My First Newspaper Coverage

The Plain Dealer, 1983 (Cleveland, Ohio)
thats me sittin' on the sweet bike

My Aunt Joan sent me this article in the mail (thank you!)... she has been cleaning out the home my late Great Aunt June (who was the bestest great aunt ever - I miss her). Evidently Aunt June was the keeper of family pictures, its been fun to see all of what she kept from over the years. This article was a surprise, I had to share.

This article is about a book that my mother and her friend had just published: "1983 Cleveland Guide to Daycare and Nursery Schools".

I remember the book, mostly because for a period of my childhood there were boxes and boxes of them in the house. Also I remember the book because my mother went to the same publisher as the founder of American Girls (then called Pleasant Company) and they became friends and I received the catalogs for these dolls right from the very beginning of that company. I saved all my money (I was 8 when the first catalog was released and I remember the dolls costing about $100) and bought a Samantha doll. I would pretend to play with her school books (for some reason I was affraid to ruin their perfectness), so the pencils still have their original tips and the books aren't scribbled in at all (my mother kept that doll and all her chachkees). But that is a random side story (of me being a very strange little kid)... how easily the story diverges :)

To get back to the article... This book that my mother and her friend published continued to be the only resource available to parents in the greater Cleveland area for more than a decade. I couldn't be prouder of my mother for putting out this book. It was 1982 and she and Mrs. Crawl did all the research themselves, hired a printer and found a publisher. Not too shabby for a couple of stay at home moms. Seriously.

Love you Mom!