Blog 692 – 07.13.2017
(Excerpt from the book, Emily – The Little Girl Who Sang Her Song To Anyone Who Came Along)
Episode 13

Her first few years of formal education were in a Christian Academy where she sang in church and participated in Christmas plays. After her mother and I separated she and her brother Ben left the academy and attended public school. He in high school and she in elementary.

Linda, my fourth wife and Emily’s other mother, and I took off work to see her in her first play, James And The Giant Peach. She was adorable as were all the children and she had a wonderful time. Emily loved people and she loved to entertain so she made the adjustment to public school look easy. Ben had a rougher time of it.

After a few years in public schools in Spring Branch, a suburb of Houston, Texas, Sandra, Emily’s mom, moved the three of them to Austin, Texas to be near her mom and work outside the home. Sandra had done child care in the home for years and in her words that phase of her life was over.

In Austin, which was the place in Texas that Emily loved most, she attended Murchison Middle School where she was affectionately known as Second Hand Rose (see the Episode 12 by that name for details.)

The move meant Emily would have to take a bus from Austin to Houston to spend the weekend with her Houston family. So my twice monthly visits with her dwindled to monthly. We still got to see her for two weeks in the summer and a week of her Christmas vacation from school. Her long time friend Cindy went with me sometimes to pick Emily up or drop her off at the bus depot. Several times I drove her back to Austin just to have the additional time with her. I am not ashamed to tell you that I cried like a baby each time I put her on a bus or drove her home to her mother. This for ten years till she graduated high school and she left Texas for her beloved East Coast.

Emily and Sandra moved back to Houston for Emily’s last year of high school and though she loved Austin and the friends she had made there she made the best of it and drama class and club made the transition far better than it otherwise might have been. Emily had been in high school plays in Austin. One Linda, Jay, and I drove to see her in was Fourty-Second Street. Her’s was a small part but she was a Sophomore and had to pay her dues doing sets, costumes, and back stage work before getting the better parts.

In Houston she soon had a leading role as Kate in The Taming of the Shrew.” Emily also had a bigger role in the fun spoof of the Dracula story called Dead And Loving It made popular by the movie starring Leslie Nielson. The high point of her stage work was her One Woman Show at the end of her senior year at Robert E. Lee High School in Houston. I took off work to see my baby shine. It was in the small auditorium but it was packed with her friends and fellow students. She was magnificent and mesmerizing. Emily take a bow and enjoy your standing ovation.

Your Fellow Traveler, and Em’s Dad,
David White