When Harry Livermore has something to say, it is usually worth listening to. Harry is older than I am and he has a degree from Grinnell College in Iowa. He is a consummate mid-Westerner whom I met on Mother’s Day, 1952. Harry was my boss in Kansas City as well as in Chicago. But more than that, we have been friends for more than 55 years. And so it was in December of 1953 that Harry told me that adopting a little Chicago girl was the best thing I ever did. I cannot argue with this fellow, Livermore, because he is older and he has a Grinnell doctorate degree. So perhaps Brother Livermore has something there.
What I intend to do today in this essay is not to recite every event in that little Chicago girl’s life but rather to call on a few fond memories that are brought to mind by the photograph you see on this page. There will be no continuum from one event to the next. This essay is about a series of memories and flashbacks. And all of them will have to do with my memories of what Livermore calls the brightest decision I ever made. If Harry says that is the case, I am not in a position to argue.
The first recollection comes on a Monday evening, which I believe was December 4, 1953. Eileen, my wife at that time who is now deceased, had gone with me in the evening to the largest department store in Chicago, called Marshall Fields. We were searching for cards that would announce the adoption of a little girl then in foster care. This two and a half month old little girl was the ward of the Illinois Children’s Home and Aid Society. It was that organization that had paid for her birth and for her stay in foster care. Marshall Fields had cards for every occasion imaginable but none to announce the adoption of a child. Being as it was a Monday evening, Betty Kruchten was shopping at that same store and she helped us in our search for an appropriate card. When we told Betty Kruchten that we intended to take possession of this little girl on Thursday morning, December 8, 1953, I thought nothing more about it. But obviously Betty Kruchten did. She will make an appearance a little later in this story about memories of Blondie.
On Thursday morning at 6:30 AM, the sky was threatening snow. What else is new about Chicago weather? We lived in a flat off California Avenue at about 3000 North. That is called the Near North Side in Chicago and it is located quite close to Wrigley Field where the Chicago Cubs play. Our destination was 7600 South in Chicago near Comiskey Park where the White Sox play. It was a long drive from our flat on the Near North Side through the Loop and then on to the foster home on the South Side. I could not help but think that exactly ten years earlier, December 8, 1943, a plane on which I was the aerial gunner was shot down and I wound up a prisoner of the German Army that afternoon. So it took me ten years to go from the depths of despair to a mission to pick up a little Chicago girl. So you see, I was showing signs of progress even if it took me ten years to do so.
We had seen old Blondie on two previous occasions when her foster mother brought her into the offices of the Children’s Home at 1122 North Dearborn Avenue in Chicago. On both occasions we were asked to bathe her and change her clothes. On those two occasions when I dried Blondie’s hair after the bathing, I blew on it. Her hair was not really blond; it was almost pure white. It was about an inch and a half long and when I blew on her head, the hair flew in many directions. It was at that instant that I named this little girl Blondie. She has a proper name of Ellen Maureen but from those visits to the offices of the Children’s Home, she has always been Blondie to me.
The foster home was an individual residence where the women provided care until the adoptive parents took the children away. In this case, the woman who had given Blondie care for the first two and a half months of her life had called her “Pumpkin.” I suppose that she had arrived at about the same time as pumpkins appear on our market shelves. We gave Blondie another bath at the foster home and she was changed into the clothing that we had brought for her to wear. But parting with Pumpkin was an emotional affair. The foster mother made us promise that we would provide excellent care for her for the rest of her life. When you consider that a foster mother must surrender her little children to adoptive parents perhaps four times a year, it would be a job that I could not handle.
When we arrived at our Near North Side flat in Chicago, I was instructed by this mother of one hour’s standing to go to Blondie’s room, sit down on the rocker, hold Blondie, and feed her two ounces of orange juice. I did as I told. Nothing was said about a pad or any protective device. The net result was that two ounces went in the top end and perhaps four to six ounces came out the bottom end. I had been christened. The new mother appeared and observed that I had not placed a pad under Blondie’s bottom. But I said, “If this is as bad as it gets, I believe I can handle it.”
I changed clothes and caught the street car in preparation for reporting to my office at 111 North Franklin Street in Chicago. The instant I walked in the entrance, all the women in the office began to gather around the door to my office. I shared an office with Dick Nichols and Clarence Kessler. When I entered my office door, I saw great collections of presents on my desk and on my chair. My first instinct was to say that Nichols and Kessler had done my Christmas shopping for me. That thought was dismissed in a nanosecond because I knew that those two guys would never do anything as nice as that. To make a long story short, Betty Kruchten had been at work. She had started a petition around the office that resulted in at least a dozen presents for the new little Chicago girl that we had adopted that morning. I should say at this point that if there are more generous people in this world than those who worked for AT&T in Chicago, I would be surprised. They were generous in the extreme.
