The Childhood of Don Edwards

The Childhood Of Don Edwards

By Dana Edwards

My Grandfather, Don Edwards was born 86 years ago in San Francisco. He came from a pretty wealthy family, compared to everyone else in the great depression of the 20’s and 30’s.  He was the youngest of his two other siblings. He had one brother Tom, who was three years older then him, and one sister Pattie, who was five years older then him. He did not fight with his sister because there was just too much of an age difference between the two, for them to notice each other. But he was a huge pain to his brother, and they both disliked each other.

When Don was young, he would get two dollars a week, which was a lot for then, but when he was older, he would get ten dollars a week, which was a huge amount. His parents were very strict, imparticularly his mother. They would not let him go out and socialize, or do anything else that the other kids his age were doing. He was not allowed to go to parties, and his mother had to make special arrangements for him to not go to school socials. Sometimes, he was not even allowed to have a party 

for his own birthday. He did not realize how much he was missing out on at the time.

He loved playing baseball, basketball, and golf, when he got the chance to. He was very good at golf. He won the San Jose golf championship a number of times in his older high school years. He would always play outside rather than inside because of the good weather of California. If it was a cloudy day, and he had time between school, and chores, he would play with cards, and checkers. But his favorite was May-Dong. He love little electrical things, and basically anything that moved without his physical force. Once he built his own little motorized wagon. He liked to read a lot, and he read all the “OZ” books. He also liked fishing with his dad.

He went to public schools until Stanford University. Parts of school were pretty hard for him, such as algebra and calculus, but he still did very well at them. Mostly A’s and B’s. He was the president of San Jose high school for a year. While he was at school, he had very few friends, but he was used to that.

His family was Christian Scientist and he hated it. If he had a bad sickness, he was not allowed to go to the doctor. His older sister Pattie, died a few years ago, having never gone to a doctor in her whole life. Sometimes, if he was really badly sick, his dad would sneak him to the doctor, because it was his mother that had the Christian Scientist belief, and background. He had to go to prayer night every Wednesday night for three hours, and Sunday service for two hours on Sunday morning.

Later on in his life, he had three children, and five grandchildren, of which one is me. He now realizes what he has missed out on and he wishes, he could have had a better childhood, like me.