I started homeschooling with four children, ages 6 down to 18 months, two boys and two girls. I learned immediately that if I wanted their attention, I needed them to go outside and blow off steam every single day. They had so much energy! We went for walks, we went to parks. But mostly, we played in the neighborhood. At the time we had 20 or so children running up and down our block. Most of them appeared unsupervised. I only rarely met another parent. I introduced myself and tried to learn their names. It was hard; they moved quickly and they moved away with some frequency. I introduced myself to the adults on the street, and several I made friends with. It was an inner city neighborhood in Akron, Ohio, downwardly mobile. Our bicycles were stolen multiple times and once we found one of them a block over, being sold in someone’s front yard. The guy selling it said a boy in the neighborhood had brought it to him, calling it abandoned. We got it back, but that was scary.

I learned compassion from these people, both from seeing their needs and from their help to me. One old woman hated children, except mine, because we sat and talked with her; we listened. She eventually had my children mowing her lawn and caring for her dog.

The house next to hers was inhabited by an older black man, a hard worker but not well-educated. When he found I was homeschooling, he asked for help getting books for his grandchildren to read. He wasn’t sure what to get. I gave him some of our books. When a neighbor died and the landlord cleaned out the house, this same man helped us get the piano from there.

We were given large cans of food storage from people in our church who were moving away. They had food in number 10 cans that they had bought back in the 1970s (1990s when I got it). A bunch of it was still good, but some had gone bad. There were about 20 cans of some powdered soy product; the instructions said to mix it with water and use it as filler for any type of food. I opened one can and immediately dumped it out. That stuff was nasty. We stacked the cans along the curb for the garbage man to pick up.

An older black woman came to our door to ask what they were and if they were any good. She wanted them. I dissuaded her, took her into our basement, and gave her some of the good dried food. We became friends. Her name was Sarah. She lived in a house around the corner, with a vacant lot beside it where she had a kiddie pool for her grandkids and neighbors' children to play in. She kept the really sturdy Little Tykes play houses and stuff that she picked up here and there, inside her fence, and a metal swingset in the open space. My children loved to play there.

One time she invited us over for a barbecue. We brought food, others brought food, and we sat and chatted for quite a while. My husband took over grilling the meat. Her husband flirted with me; Sarah pulled me aside and said, “Don’t give him no encouragement; he thinks he’s all that with the women.” I think she was embarrassed and fearful that he’d do something overtly inappropriate. When she told me her story, I could see why she felt insecure. Her first husband, when she was just a young woman, had sent her back to her mother’s house, with a baby and with no underwear on. She had lived a hard life. I was proud of her for having a stable place to live, with grandchildren who got along with her.

My son sold popcorn for Scouts. He went with me all over the neighborhood, enthusiastically selling. He was good at it. He sold 700 dollars worth, by walking around to everybody. Sarah’s immediate neighbor, another elderly lady, bought some. When the popcorn order arrived, she didn’t answer the door. Sarah took it, paid us, and said she would give it to her. When I asked, months later, how she was, Sarah said her neighbor never came home from the hospital that time, so she just kept it. I was so grateful for Sarah. We could not afford to not have the money for the popcorn. She was a good woman.