Some Things We Never Forget

There are a few disturbing things from my childhood that I carry with me. One is that I still remember my first friend from kindergarten, who was struck and killed by a city bus. I still can remember going to her funeral and seeing her lying in the open coffin. I also remember that her mother and my mother were best friends, and I was given her clothes.

 

The second thing that stays with me is that growing up, I lived close to a funeral home. My friends and I would sneak in to the funeral home and look at the dead people in the coffins. When I saw a little baby in a coffin – that was the last time I went into that funeral home.

 

The third unsettling incident that I remember was the time a 12-year-old girl by the name of Beverly Potts was kidnapped. Beverly Potts lived in Cleveland and went missing on August 24, 1951. She was last seen at Halloran Park on Cleveland’s West Side, attending the Showagon. The Showagon would travel from playground to playground and featured a troupe of singers, dancers, and magicians. The performances were free.

 

Beverly Potts never returned home and they never found her body. Every year they would run a story about her in the newspapers. Now, 60+ years later, the entire Potts Family is dead.

 

A few years ago, I read the book Twilight of Innocence by James Badal. I even watched a video about the Potts Kidnapping. Although I didn’t live in Cleveland at that time, the news was always around, especially on the anniversary of Beverly Potts’ disappearance.

 

I still remember every time that I would go out to play, my mother warned me to be careful, come home at my assigned time and don’t talk to or go with any strangers. Finally, she would add the name of Beverly Potts for good measure.

 

After all these years, I still remember a 12-year-old girl with pigtails, smiling from a picture in the newspaper. I so often wonder how hard it must have been for her family; the parents and her sister, to never know what happened to her.

 

Yes, sometimes, certain things never go away and they still come back to haunt me.