When Marlene was six or seven years old in 1933, she lived in a small town in Laurelville, Ohio in the United States. The population of the town was only 490 people and the town was only two blocks wide. Marlene remembered the town as a place where children often went around without socks or shoes. Marlene had a lot of freedom to play with her friends because she remembered the town as safe.
Her mother, Mae, used a referee whistle to call the children home. When she blew the whistle two times Marlene would have to go inside and when she blew the whistle three times her sister, Wanda, would have to go inside. For fun a lot of kids would go to a creek. The creek had a deeper part to it where the older kids would dive into the water.
After hearing many of Marlene's childhood stories I never thought she would do something like this. Marlene and her friend Jane liked to look around and invent things to do. Marlene and Jane lived across from each other on the same street, Laurel Street. Jane's house had blue borders and Marlene's house had yellow borders.
Marlene's grandmother also lived in Laurelville but she lived on Maple street. It was called Maple Street because there were lots of maple trees. Jane and Marlene were as inseparable as twins. When they played it was usually just the two of them but sometimes Jane's older sister Charlotte would play too.
Jane's sister had very blonde hair and was beautiful, she would always play the princess when they played princesses. They would also play card games like rummy. Charlotte could play the piano very well, she would play the piano and Jane and Marlene would sing. One day it was just Marlene and her friend Jane, when Jane got an idea.
Jane thought that it would be fun for them to go to her house. When they got there Jane said her idea. Her idea was for her and Marlene to use Jane’s umbrella as a parachute. They decided to jump off Jane’s garage roof.
Marlene said yes. The two girls were hoping to find a new thrill. That day Jane's father, Charles was at his office as he was a doctor and Jane's mother, Amy, was in the house. They got a ladder and used it to get onto the roof.
Marlene was scared and didn’t really think that it was the best idea anymore. The garage was a standalone garage, it could only fit one car and had no storage on top. When Jane and Marlene got on the roof they decided that Jane would go first. Jane was nervous and a little scared.
When Jane jumped off the garage roof the umbrella folded inside out! Jane fell on the ground with a soft thud. Jane's mother did not hear Jane's fall even though she was just inside the house.
Luckily the garage was not that tall and Jane did not get hurt.
After that Marlene thought that it was not a good idea to jump off the garage roof after all so she climbed down the ladder to check on Jane. Surprisingly the umbrella did not break. Marlene's mother never asked what they had done that day and Marlene and Jane never told their parents about it until they were older.
Marlene said that if Jane made it down successfully she would have tried jumping off even though she was really scared. Marlene and Jane never got in trouble because it was their little secret. I think after that Marlene and everyone else learned a lesson: think things through when something seems kind of dangerous like the umbrella experiment!