Did You Get Along with Your Brother and Sister?

Good grief! No! We fought like cats and dogs when we were growing up. Joanne and Pat were pretty close and got along better than I did with either of them. My sister and I fought about everything. She took my clothes and wore them to school after I had left early for school with my father in high school. She was angry because our teachers in grammar school always compared her to me ("Why can't you be a good student like Diane?"). She hated school; she didn't like sitting still; she still doesn't. She likes to be going and doing things, whereas i am content to curl up with a book. We "stole" the record player back and forth from each other's rooms and also the electric razor. I wore uniforms and she would never let me borrow her clothes for a dance or going out. I did wear one of her gowns to the Military Ball in university in my senior year and I was crowned queen. She claimed it was because of the dress. Maybe it was. We got along better after I got married and moved away, and even better when I got divorced because she and Jimmie (Grandpa) didn't get along well. Two Geminis butting heads.

Pat and I got along better but his arrogance always makes me a bit annoyed, even today. He is a little put out with me now because of my involvement with CASA, when he had all that trouble over the children in Oklahoma. It's an iffy relationship. I write to him every 6 weeks or so ago but I rarely hear from him. He isn't into computers so email is out. Snail mail is in.

Relationships with brothers and sisters are very complicated.

Our Pets

Yes, I had pets growing up. My first pet was a beagle-mix named Tinkerbelle. We got her when I was about 5 years old, when I was in Kindergarten. She was a sweet dog and I loved her very much. But my parents let the dog out and it roamed around and eventually was hit by a car and killed. It was terribly traumatic for us kids. We cried for days. My father buried her in the woods and marked her grave by putting bricks on the top of it.

Our next pet was a collie mix named Tippy. We got him when I was sick one day. My mother didn't believe in leaving a dog in the house so she let him out every day and ran away every day. One day my father put up a chain so he could move around but he barked continuously and the neighbors complained so we had to give Tippy away.


Our last pet as children was another collie-mix named Sissy. She got her name because we got her on the feast day of St. Francis of Assisi and her real name was Assisi but we always called her Sissy. She adored my grandfather and he adored her. If he walked to our house and then wanted to walk back, there was trouble because Sissy would follow him home. So my mother took my grandfather home most of the time. I was twelve when we got Sissy so I remember her best of all. She would try to hide from my mother when she would call the dog to come inside. Sissy would stand against a tree with her head on the tree; she couldn't see my mother but she didn't know that my mother could see her rear end sticking out from behind the tree. She stayed in our yard or in the woods that surrounded our house until night time when she came in to eat and sleep. My mother only let her in the kitchen and the back hall, where she slept.


On the night my grandfather died, when I was nearly 20 and my brother was 18, Pat sat in the back hall with Sissy and told her that Grandpa wouldn't be coming back anymore. He cried and cried and held Sissy for comfort, since my brother was very close to my grandfather, too. For years afterward, Sissy would get very excited when my uncle and grandmother would come to visit because she expected my grandfather to come out of the car. She always seemed so disappointed when he wasn't there.


She died a few years later when her arthritis got so bad that she couldn't go up and down the stairs anymore. My brother took her to have her put to sleep. It was a sad day. She was such a good and faithful dog.


My parents had a dog my brother gave them a few years later because my father loved dogs. He was a black lab-mix named Duke, after "The Duke"--John Wayne who was one of my father's favorite movie stars. My parents had learned by then not to let their pets roam and Duke was on a long chain outside the back porch. He died after my father had died from peritonitis, from eating a bone that punctured his intestines. My brother was very sad about Duke's death, but I think my mother, who was not an animal person, was relieved that she didn't have to let him in and out and clean up the dog hair.


Pets are important because they teach us to care for God's creatures and they bring us unconditional love and comfort.

My Siblings

Who were your siblings?

I have one younger brother and one younger sister. My brother Patrick was born in August 1951 when I was a little more than 1 1/2 years old. We had just moved into our new house that was being built by my father when Pat was born. He never smiled in pictures that were taken of him as a child. I don't know why, but he always had a scowl on his face. He looked completely different from me, with his blonde hair and blue eyes, while I had very dark hair and dark brown eyes.

My sister Joanne was born about 10 months after Pat, when I was about 2 1/2 years old. She looked different from both Pat and me. Her hair was red and she had light brown eyes. The three of us could not have looked more different from one another. My mother had light brown hair and light brown eyes; my father had reddish hair and light brown eyes. I looked more like my Uncle Donald with my dark coloring. My Grandmother Rose had red hair and blue eyes. When my mother was young she had blonde hair. As we were exposed to the sun, we all had freckles, Joanne having the most.

What did you play with as children?

