A Tree Grows in Brookfield

Early Life

"I was born in Brookfield, Missouri on March 30, 1906 early in the morning. My parents, James T. and Alice M. Brady, named me Mary Delores after an aunt of my father's who was a Mother Superior in the Poor Clares order of Catholic nuns. My father worked as a passenger conductor on the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railraod (predecessor of the Burlington Northern) and we often went to the depot to see trains no. 55 and 56 come in from Kansas City. Those were his trains.

Brookfield was a town of about 5,000 people in north central Missouri, founded I believe in the 1880s when railroads began to flourish. We lived on the north side of town. Mother was restless and always wanted to buy a house, but Dad didn't. I remember three houses we lived in, one on Livingston Street, one on Main Street and a lovely house on W. North Street with stained glass windows, golden oak woodwork, a paneled entrance hall with winding stairs and parquet floors, folding doors and a bathroom--our first--with a marble basin and tin tub.

I was the youngest of five children. Joe was eight when I was born, so I hardly remember him. Kathryn was six, Jim was four and Charlie two. Charlie I remember vividly. He hated me for usurping his place and knocked me down regularly. He was so cute, too, with his big head, red hair and freckles. He was sick a lot every winter with bronchitis and he wasn't very strong, just stronger than me. Mother often said that she never thought she would raise him.

We went to Finley School just a few blocks away, Jim, Charlie and I. When I was in second grade Kate, Charlie and I were all spelling champions for our grades so we got to go to the county spelling Bee at the county seat. My only recollection of it is that Kate and Charlie won and I tied with four other little girls, so instead of winning $5 I only got $1.

When we lived on Main Street we had a neighbor, Mrs. Nowlan. She bought a croquet set and since her yard wasn't wide enough she asked us if she could put part of it in our yard. So she let us play with her and when we beat her, she would get furious. She also had a big grey cat that I loved. Sometimes it would have fits and race around the house, and Mother always made me come in then. Another time we were sitting behind her at the Orpheum Theatre in  the summer and a pinching bug got down her back. I can still hear her screaming.

Then there was the day when Howie Green got his leg caught in the spokes of the wheel of the ice wagon. The boys used to jump up in the back to snitch ice. Howie limped all his life.

I remember Christmas when I was probably about five years old. Dad had stayed home from church with me. They said I was too little to go, and that when Charlie walked through the snow drifts you couldn't see him. There was my first beautiful doll, blonde and blue-eyed, with her own buggy. We called her Halbig which was printed on the back of her neck. Years later we learned that was the name of a company in Germany that made dolls. I also learned, not too many years ago, that Halbig had first belonged to Kate, and I was indignant.

My mother was a great movie fan and my father thought Mary Pickford was wonderful, so se spent many evenings in the Orpheum, which was new. There was also a Nickleodeon down the street and on Saturday we could watch Pearl White in "The Perils of Pauline."

School was always more fun than otherwise. First grade is shadowy; I was afraid of our teacher Miss Denbow, a cross old maid. She is the one who started me writing upside down, by putting the paper in the position for a right-hander. My second grade teacher Miss White was young and pretty and kind and we all loved her. One day she called me to her desk and going up the narrow aisle I crashed into Estel Fisher. I was taller than he, so he got a big bump on his head and I got a black eye. I can remember my father putting a piece of raw meat on it. Another time I was playing jump rope, and fell on my head, blacking out. Perhaps that is when I got the skull fracture they diagnosed much later.