Okay. This is as far back as I can remember. I have no recollection of my prebirth activities.
I Was Born
It all began at 2 o'clock in the morning. (I couldn't pick a decent hour?) It was apparently my first time to cause my parents some inconvenience. At least it was on a Saturday, so I guess my dad didn't have to take time off from work.
It happened in Brooklyn, New York, on August 2, 1930. (Go ahead. Do the math to figure out how old I am. I'll wait.) In later years I found that the zero in 1930 made it easier to figure how old I was when some event happened. The subtraction was easier.
My Father
My father's name was Spencer D. Coleman, so he named me Spencer D. Coleman Jr. However, I never really liked the long form of my name. I much prefer Spence Coleman. All my friends and the people with whom I come in contact with my volunteering know me by that name.
My father was employed as a cashier for Travelers Insurance in Brooklyn, New York. When I was a kid he would sometimes take me into work, where I would experiment with his Dictaphone, the kind with a wax cylinder, while he worked for part of the day. Afterward we would visit local attractions such as an auction house and an Automat for lunch.
Dad's mother had roots going back to the English colonists; in fact, he told me that, if I wanted, I could probably join the organization called the Sons of the American Revolution. His grandfather had immigrated from Germany. So where did the English-sounding name "Coleman" come from? Dad figured it was a corruption of a name like Kuhlmann that some immigration agent had mangled. The family lived in Brooklyn.
My Mother
My mother, I was told, had been a telephone operator at Travelers Insurance before I was born. She quit after that to be home to raise me.
Mom's parents had both immigrated from Norway. Her given name was Mabel Ericksen, but she much preferred to be called Mae. Her family lived in (on?) Staten Island, New York. But after she married Dad the couple moved into an apartment in Brooklyn.
Family With Mom and Dad
Elsewhere on this Website I talk about where we lived and all that good stuff. But I thought at least I ought to include here a photo of the three of us while I was still young.
This photo was taken in August 1943, when I had just turned 13. We are at our favorite vacation spot, a lakeside boarding house in Warwick, New York.