Marshall &Kay Family  Histories

 

 9th Grade, Back to Live with Aunt Dot

 

This particular conversation was a very difficult one, because I felt I was finally old enough, I could just go back home and take care of myself. But mother (Mary INGHAM) said no, we've made arrangements for you to go live with Aunt Dot (Ardell INGHAM Kay), and that was hard, really hard. I wanted to go home. I wanted to be like normal, you know. But Mother said no. At that time I was fourteen and I really felt like I could take care of myself. But she was probably wise again. I do remember I was upset about having to go back to Aunt Dot's, but I did go and I spent the last year of junior high school there, ninth grade.

 

And that was probably one of my funniest years in school, as I remember that year in junior high. In San Francisco it would have been the first year of high school, but in Berkeley it was the last year in junior high. I can remember it was dark looking. But it was a good junior high, I enjoyed it for two reasons. Because I had gone to the convent, and the way the catholic school had taught me, I was a good student by that time. So going to junior high and taking the subjects I was taking, it was a snap. I hardly had to do anything in ninth grade. Some of the stuff I took, it was so easy, and I wasn't used to school being like that. 

 

For the first time I got to take a real art class. Oh, I loved that art class. There was a guy in that art class who was also fourteen, believe it or not. And he was six foot three, he was so tall. He was my first boyfriend. It was just fun having a boyfriend. But he was one of these boyfriends who never had a girlfriend, and I never had a boyfriend. And he didn't know what to do with me, and I didn't know what to do with him. So we were just friends, and we were just friends for that whole year. I remember that really well. And we didn't really do anything, to the point where his friends, his boyfriends gave him a terrible time. They just teased him to death. And they finally came over one day, we'd been going together for a long time, and they wouldn't leave until they had actually pushed us together and made us kiss. I'll never forget that. I was so embarrassed I could've died. I think he was too, I think he just wanted to dig a hole somewhere and hide. Because we were doing fine, we were good friends and we were just doing fine if they'd left us alone. We just talked and talked and talked, and he was a good artist. Since he was in my art class, we had that in common and we just loved to talk about art, and loved to do it. We'd do posters together and all that sort of stuff. He was always a fun person. He wasn't a member of the church (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints), but he should've been. 

Towards the last of that year, I think because those guys had pushed us together, we used to meet, like after dinner down at the bus stop, which was a block away from our house. This bus stop, it was a pretty thing. It had seats and trees all around, a real pleasant place to go relax in the shade. That's where we practiced learning how to kiss. But we were stupid enough we didn't even try to hide. That's all we were doing. We were both so innocent. We never tried anything bad. It was just such a good friendship. But my Aunt Dot came by one evening and saw us, I guess I shocked her to death. She called my parents and I guess the way she described it all to my parents it must've been awful, because mother talked to me on the phone and told me that I couldn't be doing these things, you know. And I said, we didn't do anything, I kept saying to her. But she didn't understand. Besides I guess the decision had been made that my Aunt Dot couldn't have me there any longer. It kind of hurt my feelings because she never ever talked to me about it. To say she saw something, or to question me, nothing. I do remember she admonished me for talking to him on the phone too much, which I did. I can remember sitting in the hallway and someone tell me, get off the phone. So I would have to do that. But I think she was frightened that I was going to be a really bad example to her younger daughters. And her daughter, Jo Ann, was starting to get a little interested in boys by that time because she was starting junior high.