Nana Biography

I used to wish I were a boy so strongly that I couldn't understand why I was born a girl.  I was horrified that I was a girl.  Then, I went away to boarding school - I should go back.  I guess I was kind of naughty.  I really don't know why - my mother didn't make me think I was naughty, but she thought I needed some correction.  They sent me to a convent in Cincinnati when I was 12 years old, for one year.  It was only 90 miles away, so I came home on weekends, I knew this was some sort of punishment, so I was defiant, and pretended to love it.   I got up every morning and went to mass.  My family were not Catholic.  They were probably not religious at all.  They went to church on Easter, but they sent me to Sunday school every week.  I was one of six Protestants in the Catholic convent, and I went to mass every morning.  My best friend was telling me how marvelous itvwas to take communion.  I remember kneeling in the church when she went up to have communion and being furious because I wasn't allowed to have it.  I kept asking her what it was like, and she said you can't tell what it's like because it's so marvelous.  I was enamoured of this thing, and since I was at an impressionable age, I ame home that summer with my rosary , I was saying the rosary every night.  My mother was hard of hearing, so I could always hear them talking, and my father was saying to her "Ruth, I'm worried about this child.  She's really gotten into this thing too deep."  Amd my mother saying "Don't worry about it.  By the end of the summer she'll have her pony, and friends."  

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