On the Drop Side of Yonder: Memories of Girlhood in 1930s America

by Jacqueline Breniser Brunais, Andrea Brunais (Editor)

Wonder what it was like to grow up in a small town in America during the 1930s? Whether sneaking into the train depot to surreptitiously tap out Morse code, spying on horse-drawn carriages heading for town or rolling bandages for soldiers, Jacqueline Brunais (nee Breniser) didn’t miss much as she grew up in Gregory, Michigan. She describes what happened when the Ku Klux Klan came to town, the men’s jawboning in her father’s filling station and how her great-aunt slaughtered chickens with her two hands and a knife, exacerbating the young girl’s fear of birds. Brunais describes her strange and wonderful relatives, delves into the customs and mores of the time, details her experience in a three-room schoolhouse, talks about what teens did for amusement when all they had at their disposal was (if they were lucky) a wind-up phonograph and some 78 RPM records. She offers a fascinating glimpse at small-town life, the sometimes odd behavior of the inhabitants of Gregory and the limitation imposed on girls and women at the time. Her intimate scenes of family life offer a look at the discipline of the time and the effects of an emotionally distant father on the family. The ordinary details of life are juxtaposed with the big world events of the time, creating a sense of immersion in the 1930s and 1940s.

102 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 12, 2015

Reviews

[Whistler's Mom · Rating 4 out of 5]

Please excuse me for gushing, but this book is a prime example of the pleasure that epublishing has brought into my life. What publishing company would print the memoirs of a woman who grew up in a tiny town in Michigan and who was unknown outside of her small circle of friends and family? We can print "coffee table" books about battles and disasters and long-dead politicians, but the everyday life of our parents and grandparents is considered unworthy of being recorded.

Jacqueline Brunais was ten years younger than my mother, but her childhood in tiny Gregory, Michigan was in many ways more "old-fashioned" than my mother's childhood in a medium-sized Southern town. Geography is a major factor in people's lives today and was even more so in pre-television, pre-internet days. In very clear, simple language, the author tells the story of her family and her ancestors and it's great stuff. Like all intelligent people, she speculates as to how her family history shaped her parents and (therefore) the lives of herself and her siblings. The thing that strikes the reader most forcibly is the harshness of life in the early 1900's. Those who clamor to return to the "good old days" don't know much social history!

Mrs. Brunais wrote this book in her old age, as part of a writing group recording memories of their tiny hometown town. I suspect that she also knew that someday her children and grandchildren would want answers about their family. Her entertaining and thoughtful stories contain the information that she gathered over the years and she wrote it ALL - the tragic and the absurd, the things we brag about and the embarrassing family skeletons. The story of one family is the story of all families. I enjoyed every page of it.