April 10, 1941 - Post 6

I was six years old; Meg was 4, and Carol had turned 2 in January of that year. Mama would be 40 in August and had three girls aged 6 and under. Daddy was working for the CCC, gone for at least a week at a time, perhaps getting home on weekends. Mama had her hands full, I'm sure!


We were living in Las Vegas, NM, in a ground-floor apartment carved out of the home of one Colonel Henry (the only name by which I ever knew the man.) Although I don't recollect exactly, I'm sure our quarters were small and pretty cramped, only what Daddy could afford on what he earned. Although Mama had been an experienced secretary and bookkeeper before she and Daddy married, she didn't work, of course. Married women with children just didn't, in that day and age. Besides, in the small community of Las Vegas, jobs were probably few and far between.

Mama was a church-going woman, and a Southern Baptist, to boot, so I'm sure we girls and Mama were in church about every time the doors were open. On Wednesday evening, April 9, we had a rare treat; the church pastor personally came to take us girls to the Wednesday evening service (for some reason, Mama stayed home) -- in his car, so we didn't have to walk. A real treat! Our family owned a vehicle, a 1937 black Chevy 4-door sedan, but Daddy had it all week up in the mountains at the CCC camp. After the service, the pastor drove us back to Colonel Henry's house, and I recall that Daddy came outside and spoke a few hushed words to the pastor through the open window of the car. Why Daddy was home in the middle of the week was a bit of a puzzlement, but we didn't worry about it much, because the pastor told us he was taking us back home with him to spend the night! Great treat!

The parsonage of the Baptist Church in Las Vegas was part and parcel of the church, being an apartment of sorts located in the tower of the church building. There were only one or two rooms on each floor, and I think the tower was about three stories high. Although I don't recall the layout exactly, I do remember that the bedrooms were on an upper floor, and in one of those, the pastor's wife put all three of us girls into a bed, Carol being snuggled between me and Meg.

I don't recall the passage of the night, or whether we had breakfast at the parsonage, but the next morning, the pastor drove us back home, where we were greeted by an tired Daddy, an exhausted Mama and a new baby brother, Edward Wilson Griffith!

It took me several years to figure out why Daddy was home and why Mama didn't go to church that night!

More about Eddie in subsequent posts. Ta! for now.