Before They Were Stars

After World War I, many of our soldiers returned home with war brides. My aunt Maggie’s mother was one of them. She came from France and taught French lessons privately to area children. Sometimes little Maggie (Madeline by birth) would play with one student while her mother was tutoring the sibling. One morning, John was free to play while his brother Joseph had his lesson. The game was hide-and-seek, and Maggie was it. John found a splendid hiding place in a kitchen cupboard. My aunt realized where he was and shut the door. There he stayed until Maggie’s mother came looking for him and heard tapping and a little voice calling, “Madame? Madame?” Years later, my aunt watched John Fitzgerald Kennedy take the oath of office. “Oh,” she gasped. “I locked the president of the United States under the kitchen sink!” Reader Judy Paton, in the Reader’s digest book best Life stories