Inside Northside Magazine July/August 2011

Page 57

not arrive until 6 or 7 p.m. The Half Way House was in Slidell. I remember one time my Daddy (Hugo Satterlee: 1893-1979) was driving us over and we had a flat tire where the road through the swamp was high and narrow with no shoulder. Paul (Paul Satterlee: 19251999) was a baby, and Mama made him bottles with condensed milk. Somehow, there was an opened can in a picnic basket in the back seat, and we kids got into it. It was all over us and on the car seat—so sticky. My poor Mama tried to wash us off, but we were all sticky, and my Daddy was furious. When school let out in June, we were off to the bay. We played outside in the sunshine all day, swimming and crabbing from the pier. I think all that

members came over. We would help Mama clean on Saturday morning, put fresh crepe myrtle branches in vases all over the house and have a nice dinner ready. On Sunday, we all walked a few blocks

fresh air and sunshine helped keep us healthy, as we

to the little church on Dunbar Avenue to 8:30 Mass. It

never went to the doctor. We did not have one, only

was so small that sometimes the men had to stand

Dr. Faivre who delivered us all. In the evening, we

outside, but we all went. When we got bigger, Mama allowed us to walk to town and play Putt-Putt or to get an ice cream. We

would play outside, games such as “Red Light,” “Hunt the Hay” and “Statues.” Mama would sit on the porch with her hand sewing and watch us. On the weekends, Mamere (Loretto Jewett Mary) and Big Dad and other family

didn’t have much, but we did lots of things.

Pass Christian; July 1941 Shirley was by now married and had two daughters. When she (My mother: Kathleen Munch Perrin) was about a month old, we took her to the house the family rented every summer at 910 West Beach, Pass Christian, Mississippi, on the Gulf Coast. It was a raised house with a screen porch across the front and three bedrooms. We had electricity but no hot water and only an ice-box. The ice man would deliver a big 50-lb. block every few days. We had wonderful times over there. We went swimming every day. The gulf was across the highway, a short walk away. The water came up to a seawall. (There was no wide beach as there is today. That was done after the hurricane of 1948.) >>

Above: Shirley, Ann and Kathleen Munch. Left: Shirley, Debbie, Cynthia and Kathleen Munch.

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