Pat and Joanne were close to one another growing up. They played together more than I played with them. I was very content to draw or to read books or walk about the property by myself. My brother loved to play construction worker with his little plastic men and trucks. Joanne was constantly climbing up on something. She climbed trees and jumped on furniture. My father eventually built us a jungle gym that she could climb on. We also had a swing set and a large slide my father had made.

When Joanne was older, we would play with our doll house and little dolls, moving the furniture around until we had a disagreement and then got into a fight. We also played with our larger dolls, baby dolls that had a pram and a bed. All of us enjoyed playing with blocks that my father had made out of scrap wood for us and my mother had painted. We also had tinkertoys to built things with.

My father also built us a play fort out of wood which we enjoyed playing in the woods. Cowboys and Indians were popular in those days so the fort was a perfect place for us to act out our play. When we a little older. my father built us a play house. It was green with a porch, three windows and a door. As we got older, the spare key to the house was located above the door to the little house. We got many hours of pleasure from playing in that little house.

As we grew older, we played board games together, which usually ended in some sort of squabble. We played Monopoly, Parchese, checkers, chess, and Chinese checkers. Monopoly games could go on for hours. My brother often played Battleship or War with his friend Bruce who lived nearby, and they also played baseball as they listened to the Yankee games on their transistor radios. My sister often played with Bruce's sister Allison who was a year younger than Joanne. I was left on my own to imagine, draw, paint, and read. But I didn't mind. I enjoyed being on my own since I most often ended up in a fight with my sister who was extremely stubborn and willful. I was calmer and would give in more readily.

We also enjoyed skating and sledding in the winter. My father built us a skating rink in the back yard one year, but mostly we went back in the woods and shoveled the snow off a pond and skated in the woods. We also had our bikes we could ride around the long circular driveway. Only my brother was allowed to ride his bike on the main road as he got older. Joanne and I were confined to riding our bikes in the driveway.

Thins You Should Know About My Birth

When and where were you born?

I was born on November 22, 1949 in Utica, New York, in St. Elizabeth Hospital at about 7:40 p.m. I weighed a little over 7 lbs.

Who was your father?

My father was Floyd Donald Samson. He was a building construction teacher at Utica Free Academy and worked as a carpenter during the summers. He was 37 years old when I was born. He was born on September 16, 1912 in Utica, New York.

Who was your mother?

My mother was born Mabel Malvola Tolley. She was a legal secretary before she married my father and worked as a secretary before I was born. She was 30 years old when I was born. She was born on May 10, 1919 in Forest, Virginia.

When and Where Were Your Parents Married?

My mother and father were married on August 12, 1948 in Lynchburg, VA, in the Catholic Church of Our Lady for Fatima. It was a very small wedding. Only my Aunt Elsie and Uncle Bob (my father's brother) and my mother's parents were present. My mother wore a light blue suit (top and skirt) and a black hat with a little veil. My dad wore a nice suit. They had a very small wedding because they could not have a Mass since my mother wasn't Catholic and were married in front of the altar rail because non-Catholics could not go into the altar area.

How Did You Get Your Name?

You have heard this story before but I'll tell you again. My father wanted to name me Rosemary after his baby sister who had died. But his mother was very opposed to that since it is considered bad luck to name a child after someone who died young or tragically. He then suggested Rosemarie, but my grandmother thought that was too close to Rosemary. Then he suggested Marie, but my mother objected because my father had a cousin named Marie Samson and she felt that people would confuse us. My mother selected Diane (with a middle name of Marie) from a movie magazine that she had been reading before I was born. My grandmother wasn't thrilled. She thought people may call me Dinah or Di, and indeed my mother always called me Di, as did my uncles on occasion and so did my father sometimes.

Where Did You Live?

We lived at 1603 Holland Avenue in Utica in an upstairs flat that had two bedrooms, a typical northeastern flat. They are like two one-story houses piled on top of each other. We lived near enough to Utica Free Academy where my father taught that he often walked to school. His supervisor at school, Henry Guilfoyle and his wife Josephine (Jo), lived three houses down the street from us. We called them Uncle Henry and Aunt Jo, and they were good friends to my parents and to us kids. Their younger daughter Connie was my babysitter and took me to the movies when I was little.

We lived about a mile from my father's parents and 2 miles from the church we attended. We were also just several blocks from the grocery store.

Did You Have Any Siblings?

I was the first child that my parents had, so I was an old child for nearly 2 years before my brother was born.

How Excited Was Your Family When You Were Born?

The entire Samson family was very excited when I was born. I was the first girl born into the family since Rosemary had been born and died in 1916. I had two cousins, both boys--John and Michael--who were the sons of my Uncle Bob and Aunt Elsie. John was 2 1/2 when I was born and Michael was 9 months old. I have always been very close to these two cousins, since we grew up together.