Erin Darling,

I’ve decided that the best way to describe my childhood is to start with some of the first things I can remember.

My mother’s name was Alvina Damis.  She was born on the East side of Manhattan near Chinatown in 1894. Mama had three brothers and four sisters. I was named after her youngest sister, Mildred Carmella. When I was little, “Millie” was a popular name but Mama told me never to answer to any other name than Mildred.  

My father’s real name was Vincenzo Chimenti.  He was born in Italy in 1894 and came to America when he was six years old. When he started school, the teachers told him that his name was “James,” so that’s the name he used.  He never finished school and went to work in a shoe factory at a very young age.  He loved music but his father wouldn’t allow him to have lessons.  Grandpa told Papa that music would lead to a “fast life.”

My earliest memory is of living at 352 59th Street in Brooklyn.  It was a four-story building and my mother’s parents, Mama and Papa Damis, owned the whole thing.  They lived on the third floor.  

My mother’s brother Uncle Pete lived on the first floor with his children, Margaret, Theresa, Anna, and Nicholas.  My cousins Frances, Vera, and Betty lived on the second floor with Aunt Mildred.  I lived on the fourth floor with my parents and my two sisters.  My sister Rose was two years older than me and Muriel was three years younger.

My brother James, who we all called Jim, was born on March 13, 1926.  Rose and I sat on the stoop waiting for the doctor to come and deliver the baby. When the doctor arrived, Rose said to me, “The baby is in the black bag.”  I wasn’t sure if I believed her, but she was proved correct several hours later when we were called in and told we had a baby brother.

I loved our building.  Between school friends and cousins, the halls were always filled with children.  We lined up our dolls and played school on each floor’s landing and skated up and down four flights of stairs.  We played board games and jacks on the front stoop and baseball in the streets. I even remember sledding down 59th street during the winter months into piles of snow.

During the summer, the girls would play hopscotch and jump rope.  I was the best in the neighborhood at double-dutch.  I always wanted to learn to ride a bicycle, but my parents thought it was too dangerous.  We didn’t have air conditioning, so at night we kept cool by sitting out on the fire escape or going up on the roof.

Sometimes I played card games in the evening with my Aunt Mildred while we waited for the men to get home from work.  Aunt Mildred liked to listen to programs on the radio like The Shadow and Amos and Andy.  She had a lot of Victrola records and she would sing for us.  She had a beautiful voice.

My cousin Vera and I were the same age and we were best friends. We went to the elementary school around the corner, P.S. 140.  Vera and I did everything together.  On the weekends and during summer vacation, we played games and went to the movies for five cents.  Sometimes, we saw vaudeville shows for ten cents.  At lunchtime during the school week, we would walk from school to our building and have lunch with Mama.

One time, Mama told me and Vera to watch Muriel, who was about six years old.  It was a nice day, so we went outside to play hopscotch.  A man came up to us and asked us if we would like to earn ten cents each.  This was a lot of money in those days, so of course we said we were interested.  

The man gave us a big black suitcase and told us to take it to the docks and deliver it to the Steamship Bremen.  We agreed — even though we knew we were not supposed to go anywhere near the boatyard — and he put the suitcase in our Red Ride wagon.  He gave Vera a dime and said he would pay me the rest when we got back.  

Well, someone must have seen the man talking to us and told my mother because when we got back from the docks, Mama was waiting on the stoop for us.  It was the only time I can remember being spanked, except for one other time when I refused to take my cod liver oil.  We never saw the man again and I never got the ten cents he promised me.