Continued from John's Page i

I don't remember the year , but a big snow storm hit, it was lot of shoveling to do and the trolley cars were just about running but was the only transportation we had as the Great Depression had hit in 1929 and we went from riches to rags, so to speak. Dad held the family together by doing odd jobs, the car was sold and later my parents lost the house. I got my first bicycle that way, Dad did some work for a family down the street and part of his pay was an old re-built bicycle. It was not much of a bike but I had it for many years.
This part I remember very clearly, it was the summer of 1933, I was 7 years old that July when I had visited with a family in New Paltz, New York, they had a farm there and it was wonderful for me to go as I had never been on a farm before, they raised chickens and there was a river that flowed behind the house where we went swimming. I would go with them to the chicken house to gather the eggs, there was only one problem, they placed glass eggs in the nest to encourage the chickens to lay more eggs. I could not tell the difference between the glass eggs and the real ones but I was not to dumb as the chickens couldn't tell the difference either.

It was about the middle of July when disaster hit. I used to be the fastest kid on the street and had no trouble playing hide and seek as no one could catch me. But then I started to slow down and became winded very fast, could hardly run a half a block and I was pooped. Then it was on a Saturday morning and I was to weak to get out of bed by 9 o'clock in the morning. My mother knew something was wrong and checked to see if I had a fever and I sure did, it was over 104 degrees. The fever was to remain for 7 days and I ended up in the Englewood Hospital where it was to take another 4 days to start bringing it down for a total of 11 days.
I had what was known then as double lobar pneumonia, fluid in both lungs. In those days there were none of the miracle drugs that we have today and there are still a lot of people who die from pneumonia these days. I was to stay in the hospital until my 8th birthday on August 23, 1933 at which time the nurses gave me a birthday party and a going away party at the same time as it was the day I went home. They made it very clear to the other children that we do not give parties everyday. After I got home I had to rest everyday about 3 o'clock for a half hour. I also had to drink an eggnog each day, the milk man would bring what was known as "raw milk", this was straight from the cow to me and was not processed in anyway. I attended the Leonia Grammar School and  my class was on the top floor of the old building but due to Dr. Tyson's request I attended the third grade in the new building which was on ground level. I only went to school in the morning and took the trolley car to school but I had to walk down the hill on our street to get the trolley going up the hill. I was allowed to walk home as it was all down hill or level. This was for the first part of the school year, the second half I could go all day.

This is was actually written January 1988 and was to give my children an idea of what it was like in my early days.