This is a picture of my Aunt Jean taken about 1923 in New York City. She was one of the rescuers of my family when my mother died suddenly in December 1939. She left 5 children under 13, the youngest boy being 5yrs old.Without her and her husband and my grandmother Christina Anderson MacArthur I don't know how we would have grown up. They took us in as well as my father was only 39 at the time and kept us safe and relatively happy for the next 3 years.
My dad did not marry until 3 years later. Somehow we all managed to grow up and go to college and marry and stay married to the same wives or husbands all of their lives.
It was a terrible time because of WW2 which had just begun in Europe. In spite of our circumstances we had fun. Life was very different during that time. No one worried about children being stolen or kidnapped . Life in a small town was very protected. Everyone in our neighborhood knew everyone else. It was a varied town. There were many immigrants from Europe and also the old line residents who had lived in the town since it was founded in the 1850's.
Lots of bad things happened. People including children died from diseases there was no cure for yet. There were polio epidemics, whooping cough, measles, chicken pox, Scarlet fever, diptheria and others not identified at the time. Medicine was still in it's infancy. People died of appendicitis and heart trouble and other now curable diseases frequently.
We were lucky. We survived although my generation is dying off quickly. But it is good to be here and have good memories along with the not so good..
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