A Life in Bits and Pieces

By Morgan St. James

Morgan St James is the author of twenty books including the Silver Sisters Mystery series, the Revenge is Fun series, and over six hundred published articles. She has been fortunate to lead an interesting life, filled with various careers and travel to many cities and countries that all add inspiration and authenticity to her books. After co-authoring the successful true crime books Bella Capo's memoir, No More Crying Angels and Cheryl and Rob Cuccio's memoir, Incest, Murder and a Miracle, she was often asked where her own memoir was. Morgan has won awards for short stories and books, and has contributed to several Chicken Soup for the Soul books, so with a wealth of personal stories to tell, ranging from humor to trauma, she decided to write this book as a series of short stories. Morgan could have filled a book twice this size, but hopes you enjoy her adventures and the interesting people she met along the way.

 

From a pre-publication review by Heidi Lynn's Book Reviews: 5 Stars. "WOW! I commend Morgan St. James for being brave and opening up and sharing her life stories in My Life In Bits And Pieces. This is not your typical memoir as she has picked some very interesting and fascinating stories to share. Some of them will pull hard on your heartstrings. So much in fact that I wanted to jump into the book and hug her. All these experiences have shaped her into the amazing and strong woman she has become today."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Morgan St. James
• Release date: Apr 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201950972

Morgan St. James

Morgan St. James is an award-winning author with fifteen published books to her credit.  In addition to books she has written on her own, Morgan’s funny crime capers in the comical Silver Sisters Mysteries series are co-authored with her real-life sister, Phyllice Bradner. More information about Morgan and all of her books, can be found on the My Books page on her website. St. James has written over 600 published articles related to writing and frequently presents workshops, appears on author’s panels and radio or TV shows. The columns inspired her book Writers Tricks of the Trade as well as a quarterly online magazine of the same name. She lives in Las Vegas NV with her husband and dog Dylan.

Book preview

A Little About My Background

My sister Phyllice knew she wanted to be an artist from the time she was a little kid, and in a way, I envied that. I didn’t have a clue about what I wanted to be when I grew up. I had some interest in psychology and law, but then my dad died in my senior year of high school. After graduating, instead of going to college I went to work. I didn’t pursue interior design courses until I was in my thirties.

In some ways I’m cursed with doing lots of things well, and therefore I bounced all over the place when it came to jobs and careers. On the plus side, in doing so I learned so much about different things, and much of that came into play when I finally devoted my time to writing.

My main asset was the talent for being a quick study and belief in my own abilities. I didn’t give up easily, but also didn’t hesitate to change jobs if there were bad circumstances. As a few examples, when I worked for the theatrical business manager, he refused to give me a raise after two years because he said lots of women would want my job at that low salary. That was when I got a better job at more money at System Development Corporation. He had to replace me with a full time and a part time person and tried to hire me back.

I stuck it out at Mark Taper’s personal firm for three months, but I’d taken about all of his attitude I could. Taper’s personal secretary was hired at the same time I was hired to work for his attorney/CPA. She gave up and quit before I did.

When I worked at Teledyne, the secretary to the group head quit and I should have been next in line. Until they hired someone, I did everything she did plus my own work. Then the Group Head had the nerve to ask me to interview candidates for her replacement. That was the last straw. I registered my complaint to no avail. Even though I really liked my boss, it was time to move on. I took vacation time, found another job at more money, and went back to quit. Let me tell you, that was a hard one. I broke out in tears while telling my boss I was resigning, which caused my false eyelashes to slide down onto my cheeks. It is hard to keep your dignity with black circles under your eyes and false eyelashes on your cheeks.

He said, You should have gotten the promotion. I did fight for you and will miss you.

I really had a lot of jobs, and I didn’t list every single one. I wanted to give you an idea of what I mean when I say that all of these experiences have been valuable to me as an author.

The Early Days

From Mom’s Album

Florida 1949 — Left to Right Ginny the dog, Phyllice,

Johnny, Me, unknown boy, Donny, Ida Mae

1  The Florida Fiasco

My mother was the strongest influence in my life. She gave my sister and me the two most valuable gifts a mother can give her child—gifts money cannot buy. She showed us by example that even if it seems the odds are stacked against you, through the power of positive thinking and attitude somehow things usually work out. As her second gift she instilled us with the belief that we could do anything we set our minds to. That set the path for our lives.

