot around and 
 roll his eyes and whirl his fingers in the air and call out, "Hooray!" 
 He liked to tell all kinds of jokes and make pople laugh. 
 
 He liked little children a lot and he understood Mommy's 
 great love for me. She couldn't stand to see me or any other child 
 unhappy around her. 
 
 So she always gave me parties and let me play with my 
 friends and she wanted me to have pets. The pet I liked best was 
 
 -94- 
 
Squeaker. She was my dog and I named her after a little pig in 
 "Little Pig's Picnic". She grew up from a puppy into a very big 
 dog. When Mommy and I went to Baltimore for a visit, while 
 Daddy was in the navy, Squeaker was ran over and Mommy was 
 afraid to tell me. So Cammy told me and it hurt me worse than 
 if Mommy had told me. I told her that. I said, "But Mommy, 
 why didn't you tell me?" She said then she would never again 
 hide anything from me. 
 
 We both loved Squeaker and Mommy was very unhappy. 
 When we were getting ready to leave for Baltimore, Mommy said, 
 "Squeaker, go over and sit near Linda. " Squeaker put her paws 
 on Mommy's knees, looked in her eyes, and came over to sit 
 near me swinging on my swing and nodded back to Mommy. She 
 was like a person, and loved us very much. I wrote a story about 
 all my pets. 
 
 I loved Squeaker so very much. When she was a very 
 little puppy, my Daddy carried her home to me. She was the 
 baby of a neighbor's Springer Spantel, and a collie dog. The 
 Marcus Goldman family on Michigan Avenue in Urbana gave us 
 Squeaker. 
 
 There was a big sheepdog named Flash a few doors away. 
 Flash and Squeaker were very close friends. She ran on trips 
 v/ith Flash all the time while she was growing up, and Flash's 
 master taught Squeaker to run with him and Flash while he rode 
 his bicycle. Flash was much older and slow. Squeaker was 
 happy running. But I wish she hadn't gotten run over. We had a 
 wonderful doghouse made for her but she wouldn't stay in it. Mr. 
 Spencer, the carpenter, made it out of plywood Mommy had, with 
 a green shingle roof and we put straw and a blanket in it. 
 
 She was so kind to all the children. Everyone loved 
 Squeaker. When my little yellow chicken, that peeped and peeped 
 all the time, grew up and became a beautiful young white rooster. 
 Donna Lee Strong's bulldog killed it. Mommy spanked Squeaker 
 by mistake. She was sorry when she realized Squeaker didn't do 
 it. She should have known, because Squeaker was gentle. 
 
 Mr. Morrill, who is a veterinarian, and is Denny's father, 
 and lived across the street, said the chicken would be a rooster 
 with cockles and comb, but we had hoped it would be a hen, and 
 lay eggs. 
 
 Then I thought he might be a beautiful rooster with shiny 
 greenish purple feathers in his tail and bronze and red and bright 
 and shiny colors all over him, but he wouldn't have had all these 
 things. We couldn't eat it, anyhow, of course, when he was killed. 
 
 So we had a big funeral. All the children came. We 
 marched in a funeral procession and buried him, and marked his 
 grave. Squeaker went, too. 
 
 Squeaker used to come in the house and sit primly on the 
 fireplace hearth, straight up, watching us, on her best behavior. 
 
 - 95- 
 
She was usually muddy, for she loved the outdoors. She was very 
 careful with Mommy's things. She used to walk the two blocks to 
 the bus with us, and wait with us 'til we got on. She was a wonder- 
 ful, wonderful friend. There could never be another dog as good 
 as Squeaker was. We were lucky to have had her. 
 
 Mommy and I were sad for a long, long time because of 
 our misfortune. 
 
 But I was sad over lots of things because I didn't under- 
 stand enough about how God does things, and how everything on 
 earth has a meaning. These are called symbols. 
 
 Symbols are objects to express our belief with things we 
 see in the things that are unseen. They began a long, long time 
 ago, because people always knew there were great powers they 
 couldn't see. 
 
 The wind was one of them, for the ancient Hebrew people 
 knew about the four winds. The East and the West and the North 
 and the South winds made all the movements of air and weather. 
 
