The 1950 Census

So I looked up my infant self in the 1950 census. At first I was frustrated because the address I checked was listed as "No one home" and had a note: "see pg 70" or something and there were only 31 pages in the tract. Hm.

So I checked all the pages, and indeed I found the address and the listing on page 70-something -- which was one of the 31 pages. But at the address where I thought I'd lived I found another family. Husband, wife and 16 year old son. Oh. Well... how could that be? Unless I didn't live there in 1950, and my memory of where I lived was faulty. Wouldn't be the first time.

But there had to be a record somewhere. So I checked all the pages, and eventually I found my mother, sister and myself living at a different address just down the street. Hm.

So I did the Google thing, and sure enough, this was a little house a few doors down from the duplex where I thought I lived. And this little house was strong in my memory. I knew I had lived in a little house on this street, or thought I had lived there, but all the pictures I could find showed us living in the duplex. But then it occurred to me. Those pictures were all taken in 1951. So in 1950 I really was living in the little house I remembered. But I wasn't any older than two when we lived there. Where do these ancient memories come from?

I have a vague memory of a move around that time, but the move I am thinking of was to a different house in another part of town -- from the duplex to the other house. Or was it? Was the move from the little house to the duplex down the street, and then, a year or so later to the other house? A scrambled memory?

I remember the appearance of the interior and exterior of the little house. The duplex not so much, though the exterior resembled the little house (I assume they were built about the same time, c. 1930). I remember the exterior of the other house we moved to, but nothing of the interior. Which is odd because I do remember the interior of the house next door quite well. 

I've written before about how memories are tricky things, whether they are long ago childhood memories or more recent ones. I don't know how it works, but I was really surprised to find that for the census of 1950 my sister, mother and I were living in the little house where I thought, until I found pictures showing us living in the duplex down the street that resembled the little house. 

Well, well, well...

And ultimately, the question is how memories work and don't work, what we recall and don't recall and why. I don't know how I have retained so many childhood memories, some of them from Iowa when I was no more than a few months old. Other, more recent memories are just gone. Every now and then, Ms Che will ask: "Do you remember X, Y, or Z?" naming a person, incident or place that we had known or experienced. Sometimes my answer is yes, but often -- I think too often -- my answer is no. 

Where do those memories go? And why is her memory of these things and people so much sharper than mine? On the other hand, I have much sharper memories of my early childhood than she has of hers.

It's a mystery...