What if my brother had lived? Would I have been conceived? Would my parents have wanted another baby? Occasionally I have thought about it, though there was no real reason to except for the fact that they probably would not have wanted a fourth child. But that was just a supposition lying in a remote part of my brain. Clinically he never lived, but he should have. He lived in my parents’ hearts, and his memory was passed on to me. It was the first I had really heard what death was about, except for dead birds and lizards and such, which I sometimes buried out of curiosity to see if they actually went to Heaven. When I dug them up, I soon learned that death is final. Only Jesus went “up” to Heaven, and I sometimes questioned that, but tried not to.
I always felt I was very special in my parents’ lives, and in the lives of my siblings, a brother seven years older and a sister thirteen years older. Fortunately, in their eyes, I was the “baby” of the family, and most of my failings were happily overlooked. My parents were each forty-one years of age when I was born. They were mature and experienced after parenting two other children. I think they had learned to enjoy children despite the big responsibility. Mother said it kept her young to have me. Most of my friends’ parents were much younger than mine were, but we were always close in our family, even during those “teen” years most parents and children suffer through. And though we had our temptations and peer pressures, it was far from the present dilemma parents and youngsters must face today. I like to think mine was an ideal childhood, not rich in wealth, but in appreciation and exposure to books, music, ideas, love of nature and free time. I spent hours outside playing and roaming the hills, climbing trees, and daydreaming of was what yet to come. We watched birds. I followed my brother around as much as he would allow me. My sister was almost like a surrogate mother, doing all the things my mother might be too busy to do with me. I had a pet lizard over a foot long which I often carried around in my pocket and pulled it out in front of my mother’s friends who pretended to be scared to death. I walked on stilts my daddy built. And I practiced tricks on my trapeze, a pipe hanging from a rope, and I imagined myself joining the circus.
Did you ever lie on your back and make figures out of the clouds passing overhead? Or go outside at night and lie on a quilt to watch shooting stars in the heavens? (There was nothing orbiting or flying in those dark skies that we could see). Did you ever watch a hummingbird moth, and see the difference between it and a real hummingbird? Or did you see bats flying past the light which had attracted the insects they were chasing? I did all those things and more. I was even allowed to peek into my father’s microscope if he set it up and saw things nobody else had ever seen…at least among my peers. I had a fair to middling education, good but not the best. But the freedom to roam made up for it to a degree by the practical things I learned in my surroundings. I had my own encyclopedia to look at, and we had all The National Geographic magazines stacked in a corner from which I learned geography, a lot more interesting than what they taught us in school. I could dream about the far-off places I might visit someday. I found there was more in this world than a little town in West Texas which I loved but longed for more.
Kenneth Babcock (age 10)
Gertrude Babcock (age 14) with baby sister Edith May
Hard times during the depression cast a shadow on every household. I learned about hard work, mainly from watching my parents. As much as I loved my parents though, I thought they were very old fashioned, at times, especially about movie stars’ lives and popular music. They were into classical music more than most which caused me much embarrassment. I once asked my father if he knew who Betty Grable was. This was intended to be an insult. Of course, he didn’t, and I was right! But he knew who Charlie Chaplin was. I couldn’t believe it! But then I was in the awful “teens” with the narrowest of minds and only interested in myself and my peers, certainly no one as old and remote as Charlie Chaplin. I don’t know why I remember that particular moment. Now my adult children and most recently, my quickly growing up grandchildren, are aghast when I don’t know the names of current movie and television stars in favorite shows and movies, or vocalists, bands, and famous sports figures of the day. Even my husband can’t believe I can live in such a vacuum that I don’t know whom he is talking about sometimes. But I like to think I have some other more important things reside in my brain even if I do need him occasionally when doing the daily crossword puzzle. Let me take you back to the late 1920’s and then some, where memories still linger, though barely. My mother often told me bedtime stories when I was very young. We would lie together on my bed.
This was a special time for me in my childhood memories, along with the fairy tales and stories she read. It was our very own special time out of a busy day. She often told me stories from her childhood. I heard about the beautiful farm in Colorado where she lived as a child, and the funny stories about her brothers and her big sister whom she said was a little bossy at times. One of her sister’s jobs was to help watch her and to braid Mother’s long hair. Sometimes it hurt when she combed out the tangles and pulled too hard. She told me about her own mother and daddy (my grandparents, of course) who died before I was born.
