Chapter Thirteen
During the early fall of 1963, I
began to prepare for having my baby. Jesse and I took a tour of the old St.
Paul’s hospital in early September. It was a Catholic hospital run by sisters
dressed in their black habits. I was still a child myself and knew very little
about any religion other than Baptist. It was rather frightening for me to be
in such strange surroundings. While we knew where we should go when I went into
labor, no one told me one single thing about what to expect. Not my doctor. Not
my mother. No one. I honestly had no clue what was in store for me.
I also did not have baby things
ready. My cousins gave us some of their used baby clothes and so did some of
Mother’s friends. Someone gave us an old bassinet and Jesse painted it white.
We somehow managed to gather a layette. I had outgrown most of the clothes I
had and, since the weather had turned cooler, I started to wear some of Jesse’s
flannel shirts.
Most of my days were spent
reading, it was an easy way to pass the time. Escaping through the pages of a
book felt magical to me. One of my favorites was a Reader’s Digest Condensed
Book. It contained five different books in just one volume. I had been trying
to think of a name for our baby when I happened to read a story about a young
woman named Summer. I loved the sound of that name and decided if our baby was
a girl, her name would be Summer Dee. And if we had a boy, it would be Jesse
Lee, Jr. When I told my mother about the names I had picked out for our baby,
she said she hoped it was a boy because Summer sounded like a name you would
call your pet poodle. It didn’t matter, I liked the name and so did Jesse.
Mother and my young siblings came
to visit me on Saturday, October 19. It was good to see my siblings again. Now
that they were back in school, I didn’t get to see them much anymore. Our lives
had certainly changed since I had left home. Mother had brought a beautifully
knitted baby blanket that her friend, Carrie, made for us. Mother and Carrie
worked together at an answering service company. Mother also brought other
gifts of baby clothes, baby bottles and a sterilizer as well as a few
nightgowns, bibs, booties and receiving blankets—all given to us from Mother’s
co-workers and some of her friends.
I remember asking Mother how I
would know when I was going into labor. She just said, “You will know.” Not a
single person—my mother, my mother-in-law, not even my doctor—told me what to
expect when it came time to give birth. It sounds so terribly naïve, but I was
so totally ignorant of life. Since I was nearly nine years old, life was just something that
you survived and coped with however you could.
The Friday after Mother and my
siblings had visited, I began to suspect she was right about “just knowing”
labor had started. I had just turned 15 years old a few weeks prior and weighed
only 110 pounds. I had begun having periods when I was nearly 12, which meant I
had only had about 18 menstrual cycles before getting pregnant at 14 years and
4 months old. I remembered how menstrual cramps felt and what I was feeling
that Friday afternoon was similar to that. But it quickly grew worse and felt
like I had an extremely heavy brick pushing down on my pelvis. I thought maybe
it was labor but I wasn’t sure.
Jesse got paid on Fridays and we
would go to the grocery store when he would get home. But that Friday I didn’t
feel like walking so I propped up in bed and read until he came in. I told him
I thought I might be in labor. We decided to wait it out for a while and see
what happens.
Our main entertainment at home
was TV and we had a certain show we liked to watch on ABC at 8PM on Friday
nights. It was called Burke’s Law with Gene Barry and Gary
Conway and was about a LAPD homicide detective who was also a handsome
millionaire. By the time the show ended, I was sure of it—I was in labor.
Little did I know then that labor
would be a long, drawn-out experience. And an incredibly painful one, as well.
I was not prepared. We called Mother before leaving for St.
Paul’s Hospital in Dallas. I was scared and in a lot of pain. As crazy as it
sounds, I had no idea that having a baby would hurt! If only someone had
prepared me for this! We walked into the hospital and were greeted by the Daughters of
Charity, all wearing their distinctive coronet headdresses. One of the nuns
took Jesse to the business office to fill out the admission forms while the
other one escorted me to the maternity ward.
They
called my doctor and I was prepped and put in a bed in a labor room. I was
becoming hysterical with fear and the pain. At that time, pregnant women were
often given “twilight sleep,” which was a combination of morphine and
scopolamine that produced both pain relief and amnesia. I did experience some
amnesia and have no memory of my labor after midnight. However, my mother told
me what happened.
Normally they do not allow the
husbands in the labor room with the expectant mother. But since I was a
15-year-old girl, they made an exception and allowed both Jesse and my mother
in the room. This was most likely an attempt to help calm me down. By midnight,
I was incoherent and out of my mind with pain. At 3AM, my mother said I stood
straight up in the bed—which was like a giant baby bed with tall rails on all
four sides—and screamed out that I had changed my mind. I did not want
to have a baby!
At that point, they cuffed me to
the bed and I survived another three hours of labor before giving birth to my
daughter, Summer Dee, at 6:05 in the morning of Saturday, October 26, 1963. I
remember her being brought to me later that morning. She was just beautiful, a
healthy baby girl weighing 7 pounds 2 ounces and 21 inches long. As I looked at
her there in my young arms, I vowed I would be a good mother and take care of
her.
It was standard to stay in the
hospital for three days post-delivery back then, and that gave me time to
adjust to the fact that I was now a mother. I had a daughter. I was responsible
for taking care of another life as well as my own. I was new to taking care of
myself. I had never done that before. In actuality, I went from Mother
controlling my life to a husband doing the same thing. I still had no power of
my own. It was my own fault. It would be more than 40 years before I discovered
that I have a choice and that I may have had one all along—but I didn’t know
that then.
Jesse picked me up from the
hospital and we took our baby home. While I knew how to take care of older
kids, I had never taken care of a baby before. When Mother had Luann and
Sharon, we were living in the back shed and the babies lived in the house with
Mother and Clayton. Only on occasion was Luann with us and she was over a year
old by then.