 Mommy used to talk about my being born in the March 
 v/ind, that came in like a lion and went out like a lamb. That's 
 a symbol ! 
 
 When I left, it was in the November wind, for not long 
 after that day, the winds blew and blew in a terrible storm. 
 Mommy saw the tall tips of the oak trees swaying and bending 
 'way over in the wind. She watched the way I did all the while I 
 was sick, and she felt very sad. 
 
 But now, she has learned the way I have, all about the 
 wind being the Holy Spirit coming to teach us, as He taught the 
 Apostles of Jesus. 
 
 She thinks now in symbols, too. It all began with the 
 vision of the angels and all the things that happened. 
 
 More and more she found out all about the wonderful 
 truth of Easter. 
 
 Easter means that Jesus, the Son of God, came out of 
 His grave like the chicken bursts out of the shell of an egg. That 
 is the symbol of Easter. It means that, in the beginning, God 
 planned it this way, because God decides everything . Easter is a 
 beginning of a closer nearness to God. 
 
 He knows the beginning in the end and the ending in the 
 beginning. 
 
 Easter comes at different times every year because the 
 crucifixion of Jesus, the Son of God, took place at the time of the 
 Jewish Passover. 
 
 The Passover dates are set by the moon and the lunar 
 calendar. Easter comes between March 21, the first day of spring 
 and April 25, when the time of the full moon comes, so Easter has 
 a solar calendar, set by the sun, our own calendar, and it has a 
 lunar moon calendar, both. 
 
 The Jewish day begins in the evening at sunset and ends 
 
 -96- 
 
at sunset, twenty-four hours later. 
 
 The Jewish year has twelve months and thirteen in the 
 leap year. The month has twenty- nine or thirty days. The new 
 moon starts the new month. 
 
 Passover is in the month of Nisan, beginning on the 15th 
 day. It lasts for a week and a day, eight days. Nisan is between 
 March 22 and April 22. The Latin and Greek word for Easter is 
 Pascha. This is a form of the Hebrew word for Passover, Pesach, 
 the Feast of the Passover, when the lambs were sacrificed in 
 remembrance of Moses' taking the Hebrew people out of Egypt, 
 out of slavery around 4,000 years ago. The name comes from 
 the angel's "passing over" the doors of the Jewish people and not 
 slaying their first-born, only the Egyptians' first-born. The 
 Hebrew people were delivered out of bondage then just as at E«Lster- 
 time all people are freed from slavery to sin, through Jesus' sac- 
 rifice. I went to Sunday School at the Jewish Temples in Urbana 
 and in Baltimore. I knew that I was learning more about God and 
 that in the Jewish religion we learn to love God more than we love 
 anybody, but I knew that I didn't learn the ending. 
 
 Mommy went to the Eutaw Place Temple Sunday School 
 when she was a little girl in Baltimore. I did too. 
 
 The beginning is in the Temple. The ending is in the 
 church. We must know both. We shouldn't know one and stop and 
 not learn the other and that is true of people in temples and syna- 
 gogues and people in churches, both. 
 
 Mommy has learned all about the Holy Land, the Promised 
 Land, and about the church in the beginning, the Tabernacle in the 
 wilderness. She never thought about these things before, but now 
 she can see them very clearly. She's lucky to have a wonderful 
 new world of hope and knowledge and faith. She reads the Bible 
 and history, believing in it with all her heart and soul and loving 
 God. 
 
 She knows that in the beginning God knew the end. In the 
 Christian churches, they need to know the beginning better, and in 
 the Jewish churches, they need to know the end as well as the be- 
 ginning. Then they will all see how God started the whole plan 'way 
 back in the days when Abraham first loved Him. The Bible tells us 
 of all the promises God made to Abraham and how He has kept them. 
 We must all read the Bible, for God spoke to the prophets because 
 He wanted us to have the Bible. 
 
 The Temple has a round dome like buildings in the Holy 
 Land. The dome on the State Capitol at Annapolis reminded me of 
 these domes. They look like the circle of heaven inside when you 
 look up at the ceiling 'way high above. The Rabbi says it encircles 
 us the way the heavens encircle the earth, so we must think of God. 
 