I was nine back in 1949. We lived a comfortable middle-class life in Chicago, but it literally changed overnight when we moved to a warmer climate for my father’s health. The choice was between Los Angeles where Mom’s brother Sol lived and Miami where Dad’s sister Helen lived. Unfortunately, Helen made a stronger case for Miami which turned out to be a terribly wrong choice. She told my parents she owned an apartment building and would give the family a free furnished apartment until we got settled.

What she didn’t say was that work in Miami was seasonal, the apartment was a crummy one-room efficiency apartment in a bad part of town. Imagine Mom’s disappointment when Aunt Helen opened the door to the small space where the four of us were supposed to live.

Unbelievably, I found this image online. It looks like a modern neighborhood built up around that old building, and somehow it is still there. Ours was the unit on the right.

A picture containing outdoor, tree, sky Description automatically generated According to Redfin, the entire four-unit building is 1170 square feet, which would make each unit 292.5 square feet. Put into measurements, only about 15x20. A living room, a bathroom and a joke of a kitchen were all squeezed into that space.

A set of folding doors concealed this kitchen that housed a small sink, and two gas burners. It wasn’t even a regular stove. There was a tiny refrigerator under the drainboard. Hidden by another closet door we had an Inadoor Bed hinged into the living room wall. At night they opened the door and pulled down the bed. My four-and-a-half-year-old sister Phyllice slept in the bed with my parents, and I slept on a narrow cot bed. We were like sardines in a can, living in a unit meant to accommodate a single person or a couple at most, but certainly not four people. The whole place wasn’t much bigger than my office.

Most of my parents’ savings were used up for the move, and my father was unable to find a job in what was off-season. We went from comfortable to poor. To make matters worse, Dad was in constant pain because the Miami dampness worsened his arthritis.

Weeks passed and the tension became worse and worse. My parents were almost more hurt than angry that Helen misrepresented everything from employment to the housing situation. On the other hand, Helen’s husband, who drank to excess, was angry that we didn’t seem grateful for giving up a comfortable life for one of poverty.

Dad finally found a job and began to earn some money. One night after we were there close to two months everything came to a boiling point. Although I don’t remember it, my sister remembers Helen’s husband kicking in our door late at night and shouting at us in a drunken rage. I do remember my dad literally exploding. It was the final straw. He and Mom threw whatever belongings we had into the car, and he drove us to a hotel in the middle of the night. We never went back to Helen’s, and he didn’t speak to her for a few months.

They found a large one-bedroom apartment in an old frame fourplex. I changed schools and instead of walking ten blocks as I had to the first school, I only had to cross railroad tracks, then walk a few blocks. The downside of the new apartment was that trains backed up at that crossing all night long. We were only about two or three houses from the tracks, so it wasn’t unusual to get blasted out of sleep by loud bangs in the middle of the night.

Going to the Miami public schools back then was a culture shock for me. During the ten months we lived in Miami, I went to two different schools and in each I was the smart Jewish Yankee who wore glasses and couldn’t play sports. To make matters worse, in the second school I was one of two Jews in the whole school, and curse of all curses, my teacher was Jewish. She to make this smart little Yankee her pet, which almost guaranteed I was the butt of lots of bullying.

Most of the kids came to school barefoot, so to fit in and hopefully make friends I took off my shoes when I got to school, played dumb and even joined Baptist Bible Class. I told Mom I joined an after school social club. That teacher did me in, though, when she selected me to appear on a local radio show patterned after The Quiz Kids. The other team member from our school was the Jewish boy, Charlie Baron from New York.

Even though that was in 1949, I still remember my question—the question that won for our team. Who was the first person to circumnavigate the world? I blurted out Magellan, the correct answer. We each won an Esterbrook fountain pen, a luncheon at the toney Versailles Hotel in Miami Beach and to my horror, our photo holding our pens and Award Certificate appeared in the Miami newspaper. There was no escape, now. Once again, I was the smart Jewish Yankee.

Florida schools were way behind Chicago schools back then. Although I was in fifth grade, Chicago schools had covered most of what Miami schools taught in the fifth grade in the second and third grade. Not only that but as I discovered, some of their textbooks literally rewrote history. As an example, we were taught Grant didn’t win the Civil War, Lee did.

Baptist religion was very strong in that area, and public schools included it. Every morning we sang Onward Christian Soldiers, said the Lord’s Prayer, had to say Grace before eating in the school cafeteria and music classes were all religious music. And then, there was the after-school Bible Class that turned out to be my salvation when it came to forming some friendships.

I was always an avid reader, but during the time we lived in Miami I escaped into my books and my love of reading grew. I would often read up to three books a week.

