Jean Marie 1958 and Carol Lynn 1961

   I was told that I was born on a beautiful autumn day, October 20,1958. Mary Ann stayed in the hospital for 3 days. On the  morning Jeannie was to be brought home there was an accident, a driver speeding through a red light hit Bill on the front passenger side door and totaled out the car. It had been raining and the streets were slippery, that's what the driver said anyway. He would have said anything I think at that moment because my dad had him up against his car ready to beat the daylight out of him.
    My dad said he was so upset, because 2 things happened in that moment, My mother and I would have been killed AND he realized that he had been living for the last 8 months completely unfeeling.
     He didn't think about the tiny 6# 4 oz baby girl with reddish blond looking fuzz on her head. He didn't think about Linda, Tim or Barbie and how this baby would change the house. As he let go of the mans shirt, it all hit him. He went to the hospital in a cab to bring his wife and new baby daughter home.
     When he told Mary Ann about the accident she was rightfully upset, but for the rest of her life she was convinced that her baby was going to grow up and drive and be killed in a terrible car accident, she even had nightmares about it.
    Jean was born with a heart murmur ( a slight irregular heart beat, there was a pin size hole in a valve that was to heal ) nothing to worry about they said.Jeannie will out grow all of this.
     Barbie was told not to get me over excited because I might die, I couldn't run fast or for a long time.
     I guess they didn't know how my heart would be affected, today they know I needed to live a healthy life, to run and play to jump and scream and roll around and just get worn out, that didn't happen and my heart well, I still have a heart murmur and a slow leak..maybe someday it will close.
    Well I don't remember too much of the first years of my life. My one and only memory of my Grandma Terwey was at her house, she was picking me up and I didn't want her to, I squirmed and kicked my feet and tried to get away, she just held me tighter. I didn't like her much. Barb and I talked about it and we agreed that she was such an aggressive woman that when she came at me it must have felt like she was snatching me up instead of lovingly picking me up, my Grandma Terwey was a German woman who didn't show here feelings, I guess that's where my dad got it from.
   Linda and Tim started to become the ones who did the house work, mostly Linda because she was older and a girl, OH, and Linda's friends, Barb, Judy and Cindy, they were more like our sisters that her friends.
   Mom told me that Cindy kept sitting in my high chair and she told her if she kept it up she was going to put a diaper on her, I guess Cindy laughed, she thought my mom was kidding, NOT, she made a diaper and pinned it on Cindy. I'm not sure what Cindy did but I heard she never sat in my highchair again.
    The house was getting too small and another one on the same block became available it was just around the corner a couple houses from the fire station and Ms. Alice's house. It was actually a duplex and they rented the whole thing, mom was getting sick again and dad thought she was pregnant. He took her to the hospital and she  miscarried and was told she shouldn't have anymore kids, her health would be at high risk. I think my dad was a bit relieved.
    I know Linda was, she didn't want anymore kids, she was 12 and Timmy was 9, Barb 4 1/2 and I was 2.
     Linda was a good student with a beautiful singing voice. She would go to Chicago with Mary Ann as a chaperon in 1964 I think it was to, with her music class record an album.
    But...mom was pregnant again, on Nov, 16,1961 Carol Lynn was born and Linda wouldn't look at her.
    She was so mad at my mom and dad that she wouldn't even hold Carol. Carol was a hazel eyed dark haired little  girl, her features were striking, it must have been because she had a darker complexion than the other girls with their strawberry blond curls and blue and green eyes. That made her stand out.

    Mary Ann would never be the same.