 The beautiful lights on the altar are the seven lights God 
 ordered for the tabernacle, to remind us to make the most of every 
 one of our seven days and remember that God made the earth in 
 
 -97- 
 
seven days. 
 
 The lighted candle that my cousins lit at Chanukah are to 
 remind us of the rededication of the temple after the Maccabees 
 won a battle. There is a story that a small jug of fine oil lasted 
 eight days for light in the Temple, although it was enough for only 
 one day. This is on the 25th of Kislev, around Christmas time. 
 
 Everything that God ordered in the Tabernacle is continued 
 in the Temple and the Churches, either in a symbolic way or the 
 same as it was when the Hebrew people carried the tent, the Tab- 
 ernacle, and the Ark of the Covenant, with them through the Wilder- 
 ness. 
 
 The prayers God told to Moses, the incense, the bells, 
 and the pomegranates on Aaron's robes, all continue today in one 
 form or another. We still smell, hear, and see the signs or symbols 
 of God's first Church in the Wilderness. 
 
 When three angels came to Abraham in his tent, he spoke 
 to them as God^ Abraham knew in the beginning about God the Father, 
 Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit. 
 
 When Mommy and I prayed together our one greatest prayer 
 we said, "Sh'ma, Y'israel, adonoy elohenu adonoy echod. " That 
 means, "Hear, O Israel, the Lord, our God, the Lord is one ." " We 
 said God three times. 
 
 This prayer is as old as the Hebrew people. It is the 
 prayer that God commanded, from the beginning. 
 
 God used symbols in lots of ways to teach us. A symibol 
 is a sign. The Lamb of God is a symbol of Easter. 
 
 The Passover Lamb is a symbol of the sacrifice of God's 
 Son to give us a release from the idea that in death we die. He 
 proved to us that we do not die. Like the butterfly, we have to 
 become brilliant and beautiful in our souls by staying inside a case, 
 the body, for a while. 
 
 The word death should really be changed, for it has the 
 wrong meaning now. 
 
 In the Talmud it says a person who has been ill may take 
 a new name to forget the illness in a new way of thinking, become 
 a new person. 
 
 Since Jesus came, the words "life" and "death" have a new 
 meaning. We know now death is a word that tells only the end, not 
 the beginning. 
 
 We would have kept on not knowing about God's great secret, 
 that He prepared us for in the very beginning, if Jesus Hadn't come 
 to teach us. God has different ways of keeping us close to Him, once 
 we want to be near Him very much. Suffering is one big way. That's 
 why we have to suffer, so we'll turn to Him God is the only help we 
 have, when we can't find any help on earth. If we turn to Him, He 
 helps us. 
 
 Wouldn't it be terrible if He didn't, if He didn't want us, and 
 didn't believe us, whenever we came back to Him? If he rejected us? 
 
 -98- 
 
Suppose He treated us the way we treated Him? He wanted 
 us to believe in His beloved Son, in whom He was well pleased. We 
 must always believe in His wisdom. We must do what He has plari- 
 ned for us in the beginning to fulfill His designs for us. Then He is 
 happy and we are happy. 
 
 Hallowe'en means hallowed Eve "or all Hallows Eve". It 
 is the eve of All Saints Day, l^ovember 1. October 31, my last 
 Hallowe'en, I was coming very near to my Father again. Now I 
 really know the meaning of Hallowe'en. The reason why we play 
 tricks and do mischievous pranks then is that Hallowe'en is related 
 to an old, old festival, much older than the Druids, who celebrated 
 in honor of the sungod. The Romans held a feast about the first of 
 November, in honor of Pomona, Goddess of fruit trees. The Druids 
 had the festival of Saman. 
 
 When the people becajne Christians, the early church 
 fathers let them keep the old feast of Samhai^i, who was the wicked 
 Lord of Death, but kept it in honor of all the saints. The eve of 
 the festival of fun and celebrations came to be called Hallowe'en". 
 
 The name comes from the old English word 'halwe' or 
 holy. 
 
 The Feast of All Saints comes on November 1. The eve 
 is on October 31. Bonfires were lighted in ancient Hallowe'en 
 celebrations . 
 
