Chapter 17 of Tales That I Can Remember by Elsie Swagerty Burton
It was while I was going to Roosevelt Junior High that I met Ada Burton through Ester Ruedger, a friend I made in Home Room Class. I felt Ada only tolerated me because she hardly had a choice since Ester had me with her at lunch and other odd times.
On my 15th birthday Ada announced that her sister-in-law had had a baby girl that morning. After school that day I went with her to visit the baby and mother. The baby was Elaine and the mother Ruth, my future niece and sister-in-law. The baby impressed me as being the most beautiful new born I had ever seen.
It was during that year, Ada had an appendectomy and because of complications she was out of school for an extended period of time. Esther and I went to her house to visit. On that occasion I met Harry. He was such a shy person. I felt a kindred spirit.
Soon after Ada recovered she and her family moved to Palo Alto. I was devastated. I despaired that I would ever have a chance to date. I was this plain Jane to start with and secondly, I lived so far out of town there was no chance anyone would want to see me so much that he would journey so far just for me. Now the only prospect was moving away before I could even find out if he were a candidate. Then one day during that summer I got a note inviting me to a party at Ruth’s home, also in Palo Alto. I don’t remember how the details were worked out but I got to go.
Well, that party was quite an education to me. Most everyone smoked, even the women, very few smoked in my large extended family and of those who smoked, it was only the men. Everyone but three or four of us drank hard liquor and goodly amounts I soon tired of the activities, Harry and Ada did too. They didn’t drink either. We went for a short walk. I remember the fresh air was so welcome.
It so happened that that evening was but a few weeks before my sixteenth birthday. For some freakish reason I cannot fathom now, I wanted the phrase “Sweet Sixteen and never been kissed” to apply to me. Here I was so close to the time when it would apply, I persisted even though there were repeated requests for kisses all the way back to San Jose From Palo Alto. Afterwards, I called myself all sorts of a fool because I feared I had blown my one chance for a ‘fella.’
Soon after that evening the Burton family moved back to San Jose. There were more parties. I spent overnights with Ada and she visited me. I spent overnights with Helen Bronson too. She and her brother Bill and sister Norma and their mother and father were vey close to all of us. I remember that Helen and I would sneak western magazines into bed and read them by flashlight under the covers. Such innocent wickedness! Nobody told us they were “bad” but they had swear words in them so we knew, without being told, we shouldn’t read them.
I remember a Sunday School teacher in particular who was not a great deal older than we girls. She asked us what we wanted to study and we told her, “The Bible.” She made a very thorough effort of it herself. As I remember it she outlined the history of the Jewish people and researched so that she took excerpts from different books of the Bible that told the history in sequence. It was quite a work but beyond our appreciation. We loved her anyway just for herself and her caring.
She was married on Easter Sunday. A group of facilities from the church had gone to Alum Rock Park for a picnic and some of us went to the wedding in the afternoon. It was on that day Howard Claypool started showing an interest in me. For years I had admired him and his brother Ralph who both sang in the choir. I had day dreamed about just such a day. When I dared to have the dream going really well, it was Ralph whom I envisioned, but Howard would do just fine. Now when it really happened I had already met and was falling in love with Harry. What a dilemma. I did go to a few church functions with him but he soon determined my interests were elsewhere.
Swagerty-Aldrich Family Web Site 