Family History Chapter 2

Our home in Detroit while I was just a child was next door to a Polish family that had two little girls about my age. I remember being in our back yard and they would be in thier yard and neither of us could speak English, so we would communicate by making sign language. When we became more friendly we would go to each others houses and we would play together. I soon learned to speak Polish quite fluently and sometimes when I would come home I would tell my Mom all that went on at our neighbor's house.

When my mother finally put me in kindergarten, I was almost 7 years old. I couldn't speak English and was so embarrassed, but I asked the teacher if I could go to the bathroom, in italian, she must have understood me and let me go. When I left the room I ran outside and went home. My mother was shocked that I was able to find my way home.

I finally learned to speak some English and after starting public school, my mother had me transfered to a Catholic school and I was put back a grade. After a short time, my mother's sister Rose's son Gregory, known as "Gorie" came to Detroit from New York to tell my parents about the Church of Jesus Christ. When my mother joined the church, she had me transferred back to a public school. Well, guess what? I was put back another grade. What was this anyway, don't the cathlic and public schools want anyone transferring back and forth?

We lived in a nice two story house on Cameron Street. We had a nice entry room that led into the living room and into the kitchen, a dining room and three bedrooms and a bathroom upstairs and a full size basement where my mother would do the laundry and canning of tomatoes and sauces of various kinds. We had a nice back yard where my dear father would plant all kinds of fruits and vegetables. He also kept many pigeons in the garage.

One block away from our home was the public school I ended up in, it was called "Dwyer School" and went up to the 8th grade. I would have loved to go to High school but because of my age I didn't want to go anymore so I ended up working at a five and dime store in a town about 5 miles away from home. I would take the bus to and from work. Sometimes I would work till 9:00P.M. This one night when I got off the bus I crossed the street, which I always did to walk along the side of the school fence, because at the corner where the bus stopped there was a large apartment house and the doorways to the entrances were always open and I was afraid to walk past it by myself.

This one night while I was walking home along the school fence, I kept hearing a noise like paper was blowing in the wind. It wasn't windy at all, it was a nice summer night. I kept ignoring the sound but it kept getting louder and louder, so as I turned to see where this paper was, I saw a man coming out of the apartment toward me. Directly across the street from where I was, lived an Italian family and as I ran across, my legs got so weak that I thought my legs were going to buckle up
under me, but I made it to their door and I was able to call my mom. She came to get me carrying a large rolling pin under her arm. Thank God, we made it home safely. One of our Lord's angels must have been watching over me.

A few months before that happened, my Father was walking on that same side of the street going home, he was attacked by two men, one had his arm around his neck while the other one took his wallet. Thank God they didn't harm him. That area had gotten very bad.

My brother Bill's father in law bought a two story home on the east side of Detroit so that we could move away from that area. So Bill and his family moved on the first floor and my parents and I moved into the second floor.