An American Childhood

Part One begins when Dillard is 5 years old. She describes her suburban neighborhood where the men empty out in the morning, leaving the women and the children to their separate lives. She describes both the incredible silence and the sudden noises of the neighborhood. Dillard also depicts the passage of time: “Time streamed in full flood beside me on the kitchen floor; time roared raging beside me down its swollen banks; and when I woke I was so startled I fell in” (17).

Furthermore, Dillard describes a nightly terror. An oblong of light races around the top of her bedroom walls, accompanied by a fiendish sound, and vanishes into the corner by her bed. She is certain that if she tells anyone about this entity that it will kill her. Her sister, Amy, sleeps in her own bed across the room. Amy sleeps through the entire ordeal, every night. Finally, Dillard realizes that a car generates the light and noise: the racing oblong is a reflection of a streetlight on the windshield of a car.

Dillard next details her revulsion for the aging skin of adults, coming loose from its bones and muscles—even on her mother’s knuckles when her mother was about 27. Dillard’s father was 29 when she was born; her mother was only 22 years old. However, Dillard’s revulsion is substantially erased by her tender, devoted love for her attractive parents. Dressing up for a night out, her mother becomes an “exalted and dazzling beauty,” and her tall father becomes part of a “splendid” duo (27).

After a particularly large snowfall shuts down the neighborhood, Dillard plays outside with a neighborhood boy, Tommy Sheehy, who tells her that she should call the family’s maid a “nigger” (29). When she follows through on this, her mother gives her a serious lecture: she is to apologize to Margaret Butler, the maid, immediately; to never use such a word again; and to have nothing more to do with the Sheehy children.

Later that night, Jo Ann Sheehy ice skates in the street, and the whole family watches her graceful and unselfconscious performance, remarkable for both its beauty and its strangeness.

Dillard becomes fascinated with the Catholic children—including Jo Ann and Tommy Sheehy—and their schooling. In particular, she obsesses over nuns. Both desperate and afraid to get a glimpse of these hideous beings, Dillard runs outside when the Catholic school lets out. Terrified when she sees a group of nuns approaching, she runs inside. Her mother takes her back outside and asks one of the nuns if Dillard could have a look at their faces, so that she would know the nuns were human.

Dillard next presents a series of random and unconnected short vignettes on various topics, including her mother’s affection for Scottish phrases, since most of high society in Pittsburgh at that time was composed of early Irish-Scottish immigrants. Dillard’s mother loved language in general, using the witticisms of her mountain upbringing. Her mother’s imagination and devoted love seemed nearly goddess-like to the young future writer, Dillard.

Dillard’s imagination latches onto the idea of buried treasure when she digs under a tree in the alley behind her house and discovers a 1919 dime. When her father tells her that the dime might be worth more than its face value because it is an old dime, images of treasure chests filled with gold doubloons fill her mind, and she begins digging up the alley in earnest, using a shovel. Though she never finds another coin, she does not care.

At 7, Dillard gains the freedom of the neighborhood and roams everywhere, either on foot or on her bike. For example, she rides her bike to a football field to watch the boys play. She falls in love with one of the players, Walter Milligan, who despises her for her obvious devotion. Dillard stretches the boundaries of her world, creating an ever-expanding map.

Eventually, some of the boys begin to teach Dillard how to play football, then baseball. Once winter arrives and the sports’ fields are covered with snow, the boys and Dillard throw snowballs, particularly aiming at passing cars. She and the boys get in trouble when they hit the car of one particular man. This man begins chasing them as they run away. The boys split up, while Dillard and a boy named Mikey run together. Even with the advantage of her internalized neighborhood map, Dillard cannot outrun the man. Chased block after block, she is filled with excitement rather than fear. The man catches her and Mikey, calling them “stupid kids” (48). The furious man just wanted to talk to them.

In Dillard’s family, one of the most important skills was telling jokes and funny stories. The Doaks taught their children everything about the art of joke-telling, including the structure, timing, and theory of jokes. The three Doak girls learn how to be the “straight man,” particularly for their mother, whom they love to feed the lines that she turns into jokes (56).

Summers were spent at the Doak grandparents’ home on Lake Erie. Oma, the girls’ grandmother, was a colorful, imposing figure with decided opinions, red hair, and a fun-loving nature (62). Their grandfather was a kind and generous man who was vice-president of a local bank, though the family still held shares in the family company, American Standard. The household also included a Hungarian housekeeper named Mary Burinda, and Henry Watson, a butler/groundskeeper/chauffeur from Pittsburgh. Both Mary and Henry were beloved members of the family. Mary lost her parents and most of her brothers and sisters on the same day to the flu epidemic in 1918; she had been with the older Doaks for 24 years.

Dillard’s mother and Oma fought for years over taste, particularly in the decoration and furnishing of a home and the type of clothing to bestow upon the Doak girls. Oma’s taste leaned toward vivid greens and purples, her own favorite colors. However, Dillard notes, “Matters of taste are not, it turns out, moral issues” (64). Family is family, and the Doak family was united in their love for one another.

When Dillard was 8 years old, the family moved to a large house on Richland Lane, where they were to remain for several years. Dillard’s youngest sister, Molly, was born when Dillard was 10 . This section ends on the verge of Frank Doak’s imminent departure down river on his boat to New Orleans, and Dillard’s recollection that she was now fully awake to her life.