There may have been as many as 40 to 50 people standing outside my office door, wanting to know the details about the adoption that had taken place that morning. I gave them the length of the baby as well as the weight and tried to explain that to protect the anonymity of the birth parents we knew very little about them. We knew that they were of Irish extraction with perhaps some Polish influence as well. But beyond that we knew very little. I told the multitude that her name would be Ellen Maureen Carr. Ellen is the Gaelic diminutive for Helen and Maureen is the Gaelic diminutive for Mary. During the remainder of the time that I spent in Chicago, about 15 months, the women there regularly brought me dresses and things for Maureen to wear. As I have said, the traffic women in Chicago are the most generous people I have ever known.
The formal adoption took place in January or February of 1955, when Maureen was about 16 of 17 months old. The judge was named Otto Kerner who started out to be a very stern-appearing judge. When Maureen sat down on his desk, the judge melted. That judge later served two terms as governor of Illinois, but then, unfortunately, he was sent to jail for a variety of offenses. Blondie was not involved in his breaking the law.
AT&T at that time moved its men from one place to another, often without much forethought. In my case, however, I was asked to take a labor relations job, which is my natural field, in New York City. Shortly before leaving Chicago, we asked a number of people to have a few drinks and dinner with us at our home. One of my recollections is that a fellow I liked very well began to play with Maureen at that function. His name was Felix John Waychus. Typically, John Waychus referred to me as Ezra, just as I referred to him as Felix. Old John Waychus had a set of keys in his pocket. Maureen would not go to sleep because of the excitement of all of the crowd in our house. But she was heavily attracted to the key chain that John Waychus offered to her. Old John said to Maureen, ”You are a lucky girl.” I was standing near John as he said that, and I tried to amend that thought by saying to saying to Felix, “No, we are the lucky ones.”
I had come east to New York City around March or April of 1955. Finding housing was always a problem for people of AT&T who moved so much. I put several ads in the Newark Star-Ledger and finally heard from a prospective owner who seemed interested in renting to us. The landlord was the owner of what was known in New Providence, New Jersey, as the Rickenbacker Farm. It was a five-acre farm with all sorts of outbuildings and fruit trees a little further out. I knew nothing of New Providence, New Jersey, of course but John Finn, the man who had the adjacent office, knew about a fellow named Bill Braunwerth, who worked for Bell Labs. John took it upon himself to tell Bill Braunwerth to go inspect this prospective rental. The result was positive and so we became the tenants on the Rickenbacker Farm. The landlord rented to us because he was departing to enter a seminary to study some Far Eastern religion. I never saw the landlord after the first visit but I believe it is fair to say that in the end, old Blondie fell in love with the Rickenbacker Farm.
This picture shows Blondie at about the age of two years. On weekends and holidays, Blondie was my constant companion in performing the chores that are involved with living on a farm. I am the taller person in this photo.

Our next-door neighbor was Jessie Nielsen who had been a part of the Italian family named Delia. Jessie had married a Danish sailor and they had no children. The distance between the Rickenbacker Farm and Jessie Nielsen’s place was about 150 feet. When we arrived, it was covered by weeds that had grown to a height of three or four feet. When Jessie found out that her new neighbors had a small girl and that she was adopted, she put her husband to work. He mowed the weeds down to an acceptable level between our two houses. That made it possible for Blondie to go visit with Jessie. Jessie had a bench on her porch where she often sat in the shade of her porch roof to deal with tomatoes and onions and things of that nature. On more than one occasion, I found Maureen visiting with Jessie, with them kibitzing like two old women. Jessie’s husband sat around enjoying the show.
The Rickenbacker house had a porch that extended most of its length. It was, of course, not air conditioned. People would sit on their porch in hot weather to escape the heat. On many occasions, I would sit on that porch after I came home from work and Blondie would sit on my lap. There was an occasion when a thunder storm broke out, which Maureen pronounced as “fummee.” I understood what she was saying, and that was close enough for me.
Upstairs in this old house was a large room near Blondie’s bedroom. She had a table with four chairs surrounding the table. It was all children’s size. From time to time, Blondie would have tea parties. She invited Jessie to those tea parties and the conversation between these two old women continued apace. On another occasion, Ann Hincks, the Welfare Supervisor from Chicago, came to visit us and Ann was treated to a tea party by Blondie. When Blondie’s grandmother came to see us, the same treatment was accorded to her. I was not always invited to the tea parties because Blondie contended that I complained too much. It is true that I said, “This tea is too hot.” On other occasions I would say, “This tea is too cold.” On some occasions I would say, “This tea is too just right.” All of my comments earned me a slap. (The “tea” was unheated and unrefrigerated tap water.)
