A Sunny Memory of Mama in 1930s Rockaway

By Jean Caligiuri McKenna

It was on a rainy Rockaway morning in 1939, not unlike the wet and windswept opening scene in Woody Allen’s movie “Radio Days.” Mama was walking me to kindergarten class, as we usually did together each morning. Through a steadily pouring drizzle, I held her hand for the 10-block walk along Rockaway Beach Boulevard, sloshing through sidewalk puddles, unaware this was to be a monumental day in my young life. Soaked to the skin, my eyes must have widened with relief as we finally approached the safe harbor of the imposing castle-like building. Public School 44 was a stately three-story Victorian fixture that stood on the corner of Beach 94th Street and Rockaway Beach Boulevard. Dominating the entire block, its impressively ornate façade of stone and masonry gave it a Buckingham Palace-like air. Since the horse and buggy era, it had been a staple of Rockaway childhoods for those wonder years of 5-14 where, like mine from 1939-48, it was much more than a place for readin’, writin’ and ‘rithmetic. Reflective of its time, it was a cradle of innocence and security in which teachers were benevolent parent figures to trusting children willingly eager to discover the world.

Normally, my mother would drop me off here to the teacher in its large waiting room and leave. But on this day, Mama was worried that I wouldn’t be able to get my shin-high rubber rainboots off and for the first time, extended her stay to help me take them off. My teacher, Miss Shell, however, gently persuaded my mother to leave, saying this was the only way for me to learn to remove them on my own. It was obvious that Mama didn’t want to leave her only child just as much as I didn’t want her to leave. After what must have been an unsettling few moments for her, she passively nodded to the teacher before slowly exiting the echoing rotunda into the boulevard rain. There was a hollow silence, as I felt alone and unsure. I am sure my poor mother left somewhat sad and worried that I would be unable to pull those boots off without difficulty or as quickly as she could. How loving and protective she was! But she resigned herself, knowing it was time for me to try. Oddly enough, as she was likely fretting on her walk home, I soon felt myself quietly inviting this new challenge.  Thus becomes the first bittersweet milestone in every mother/child relationship; the beginning of separation and the start of independence. All good parents feel the need to do for their child – it’s inborn, but children need to nurture an eagerness in discovering their own abilities and feel pride in their accomplishments. And this usually begins with a mother’s heart-churning sacrifice. Every mother across time has faced it. On a rainy Rockaway day over eight decades ago, it was my dear mother’s turn.

Not only did all end well that day, with my boots successfully off (Miss Shell may have given me a hand), but I found myself rejoicing over my big achievement; the first of many I would get to enjoy in my lifetime! What’s more, Mama also reveled in my liberating rite of passage, a bonding memory we would share and reminisce over well into her later years, when was it was my loving turn to nurture and care for her, just as she once lovingly did for me.