Wanda Hickey's Night of Golden Memories Study Guide

The town is Hohman, Indiana near the Sinclair oil refineries and the steel mills of Northern Indiana; a stone's throw from Chicago, across the polluted lake. The narrator, who is unnamed, lives there with his brother, mother and father, who is called the Old Man. Overnight a family moves into the house next door to our narrator and a record player belts out the sounds of Gene Autry, singing about twilight on the trail in the middle of the night. The Old Man nearly breaks his toe rushing to the window to view the hillbilly family that has descended on the neighborhood. From the moment the Bumpuses move next door to the narrator's family, there is no peace to be had. The actual number of Bumpuses who move in next door is never known for sure. "The Taylors, a quiet family who had lived next to us for years, had moved out and—without warning—the Bumpuses had flooded in. There were thousands of them!" (p. 19). Life changes from this point onward. (read more)