Memory Monday # 4

      Memory is a funny thing...as I told in my last memory, I clearly remember my dad coming home from serving during WWII.  But try as I might, I have only one more memory of him during the year and a half we lived in the little apartment where my mom and sister and I had lived while he was gone.  I have decided I had a bit of a memory loss because it was a very traumatic thing to have him return.
      I was just two and a half when he left and I didn't see him until I was nearly five....a little over two years.  I don't have any recollection of his going or being home on leave at all.  During that time, my mom and sister were my family.  We all slept in the same bed (after I was out of a crib); we did everything together...then here came this person who was a virtual stranger to me...not that I was shy when he first came home obviously.  But he did displace me!  My sister and I ended up on a sofa bed in the living room while mom and dad naturally took the bedroom.
   One other occasion I do clearly remember though was a trip we all took to St. Louis, Missouri probably not long after Dad came home.  It was quite an adventure for  a five year old who had never been away from home.  Even though we lived in a small town in Illinois, St. Louis was the closest big city to us.  Two things I remember....we took a ride in an airplane!!  Now, that was a big deal in 1945...way before commercial airline travel became commonplace!

Over St. Louis

      It was a private sight-seeing plane...I am thinking that they were giving special tours to veterans and their families.  Looking back, I am surprised my mom would go for such a venture.  She was not the most daring of souls, especially anything involving putting her babies at risk!  

Stix, Baer, and Fuller

     St. Louis was on the cutting edge of the future.  One of the large department stores, Stix, Baer, and Fuller was one of the first places to have an escalator!!  The Magic Stairway!  One of my mom's friends even gave me a book about the Magic Stairway that following Christmas, I was so taken with the experience!!!

An early escalator