Margaret reads from her diary about her decision to take a bath every day, hot summer days when she played softball, her practice of violin, and her mom's return from the hospital.
Margaret and her sisters grew up in a musical family, and they all had music lessons. Evangeline and Betty were talented musically, Margaret had no gift. Betty had a very brilliant teacher at Northwestern University, but lost it all when she came to…
Adelle's health began to be a matter of concern. In 1917 she had an operation at the Mayo Clinic, which left her with other heart related problems. She later was admitted again to the Evanston Hospital for a long bout. She would spend many long hours…
A.D. preached to Margaret an awful lot, though she was very religious from an early age. She eventually avoided him when she could. He was very cold, although he didn't want to be. He would give up his lunch to do something for the girls, and he…
In the summer of 1914 Adelle took the girls to Michigan to stay at a cottage near Green Lake. A.D. joined them later and they had a nice time. Margaret recalls hunting for Petoskey stones and, still that summer, eating so many blueberry muffins that…
Evangeline had a gift for style and art. Her parents sent her to an art institute and she began taking lessons when she was young. She began sewing when she was four, and at age eleven she sewed herself a dress so nice that a woman stopped her in the…
Adelle had a sense of style when she was young, but the dresses she sewed for her daughters didn't seem very nice to Margaret. Adelle also did the girls' hair, and their father, A.D., wanted them to keep their hair long--it was a biblical thing.
On Lincoln Street lived a woman named Lucy Fitch Perkins, whose son Larry was about Evangeline's age. She was a very popular writer of children's books. She would call the neighborhood kids to read them her stories, trying out her new books.
Betty was a rascal very early in her childhood. Mother, at least in part because of the operation, began to have some health problems, and she wasn't allowed to go upstairs very much. Elizabeth would get into mischief and run upstairs, in defiance of…
Margaret recalls games the kids played on Harrison St. A child named Paul owned toboggans, with which the kids would sweep on the ice during winter. One girl owned a pony but was stingy about it. Everyone owned bicycles.
Betty was born in 1912 by C-section, a very serious operation in those days. It was a miracle that Adelle survived. Grandmother came down from Racine to help. A.D. took wrote notes hour by hour throughout the ordeal
Margaret remembers living in her neighborhood of children. There seemed to be children in every family. It might have been a community of middle aged couples.
The Lincolnwood School was a very nice building, with excellent teachers, especially in music and arts. Seventh grade kids all participated in the Evanston Music Festival. Margaret remembers the great musician John McCormack who often sang drunk, and…
In 1913 the Mortensons bought a new house at 2400 Harrison St., just a couple of blocks from 2218 Central St. This was a comfortable, plain, square house, like so many throughout the Midwest in those days. The family lived there until 1923 when they…
Margaret was introduced to sports in fourth grade, especially softball. She learned to play volleyball in fifth or sixth grade. In seventh grade she began playing tennis.
Margaret tells the story of her family attending a Methodist summer camp. She wandered into a dining tent at the camp and, without her parents knowing it, had a meal. They had to pay for the meal, which they thought was too expensive and so Margaret…
Margaret remembers playing behind the house with Evangeline who was making mudpies, a common practice in those days. Evangeline would eat those mudpies, a habit Adelle had a hard time to cure her of.
Margaret's favorite doll was Daisy, the name it had when she got it. It was made by the company where her father worked. The company published three different advertising journals, and Margaret owned the journal in which Daisy was first advertised.…
Margaret always loved Christmas. One time A.D. couldn't be home for Christmas, so the family didn't buy a Christmas tree. Margaret found one that someone had thrown away by the road side. She dragged it home triumphantly, and Adelle realized how much…
Church was always an important part of life in the Mortenson family. Margaret's grandparents and parents were Methodists. The family was active in the Central Street Church. The Boyd family were educated people and made good money. William Boyd…
Aunt Minnie wouldn't visit as often as Adelle wanted, because she and her husband were farmers. She and her husband had a very nice house for that era but never had running water. Margaret and her aunt's children never were close: neither enemies nor…
Margaret learned very early not to lie or steal. She remembers the first time she lied, she quickly realized she was not good at it. She also recalls stealing a piece of gum and felt so bad about it that she decided that this wasn't for her.
By the time she was ten years old Margaret was famous for liking to make presents for people. One summer when she was visiting in Round Lake she earned money by swatting flies for her aunt. With that money she bought gifts to return home and give to…
During her many visits to Grandmother in Racine, Margaret would be sent to a store to get, say, a loaf of bread. Once she had to walk past a saloon to get to the store. She had never seen a saloon or a drunk person before, so she would get close to…
Another habit of the Mortenson family was family visits. They visited Grandmother often and many other members of the extended families. They visited people on both sides if the family.