On the Drop Side of Yonder

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.