 So two dates were combined into the calendar. That's how 
 many old festivals were kept whose dates became remembrance 
 dates. 
 
 Mommy's learned more about all the symbols and saints 
 and their emblems, also, and miracles, too, since one day she 
 found a drawing I made of L'Princess Sabra" , and turned over the 
 page to see "St. George and the Orange Tree". 
 
 She began to use her thoughts; not only about symbols, 
 but her imagination and her foresight, too. Looking ahead! 
 
 She wondered if the orange tree was a remembrance of 
 the orange groves that I saw in California. She went on to learn 
 about the saints and their miracles, their lives. 
 
 Mommy has been following the instructions to go back 
 and look up the history of the Church, because she never stops 
 trying to learn it all. Being with children a lot helps her to see 
 how God wants us to think. We have to think in symbols, too. 
 Everything around us is a symbol. The things we see all mean 
 something much more real than our eyes tell us. 
 
 God is everywhere. He is in the trees, in the oak trees, 
 symbols of power and strength and eternity. He is in the birds, 
 symbols of the soul. He is in the squirrels, scratching away for 
 the fruits and acorns. They are symbols of forethought, knowing 
 ahead the things for God. They are symbols of spiritual striving, 
 always being busy to go higher to God. They are symbols, when 
 they sit and watch and wait, of meditation of God's Divine Word, 
 
 - 99- 
 
and all His things of earth, part of Him. 
 
 All the while we pray, we are remembering the days 
 before Jesus died, and the day that He arose from the grave. 
 That is really Easter, 
 
 One short period of a week and a day is Holy Week and 
 Easter, The Sunday before Easter is called Palm Sunday, when 
 Jesus rode back into Jerusalem after he had finished teaching in 
 the smaller cities and village of Palestine. He came back in 
 triumph, but riding on the lowly donkey. 
 
 Palms were waved before Him and Hosannas were shouted. 
 Hosanna means "Save, I pray!" On this day we are told "Thy King 
 Cometh unto Thee. " 
 
 There are Holy Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday. 
 Then there is Holy Thursday, Maundy Thursday, the Lord's Last 
 Supper. This was not the main Passover meal but the evening 
 after the First Day of Unleavened Bread, for the Passover meal 
 was eaten at sunset on the next day, Friday. The Paschal Lamb 
 was slain at 3:00 p.m. on Friday afternoon. Christ died at 3;00 
 p.m., the same time, so that the crucifixion took place on the Day 
 of Preparation, or Parasceve , when the lamb was slain but not 
 eaten until after sunset. This is the Second Great Passover freeing 
 all the human race, through the offering of God's own sacrifice, 
 His Beloved Son, 
 
 On Friday, Jesus was crucified. At the moment He died 
 there was darkness, there were earthquakes, graves opened, and 
 the great veil covering the entrance to the Holy of Holies of the 
 Temple was split in two from top to bottom. 
 
 God's Holy Spirit, the Shechinah, the Radiance of God, 
 left the Temple, out from the Holy of Holies of the Tabernacle, 
 from between the Golden Cherubim guarding the Ark of the Covenant, 
 at the very moment of the Paschal sacrifice, the sacrifice of the 
 Lamb for Passover, and the moment when Jesus died, the same 
 moment, three o'clock. 
 
 Then on Saturday, it is the Holy Sabbath, or Easter Eve. 
 During this day, Jesus rested in the tomb, until the Sabbath was 
 over. The Jewish Day of Rest is Saturday. The Jewish Sanhedrin 
 set guards by the sealed stone door to the tomb so that Jesus' 
 disciples would not steal His body. 
 
 On Easter Day, Sunday, the first day of the Jewish week, 
 the women came to anoint His body. They found the guards asleep, 
 the tomb opened, and the body gone. The linen bandages it had been 
 wrapped in were on the floor near where He had lain. Then they 
 saw two angels in a brilliant light. "Christ is Arisen!", they said. 
 
 Now I know all about Easter. So does Mommy. She and I 
 want everybody else to know how we're put here to learn to be 
 children of God, and how God sent Jesus, His Son, to teach us. 
 