Edith Stella standing second from right next to sister Nora.
Brother, Dallas, is far right in WWI in uniform. (1919)
I heard such delightful stories, and I felt a loss not to have known them and being cheated by their deaths before I was born. I heard about her little sister who had died of Diphtheria when she was only five years old. I heard about her two grandmothers who spoke German. One was grumpy and very strict. She would laugh and tell me how she would hide under the dining room table which the grumpy one would pass on her way to her chair and then jump out and say, “Boo”, to scare her. Sometimes she laughed until she cried telling me funny stories. She so enjoyed remembering and sharing stories as much as I loved hearing of her childhood. I particularly loved some of the stories about her years in grammar school, when she and her brothers ice skated four miles to school on small lakes in the area and on their farm. They were joined together by little streams which provided the children a continuous path to school on which to skate. Playing on the way home was fun, too, such as “pop-the-whip” and racing on the ice. She often got into trouble for being late. It was virtually impossible for me to visualize such a childhood, since I lived in virtual desert compared to the lush green of Colorado. There were more than enough stories to hear.
I was fortunate to have the opportunity to see those very lakes several years ago which she had talked about. They lived near the town Berthoud, Colorado. A cousin, my mother’s nephew, whom I had never met, located me, and I accepted his invitation to visit him and his wife in their Denver home. They drove me to the location of the area where the old homestead had been, their beautiful farm was now prime real estate.
He then showed me the lakes where his father and my mother and their siblings had actually skated to school. So, he had heard the story also, and it was true. It’s hard to describe the pleasure of this discovery. We had a good time that day sharing stories with each other which our parents had passed down to us. Afterward we visited the little church cemetery where those grandparents, Aunt Nora and many unknown members of the family had worshipped and were laid to rest.
My favorite stories, as with most children, were those about me which I never tired of hearing. They usually began with, “You were just about ready to be born on the twenty-first of March.” I knew the entire story. There was the surprise early one February morning and a big rush to get to the hospital, which was seventy miles away. They had to drive through a dangerous Texas ice storm which must have been almost as cold as a Colorado winter storm. It was a long cold drive in the Model T Ford, the newest Ford made for use as a family car. This was an emergency, for I was arriving a month early. It was a big surprise! The trip was, at the very least, an hour and a half of hard driving, barring any unexpected car trouble. Woolen lap robes were put in the car, with suitcases which had been hurriedly packed (New mothers stayed in hospitals for two weeks in those days.). Good friends took their two older children, Gertrude and Kenneth, into their homes.
They drove as far as the little town of Christoval, twenty miles from San Angelo, which was our destination. That’s where the car stalled! No matter how he tried, my daddy couldn’t get it started. Mother was frantic. While telling this my mother made it come alive within my own imagination. I could hardly wait to hear how worried she was that I might be born in the car and possibly freeze to death. Daddy found a telephone and talked to the doctor who said he would come right out to meet us. He was frantic seeing the condition my mother was in. When he returned to the car and tried again to start it, it worked, so he resumed the mad rush to San Angelo. They met the doctor on the narrow dirt road. He turned around and led them straight to St. John’s Hospital where we apparently arrived just in time! The crescendo building up of the excitement I felt was overwhelming every time I heard this story. It was always the same. Then she described me as a beautiful little tiny baby with masses of beautiful black hair. That made me very happy to know I was loved and very precious. Little did I know why they were so anxious to get to this hospital in time because of a former terrible experience. I heard the story of how sick she was with strep throat at the same time, a very serious ailment. This was the real reason I was born a month early. The generally accepted treatment for most ailments, apart from mustard plaster, in those days was a good dose of Castor Oil! She told me she never ever took it again, though most doctors were still telling their patients to do so. It had caused contractions to start.
The nuns in this Catholic Hospital after my successful birth, immediately started caring for my mother, fearing she would not be able to take care of me. She was very ill and had developed a dangerously high temperature the day I was born. She was a good Methodist, but never failed to tell me with each recount of the story of the kind and expert care she received from the wonderful Catholic nuns who were skilled nurses. Of course, the doctor was also a very competent physician, and he was the first doctor I ever knew, for we went to him until a good doctor finally opened a practice in my hometown. Penicillin and Sulfa drugs were unknown in those days. Strep throat was considered a very serious illness, as were many of the common illnesses which are easily treated or prevented today.
