Labor Day we put Michele in her crib after lunch and spent a couple of pleasure-filled hours making love—making our Stephanie.
My due date was June 5. Dr. Rotchford began titering my blood once a week the first of April. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I just like to be careful.”
But on my birthday, the doctor said, “We’ve waited long enough. I’m going to induce you day after tomorrow.”
My mother was scathing. “If you’re going to have that baby early, the least you could do is have it on May 21 (my birthday)!”
I didn’t bother the doctor—actually I was kind of happy to keep my birthday mine.
Two hours after he gave me the shot, on the morning of May 23, 1960, Stephanie Ann howled her way into our lives. That was the last howl we heard from her until she entered the Terrible Twos. She was so good, one of our friends accused us of pretending we had a new baby.
The second Fourth of July, Steve planted the back yard in border-to-border grass. And marked the property lines with a basket-weave wood fence we painted russet.
The bill for the five bushes in front having been long since paid, I actually lobbied for rose plants in the brick planter in front of the living room window and a climbing rose at the base of the chimney on the side. What a joy I felt as I plucked a Cardinal-red bloom, sniffed the intoxicating scent, and placed it in the middle of my dining room table!
That year, as usual, Steve’s sister Dodo was visiting us. Not-quite-sixteen, she was in love with Ricky Nelson.
So, when we read in the Spokesman Review that the popstar was going to be singing at the Spokane Coliseum, we got three tickets.
Concerts in those days were much more restrained than they are now. There was cheering and we heard lots of Ricky I love yous, but the fan noise level didn’t punish our eardrums.
Dodo was in heaven—toe-tapping the entire time. When Ricky sang Travelin’ Man, I swear I thought she’d float right out of her seat.
Later Steve said, “I’ve never seen Dodo so happy. Why she had a mile-long-smile on her face from the moment we got in the car! All night!”
Years after, when Dodo and I were reminiscing, she told me, “When I got back to Butte that August I was the hit of the neighborhood. ‘The funnest thing for us here this summer was the Fourth of July parade,’ both Marie and MaryJo complained. ‘Ricky Nelson? In person? Boy were you ever lucky!’”
(I wouldn’t be surprised if she still has the program. I know the memory is tucked in her heart.)
Our new neighborhood—about a mile north of Francis, between Wall and Division—was perfect. In those days, the street dead-ended five houses east of ours at a horse farm. The husbands hand-carted their grass clippings and dropped them just over the fence. The property owner appreciated the fresh fodder. Our kids loved walking up to say “Hi” to the horses.
As our girls grew up, we realized how truly lucky we were. Our kids could walk—ride their trikes and bikes—and play ball in our extra-wide street. Everyone knew everyone. It was truly safe.
When Stephanie was three, I bought her some new red Keds. She wore them all afternoon while riding her trike up and down the little incline from the horse farm to our house singing, “Did you ever go fishing on a bright summer day? With your hands in your pockets and your mouth full of hay?”
Because she used her toes for brakes, by the time she came in for dinner, it looked as if someone had spent hours pulling her new shoes back and forth on a hand-shredder.
Wouldn’t you know? That night Steve’s mother called saying, “Come home, Pa’s had a heart attack.” Steve and I put the kids in the back seat in their jammies, grabbed a few clothes, and took off.
It was a false alarm.
The next day, when Steve’s father, Pa, took one look at Stephanie’s raggedy tennies, he almost blew a gasket. “What’s the matter with you, you good-for-nothing?” he yelled at my husband/his son. (I’ve removed the expletives.) “Can’t you even support your family?”
I was furious! How dare he talk to his only son like that! I seethed. Had he forgotten Steve had to put cardboard in the soles of his shoes when he was little?
Yet I kept quiet. I’d learned a lesson—you don’t cross Pa. Even if you’re right.
My dear husband tried to explain. His father wouldn’t listen. Things were tense.
(And our Butte relatives wondered why we didn’t visit more often.)
We bought Stephanie a new pair of shoes as soon as we got back to Spokane—money was not a problem. For if Pa had taken the time to listen, he’d have found that Steve was doing well. Very well indeed.
Just before Stephanie was born, he’d taken a job working for a national pharmaceutical company—and doubled our income. It wasn’t that we were rich. But we’d been really poor the three years he’d been teaching.
With his new job, Steve worked out of town two weeks of every month.
The first week, scared to be in the house all by myself (the only adult) every night, I kept Steve’s nine iron under the bed for defense.
By the second week (no one had broken in and tried to have their way with me), I put the club back in Steve’s golf bag. (In the light of day, I realized an intruder would grab my so-called weapon and use it on me.)
I’ve got to be brave, I told myself. Brave and smart.
My decision? I decided to do something fun that I wouldn’t do if Steve were home at night.
It didn’t take me long to find the perfect thing—sewing.
I’d put the girls to bed, hurry down to my trusty Pfaff in the family room and sew up a storm. I loved making pretty clothes for me and my kids. (Years later, when making photo albums for Michele and Stephanie, I marveled at the dozens of dresses, coats, and play clothes I’d crafted during those years.)
Often I didn’t go to bed until midnight.
Except on the Tuesday night when Dick Van Dyke was on TV.
I planned carefully. Made sure I had a project ready for a half-hour of hand stitching. Watching the clock carefully, I hurried up the basement stairs five minutes before the show began—with fabric, thread, pin cushion, thimble, and scissors—making sure I had plenty of time to settle in.
One night I hadn’t watched the time well enough, and only had one minute to make it to the living room TV. Instead of turning on the light at the top of the stairs, I rushed through the kitchen in total blackness. Ran like I was Roger Bannister the day he broke the four minute mile. Forgot about the jog to the left I had to make when I got to the dining room.
Bang!
My
