Barbara Rogers life story - Chapter two

Looking back, stories of the elders and ancestors.

1950s -1960s

 Living in St. Louis near our private school, my sister and mother and I would walk the 8-10 blocks over to the campus of Principia. It housed a girls dormatory, Lower School (up to8th gr.) Upper School, Administration building (an old converted mansion) and a gym building with boys and girls gyms, and a pool in the basement. A tree filled campus located on Page Ave. in an area of town that had been quiet and somewhat genteel. But by the late 50's there were changes in St. Louis and the trustees of the school located a new campus area where we would all move in the beginning of my last year of school, 1969-60.

Our family seemed pretty stable, but there were lots of whispered conversations, and no sign of emotion either for positive or negative. My mother was not only working full time, but kept house of cooking, cleaning, laundry and shopping on her own. Laundry was done in the basement, either hanging clothes there in the basement or outside in a tiny back yard. I think I had some simple chores by the time I became a teenager...ironing my father's shirts (all white) and handkerchiefs (also all white). I also did dishes or dried them probably, for which I received maybe a quarter allowance.

I'd gladly take my allowance to the corner grocery, and sit in front of the comics for sale and read my favorites...then purchase my candy. I loved sweets. I never wasted my allowance on comics or magazines. And that carried forward till the time when other girls had record players and records, I was happy to have a little radio that I could listen to for hours.  My love of sweets meant poor teeth, and yet going to the dentist meant not having novocaine thanks to my mother's strict Christian Science ethics. I think she may have relented later after I was miserable when a tooth had to be pulled. I never got braces either, probably not something even considered by my family.

My 11th birthday...myself, cousin Claudette, Mary Beth, cousin Sandra, and my father, George Rogers.

We moved to St. Ann, a suburb of St. Louis, and then all had to drive together into the school. Probably about that time my father was also working there. There were evening activities at school for me, which meant he'd drive back in and park until I was done learning how to dance with young men, then bring me home. 

I got an after-school job when I was 12, just doing some collating and stapling with my mother's office for a while. Then I tried learning the switchboard for all the people running the school. I may have done that just a while, as I think I made some errors as to who was who's secretary...all people I didn't know!

Lily Tomlin giving parody of the many women who did operate switchboards.

Ok I just realized I'd better fast forward so I don't end up having over 8 chapters, since I'm 82 when writing this.

Teen years were hard for me, though I excelled in school. I didn't have that many friends, though later in 2001 I would reconnect with 2 of them for a surprising enjoyment of internet emails almost daily for a while. Besides my love of candy, I devoured books. By the time I was in 7th grade I'd read everything in the Lower School (K-8) library and was given permission to go to the Upper School library (9-12th grades.)

I learned to drive, and my parents each were sure the other didn't do the teaching right. I never had an accident as a teen, and that included when our car had some steering difficulties. I didn't mean to say my mother did all the work of the household, because my father had his tasks as well. He finished building a rumpus room in the basement of the house in St. Ann. He mowed the lawn all summer with a push mower. He took care of all our Studebakers (a Rogers family thing until they went out of business.) And shoveled the walk and driveway when it snowed.

Sophomore in college I had a minor part in "The Boyfriend," and a crush on my partner. I read lots of romances, and had no idea what really happened in relationships between men and women, just lots of sighing, groping perhaps, and promises of things to come! TV shows and movies also gave that same view of relationships.

I was brides-maid to my friend Rosie, who later became my email pen pal.

I went to William & Mary College the summer of 1962 in order to be near my boyfriend in the Coast Guard, who was driving this MG-TD.

My last year in college before quitting in spring break of my junior year, 1963. That was based on my heartbreak from my first true romance, which was doomed from day one. But I was still a very romantic young woman.

I left college, became a stewardess for Pan Am, and dated and traveled in Latin America.

More on that story HERE.

I learned to kiss boys at 14, and loved it. But I stayed a virgin until I was 21 and living on my own in Miami as a stewardess. Let me just say that I had a very healthy sex life for not having any birth control available. Fortunately I was engaged when I did get pregnant. We married soon after finding out and welcomed our first son, Marty into our lives.

Time to go to the next chapter, my married years and becoming a mother.