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Within the next five years, my brothers and a sister were born, Frederick Jr. (my mother always addressed him by his middle name, Lawrence) William and Mildred.

A family album, brittle and flaking, lies open on the desk as I write. The photographs are faded but the memories they evoke are bright as newly- minted coins.

Our square white house is partially hidden behind cherry trees and huge rose bushes, yellow Lady Banksia and pink LaFrance. Two little girls in white dresses are perched on the white front gate and a third stands beside them, so tall that her hair ribbon is on a level with theirs. I must have grown like a slash pine; my playmates called me "Long Doe." In dancing school, I towered over most of the boys but, while I was extremely shy in some respects, I developed no complexes out of being so tall. Across the street is the garden where I first heard the name, Shakespeare. Two sisters, Blanche and Gretchen Hoffer, had made it their hobby to cultivate all the flowers and the herbs mentioned in his plays. They let me pick their flowers for the bouquets and Dresden