I was eight years old in 1936 when this school picture was taken. We moved around so much in those days that I was only at two schools at picture taking time, the first grade and this one when I was in the fourth grade. I started school when I was four so I was always younger than the other kids in my class. Let's look at the picture.

What do you think of my holey sweater? That was my first sweater ever. It was a light grey and so soft. So what, that the collar and cuffs were stretched out, I didn't notice that. It was a blessing to be poor and not know it. Those were hard times. Everyone we knew was in the same boat. The problem for us was that my dad was too proud to admit it.

The poor kids at school were given a milk and graham cracker break mid-morning. I only had the chance to be part of that once. Someone wasn't at school that day. I was selected to fill in. Oh, that milk tasted so good. It was ice cold. The graham cracker was a treat as well. It was my first one. Graham crackers were not on Mom's limited grocery list.

Back to the picture. Do you like my curls? Mother had put my straight mousey hair up on metal rollers the night before. They hurt like the dickens to sleep on. Those curlers aren't around anymore. Everything is plastic now. Mother did not know how to make pin curls and a perm was out of the question. I thought I looked fantastic!

There was another thing about that school. Every morning the teacher opened the class day the same way. She had a big black book on her desk. She would open it and read a few sentences from it. Then we were to bow our head and say a silent prayer, whatever that was. Finally, we stood and did the pledge to the American flag that stood in the corner near the blackboard.

I understood the pledge, but what was so special about that big black book? What was so important about bowing our heads and saying a silent prayer? What was a silent prayer? I didn't know and was afraid to ask. That was my first introduction to the Holy Bible. It would be several years before I figured out, for instance, what John 3:16 meant. I finally decided that John was a book in the New Testament. The three was chapter three and sixteen was the sixteenth sentence in that chapter. That took a while, too. Mother, raised Catholic, didn't know and I didn't dare ask Dad. He had said he had enough religion growing up and wasn't interested.

I only wore that sweater once. Mother always washed with hot water and Fels Naphtha soap. Hot water shrunk that wool sweater to almost doll size. It would be many years before I had another sweater. That precious sweater lives on in my memory.