Several readers have commented on the cover picture.  The picture was taken in March 1939.  My mother and I had gone to have formal portraits made.  Every couple of years in my family, each of us did this. 

One of the biggest life "treats" at this time in my life was being taken to lunch at the Rexall drugstore in downtown Olympia.  The drugstore had a lunch counter and I always felt so grownup when treated to lunch there. 

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Although I am known as Alice Peeples now, my birth name was Alice Lu Finch.  I was named after my two aunties, Alice and Lucy.    When asked  by my publisher what name or pseudonym I would prefer to have on the cover of my book, I hesitated. The final decision was that I would use Alice Finch as my "author's name" simply because this was my childhood name and this was a memoir of a portion of my child's life. 

There is also the hope that, although I have not been totally efficient in doing do, I had hoped for some amount of anonymity by using the Finch name.  I have remained supicious and frightened of our old captors, Now that I have told of their rampant evil I have opened a festering wound in their collective conscience. My hope is that most of them are dead and what I say is immaterial to those who are left.

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In the chapter where I tell about my high school teachers, one teacher was inadvertently edited out and I didn't catch the editing error prior to publication.  I'd like to tell you about her now.

Her name was Margaret Mace.  She was a tall stately gentle woman. She taught a wonderful class in Literature.  She was a long time resident of the local area, having grown up right where she later lived and taught.  She had two daughters, Peggy and Nancy  who are total credits to her, lovely girls, who grew to be equally graceful and lovely adults.  Her brother was a distinguished retired Admiral, James Russell, who graced our community in retirement, as did she. Their father was Ambrose Russell, who was the architect of many of our finest public buildings and private homes.

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Old stories out of my Scottish grandparents memories told of women who delivered babies born with a strong membrane around them.   It was known as a "caul".  This may reference a birth sac.  I doubt it could have been anything like an extra membrane.

How ever it happened, some babies had this special covering completely around them and it did not rupture or fall away as they were born but needed to be removed quickly as the child appeared. The old witches thought this gave the female children later on in their lives a special ability to detect dangers, be more aware of the future, have special perceptions about people and natural phenomena, and in general be more wise about the lives of the people dearest to them. 

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       Freckles was a very large Boston terrier.  In those days, that breed of dog was referred to as Boston Bulldogs but the name grew out of favor.  We always called Freckles "our bulldog". 

 Freckles was two years old and a great big handsome black and white boy doggie.  He was my constant companion and I'm told he was very proprietary about me.  He acted as though I was "his" baby.

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