I left my mother's writing on this picture so you all could see how she wrote. This girl in the center is Chrissie Mills, who lived across the street from us. I loved her mother, Mary. We called her "Mamie" and she was like a second mom at times to me. I spent a lot of time at their house. Chrissie was a year or two younger than I, and she had a brother Carl who was my age and in my kindergarten class. We called him Carlie!! they moved to Takoma Park and we visited them a few times, but eventually lost contact with them.

Johnny often stood with his arms over his head, like in the picture. I remember the dress I was wearing!! It was a bright green, with the white collar. Note the shoes and socks we both wore.

I was in kindergarten in the fall of 1951, so assume I was going to or coming home from school. We had to wear dresses to school.

We are standing in front of our next door neighbor's house, which was the style of the houses in the neighborhood. When I was 14, my parents put an addition on to the house, making an upstairs with 4 bedrooms and a bathroom. Earlier, they put an addition to the back of the house, with a master bedroom and bathroom, and a basement underneath. Later on, after I was married and had children, dad added a family room out behind the kitchen.

Ann, her friend Cheryl, and the baby Jean

Jean has been copying pictures of us from our mom's photo album and giving us copies for our birthdays. Thanks, Jean! Ths girl standing beside me, with the bow in her hair in case you can't figure out which is me!!, is Cheryl Jetto. She lived down the street from me and we spent a lot of time together. I remember that one day when I ate lunch with her at her house, her mother gave us peanut butter cookies with the fork criss/cross on them. It was the first time I had had them and so of course MY mother had to begin making them after that! We are standing in my front yard with our backs to the neighbor's house. You can see the trunk of the tree behind me. Every yard had a Dutch elm planted in it, and most of them were struck by lightning at one time or another, bringing down power lines. We had really violent thunder storms, and got lots of tail-ends of hurricanes. Once, we even got a full-fledge hurricane. It was when I was about 10 and was Hurricane Hazel. It was terrifying. Our dad was coming home from work, and nearly got hit by the tree across the street from us when it was struck by lightning. It missed him by a few feet. I can still hear the "crack" of the lightning and the big boom as the tree hit the ground. We were standing at the front door looking out since we knew he was on his way home. This post started out about me and my friend and ended up being more, but as the saying goes "a picture is worth a thousand words" so there!! The baby in the carriage is none other than ----- guess who that is with the big mouth? Yes, it is JEAN! Hmmmm... her mouth is always open and still is! Sorry, Jean. Actually I remember being very excited to have a baby sister! I think she was wearing a little yellow cap; I remember that she was put in a little yellow outfit (jacket thing and bonnet) as a little infant.