FIVE YEAR OLD LISTENS FOR DECLARATION OF WWII

I had been born to a couple who were childless for the first twelve years of their marriage. They had given up. Mattie the wife was 36 and that was considered far too old for a first child, particularly one born at home. Daddy wanted a boy, named him John and waited. It was a girl, mama tagged an A on the end of her name and Johna she was. She and the disappointed daddy became best buds.

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