Seeing the obituary for Rose in The Volunteer was a surprise but not a shock. Last year when I stopped by her Roscoe home to drop off a copy of my memoir, “The View from a Midwest Ferris Wheel,” it was obvious that neither she nor her husband, Bob, was in good health.
Reading the death notice, set me thinking about our friendship. More than eighty years ago, Rosie and I were preschoolers who lived on family dairy farms in the same neighborhood on Illinois 75. She was a blonde, pigtailed girl with a younger brother and sister–I was a tomboy, only child. From time to time, one of us walked the quarter-mile stretch between our houses to play together.
When we were six years old, we started riding the yellow school bus from our homes to Rockton Grade Scholl where we joined about twenty other students in the first-grade class. At the end of each day, our room was dismissed thirty-minutes earlier than the older elementary children and the teenagers who attended the high school across the street. Rosie and I killed the time waiting for our bus to leave for home by playing on the swing set in the school yard.
On that fateful, warm fall day, I had packed “Sally,” my baby doll, in her suitcase and brought her to school at the teacher’s invitation. The Wetsy Betsey had been a popular gift the previous Christmas. I could feed her a small bottle of water and then, through a tiny hole in her bottom, she wet her diaper and had to be changed. All I remember about that afternoon is setting the suitcase against one leg of the four metal anchors, before going to one of the four swings, each comprised of a piece if wooden plank suspended from a pair of chains.
Apparently, one of the swing seats hit me in the head. Rosie guided me into the school principal’s office. We didn’t have a telephone so the woman left a message for my parents with our landlord’s wife who lived in the cottage next door. The school official only said I was crying and my folks needed to pick me up. They assumed that something had happened to my favorite doll. When they arrived at the office, they learned I had been hurt and could not see. They rushed me to the Beloit Hospital where I was diagnosed with a brain concussion. The next thing I remember is waking up after dark, in a room with Dad and Mom. My mother stood at the foot of my bed and held up her hand. She asked, “How many fingers do you see?” When I answered correctly several times, she sat down in a chair beside my bed. Dad went home to do chores and she stayed overnight with me. The next morning, my father picked us up. Rosie had taken “Sally” to her house and we picked up my baby on our way by. I had no after-effects from my accident. Rosie and I continued as playmates.
The following March, my family moved to a farm on Moate Road near Durand. My folks rented instead of buying one so we usually moved every few years.
Rosie and I became pen pals writing letters back and forth to one another. After we’d both married, the missives became annual Christmas-time-catch-ups. Neither of us made the effort to get together although we never lived more than twenty-five miles apart.
About forty years later, Rose and I met face-to-face while supporting our grandsons who were competing in the Durand Cub Scout Pinewood Derby held at the school.
For me, friendships follow no specific pattern–they are as varied as the people involved.
Have you thought about the glue that holds your friendships together?