Once, when she was re-telling me this story, she said, “Your brother badly wanted a brother to play with, and he had hoped you would be a boy. He almost had a little brother once, before you were born, but Baby Lloyd died.” I never knew that. I wanted to know all about Baby Lloyd. When did this happen? I wanted to know.
His tragic birth occurred three years before I was born. Then she told me the sad story. The baby was due any day, and she had been preparing for the big event. The only doctor in town was to attend the delivery. There was no hospital, so the baby would be delivered in their home. There were no mid-wives either, only a few women or friends who could be asked to be on hand to help. Most of the women had their babies at home in the 1920’s if they lived in rural areas. She had arranged for a good friend to take my brother and sister into their homes during the birth. She had all the baby things ready and was anxious to get on with it. A woman friend who helped with home births was to come help if needed.
with their children in 1926
Her labor began in late evening. The contractions were strong enough to call the doctor. He soon arrived, but after examining her said he couldn’t feel the head. He told her she would have to push harder, but still nothing happened except the contractions were coming closer and closer and getting stronger and stronger. She never told me of the terrible pain she must have suffered. I was too young to even begin to understand anything about childbirth and certainly she didn’t want to scare me. But eventually I heard the entire horrible story when I was older. It was a breech presentation and breech births are usually long and difficult ones and can be very dangerous. Today they often do a caesarean section. A baby’s life is often in jeopardy because of the long labor, but also for fear the baby, being exposed to air before the head emerges, could begin to breathe inside the womb or birth canal. Today, of course new mothers are constantly monitored. Seldom does an emergency like this occur with expert attention by the medical staff. But this was in the years before all of that was possible for most patients. After very long labor and forceps, a boy was finally born. He was dead.
A sad and unforgivable part of this nightmare was that the doctor had been drinking and was actually drunk when he arrived! My father soon realized this, but there was simply no choice. He was the only doctor in town. They were too far from the nearest hospital which was seventy miles away. My mother was in hard labor and could not be moved. Afterwards the doctor staggered away from her bedside and drove away. Mother, totally exhausted and devastated by the terrible ordeal, was sleeping at last. That was when my daddy was absolutely terrified to discover she was rapidly losing blood and might soon die if it could not be stopped. The doctor was gone but useless anyway. Daddy was frantic. Fortunately, he quickly recovered his composure and went to get help. He was desperate and knew he had to get it immediately! He asked the woman who had helped out to stay with Mother. He remembered the newcomer to town who was on the staff of the new Texas A & M Experiment Station, which was located thirty miles west of our town. The man was a highly respected Doctor of Veterinary Medicine. My father, an entomologist, had recently started working with him. My father was there to conduct research on ticks, lice and other pests which were infecting and killing the livestock in the ranching industry. Fortunately, he located Dr. Black quickly that morning. He had no quarters at the Experiment Station and had rented a house in town until he could move to his new location. My father asked for his help; he immediately gathered his supplies and medical instruments, and they left together.
Within a very short time he was at her bedside, using his expertise in medicine from years of study and practice as a veterinarian and research scientist at Texas A & M, working with animals, including birthing. Cows have a notable history of difficult pregnancies, for instance, as do some other animals, including some domestic animals. MDs and DVMs study many of the same or similar subjects; biology, pharmacology, science, chemistry plus other subjects in pre-veterinary or pre-medicine, eventually pursuing their own specialized studies. Without Dr. Black’s expertise my mother might have lost her life. He was able to locate the problem immediately and probably saved her life. What if Dr. Black had not been available to save my mother?
There are many “What If’s?” in our lives. I could write ten at the drop of a hat and probably more. Lives are laden with choices, temptations, tragedies, blessings, asking ourselves, “Do we take this path or that path?” We usually have to live with whatever we choose to do. Some matters are not left up to us. Is it chance, luck, fate, a miracle? Is it something totally out of our control, globally perhaps? We have to become almost philosophical about it all. Some people have all the luck, while others are burdened by tragedy. Whichever is our lot, and most of us have experienced both sides of the coin, we usually make the best of it and trudge or dance merrily along through life.
“Don’t look back,” ‘tis often said.
I say, reflect on the past, live for the present, and be ready for life whatever might be.
Crockett Street, Sonora, Texas (1931)