Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Back East for #6

My parents had divorced and re-married in 1951. My dad was transferred to a Baltimore DuPont pigments plant and we lived in a house at 1924 Norman Road in Glen Burnie, MD. I attended 2n'd through 4'th grades and remember watching Queen Elizabeth's Coronation. My parents took dance lessons from Arthur and Kathryn Murray and appeared on Television as dancers. I appeared on T.V. in the peanut gallery of the Buffalo Bob show with Howdy Doody and Clarabelle the clown. We had an English Setter named 'Ski' and he loved to chew on shoes. We had a housekeeper / babysitter who was later fired for stealing.



 Next move, dad was transferred in 1953 to the Louviers building in Newark, DE where he was one of the first five DuPont employees trained to run the first computer, the "Univac". Those five each trained five other employees and so on until most of the staff at Louviers were computer-literate. Meanwhile, I struggled with math. We lived in home #7 at 530 Papermill Road for $75/month rent. Dad could walk to work. The house on 365 acres was owned by Hallock DuPont. It was a 6 story 1860's house with 18 " thick walls, a slave cellar, a coal steam heater with rattling old cast iron registers, a tin roof over the porch, window seats, and wasps in the attic. We had a black Collie named "Shep", a grey kitten "Misty" and "Liverachee" orange stripe.



The property had an immense barn with 12 " beams, lots of pigeons, a hay stack inside for great jumping and stored some of the farm equipment used by High School Ag classes. They grew mostly corn in the fields surrounding the barn. The Delaware Police push-mobile derby track was a relatively new feature used once a year for races; the rest of the year we had a private bicycle race track and sledding hill.
The Wilbur [Bill] and Vieve Gore family of five: Susan, Bob, Ginger, David and E.[Betty] Gore lived on the other side of Papermill Road and they were the only other Idahoans I met in Delaware. They also had a swimming pool. Bill developed teflon products - Gortex - in his basement and left DuPont to pursue his own business creations.
 I attended 5'th grade through High School in Newark. My parents started the first Fred Astaire franchise in DE. I met Bob in Cotillion Ballroom class when I was 13 and he was 14. I got to go to "Philthadelphia" with mother's teen dance class and dance on Dick Clark's Bandstand. The featured 'stars' were Eydie Gourme and Steve Lawrence.
I met my best friend, Nancy Bonney, in Newark. Her parents were both teachers. More to come ....

2 comments:

Bob and Robin said...

Hmmmm. I remember those dance lessons. The start of something great!!

Kelsey said...

Very impressed with all the details you remember! Excited to hear what came after that...