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 My father wrote these recollections
in the 1970's. He was very nostalgic about his boyhood in Ohio, and had a great
sense of family. He seemed to have a more acute memory for those events than
some of his brothers and sisters, and loved to recount them to his children.
Even though he describes his father as "not demonstrative," there was
a lot of love in their home.
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I was fortunate as a
child to know my grandfather, Edgar, Aunt Sue, Aunt Lucy, Aunt Louise, Uncle
Ernest, and Uncle Charley.� Uncle Will
died before I was born, and Aunt Jo, when I was an infant. These were the
children of Samuel Edwards Fay and Miriam Long Hamilton.� Aunt Sue and I loved each other very much
and spent a lot of time together in Wading River. She told me many stories
about her family life, and made those times real for me. I grew up knowing that
the Fays were a very warm and loving family
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In order to present the
recollections in a readable form (my father was the first to decry his dreadful
handwriting!) I have copied them on the computer, and reproduced the photos as
well as possible.� I have "butted
in" here and there with some explanatory comments, but have not tampered
with the text except to change an occasional comma. Those remarks in brackets are
mine; the parentheses are my father's.
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This memoir ends at the
point when he entered the navy.� I urged
him to continue with it, and, I think to please me, he did. But the later
account doesn't have the enthusiasm of these early memories and is not included
here. Not that the rest of his life was not a happy one, but there was
something about his childhood that was magic to him.
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