They all had a common bond in that their husbands were assigned overseas. Most had husbands in Viet Nam.
I recall how some did not drive while others could drive but did not have vehicles. In our neighborhood, mothers who could drive would carpool with those who could not drive or loan their vehicles out.
I recall how one of our neighbors whose mother was British took care of us when my mother went to Wichita, KS for the day to be naturalized as a US citizen. It was the only day I remember that our mother was not home when we returned from school. I recall that afternoon coming to our neighbor's home for TV dinner and watching the news until our mother returned for us.
Those families with teenagers would babysit for the younger children while mothers went shopping.
I do not remember mothers getting together to socialize much. I suspect they were too busy trying to keep their households going. Though I do remember an evening when one of the mothers, sitting under a tree and talking with others, got hit by a long fly ball from our softball game. Fortunately, she was only dazed and did not delay our game too long. I think it was her daugher's neighborhood boyfriend who hit the long flyball. I think they broke up shortly thereafter.
Tomorrow, Sundays in Schilling Manor.
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Interesting your observation about the mothers not socializing much - I found this to be the case as well. Mom had 1 friend, a lady next door, that she would go out with for drinks, but that was it, there was no real sense of community - at least, not while we were there.
ReplyDeleteThanks so very much for your posts on all of this about life at Schilling, they are greatly appreciated!
The mothers on my street did socialize. We would have never gone to Shilling Manor, but mom cooked this up with the downstairs neighbor while we were still in Germany, our previous post. The downstairs neighbor ended up living on another street just diagonally behind the next house on our street.
ReplyDeleteDad's pay allotment paperwork didn't get done, so we ran out of food. Mom was tight with money. This wasn't supposed to happen. The Mar's message center didn't help much. This event is probably the thing that made Shilling a not so good place for mom. Her friend wasn't there yet.
None of the mother's on my street had jobs and I remember them coming over for coffee in the mornings. Several of them would sit in lawn chairs in the evening and talk. My mom took a ceramics course that was offered by the base. Every house that I went into had ceramics decorations everywhere. I had a crush on a teenage girl that lived across the street whose mother was British. Their last name was Simon-wonder if it was the same lady?
ReplyDeleteWe lived on Lansing Court, a cul de sac. Mrs. Payne lived across the street, the Moms socialized a LOT on our street. They would all put out chairs and sit in the yard. They would have coffee together sometimes too in the mornings. My Mother is British. I remember when the big tornado came through, probably 1969, there were airplane parts strewn about by the airstrip. So many memories start coming back when I think about it. My older Sister is Sandy and my name is Sherrie. Would love to connect with some of my old friends.
ReplyDeleteI guess I must’ve done something wrong with my previous message but we lived there in the early 70s maybe 71 to 73 or 74 I was in kindergarten there and went to the sunflower school. My dad was in Thailand. At the time the ray family lived across the street from us where we lived at 101 Trenton Court. Also, my mom was a cheerleading coach for us girls we were all little I’m guessing it was probably the summertime games or some thing because it was young boys playing football. I don’t have a lot of memories of anything but going to school and I remember that very little. However, I do remember having to sleep underneath the stairs during tornado warnings with the nasty June bugs. I still don’t like to hear the sirens to this day.
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