Nana Biography

Well, the first one that left home with Sam, and he left when he was 13. 

How come he left first? 

Well, one of the things we had, we had a family meeting, And John and I first met and discussed it. We felt that the children should have some Eastern experience, and gave them, we called them into the family meeting, we had a lot of family meetings with John, it was sort of fun. And the family meeting was, that ever One of the boys should go east, either to his high school or to the college, and they could choose which one they wanted to do. And Sam was the first one, I remember he said, “I want to go east right away. I want to go back east,“and so on. Jon said that’s fine, and Leonard looked worried, and I said, “well, Leonard, maybe you’d rather not. “And Bruce was not old enough to make the choice. Anyway, we could see that Leonard wasn’t ready, he didn’t want to, and all that. Sam couldn’t wait. And this solved the problem of separating the boys, too.

You wanted to separate them. 

Yes, I wanted them in different areas because there was a conflict there, and school, athletically, they were always on swimming teams, one one, and then the other one didn’t quite win, oh God. 

Were they pretty well matched 

Yes, pretty well matched. So, but, and they were, and even just playing games with the family was terrible rivalry. So, he went off, and I think he was home sick, but he never admitted it. He wrote, you’d get a few letters all at once, but he had a marvelous academic record and a marvelous time, and I went back to his graduation and he cried when he left. He was very emotional, and, he has feelings, not a cold man.

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