Mom must have been so unhappy, but she never made us aware of how poor we had become. There was a dairy on the other side of the railroad tracks, but she couldn’t afford to buy real milk and butter, so she made powdered milk seem very special. I eagerly awaited the times she let me mix it with water. She said anyone could buy milk from the grocery store or dairy, but we were lucky to have powdered milk. She also bought those ancient packets of oleo margarine—the ones that looked like soft lumps of lard with a yellow pellet. You kneaded the package to make the unpalatable white glob turn yellow so the mess looked like butter. She never even hinted that we couldn’t afford the real stuff.

One time my dad did some side work in exchange for cases of garbanzo beans, or as they were called then ChiChi beans. I think she could have written a book entitled 101 Ways to Serve ChiChi Beans. She fixed those beans a different way almost every night until all of the beans were gone.

But, even with all the bad memories of the Florida experience, I learned lessons that have carried through my whole life. Florida was still segregated during that time which was something I’d never been exposed to in Chicago. I was shocked to see Black people having to go to the back of the bus, separate drinking fountains, separate rest rooms, restaurants and businesses that would not serve them. I asked my parents why that was happening. Why were people so mean?

Looking a little sad, both Mom and Dad said things were much different in the South. If I complained that our life had gotten hard, my father put me in the car and drove to parts of town that were really poor and segregated. Honey, things are hard for us right now, he would say, but we are still lucky. He didn’t have to go into further explanation. It was clear, even to a kid feeling sorry for herself as we drove through those neighborhoods. He always finished by saying, I wish it was different and I hope it won’t be like this someday.

My father was a wise and loving man. That lesson stuck with me. Although I was only nine, he made me see that we did not have the same heavy burden to bear. Even when things got rough, we could do things to improve our lot. That was reinforced by the fact that he had finally gotten a job and we had income again.

As a result, throughout my life I have never seen color or race in friends or business associates and hope I have never shown discrimination in general. I know that sounds self-serving, but it is how I feel.

After ten months of struggling, my parents gave up on Florida and moved back to Chicago. But that wasn’t the end of it.

There was a housing shortage in Chicago, so it was no easy task to find an apartment. Landlords were getting huge bonuses when an apartment even became available. Because they were so sure we would find something in our old neighborhood of Rogers Park, I was enrolled in Joyce Kilmer Elementary again and greeted by my old friends. After a few weeks of living in a modest hotel while they apartment hunted without success, they were ready to give up.

My mother’s high school friend, a woman we called Aunt Rose, came to the rescue. She had an extra bedroom in her house on the other side of town and insisted we stay with them until we found an apartment. My parents took the spare bedroom and Phyllice and I shared a room with their daughter Myrna. We enrolled in Myrna’s school, Norman Bridge. I always remember Aunt Rose with so much love. What should have been a short stay turned into ten months.

An apartment finally became available in the old neighborhood on Bosworth Street, but the landlord wanted a One Thousand Dollar bonus to rent it to us. Still in recovery from the Florida fiasco, they didn’t have that kind of money. Mom’s family has always been like The Three Musketeers—all for one and one for all. Her brother Al was quite wealthy and fronted the money. I was back to Joyce Kilmer for the third time in a little less than two years.

2  Hurricane Birthday

As I mentioned in The Florida Fiasco story, our reality in Florida was so far from what my parents had pictured as living in the tropical paradise of Miami. Every day was a struggle and gradually, without an income yet, they went through the small reserve that remained after all the moving expenses were paid.

Since my sister was only four-and-a-half, the move didn’t affect her like it did me. I had lots of friends in Chicago—kids I’d known since kindergarten. I had no one at the first school I attended in Miami because I was the outsider Yankee—someone to be avoided.

The old frame apartment building we moved to after leaving Helen’s featured two apartments upstairs and two downstairs. Ours was upstairs on the left side. Although it wasn’t anything like our nice apartment in Chicago, a bit of luck did smile upon us. The tenants of the other three apartments turned out to be fantastic. Agnes and John Shattler lived across the hall. They were from the hills of Georgia and had three children—Ida Mae, a girl the same age as me, Donny, a boy Phyllice's age, and Johnny who was in between. I really loved Agnes and can still picture her saying with her heavy Georgia accent, Now you act purty Ida Mae, Johnny and Donny. You pride your Ma.

Tex and Rita, the neighbors downstairs, were a cool young couple without children. I have always loved dogs, and to my delight they had Ginny—a wonderful boxer that all of us children in the building loved. Beautiful Rita with her long brown hair and manicured nails became somewhat of an idol to me. Mom was a typical housewife of the times in those days, and I thought Rita looked like a movie star. The other downstairs neighbors had a three-year-old girl who had kidney disease. The poor little tot was bloated all the time and really had a tough time. I would visit her sometimes. With all of those great neighbors, I kept telling myself maybe Miami wasn’t going to be so bad after all.

