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.