Wait Till Next Year, by Doris Kearns Goodwin, is a personal memoire of Goodwin’s life growing up in Rockville Centre, New York during the 1950s. Goodwin talks about multiple members of her family, including her father, Michael, her mother, Helen, her two sisters, Charlotte and Jeanne, and her best friend while growing up, Eileen. The memoire includes many memories of how she and her family were affected during the atomic bomb and McCarthyism. Also in her story, she highlights the good and bad things about growing up as a suburban child. Goodwin has great memories about her neighborhood. She had many memories of her school, church, and time spent with her favorite team, the Dodgers, which were all positive. She said, “Our street…was
Helen died in 1958. This only made the bad memories worse. The death of her mother led to Goodwin leaving her community and her father becoming an alcoholic. Her family’s problems made the times she spent growing up in the 1950s faint. While there were good and bad memories going on throughout Goodwin’s life. There were specific historical events that led to different views on her childhood as well. The atomic bomb ended when Russia made their own. The bomb drills and the knowledge about the bombs made growing up difficult for Goodwin, though it did turn out positive. After she realized that the stores of her community were connected below the ground, she came up with the idea for the whole community to survive. The community could set up a system where they all worked together to move everything they needed into the basements that were connected as quickly as possible. Her plan excited her and she loved challenges. She was able to turn the threat of the bomb into action. Another event that left a major impression on Goodwin was the idea of McCarthyism. Television was broadcasting a lot about the trials, so the mothers of the neighborhood were always updated. Goodwin and her friend created the McCarthyism trials, which her similar to the ones on television. Her friends would accuse each other of saying certain things, so the trails always ended in tears and pain. Eventually, the trials ended, but the damage