Making formula and feeding a baby
was new to me. I had no idea about nursing. No one had suggested it at the
hospital. It was assumed we would bottle feed. They sent directions home with us and we stopped at the store to
buy Similac formula. We used a diaper service instead of buying diapers and I
was ever so grateful for that. In spite of my inexperience, Summer thrived. She
took her bottles, burped, peed and pooped and cried. She didn’t cry all the
time, but it was often enough to concern me. We took her to the doctor and he
said she had a touch of colic and to give her a few drops of paregoric. I did
not realize he meant for me to put it in her milk, so I just dropped it right
into her little mouth. The things I didn’t know back then were staggering.
Whenever a new baby was born, the
hospital would inform a photography service and the photographers would contact
the parents to inquire about booking a photo session of their newborn. The
pictures were black and white and not unreasonably priced so we decided to make
an appointment. It was on a Friday morning at 10AM so I had Summer all bathed
and fed and, since she was fussy with colic, I had given her a drop or two of
paregoric. She was sound asleep. I tried to wake her up a few minutes before
they were to arrive. I still had not made the connection between paregoric and
sleeping, as it caused drowsiness. Amazingly, the photographers knocked on the
door a few minutes late and when they came in, Summer woke right up. She made
adorable pictures and we bought them with money out of our grocery budget. It
didn’t seem to matter if we ate bologna sandwiches for a week instead of
regular meals.
I became confident in giving
Summer her baths, feeding her baby food, and doing laundry. We took our laundry
to a washateria on Friday nights after Jesse came home from work. We would also
go to the grocery store afterward.
I kept
the bassinet we’d been given right next to my side of the bed so I could check
on the baby during the night. Jesse didn’t help with diapers or feeding because
he was either working or exhausted. He would hold Summer while we watched
television in the evenings. We didn’t have any chairs so we ate our meals
propped up in bed. It was a pretty make shift situation, but I was really proud
of where we lived. Having a bathroom and kitchen access and a nice bed to sleep
in were all still luxuries to me.
I was thankful for the way God
had taken care of us and I wanted to go to church. I missed attending every
Sunday but by this time, it had been nearly two years since I had been going to
church every week. Jesse typically worked seven days a week so the first Sunday
that he had off work, he took us to a Baptist church we had seen nearby. It was
a fancy church but I didn’t care. It felt good to sit in a pew again. I held my
newborn baby and she didn’t make a sound during the entire service. We stood
and sang the hymns and sat and listened to the sermon. No one seemed to notice
us but we never expected them to.
I had filled out a visitor’s slip
and the very next Tuesday evening, a couple from the church paid us a visit. I
was surprised to see them at our door but I invited them in. There was no place
for them to sit but on the bed and they seemed very ill at ease. We were
obviously not the type of people they usually visited. I remember the lady was
beautiful and wore a mink coat and the prettiest high heel shoes I had ever
seen. It was rather awkward as they thanked us for visiting and left in
somewhat of a hurry. We never went back to that church nor did anyone else come
by to visit again. But I continued to read my Bible every day and often an
extra chapter on Sundays.
I weighed 118 pounds before
giving birth and six weeks later, I weighed 113. Since Summer had weighed only
seven pounds, I wondered why I still weighed so much. More than likely, it was
because we had money for groceries and I was eating regular meals. As weeks
went by, my weight dropped off and I ended up slightly under 100 pounds, which
is where I stayed for the next two years.
I remember the moment that news
of President Kennedy’s assassination was announced. It was Friday, November 22,
1963 and I was propped up on pillows feeding Summer her bottle. I had been
watching television and waiting for the soap opera As the World Turns to
come on. About 10 minutes into the program, Walter Cronkite broke in with the
news that President Kennedy had been shot while riding in his motorcade in
Dealey Plaza. The world was stunned.
Thanksgiving that year felt like
just a normal Thursday for us. Last year, Jesse and his sisters had celebrated
with my siblings and me. But this year Jesse worked and I stayed home taking
care of Summer. The world was still in shock from the assassination of
President Kennedy just 6 days prior, so things didn’t seem the same at all.
I was used to adapting to life
and the changes that were always happening. I was happy enough to be at home
taking care of my new baby and cooking simple meals for Jesse every evening
when he got home. He would take a shower, eat supper and fall asleep watching
television just about every night. He worked hard and got up early every
morning. Since he worked outdoors, that meant rainy days or frigid weather
meant he would stay home and have the day off. On those days, we would go to
the washeteria and maybe to one of the unclaimed freight stores in Dallas that
sold discounted furniture and things. Life at that time wasn’t bad and it
wasn’t scary. Just a bit lonely and strange.
Christmas that year fell on a
Wednesday. We didn’t have any decorations in our little rooms and I don’t think
Mother even put up a tree for the kids at their home that year either. We did
spend Christmas Day together with Mother and my siblings. Since I wasn’t
allowed to go to their house because of Clayton, Mother and the kids spent the
night with one of her closest friends, Carrie, and her husband.
Jesse
and I drove over to Carrie’s early Christmas morning and there was a Christmas
tree with gifts under it for Lloydine, Lanita and Lonnie. One each from Mother
to them and then a few from Carrie. She was so very good to us by opening up
her home and inviting us all in. It was a merry time and I took pictures of the
tree and the kids with their gifts and Mother holding Summer. There is even a
photo of Jesse standing between Mother and Carrie with their arms all around
each other.
I hope
Carrie knew what a blessing she was to us. We loved her and she was so generous
with her love for us. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to stay long in that
friendship. As was Mother’s habit, she always wanted what someone else had and
she set her sights on Carrie’s husband.
