Our lives through 1970

God, during these years was allowing me some thorns to keep me humble, but gave me many roses for my garden to encourage me.

As the story left off in the last chapter, I had been having health problems and we had moved into a new home.

In our new home we were very settled as we were no longer having to rent, but became homeowners once again.

The house was small, four bedrooms, two small baths, living room kitchen and dining area.

We had a large backyard and a smaller front lawn. We had two palm trees in the front yard and they grew rather quickly. There were a couple of oleander shrubs in the front yard. The oleander plants are highly poisonous. Even the flowers can cause problems. One of the problems for us was, as our daughter Patty was following her daddy as he was mowing around th shrubs. Patty soon began to have an awful reaction to the trimmings from under the shrubs and her body broke out in large welts. The welts would last for a few minutes and then recede. I took her to the doctor and it was determined she had an allergy to oleander. So we took out the shrubs and she was careful to not get close to oleander.

My health was still declining until finally in September of 1966 my doctor finally determined I needed to have a hysterectomy. Surgery was scheduled for mid October. Before surgery could be done, I had to be examined by three doctors since I was to have a hysterectomy, these exams were required by law. The exams were painful so the third doctor would not do an exam, but rather signed off for the surgery to be done. I was in the hospital five days.

On Thanksgiving day that year my mother became ill. She had five children in our area. A sister and three brothers who were too busy to go to help her. I was still recovering from the surgery and still had a bandage on my belly, but because my mother was ill, I drove the 26 miles to her home and stayed with her for the weekend as she recovered. As I left her home, I did not even receive so much as a thanks from her. It was like she just took me for granted and that was hurtful.

The next year I had taken the girls to see their grandmother Lawrence. The girls loved seeing their grandma as she had a lapidary shop. She had many tumbled stones and the girls always loved feeling and playing with those very shiny rocks. I even got to try my hand at cutting, polishing and mounting rocks to make jewelry.

On the way home as I was driving, about 4 miles from home I became so very ill and didn't know if I could even make it home. But, by the grace of God I made it home. I knew I had a fever, so I checked my temperature and my temp was 102.6 degrees, at about 4:30 P.M. My husband arrived home at 5:00 P.M. and by the time he got home my temp had gone to more than 104 degrees. He took me to the doctor and I had scarlet fever. I was quite ill, so Wayne's mother came and took care of me and our girls. I was in bed for 10 days, and after that it took a couple of months to get my strength back.

Once I had recovered from the sugery and scarlet fever, I was back to a healthy state. It felt so good to be well again and not be plagued with the awful tired feeling that I had been experiencing for two years. So I began to enjoy all of my children very much. Wayne and I both had a great deal of fun with our girls.

We purchased one of the above the ground swimming pools and erected it in our backyard. The pool was 24'x12' with decking on each side of the pool. Our girls all learned to swim in the pool and spent many hours swimming, and many of the neighborhood children were at out home during the summers as well. I really did not mind having so many children at our home because I knew where my children were and who they were with.

One day as I was swimming in the pool my girls figured out that if they blew into the hem of the skirt of my swim suit, it would inflate and create a doughnut around my hips. The girls loved this, they would blow and giggle.  Such a fun memory for me as their mother.

Also, they would try to dunk me in the water, but they were not able to do so as I would float so well they didn't have the strength to dunk me. This is just one of the fun games we played in the pool.  That pool provided our family with many hours of fun.  Since the girls spent so much time swimming in the summer, they tanned so they were my little browned biscuits. :-)

Since Penny was born on Christmas day, she was not able to start school until September of 1966, as the deadline for enrollment was September 1st. Penny was one of the older children in all of her classes through the years, which worked to her advantage as she was a little more mature than her peers.

Two years later Pamela started school and the following year Patty started school. I loved helping them with their homework and being able to encourage them to do the very best they could do as students. I did not expect them to be perfect, but I just wanted them to do their best.

When Pamela started school, she had been used to taking naps in the afternoon and about two weeks into the school year, she had a hard time staying awake at school so we had to take her to the doctor, The doctor said, "she is okay, but she is suffering from exhaustion." So I kept her home for about two weeks and gradually kept her awake more each day so she could adjust. After that she did well.

Patty had been going in school about two weeks when her teacher, Mrs. Ready, called and said, "Mrs. Lawrence, I can't get Patty to do her work."

I asked Mrs. Ready, "who is the teacher in the classroom?"

She said, "I am the teacher."

I replied, "as the teacher, do not allow Patty to go out at recess until she is willing to do her work as assigned."

What I had told the teacher I re-enforced at home to make sure Patty understood I was with the teacher.

This was exactly what her teacher did, and it was not long before Patty did her work. By the time Patty got out of kindergarten she was reading at the end of the first grade level.

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Hysterectomy



My health was still declining until finally in September of 1966 my doctor finally determined I needed to have a hysterectomy. Surgery was scheduled for mid October. Before surgery could be done, I had to be examined by three doctors since I was to have a hysterectomy, these exams were required by law. The exams were painful so the third doctor would not do an exam, but rather signed off for the surgery to be done. I was in the hospital five days.

After the surgery the doctor came in and told me the problem. What was causing me so much discomfort. He said the uterus after having four children had stretched so severely it was covered with varicose veins that were so many, that the doctor said he could not put his finger anyplace on it and not be touching one of the veins.  This made the uterus very heavy and made me feel it was trying to leave my body causing pain that was almost like giving birth.

The doctor also told me he didn't see how I could have been on my feet for longer than 5 minutes, let alone ten minutes, which I was able to do.  This is what I endured for over 2 years.

Just imagine ladies feeling like you were going through child birth every time you were on you feet for longer than ten minutes at a time.
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