Why my babies didn't have a baby carriage

When Joe B. and I were babies, we were taken outside in a proper baby carriage. It was not like a stroller. You could only lie down in it. It had four big wire wheels and a deep black body with a little mattress in it. On top there was a big vinyl hood that could swing from one end to the other to keep the sun off, and could even collapse and fold down altogether.
It looked sort of like the one in this ad:

Mother would put baby Joe B (he was called Little Joe then) outside in the carriage to get some fresh air. Here’s part of a letter she wrote to her mother when we lived in a little house on Brandon Road:

“Jane and I had planned to walk around the corner, with the children, to a neighborhood drug store (it is a new one). I decided to put little Joe in his carriage outside the door, give him his bottle, and let him nap in the sun. The other children were running around talking, looking over my shoulder, climbing over me – and Jane would come over and talk every few minutes while she waited for her children to get up from their naps. Then several other neighbors were walking their youngsters and stopped to see little Joe.”

After we moved to the house in Spring Valley there wasn’t any place to roll a baby carriage. (Joe B. got too big to fit in it anyway.) So Mother let me use it for my dolls. Once it was upstairs in our bedroom, I didn’t roll it around. I just parked it in my little alcove where my dolls all lived. Usually I had it full of dolls and stuffed animals.

I know Mother thought I would keep it until I was grown up and had babies of my own to take outside in it. Here is the sad story of why that didn’t happen.

You remember that I loved all sorts of animals and was always wanting a pet. Well, I got one. Mother wrote to her mother about it in September of 1953:

“Sunday morning Joe found a turtle in our front yard and G.L. was so excited about it. When Thelma was down Monday, she said they hibernated in the winter so we would have to let it go soon. G.L. was broken hearted so we thought, if she felt that way about a turtle, she should have a pet. We picked her up at school yesterday (Joe’s afternoon off) and went down to the Humane Society for a kitten. There was one pearl grey, and a solid black that were pretty –also some yellow ones. We had taken her so she could pick the one she wanted. So we now have one all colors! It went under the house when I let it out this morning and I was frantic. I thought it had crawled down that drain pipe outside the kitchen. Don’t think it is more than two weeks old and is very tiny – we were so anxious to let G.L. get what she wanted, we forgot to find out the sex – I think we will have lots more kittens someday!”

After that we almost always had a cat around. But they always had to stay outside, and they were always pretty wild. A cat isn’t much of a pet when you only catch a glimpse of it when it comes to be fed. I really really wanted a sweet little kitten to sit on my lap and be hugged and petted. One day I snuck a kitten away from its mother cat and hid it under my shirt. I slipped in the house and up the stairs and put it in the baby carriage. I put up the hood so no one would peek in and see it. I made a little bed for it with baby blankets. It must have been a very young kitten because it stayed in the carriage and didn’t climb out. I brought it milk to drink in little doll dishes. I shushed it when it mewed and hoped that no one would hear its tiny voice downstairs.

I forgot one essential thing. I forgot that kittens have to go potty. I found out something I didn’t know: that it smells. Even a tiny kitten can make a lot of big smells.

Mother found it by that smell. The kitten went back to its mother. Apparently the smell did not go away. The baby carriage disappeared. Mother and I were both disappointed.

And I did not have a baby carriage for my babies when I grew up.