TOPh: Mrs B's

The first daycare I ever attended was out of a private home, run by a woman I knew as Mrs B – her full name was Bertha Box. At any one time, I don't think she ever had more than 8 or 10 kids, although I remember 5 or 6 being the norm. She had this enormous playroom off the living room with probably the largest (extensive) kitchen playset that I've seen to this day. I remember once this little boy who was in the midst of potty training and having to go so bad that he peed in the playset's sink.

Other things I remember, maybe partially because my mom would remember them and later recount them to me:

• Mrs B used to serve a lot of tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for lunch. For the longest time, I thought it was the best tomato soup in the whole world, until I discovered it came out of a Campbell's can.
  
• She also served a lot of spaghetti and that's where I learned to cut cooked noodles with two knives.
• At her kitchen table I also learned the value of eating with your mouth closed.
• When her husband was alive, I remember he would come in sometimes and help peel oranges for dessert or an afternoon snack. And he would tell us how the peel had all these nutrients and vitamins in them, and then proceed to eat an entire unpeeled orange like an apple.
• There was a little boy named Drew that I had a crush on. He was about a year older, and a regular, for a time, like me. Many years later, in maybe fourth or fifth grade, I met him again when, for a time, we attended the same grade school.
• And there were two little girls that were regulars at Mrs B's whom I always wanted to play with, but they forever shunned me for their own reasons. I would also meet them years later. The blonde would move into a house down the street from us; accidentally take my snow boots home and pee in them; and move away not long after that. The brunette I would meet briefly on the street one day because my mom recognized her mom and said hi. Both her and the blonde were quite beautiful as children so I was a little startled to see this plain, somewhat overweight girl (not that I was ever a looker at any time).
  

I can't remember how many years I spent there, although by the time I was starting kindergarten I had moved on to a community church-run daycare center on the north side of town. (We lived on the south side, but because there was a waiting list for the elementary school near our house, I had to go elsewhere for nearly 4 years.) After Mrs B quit the daycare business, she managed to keep track of a lot of the kids that she had cared for, me being one of them. And one year she sent me these three pictures from her collection.

I last heard from Mrs B at Christmas. Even in her old age, she's still quite busy. At one time I had heard she was helping to take care of another elderly woman; and currently, she makes quilts and baby blankets for the local hospital.