Black Thursday
Rudy's Café
Growing up, my mother always told me to be grateful for what I have. Being as young as I was, I must admit, that I never fully grasped that ideology until now, simply because when you're a little girl, you have all of these fairytale like ideas that you're going to grow up in a huge castle, someday find your prince charming, and be swooped up off your feet. It doesn't seem like a very probable scenario when I think about it now, but I do remember how adamant I was about it all back in the day.
I was brought into this world in the year of 1927. It was the year of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s second term as president and was also the year that, “The Jazz Singer” opened, marking the end of the silent film era. My mother, Ruth Louise Hastings, was a hardworking waitress at Rudy's cafe in Davenport, Iowa and received just twenty-five cents an hour. When I was young I learned that she had worked there since she was sixteen years old. It was a family business and had been handed down from generation to generation, like a monarchy ruler passing the torch to their heir. My great grandfather originally owned the business, and when he died, it was then passed onto my grandfather. My mother then began working for my grandfather and did so until the business unfortunately shut down due to The Great Depression.
My father, Michael Ryan Pritchard, was both a farmer and a carpenter. He began farming at the very young age of eight, and would frequently help his father complete the chores that needed to be accomplished throughout the day. Whenever my brother and I would complain about doing chores around the house, my father would always say, “We were always busy when I was a young boy. We had chores in those days to do! We would come home from school, do our chores, helped with supper, got our lessons, and by that time it was almost bedtime. You two have it easy!” He was always the type to add in a wise or inspirational comment to everyday situations. At the time, I got to say, it annoyed me whenever he had to fill in comments like that, but now I thank him for them.
Coincidentally enough, my mother and my father met at Rudy’s café, while my mother was working her shift one morning on a remarkably hot and humid summer day. You could just imagine how many people arrived that day to get away from the heat. I recall my mother telling me about this occurrence one night before bed when I asked her how they met. She said, “When I first saw your father, the butterflies in my stomach refused to settle down. I was only eighteen at the time, your father two years older. Your father was such a handsome man…” I laughed at the fact that she could call my father “handsome”. At that time, when I was a little girl, my father sported a long beard and thin round glasses. I began to think about how my father must have looked back then. It was hard to imagine with that long beard in the way. They were together for eight years before my mother finally walked down the aisle to marry him, and they then waited for another two years before having their first child; my brother, Robby.
My brother was one of those rowdy kids who would frequently play in the dirt with army men and ran around wildly pretending to be a cowboy. I, on the other hand, was the quiet one who sat on the front porch, reading a book and writing in a journal. By the time I was five years old, I already knew that I wanted to be a professional writer. I would write in my journal up to five times a day, filling it up with things I did that day, random thoughts, and even drew little doodles on the sides. I was determined to do whatever it took to become a great writer. I wouldn’t say that I was one of those “child prodigies” like the kid over in Kentucky who learned how to play Beethoven’s 4th by the age of two, but I was quite intelligent for my young age.
Being the younger sister, obviously I was the target of many of my brother’s pranks, and of course there was a great amount of sibling rivalry. I got picked on greatly for the fact that I was the “book worm” of the family and the fact that I was a girl just made it all the worse. Women were and are still are looked down upon in this country as inferior to men. But ultimately, I had a pretty good relationship with my brother, and my whole family for that matter. Everything seemed to be going well for my family and we never once struggled financially, but by the time I was eight years old, things began to look extremely meek.
I was brought into this world in the year of 1927. It was the year of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s second term as president and was also the year that, “The Jazz Singer” opened, marking the end of the silent film era. My mother, Ruth Louise Hastings, was a hardworking waitress at Rudy's cafe in Davenport, Iowa and received just twenty-five cents an hour. When I was young I learned that she had worked there since she was sixteen years old. It was a family business and had been handed down from generation to generation, like a monarchy ruler passing the torch to their heir. My great grandfather originally owned the business, and when he died, it was then passed onto my grandfather. My mother then began working for my grandfather and did so until the business unfortunately shut down due to The Great Depression.
My father, Michael Ryan Pritchard, was both a farmer and a carpenter. He began farming at the very young age of eight, and would frequently help his father complete the chores that needed to be accomplished throughout the day. Whenever my brother and I would complain about doing chores around the house, my father would always say, “We were always busy when I was a young boy. We had chores in those days to do! We would come home from school, do our chores, helped with supper, got our lessons, and by that time it was almost bedtime. You two have it easy!” He was always the type to add in a wise or inspirational comment to everyday situations. At the time, I got to say, it annoyed me whenever he had to fill in comments like that, but now I thank him for them.
Coincidentally enough, my mother and my father met at Rudy’s café, while my mother was working her shift one morning on a remarkably hot and humid summer day. You could just imagine how many people arrived that day to get away from the heat. I recall my mother telling me about this occurrence one night before bed when I asked her how they met. She said, “When I first saw your father, the butterflies in my stomach refused to settle down. I was only eighteen at the time, your father two years older. Your father was such a handsome man…” I laughed at the fact that she could call my father “handsome”. At that time, when I was a little girl, my father sported a long beard and thin round glasses. I began to think about how my father must have looked back then. It was hard to imagine with that long beard in the way. They were together for eight years before my mother finally walked down the aisle to marry him, and they then waited for another two years before having their first child; my brother, Robby.
My brother was one of those rowdy kids who would frequently play in the dirt with army men and ran around wildly pretending to be a cowboy. I, on the other hand, was the quiet one who sat on the front porch, reading a book and writing in a journal. By the time I was five years old, I already knew that I wanted to be a professional writer. I would write in my journal up to five times a day, filling it up with things I did that day, random thoughts, and even drew little doodles on the sides. I was determined to do whatever it took to become a great writer. I wouldn’t say that I was one of those “child prodigies” like the kid over in Kentucky who learned how to play Beethoven’s 4th by the age of two, but I was quite intelligent for my young age.
Being the younger sister, obviously I was the target of many of my brother’s pranks, and of course there was a great amount of sibling rivalry. I got picked on greatly for the fact that I was the “book worm” of the family and the fact that I was a girl just made it all the worse. Women were and are still are looked down upon in this country as inferior to men. But ultimately, I had a pretty good relationship with my brother, and my whole family for that matter. Everything seemed to be going well for my family and we never once struggled financially, but by the time I was eight years old, things began to look extremely meek.