"When my father went overseas, my mother took her children back to Pennsylvania where she'd grown up, and moved in with her parents. My step-grandmother didn't like children much, and I didn't like her. But I adored my grandfather. He was the president of a bank and very distinguished. He actually was a question on the game show 'Jeopardy' once. The question was: 'Bank president Merkel Landis founded this in Pennsylvania.' The answer was: 'The Christmas Club.'
"My mother had been a teacher before her marriage, so she was very child-oriented. Like mothers of that time, she never worked after she was married, and was a good mom for a little girl. Since my father was a career army officer, he was gone during a great deal of my childhood. I remember all these relatively normal Christmases with trees, presents, turkeys, and carols, except that they had this enormous hole in them because there was never any father. I have very fond memories of him, and I'm sure that he did come back on leave (with no better evidence than I had a brother born in 1943 who looks very much like my father and not the milkman), nevertheless, he was lost to me for a number of formative years.
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