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The sweet odor of talcum powder can conjure up memories of my young and handsome father with his dark brown hair and happy smile. He was dressed in his dark blue, Sunday-best pants and a sleeveless undershirt. We were standing on the concrete and iron back porch of our third story furnished apartment. He had just finished shaving and was patting his cheeks fastidiously with a small, well-worn towel filled with white talc. Particles floated around him in the early morning sunshine, as I watched his every movement on this warm summer day.
In the distance I heard the siren from the nearby firehouse signaling apprehension to all within hearing distance. I believed with the certainty of a very young child that the firemen would be back in time to turn the hose on the neighborhood children later in the stifling heat.
It was in the late days of the depression and before the start of World War II. My mother had found a job in a downtown department store and my father was taking care of me. I was proud of my gentle father. He was a printer and even though jobs in his trade were difficult to find, he knew eventually he would find employment, and my mother would again be able to stay home and care for me. He had long supple fingers that must have moved deliberately as he set the type.
I was distracted by voices of two people in the apartment below us arguing. I could not hear what they were saying, but I remember feeling unsettled and worried.
My father bent down to speak to me and again I smelled the talc and saw his warm smile. A surge of emotion and a feeling of security that I can remember even today welled up inside of me.
My father found jobs occasionally, but it wasn’t until the Second World War that he found a permanent position with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Many people of my generation remember the great depression as an unsettled and insecure time in their lives. Even though I spent the earliest years of my life living in my grandparents’ home or being separated from my mother when she earned the living for our family, I never felt the emotional insecurity that was often a part of the depression for many children.
Originally published in The Paper, June 1978.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1978_06.pdf, printed page(s) 5; PDF page(s) 5.
