The Beginning Years, part 2 (by Dick Votaw)

(part 1)

My parents lived in Plainfield, Indiana when I was born, but soon moved to Indianapolis to live in the back of Dad’s drug store.  I don’t remember too much about the drug store, but Mother always told later how miserable it was to live there especially during the depression years.  We moved to 803 W. 43rd St. in Indianapolis before I started to school.  Those were hard years at the drug store when every penny had to be counted and so many people were out of work. Mother and Dad recalled later how they would lay in bed at night and could hear people breaking in somewhere in front just to steal cigarettes.  Mom and Dad never challenged any of them which was very wise.  I do remember the Eskimo Pie ice cream bar and the free sticks that sometimes turned up.  The Eskimo Pie company would print the word FREE on some of the sticks and if you had one of them you could get a free Eskimo Pie.  I would follow people out of the drug store until they finished their ice cream and would throw the stick down and I would pick it up to see if it said FREE.  In those days there were no public trash barrels and people were not conscious of keeping your city clean.  I can remember people throwing almost anything out of car windows as you drove along and thought nothing of it.  The time period we lived in the drug store coincided with the time John Dillinger and his gang were doing their thing.  John’s family lived within a few miles of our drug store and he did have a reputation of being loyal to his family despite all the evil he did.  From time to time John would come home to visit, and my folks always knew when that took place as his family would come into the drug store to buy supplies.  This is all I ever heard about the Dillinger family except they were Quakers!

We lived in the Drug store from the time I was about one year until just before I started in first grade.  There was no public kindergarten in those days and my parents could not afford private school for me, so I had no formal schooling until I was 6-1/2. While we were at the drug store my parents bought me a ‘Big Bad Wolf’ pocket watch that I still have on my dresser at home.  I remember them telling me it cost $1.00 and they paid for it on the installment plan of $.25 per week for 4 weeks. This is how tight things were financially at that time.  I wrote a letter to Disney probably sometime in the 70’s to find the value of the watch and they replied that it was probably worth about $250.00 at that time.  I have never inquired since.  It was during this period that I had my most serious illnesses as I have been told.  I went through three cases of measles, mumps on both sides and a case of diphtheria, which at that time was fatal most of the time.  Evidently God had plans for me, for I was one of few that was spared.

During the school year I was home during the week and it seemed that Dad was always working at some drug store. I can remember him working for at least three pharmacies during this period of my life. The place he worked the majority of the time was Stokes Pharmacy located on the sixth floor of a medical building in downtown Indianapolis. He was manager of this store for a few years just before we moved to California. He worked every other night until 9 o’clock and every other Saturday. By the time he became manager the Sunday work stopped. When I was very young and we lived on 43rd street he had to work on Christmas day and we could not open any presents until he got home. On many occasions Mother and I would come to town and meet him for supper on the nights he worked late; he had from 4:30 to 5:30 for supper. After he went back to work Mother and I would sometimes go to a movie, but we had to get in by six o’clock before the prices changed. Before six my admission was 10 cents and adults were either 25 or 30 cents. The admission fee probably went up 10 or 20 cents after 6:00 P.M. We would see a double feature and then pick him up by nine. Shirley Temple movies, Tarzan (with Johnny Weismuller), and the Andy Hardy series with Lewis Stone and Mickey Rooney were my favorites.

Some evenings we would go shopping if the stores were still open or just stay at the store with him until closing time. When I was at least seventh grade age, before I got my first job in Indianapolis, my Dad hired me to fill capsules at 25 cents/hr. Capsule filling was all done manually then and the ingredients were mixed by the pharmacist in a mortar using a pestle. I still have Dad’s at home. The gelatin capsules came in various sizes from very small to the large double 0 size. I would have a pile of the mixed powder in front of me and would tap tap the large end of the capsule into the mixture until it was full and then close it with the small end. How accurate do you think that could have been? I do remember washing my hands before starting this job.