26 Jan 1945 – Friday
Went to school. Practice our play in the morning but not at noon. Went to the hopilit right after school with Frankie. I couldn’t believe my eyes cause Ned was in there. Mom went to the hisipitl. Ned was suppose to go but slept from 7:00 to 9:00. Jack and Marge brought over the kids for me to take care of. Dad isn’t feeling so good. Grant and Marion are to sleep. I’m going to sleep down-stairs with mom tonite. Ned isn’t felling so good.
[Ned had been sick with scarlet fever. He apparently got to come home from the navy because my grandmother learned of his sickness in a letter she received four days before. She was obviously not expecting him home so soon. And I still wish I knew what had been wrong with her dad.]
27 Jan 1945 – Saturday
Got up at 10:30. Listen to the programs. Went over town with Frankie and Hines. Frankie got a new dress. We went to the Michigan and saw “Three Men in White” with Van Johnson. Found a dollar bill on the bus. Went to Town Club. Had a wonderful time. Dance with Sikipt, Tonkin, Pat, a boy named Bud, & the milk boy at North. Oh. Golly. Mr. Taner brought us home. Had a hamburger. Went to bed.
My response:
You know, my grandmother was always the one I felt I needed to behave in front of. You know, the one that on the way there your parents would repeatedly tell you to not touch anything? That was their house. As I got older, I felt that I always had to be so proper so she wouldn’t be upset with me. I had such an old fashioned idea of how she wouldn’t want my sister or me to date until we were at least 16, if not older. Now I see her teenage years and I realize I really didn’t know her at all. It makes me sad to think I had carried such assumptions around with me and just never asked her about what her teenage years were like. Not that going out and dancing at 15 is such a big deal but to me, from my assumed-old-fashioned-grandmother, this is a bit surprising. I’m glad to see that she wasn’t what I had thought but I’m sad that I had thought that for too long and that she had passed before I really got the chance to know her.