I’ve been told that I wasn’t as easy a baby as my older sister. All my parents had to do to get my sister to stop doing something was to tell her not to do it once. Telling me no didn’t work. I’d do it anyway or find another way to do it, I wouldn’t forget about it. I was an active and busy baby. Mom said that I always had a very strong will. I was pretty fussy my first year. My stomach was always upset. My parents gave me lots of enemas. One day when I was 11 months old I let out a blood curdling scream and then went lagaric. Mom took me to the doctor. I didn’t have a fever and was just lagaric so the doctor didn’t think anything was wrong with me. I was usually very active so Mom knew something wasn’t right. I couldn’t keep any food down. This went on for 5 days. Mom said that the only thing that I’d react to was food. She said she felt cruel but it got to be the only way she could tell if I was still alive was to bang a spoon on a bowl, I’d then make some movement because I wanted to eat. Mom told of holding me one time and she thought I had died in her arms. On the 5th day my parents put me in the hospital overnight they were so worried and didn’t know what else to do. There was a visiting doctor in the hospital that night. I think he noticed something green in my diaper that gave him a clue. He phoned my parents in the middle of the night and told them I was very sick and needed to go to the children’s hospital in Portland. He told them that my small intestine had slipped inside my large intestine. Portland was over 3 hours away and this was on one of the stormiest and snowiest nights the Oregon coast had seen. Dad put the tire chains on and Mom, Dad, Mardean and I headed for Portland. The tire chains broke going up Cape Foulweather. This was in 1950 and hwy 101 going up over Cape Foulweather was a narrow 2 lane road with many steep drop offs to the ocean below. Somehow they made it. As they got close to Portland a police car pulled Dad over for speeding. Dad explained the situation and the policeman told Dad to follow him with his lights flashing. The hospital sits at the top of a high hill in Portland, another challenge with snow and no chains. Somehow Dad was able to get the car up the hill. They delivered me to the hospital and were waiting in the lobby when pretty soon a doctor came rushing in. It was my doctor, I guess they hadn’t expected us to arrive so soon. After the surgery the doctor told my parents that I was a very sick little girl. No one before had survived longer than 3 days that had this happen to them and we were already on day 5. He said if I made it the next 48 hours my chances were good of making it. I had gone into shock immediately when it first happened and that’s why no one thought anything was wrong with me. Mom said I was always a very active baby so when I wasn’t she knew something was very wrong with me. She told me to always listen to your inner voice because she had and it saved my life. My first memory is of seeing Mom and Dad behind a glass wall at the hospital wanting to be with them but I couldn’t. My mom said that I always had a strong sense for survival and a very strong will.
Mary Lou
I’ve been told that I was an easy-going baby who was happy most of the time. My mom told me I was born early and was a “blue baby.” I had a difficult time learning to read, and my mom told me it was probably because I had been a blue-baby at birth. Actually, I was a little dyslexic, but they didn’t know of such things then. I thought I must have been oxygen-deprived during the birth process, but I have learned since that being a “blue-baby” was a family term that just meant I was a difficult birth.
A story I was often told was that my older sister would only have to be told once to not do a certain behavior, and she would comply. However, it would take several times, including the slapping of my hand to get me to behave. I would just put my hand back and wait for it to be slapped again. That sounds about right.
My earliest memory is as a toddler. I must have been four or five. Our family was visiting another family. I remember a scary movie was on the T.V. It was The Devil and Daniel Webster. It probably wasn’t that scary of a movie, but the movie had the devil in it! My memory is of being under a wooden dining table and hiding behind the table legs during the “scary” parts. I should probably watch the movie now. It might not be so scary.
My dad was the principal of a small elementary school in Escalon, CA, when I was a toddler. Dad would put my older sister and me in the kindergarten room while he worked in the office. He had the intercom on so he could monitor our sounds. I guess there was a time when I started screaming and crying very loudly. When Dad came to investigate, I told him, “Gonya bit me!” I guess this was the first time I was able to talk in a sentence, which surprised Donna.
I have a scar on my knee from that same time period. I guess Donna and I were playing, and I somehow fell and the skin on my knee split open. I remember being put up on a table or counter while my dad attended to the cut. I think it required two or three stitches to close the wound.
Generally, I am told that I was a fairly easy baby. I had a good disposition and just took things as they came. It is amazing to me how much of your personality is determined so early in life.
Brian
Swagerty-Aldrich Family Web Site 