"Letters From Holland Street"

When I was growing up on Holland Street in Clinton, South Carolina there were seven kids on my block. We were the offspring of three families. Keith and Mable Adair lived on the corner of the block with their two daughters June and Mary Keith. Next to them was the home of Grady and Virginia Adair. They had three daughters - Linda, Judy and Sue. Grady and Keith were first cousins, so these two families were related.

My family, which consisted of Tom and Virginia Cooper and their two sons Tommy and Jackie, lived two doors up the street in the house owned by Miss Bessie (Keith's mother). We rented rooms from Miss Bessie for several years and then moved down to the second block of Holland Street. Up until the time I graduated from high school, Holland Street was my home.

Linda, June and Tommy were the older children. Mary Keith, Judy and I were the younger set. Sue was just a baby. I describe us this way because this is the way Mary Keith captured us in her collection of letters "My Dearest Keith: Letters From Holland Street."

The letters in this collection are those written by her mother to her father during the war. Keith was in the Marines and served in various battles, but in particular he was on Iwo Jima during that fierce campaign. Mable wrote to him daily and as a diversion always told him what we children were up to. Mary Keith took the excerpts form the letters that described our adventures and made each of us Holland Street kids a bound collection of these memories.

You can't imagine how poignant it is to read about things my mother and father did with my brother and me and the rest of the neighborhood kids. I also enjoyed reading Mable's feelings about things. I remember her clearly even though she died in her middle thirties from cancer. She and Keith only had a few short years together after he came home from the war.

My best friend in the group was Judy. She and I were close since time began and are still close to this day. Strangely enough all seven of us stay in touch with each other. I guess the bond was tight enough to last a lifetime.

Grady and Virginia had another daughter after Sue. Her name is Trudy. Then they had a son, Ricky. Virginia and Grady divorced and Virginia and the children moved away. My father and mother remained on Holland Street and lived in our house until my mother's death. After she died my father married Grady's sister, Florence and they built a new home next to our old house on Holland Street.

The deaths, divorce, and moves caused sadness on Holland Street. Still when you read Mary Keith's collection of letters, it is all sunshine and bright days. We seven kids lived an idyllic life during our early childhood. We all had three families and we moved interchangeably among the houses. There was always some place to eat, somebody to care about us, someone watching over us.

I wouldn't take anything for these excerpts of letters Mary Keith collected. They bring back a rush of memories that had stayed hidden in my mind. If you have access to letters, notes, anything that pertains to your past; collect them and get them in some sort of form to be handed down to your children. Believe me the memories of this type are priceless.

The kids of Holland Street are a little scattered now but these memories keep us bound together in our hearts.

 

 

 

 

 

©2006 Jackie K. Cooper

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