Margie Britz
also written Margie in the book
Biography
Neighbor child and Barbara's best friend next to her sisters. They played dress-ups, paper-dolls, school, and house. Narrator avoided her house because her father had a gun and large dogs. Margie and Barb were best friends, attended a Pat Boone concert, and roller-skated on newly paved 41st Street. Margie Britz later told the narrator what happened to Diana’s violin. Barb’s best friend and Carol’s neighbor; played dress-up with Barb. Barb went to Margie’s house to play on Sundays.
Timeline
date not given
Barb and Margie meet their musical idol
Barb and Margie attended a Pat Boone concert and got to touch him.
Dee's ChapterAfter years of attic storage
Diana’s discarded violin finds another player
Mom discarded the warped violin. Mr. Sajben retrieved and repaired it; his unnamed son learned on it and played it for years. The Sajbens had moved before Margie told the narrator.
Dee's Chapter
Stories mentioning Margie
- Neighborhood Friends and Games for Every SeasonBarbara remembers her closest neighborhood playmates and the pretend games she shared with Margie Britz. Childhood pastimes included swimming at Riverside Park, Popsicles, catching lightening bugs, lemonade stands, jump rope, cards, treasure hunts, yard games, and Jacks at school. She describes the frightening nighttime chasing game One O’clock And The Ghost Isn’t Here. Winter brought snow games, sledding, cocoa, and warming up on the register; fall brought leaf piles and Halloween treats and pranks. Quiet pleasures included reading Little House in Big Woods and watching clouds beneath sheets on the clothesline. Children also played in summer rain, although they were warned about “Night Air.”
- Jacks, Paper Dolls, and a Childhood Full of ImaginationDee remembers a happy childhood despite wartime film shortages and few toys. She recalls punishment for peeling airplane wallpaper, fear after The Wizard of Oz, Virginia’s ketchup prank, and endless games with Pat and neighborhood children. Paper dolls from Iris comforted her during an ear operation. Bicycle rides, a clubhouse, swings, and imaginative play filled the days, although large dogs frightened her and Hannah’s dog once bit her.
- The First Television and the Music That StayedThe parents returned from Diana’s 1949 leg operation in Chicago with the family’s first black-and-white television. Dee contrasts television with the radio programs that had fed her imagination. Bernie bought a record player after starting window-display work, and Dee repeatedly played Patty Page’s The Tennessee Waltz. Bob and Sue danced, Barb and Margie adored Pat Boone, and Barbie and Diana played instruments. Years later, Diana’s warped violin was discarded, rescued by Mr. Sajben, repaired, and played by his son; Dee regretted being unable to recover it.
- Imaginations, Paper Dolls, and the Warmth of HomeCarol remembers childhood games with her sisters and neighborhood friends when store-bought toys were scarce. They played House on an army blanket, dressed in cast-off clothes, played in a canvas tent and a deserted trailer, and enjoyed paper dolls. Quiet play in the kitchen while Mom ironed and listened to the radio gave Carol a lasting sense of security. The children made newspaper kites, Kleenex flowers, and Kool-Aid stands, played street games, and sledded through steep wooded hills before warming themselves at the brass heat register.
- Sunday Pies, Shared Chicken, and the FunniesSundays were reserved for family, with Mom rising at dawn to bake pies with lard crusts, crescent rolls, and cinnamon rolls. Favorite noon dinners included Swiss steak or fried chicken with mashed potatoes. Carol jokes that ten people shared one chicken, then adds that surely there were at least two. Mom ate the wings and Dad the back, liver, and gizzards, saving the meatiest pieces for the children; Carol now enjoys wings herself. After dinner, Barb usually escaped to Margie’s house and Diana read behind a locked bathroom door, leaving Carol and Dee to do dishes while Bob snapped towels at them. Afterward, they read the Sunday paper Dad brought from town, especially Carol’s beloved funnies.
Referenced in
Family corrections
Notes sent in by the family and approved on review. They sit alongside the original record — the book's wording is never changed.
No corrections on file for this record yet.
Suggest a correction