At five years and four months of age (according to my mother's entry in my baby book), my big adventure began.

"School?", I remember asking Mother, "You mean real school, like Billy? Will I be in the same room with Billy?"

"Yes, real school, with books and pencils, just like Billy did when he was your age", she smiled as she told me all about the great day. "But you will be in the Primer class. You'll have lots of friends and learn how to read and write and do arithmetic. You'll like it!" she promised. I went to bed that night dreaming of the big red brick building where my brother went to school.

Mostly what I remember about that first day was my real disappointment at being in a school that was just a house with a big front porch and steps going up from the sidewalk. There was a long hall from the front door to the back door and it had coat hooks and shelves on both sides. It smelled funny too, like wet blankets when they come out of the washing machine. There were two doors in the hall, one into Sister Devota's room. I don't think I ever found out where the other door went.

The notes in my baby book say the date was January 3rd, 1933, the school was Saint Patrick's and my teacher was Sister Mary Devota. I do remember her. She wore the same kind of clothes all the sisters did when we saw them in Church on Sunday mornings. Long, dark blue dresses with white collars. There was an extra piece of material on the front of the dress, like a bib, and Sister Devota used to stand in the front of the room and fold her hands under that flap of material. They wore black leather belts with big beads jingling from them and there were dark blue hoods with long pieces of material hanging around their faces. We wondered a lot as we got older if they had hair on their heads.

Sister Devota was very nice, big and soft like a pillow, and kind. She put her arm around me when I cried because the school wasn't the big brick one that my brother went to.

"Now, don't cry", she said, "You're a big girl now. When we are in school, we learn to be very quiet and listen to stories. Then we draw pictures and learn how to read from our book about Dick and Jane."

So, I stopped crying and tried to look like a good girl. I didn't tell her I already knew how to read, because she was nice, and I didn't want to hurt her feelings.

My long cotton stockings hung around my skinny legs, and I had to keep pulling them up. And when it came time to go out in the yard for what Sister Devota called "recess", I couldn't find my tam in the hallway, so I went out without it. I remember runny eyes and cold hands in the dry wind, and playing hopscotch to keep warm.

Back inside, we looked at pictures of Dick and Jane and their dog, Spot. Then we got to open our pencilboxes and draw pictures on the brown paper with lines on it. We could color them with our Crayolas if we wanted to.

There were many wonderful things about school, but the best of them, I thought, was having a bright new pencilbox every September!