On the bright side, Ida Mae, Johnny and Donny became our good friends. As for Ginny, Tex and Rita let me play with her whenever I wanted to and how I loved that dog.

Things were definitely looking up for us in this old frame building with avocado and coconut trees on the large front lawn. Although my father found work in his line, his health did not improve. The humidity did as much harm as the cold weather in Chicago, maybe even more. When we moved to Florida it was the early part of the year, so the weather wasn't that hot or humid. As the months passed, it became summer with extreme heat and humidity.

Mom discovered the jitney bus that took us and six other passengers across the causeway directly to the beach at a very reasonable fare. We loved those excursions. For a couple of hours we were able to cool off in the ocean and have lots of fun. Back in Chicago, we were walking distance from Lake Michigan and the beach. However, thanks to the high Miami humidity, by the end of the summer we were like dishrags.

Although the new apartment was only about ten blocks from Aunt Helen’s fourplex, it was in a different school zone. Summer ended and I was happy about changing schools. I hated that first school anyway. I remember thinking maybe this one wouldn’t be so hard on me. Fat chance. They simply didn't have strict school regulations like up north. We never would have gotten away with going to school barefoot during the warm weather.

I know I talked about feeling like the odd kid out, but just for a moment imagine what it was like for this little Jewish kid from a middle-class Chicago neighborhood to find herself in the middle of a Southern Baptist bible belt. All the kids belonged to the same church except for me and Charlie Baron, the Jewish boy from New York. I do remember that Charlie was picked to play Jesus in the Christmas play because he had a lovely singing voice. His teacher mumbled something like, An apt choice, considering. At the time I didn’t know what she meant. When I lived in Chicago, some of my Catholic friends had invited me to services at St. Ignatius Church. So, I’d gone, but that was different.

Since I rarely went to temple, it was interesting to check out their Catholic religion. However, of more importance, it was my choice to go to St. Ignatius. In Miami religion was part of the curriculum. I didn’t tell my parents about all of the religious things at school and that no one would be my friend because I’d finally figured out that the only way for me to have any friends in Miami was to join that Baptist Bible Class after school. I have no idea what the reaction would have been if I hadn’t told them it was a social club.

Mom said, See, honey, I told you it would work out. As we got further into the fall it became hurricane season, and sure enough it didn't take long before one was on its way. I searched the web to find more out about the August 26, 1949 hurricane as I wrote about it, and discovered my memory was spot on.

During that time, storms were unnamed and of course there was none of today’s technology or communications. According to accounts, the storm is recorded to have had Category 4 winds of 130-156 mph when it struck the Florida Coast. The record shows it received the highest winds as well as gusts even higher.

As the hurricane approached, everyone was warned over the radio to stock up on canned goods like canned chicken, tuna, salmon and fruits. They also suggested we fill bathtubs with water, board up the windows, and tie garbage cans to the palm trees. Luckily our old building had wood shutters, so each of the four families shut them tight.

Newscasters warned everyone to stay off the streets. If you did choose to go out, it was at your own risk. The hurricane hit on August 26, my tenth birthday.

I had finally made some friends at school and was looking forward to them coming to my birthday party. Instead, we were isolated behind a shuttered building with high winds howling outside. Bless our neighbor Agnes Shattler. She felt so sorry for me she convinced Mom to let me have a sleepover and baked a fabulous chocolate birthday cake. That woman never used a recipe. I watched her grab handfuls of this, and smidgens of that to create delicious cakes and pastries. She made a big deal of my birthday with decorations and everything.

That night I came down with a high fever and ached all over. I awakened Agnes and she took me across the hall and knocked on our door. I was burning up. We didn’t even have a regular doctor, but as my temperature continued to rise Mom put me in baths trying to bring it down and in desperation Dad called an uncle who was a jeweler in Miami Beach. Uncle Sam called his doctor and asked him to make a house call. Right! In the middle of a raging hurricane.

The doctor said he was sorry he couldn't cross the causeway or even go out in the hurricane and recommended that Mom work on me with alcohol rubs, aspirin, and whatever else they could find in the apartment. My fever finally broke.

The morning after the hurricane when we opened the shutters, the lawn was covered with avocados and coconuts. Agnes had her children gather the coconuts and bring them upstairs. She started baking