CONFLAGRATION: THE TRAGEDY OF LAURA JAKUBOWSKI

By Deborah Large Fox LAURA During the last week of July 1940, the residents of Camden NJ sweltered in a heat wave with temperatures reaching nearly 100 degrees. The sun beat down on the alleys and brick row houses of the hard-working people, who got little relief from open windows and noisy fans. The employees … Continue reading CONFLAGRATION: THE TRAGEDY OF LAURA JAKUBOWSKI →

Measles, Mumps, and Isolation Memories

While Boomers did not experience quarantines on this current worldwide scale, we endured the mini confinements of pre-vaccine times. Waves of measles, mumps, and chicken pox would spread through neighborhoods and keep us indoors. We had no online social networks, so any contact with friends was reduced to waving from behind doors or windows. My … Continue reading Measles, Mumps, and Isolation Memories →

COFFEE TIME WITH SISTER WILHELMINA

“Child, what are you drinking?” Usually, we could hear a nun approaching behind us. Those clacking rosaries and heavy footsteps gave children advance warning before the wrath of heaven descended upon their misdeeds. I must have been extra tired that day because I heard nothing, not even the rustling of the voluminous black habit Sister … Continue reading COFFEE TIME WITH SISTER WILHELMINA →

THE HUMAN TOUCH

Dominican Sisters of the Shrine of the Perpetual RosaryHaddon Avenue, Camden NJ about 2007 The Human Touch A finger poked through the metal grate separating us. I reached out my hand and was immediately hooked into a finger embrace. “Me, too! Me, too! Me, too!” Fingers wiggled through the metal barrier that separated me from … Continue reading THE HUMAN TOUCH →

First School Dance: Crossing the Generational Divide

Collingswood Junior High School NOTE: "Linda" is a composite of my friends. In 1954, the most common names for baby girls were Mary, Linda, and Deborah. As my father pulled the car, full of giggling seventh-grade girls, alongside the Collingswood Junior High School gym on that cool September evening in 1966, I could hear the … Continue reading First School Dance: Crossing the Generational Divide →

A POLISH CAMDEN KITCHEN

by Deborah Large Fox My dziadek, Watson (Wencel) Burdalski, in his kitchen at 1545 Mt. Ephraim Avenue, Camden NJabout 1950 "Children should be seen and not heard." To use another saying common to my parents’ generation, if I had a nickel for every time I heard that admonishment as a child, I'd be a rich … Continue reading A POLISH CAMDEN KITCHEN →