My First 56 Years

paycheck. Davies' Oil stopped bringing propane without some money down. We covered ourselves with blankets and huddled in our beds upstairs. One night, during a full moon, we could see shadows of owls on the walls of our bedroom thru the bedroom window. They were flying around the house and roosting in the limbs of the pine trees in front yard, south of the house. We had a litter of kittens a cat that we kept outside had. I wanted to bring them inside because of the cold and snow, but Charles said we couldn't. The next morning they were gone. The farmers said owls eat small animals including kittens. I was so mad at Charles for not letting me bring them in. Jenny played with them and I liked them too. They were so cute. Charles took after his dad on that score. No cats in the house. His sisters Gina and Diane were allergic to cats and milk. They weren't coming over in the middle of the night to see if we had any cats in the house! When Charles and I were first married and living around the corner to them, a cat kept hanging around their house. It was a pretty cat, gold and white, and no matter how hard they tried to get rid of it, it kept coming back. I’d asked Charles if we could take it because they were going to do something horrific to it but he said "No".Charles and his brothers took the cat and threw it off the thirty six highway bridge to the rocks below. They said they had meant to hit the river but missed. I was so sick and disgusted that any human being could do that to a small helpless animal that was just hungry and wanted a place to stay. It didn't bite or scratch, it was a loving cat that would let you hold it in your lap and purr contentedly not knowing what trusting people would mean.
In the spring Charles found another house just south of Troy Ks. It was a lot closer to his job in St Joseph. It had two big ponds and plenty of pasture for the horses. It was a mess. the last people that lived there had left clothes and food in the refrigerator, garbage everywhere. Charles promised me he would stay there after he got off work and clean it up before we moved in if I would agree to move. I had just found out I was pregnant with our second child. I was so happy. It had been six years since Jenny had been born and I finally decided to get off the pills and try it again. The last time I had been pregnant I had such a hard time with the labor and the cost of having a baby was so much I didn't see how we could afford another child. Floy Mae was living next door to Kathryn and Mama and Ronnie was still working at the stockyards. They knew I was scared with my first baby and Floy Mae told Kathryn that no matter what time I called and said I was ready to go to the hospital Kathryn was supposed to get Floy Mae and she would go there with me for support. On February 12th at about 3:00 in the morning I awoke with the worst back ache ever. Dr Dumont had first said the baby would be born in January, and then at my six month checkup he said he didn't think it would be January after all and was going to shoot for February. Charles' mom said it would be born on February fourteenth. As I said it was 3:00 am when I woke up and the back ache and the pains began. I woke up Charles and he called the hospital and I called Kathryn. Floy Mae didn't have a phone at the time. Kathryn was mad because I woke her up and said she wasn't telling Floy Mae anything because she wasn't going over there in the middle of the night and waking them up. I'm scared, Charles wasn't allowed in the labor room in those days so I was alone. I fought the pains and decided I changed my mind and would not have a baby after all." I don't want to do this!"
The nurses and the Dr told me otherwise. I screamed and fought the pains; Dr Dumont told me if I would stop fighting them I could get this over with. They finally had to put an oxygen mask over my face. It took longer too because Jenny was turned upside down. Instead of being born face down like most babies, Jenny was born face up. She was born at nine twenty am on February 12th 1973.They took me back to my room and I slept until five pm that day and only woke when Charles came in after he'd worked all day at Artesian Ice. I wasn't looking forward to going through that again but this time the rules were different and Charles could not only be in the labor room with me but he could be in the delivery room too.
We moved to Troy that spring of 1979.The house had central air conditioning and heating, hardwood floors and a large kitchen. The driveway was 1/4 mile long and was not graveled. Charles had bought a truck from Della's husband Charlie. It was a 1963 Chevy pickup with 3/4 ton. He hauled gravel from the quarry in St Joseph and Savannah. Finally it was done. The school bus didn't want to go all the way the driveway to pick Jenny up, however. In the beginning of her first grade year at Troy she walked all the way down the driveway and another 1/8 of a mile south on the road to the corner where the bus would pick her up. I complained to the office at the