These were happy years for Blondie as she picked the fruit from the trees and visited Jessie. In the fall of 1957, we were visited by a priest from the adjoining Roman Catholic church called Our Lady of Peace. The priest informed us that the church had bought our property and that we should start looking for another place to live. He made it thoroughly and totally clear that we should take our time. There was no pressure at all, and in the end I was happy to have this new friend.
Fortunately, as it turned out, there was a new development called Elkwood Estates right there in New Providence. The new houses being built seemed ideal but the financing was another matter. But the builder had an understanding with a local banker and we were able to buy one of the houses on Commonwealth Avenue. And so in the fall of 1957, we moved to the new house. By this time, Maureen had a new sister named Suzanne.
When Suzanne was born, Eileen’s mother, Virginia King, came from Florida to run the house. During Eileen’s confinement, Mrs. King, Blondie and I visited her but Blondie was not permitted to see her mother because of her age. When the visits were completed, Mrs. King and I would point out the window of Eileen’s room. I held Blondie when she screamed at the window, “Mommy, take of that baby.” When memories about Blondie are the order of the day, this memory continues to stick with me.
The girls had separate rooms in the new house and it was my custom to lie down with each of them after they had been put to bed. There was not a lot of talking, but snuggling was the order of the day. I think I looked forward to those snuggles as much as the children did.
Across the street from our home was the residence of Clara and Nick DiNunzio. By this time little Blondie had started to school in New Providence, where it was possible to walk from our home to the school. One afternoon I was talking to Clara DiNunzio when I saw Blondie turn the corner and head toward our house. She had an armload of books. When she reached Clara and myself, Clara asked her how her school work was going. Blondie informed Clara that “third grade is very hard.” In the end she got through third grade as well as high school and college at Miami of Ohio. I must say that Maureen always dressed fashionably when she went to the grade school in New Providence. She wore dresses and her hair was appropriately curled.
When Maureen graduated from Miami of Ohio University, I was a no-show. I had spent that week in Athens, Greece and had planned to take a TWA airplane from Athens to New York and then another one on to Cincinnati, arriving in time for the graduation. But in Europe, workers who are angry will take off a day or two to cool down. In this case, the airport workers at the Athens airport refused to go to work on the day of my departure. So I was left to stare from my balcony of the Grand Bretagne Hotel. The balcony overlooked the main square in Athens, where the soldiers wear ancient uniforms with white leggings and white shoes with red pompoms on the shoe instep. I was watching their close-order drill while old Blondie graduated from college.
This has been a more lengthy recitation of my memories of Blondie than I had intended and I hope you are still with me. That little girl who christened me back in 1953 will soon celebrate her 54th birthday. The poets say, “The minutes fly and the years go by.” Indeed, those years seem to have flown by. At this point, Blondie has two boys of her own and a good husband. I know that their offspring and marriage are in good shape because all three of the guys discuss baseball with me. That of course is man’s highest calling.
Space limitations would not permit me to recall every incident associated with my daughter Blondie. In this essay, I have simply tried to capture a few of the memories that have lingered in my mind for scores of years.
For all these years, Blondie has never failed to give Harry Livermore the compliment of calling him “Uncle Harry”. She has been devoted to Harry just as she has been my helper throughout her lifetime as pictured on the little “photo” earlier in this essay. It was a happy day when Blondie entered my life and Livermore may have had it right when he said that adopting her was the smartest thing I have ever done. I know it gave me great pleasure on the day of her adoption to tell the assembled gift givers outside my office that Blondie now resided in her own home. She was in her own room and was in her own bed. And she had two parents who were dedicated to her well-being. For a child of less than three months, this is a major achievement. And now I have only one further thought to offer. If any of you see Blondie, you should blow on her hair to see if it scrambles in every direction on command. If that happens, you have got the right kid.
E. E. CARR
May 28, 2007
Essay 257
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Reply from Maureen:
Daddy, I really enjoyed the story you wrote about me. Remember those dolls that I think AT&T gave to charity? I remember the doll I had had an aqua dress and bonnet and that it’s hair stood up. I think you always said the doll reminded you of me. You always had Suze and me help with everything — we always planted sunflowers, cleaned out the garage and basement, helped with mowing the yard — we carried the bags to my favorite — rotating the tires. Does anyone do that still? I still have the card that the ladies all signed in Chicago!
Thanks you again for the story. I really appreciate it. You took good care of me! Did you use a pad after that when you fed me? After vacation we should go for tea!? or lunch. Love Maureen
Kevin’s commentary: We read this out loud to Pop last time we were in NJ for a visit, so I won’t be redundant here. I will say that the line where Pop says “the girls had separate rooms in the new house and it was my custom to lie down with each of them after they had been put to bed” made me laugh, since mom still does that with myself and my brothers anytime we’re all home. Of course she is usually the first to go to sleep of the four of us, so Jack and Connor and I sometimes have to go to bed anyway and pretend to be a sleep. It’s more than a bit silly but hey.