Memorial Drive: A Daughter’s Memoir

Natasha recalls the instance when Gwen announced that Joel wanted to adopt her—an unpleasant memory that she has often tried to forget. He also wanted her to change her name to Grimmette, and Natasha refused. She was in fifth grade at the time. Natasha thought often of the Brady Bunch. The Grimmettes and Natasha were also a blended family that lived in the suburbs. They had just moved to “a Tudor-style split-level with a tan and brown exterior,” like the Brady house (89). The subdivision had some idyllic name, maybe Canterbury. The house had an aboveground swimming pool, which drew the neighborhood children to go over. Natasha spent a lot of time outside in the summer, especially in the woods behind the house and at the creek, which separated the family property from a golf course behind it.

That year, 1976, Gwen announced that she had a new job, which would allow her some opportunities to travel. Natasha also first heard the phrase “white flight” in 1976. She made a new friend named Wendy. She and two other girls near Natasha’s age, Jody and Lisa, told Natasha about the White people who lived in her house before her family moved in.