Trying to be calm, Ruth said, "What do you mean 'caught'?"
"The needle came down right into my fingernail. It's bleeding and it hurts so much!"
"Can't you just release the needle - turn the wheel on the machine so it comes out?"
Still crying, Lottie said, "No, I can't. I'm afraid I will just make it worse."
I was home so Mom (Ruth) and I ran to the garage, backed her Packard sedan into the alley and drove the two miles to the my grandmother's two-flat on Iowa Street in Chicago. We had lived there until 1941 when we moved to 1210 N. Euclid in Oak Park.
Ruth was able to turn the wheel on the side of the sewing machine to pull the needle upward out of Lottie's bloody finger. Then she had me put ice in a bowl so that Lottie could put her finger in it. This was 1949, so Grandpa Meredith (James) had passed away. Her son, Jimmie, still lived with Lottie, though he was out when this happened.
Was this just a random accident? Not exactly. In the Nov. 5, 2013 post I mentioned that Lottie was very poorly coordinated because, as a lefty, her teachers tried to force her to use her right hand. They tied her left hand behind her back. It didn't work. She still used her left hand to write, but was forever after awkward in doing tasks around the house or yard. It seems barbaric, but tying up the right hand was an accepted practice in the late 1800s when she was a child.
Oddly enough, my father, John, was the first person to notice that our middle daughter, Cindy Pellettiere, was left handed. When he and Ruth were visiting from Florida, he started to hand food or toys to little Cindy's right hand - until we realized it! That was in 1968 when she was about a year old.
The picture is not in Pieces of a Life. Taken in June, 1949, it shows my brother, Ken Kellogg (age 17), dressed for the Senior Prom at Oak Park High, with his mother, Ruth (age 42), and grandmother, Lottie Meredith (62). They're in the Kellogg living room, framed against swirled plaster walls that were a pale aqua. Past Ken you can see the arched entry to the dining room and the Danish Modern furniture, quite stylish at that time.
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