 By Easter day, April 6th, 1958, the story will be ready, 
 and we can tell everybody about it. First, how the Bible tells us, 
 
 - 100- 
 
'For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, 
 that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have ever- 
 lasting life" (John 3:16). 
 
 Second, how Jesus is God's sacrifice for sin. All that 
 the Temple sacrifices symbolized has been fulfilled by the Lord 
 in His sacrificial death. 
 
 John, the one who was baptizing the Jews in the Jordan 
 River, said about Jesus, "Behold the Lamb of God, Who taketh 
 away the sin of the world, " 
 
 The Temple is gone. God still requires sacrifice for 
 sin. In the death and in the resurrection of Jesus, we have this 
 sacrifice, forever, not for just each day, to be sacrificed over 
 and over, like the sacrifices in the Temple. Sin leaves a heavy 
 heart until its punishment has been met in the sacrificial death 
 of another. We all sin; we must all have a sacrifice to offer God. 
 
 The most important part of Easter is our thoughts about 
 this and joy and happiness that God gave us our Sacrifice for Sin, 
 Jesus. Everything symbolizes this. We are given new life, and 
 flowers at Easter mean life coming from death. 
 
 In the Holy Land there are many reminders of the time 
 of Jesus, but we must study all the things that were there when 
 He lived if we can understand how things began. 
 
 "Linda didn't know Bethlehem. How did that idea sud- 
 denly come to her?" That's what Mommy was thinking. This 
 was the springtime of the year 1950, before I became ill, when 
 it was almost Easter, We were driving along in the northern 
 part of the city along Loch Raven Boulevard. It was a sunshinny, 
 fairly warm, but a little-bit breezy day. At the top of a high hill, 
 we saw a beautiful church. The Immanuel Lutheran Ghurch, half- 
 completed, and many apartment dwellings nestled in the flat ground 
 below, some distance away, with a large area of empty grass be- 
 tween the homes and the church. Suddenly, I said, "Why, it's like 
 looking down on Bethlehem!" After I left her, Mommy wrote a 
 poem: 
 
 The stars twinkle on, the rains still fall, 
 The leaves flutter round, like a weary dream, 
 The sun still shines, the birds still call. 
 The moon glows with its yellowed beam 
 A little girl has left us all. 
 
 She loved the stars. 
 
 She loved the rain, 
 
 She loved the leaves. 
 
 The sun, the birds, the moon. 
 
 Loyal, fair and kind was she. 
 
 And, oh, so wise - for one so small. 
 
 Once and a thousand times again 
 
 - 101 - 
 
We talked of everything - of God - and she 
 
 said to me , 
 In her dear reflecting way, 
 When she saw a town nestled 
 In the valley of hills on a lovely day, 
 "That's like looking down on Bethlehem!" 
 Since the vision and the revelations around the church 
 of the angels, other revelations have come about in an equally 
 mysterious way, to Mommy. The study of the symibolism, the 
 rituals, the significances of our great Hebrew- Christian religion, 
 have brought about certain conclusions in her mind. 
 
 From an automobile accident the summer of 1952, a 
 seed, a dream of me in swaddling clothes, a Baptist evangelist, 
 the Catholic Bishop from India, the books a Presbyterian minister 
 has given her to read, through all the Christian churches. Baptist, 
 Presbyterian, Lutheran, Episcopal, Methodist, Christian Scientist, 
 Catholic, and the others, Mommy has found help. Some of this she 
 tells in the two next books after this one. 
 
 Most of all, through the daily and weekly growing know- 
 ledge of the pattern of our life since our father Abraham first walk- 
 ed the earth, divinely led to lead his descendants to worship our 
 One God and blessed, the vista of an unfolding promise lies ahead 
 of my Mommy, and I share it all with her, and help her to learn. 
 
 "VERILY, VERILY, I SAY UNTO YOU, 
 HEREAFTER YE SHALL SEE HEAVEN 
 OPEN, AND THE ANGELS OF GOD 
 ASCENDING AND DESCENDING UPON 
 THE SON OF MAN. " 
 
 (John 1: 51) 
 
 THE END 
 
 - 102 - 
 

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