When I was in school, I didn’t like “history” class much. It was all about dates and wars and stuffy old men. Much later, long after I had graduated from college, I developed an interest in Medieval History. The books I read, books like A History of Their Own by Bonnie Anderson and Judith Zinsser, were mostly about ordinary life in those times, especially women’s lives. Of course, the wars, plagues and other disasters of the time affected ordinary lives in terrible ways.
A few weeks ago there was a news story about the Rosenberg trial of the 1950’s, how some evidence given by witnesses against Ethel Rosenberg may have been tainted. My daughter asked me to write about my memories of that time. And I was struck about how much that trial affected my life.
In those days, when I was about 10 or 11 years old, my family’s television set was still pretty new. I remember watching the McCarthy hearings and the comedians’ imitations of them. I sort of got the idea that “Communists” were bad but even that concept was mixed up in my 10 year old brain. I remember my Mom saying once that she was going to write to her congressman and I wondered why she would write to someone who was an enemy of America. Obviously, I got the two terms confused.
The cold war of the 50’s meant that we had air raid drills in school, where we would crouch under our desks or stand in the hall, saying the rosary. Once there was a sonic boom (probably a jet breaking the sound barrier) and my Mom came running into the room yelling “Those lousy Russians!”
But I certainly knew what the Rosenberg trial was about. It was a top news story in the early days of TV and the media milked it for all it was worth. What it meant to me was that a mother and father were going to be executed and that children would lose their parents. I was terrified, especially as the day approached for their death by the electric chair at Sing-Sing. I believe that this event contributed to my phobia about electricity. Shortly after the Rosenbergs were executed, I got a slight shock from an intercom in my house and spent a sleepless night thinking I would be electrocuted at any moment. It was downhill from there.
Now, of course I would have been plagued by phobias anyway. But it is interesting how newsworthy events change our lives, even in small ways. And who can deny how everyone’s life has been changed by the events of September 11th. Or Hurricane Katrina. Or Vietnam – but that’s another blog entirely.
A few weeks ago there was a news story about the Rosenberg trial of the 1950’s, how some evidence given by witnesses against Ethel Rosenberg may have been tainted. My daughter asked me to write about my memories of that time. And I was struck about how much that trial affected my life.
In those days, when I was about 10 or 11 years old, my family’s television set was still pretty new. I remember watching the McCarthy hearings and the comedians’ imitations of them. I sort of got the idea that “Communists” were bad but even that concept was mixed up in my 10 year old brain. I remember my Mom saying once that she was going to write to her congressman and I wondered why she would write to someone who was an enemy of America. Obviously, I got the two terms confused.
The cold war of the 50’s meant that we had air raid drills in school, where we would crouch under our desks or stand in the hall, saying the rosary. Once there was a sonic boom (probably a jet breaking the sound barrier) and my Mom came running into the room yelling “Those lousy Russians!”
But I certainly knew what the Rosenberg trial was about. It was a top news story in the early days of TV and the media milked it for all it was worth. What it meant to me was that a mother and father were going to be executed and that children would lose their parents. I was terrified, especially as the day approached for their death by the electric chair at Sing-Sing. I believe that this event contributed to my phobia about electricity. Shortly after the Rosenbergs were executed, I got a slight shock from an intercom in my house and spent a sleepless night thinking I would be electrocuted at any moment. It was downhill from there.
Now, of course I would have been plagued by phobias anyway. But it is interesting how newsworthy events change our lives, even in small ways. And who can deny how everyone’s life has been changed by the events of September 11th. Or Hurricane Katrina. Or Vietnam – but that’s another blog entirely.
2 comments:
grandma the blog is www.pofpz.blogspot.com
Thank you for your insight! It's one more reason that parents should keep an open dialogue with their children, so they can discuss these things and avoid the fears. As for how events influence a child, my 83yo MIL won't eat spagetti. She says she hates it as that is what she lived on during the depression.
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