Date: Easter Sunday, March 27, 2005
Time: 4:05 PM
Location: Portland, Oregon
Weight: 9 lbs, 3 oz.
Length: 21 inches
I was six days overdue when I went into labor on Easter Sunday at about 8:30 AM. My son was born 7 1/2 hours later. Everything went very well until his blood sugar levels began fluctuating early Tuesday morning (3/29), so we stayed in the hospital an extra day while they stabilized him with some supplemental feedings. We went home on Wednesday, March 30, and everyone is doing very well.
Showing posts with label Family History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Family History. Show all posts
Sunday, March 27, 2005
Thursday, October 3, 2002
Announcing my daughter's birth
Date: Thursday, October 3, 2002
Time: 9:30 PM
Location: Portland, Oregon
Weight: 9 lbs, 7.9 oz.
Length: 21 1/4 inches
I was six days overdue when I finally started having real labor contractions at 2 AM on Thursday morning. My daughter was born 19 hours later. Everything went very well except for my rather dramatic tear. We came home on Saturday, October 5, and we were very happy to have so much family come to visit and help out.
Page created 27 Oct 2005.
Time: 9:30 PM
Location: Portland, Oregon
Weight: 9 lbs, 7.9 oz.
Length: 21 1/4 inches
I was six days overdue when I finally started having real labor contractions at 2 AM on Thursday morning. My daughter was born 19 hours later. Everything went very well except for my rather dramatic tear. We came home on Saturday, October 5, and we were very happy to have so much family come to visit and help out.
Page created 27 Oct 2005.
Sunday, December 3, 2000
Tribute to my grandmother Betty Ford
12/03/2000
To: Suzanna, Erin, Anna and Gabrielle
Today, Dec. 3, 2000, at approximately 4:00 PM, Betty Elaine Baumberger Ford, passed away in a nursing home in Atlanta Georgia with Arlene Ford by her side. She had suffered a severe systemic staph infection and spent a month in hospital, finally being released last Monday into a nursing care facility. She had been in great pain during most of that time until 3 days before her death when doctors finally prescribed medication which brought some relief. She knew that Jeff and Arlene were near and helping her as much as they could. She also knew that she was loved. Her wishes that she be cremated will be carried out without any service or viewing at this time. Her ashes will be kept for possible future as yet undetermined memortial service and disbursement. I love her and I am thankful that her suffering is over.
Her second daughter, Dianna
To: Suzanna, Erin, Anna and Gabrielle
Today, Dec. 3, 2000, at approximately 4:00 PM, Betty Elaine Baumberger Ford, passed away in a nursing home in Atlanta Georgia with Arlene Ford by her side. She had suffered a severe systemic staph infection and spent a month in hospital, finally being released last Monday into a nursing care facility. She had been in great pain during most of that time until 3 days before her death when doctors finally prescribed medication which brought some relief. She knew that Jeff and Arlene were near and helping her as much as they could. She also knew that she was loved. Her wishes that she be cremated will be carried out without any service or viewing at this time. Her ashes will be kept for possible future as yet undetermined memortial service and disbursement. I love her and I am thankful that her suffering is over.
Her second daughter, Dianna
12/04/2000
Jeff,
I got your phone message this evening. Thank you for the call. I knew what it was going to be when I saw your number on the Caller ID. I assume that in the condition that Mother was in, living didn't have much more to offer. Perhaps she is better off now. Even so, I feel terribly alone without parents. I sincerely thank you and Arlene for talking care of Mother for the last 25 years and especially this last year. What were her last wishes?
Brian
Jeff,
I got your phone message this evening. Thank you for the call. I knew what it was going to be when I saw your number on the Caller ID. I assume that in the condition that Mother was in, living didn't have much more to offer. Perhaps she is better off now. Even so, I feel terribly alone without parents. I sincerely thank you and Arlene for talking care of Mother for the last 25 years and especially this last year. What were her last wishes?
Brian
12/05/2000
Brian,
Mother had a very difficult last month and it is a blessing at this time that her suffering is now over. Over her last four days she was given morphine to reduce her discomfort and at the time of her passing she did not show any signs of pain. For that I am greatful.
Concerning her wishes, mother never wanted any fuss to be made. She was always frugal in her conduct and never wanted to be a bother or burden to her family.
She explicitly stated that she did not want a religious ceremony. The only time that I was able to get any specific wish related to the handling of her remains was on a visit I made years ago when Arlene and I were still in Chicago. I took her to a restuarant in Santa Barbara, on top of a hill overlooking the bay on a typically beautiful California day. She told me that she would like to have her ashes spread in the Pacific Ocean off the Santa Barbara pier. Our mother loved California and Santa Barbara was a beautiful and majestic place that symbolized that special quality that California represented to her. Years later she said that it really did not matter that much to her what happened to her remains. However, I believe that it did matter to her and my intention is to do exactly what she had requested. It is my way of honoring her and to express my unconditional love for her.
I do not yet have a specific time frame to carry out her wish and I do not feel rushed to make a quick decision in this regard. These details can be worked out over time and anyone that wishes to participate can let me know and I will try to make accommodations. I intend on writing a eulogy for mother which I can read before the spreading of the ashes. Anyone that wishes to write some sentiments they want expressed at that time can either participate directly or I will be happy to read those sentiments on their behalf.
We all owe a great deal of gratitude to Arlene. The care and kindness that she showed mother over the 35 years she has known her has been remarkable. But even that pales in comparison to her recent devotion. Arlene worked extremely hard to help relocate mother to be close to us in Atlanta as her health made it impossible for her to continue to live independently. Once in Atlanta, Arlene spent countless hours four and five days a week to help mother make the adjustment. Once mother became hospitalized on November 2, Arlene was at the hospital almost every day for hours at a time to try and provide comfort to her. In the 30 or so days that followed the hospitalization, Arlene maybe missed 3 or 4 days, and only when I was able to spend time with mother on the weekends. Our mother loved Arlene dearly and rightfully so. Arlene was with mother when she took her last breath and made sure that the last thing that mother heard was that we loved her. Arlene is the one who deserves the thanks. You can thank me for marrying Arlene.
Love,
Jeff
Brian,
Mother had a very difficult last month and it is a blessing at this time that her suffering is now over. Over her last four days she was given morphine to reduce her discomfort and at the time of her passing she did not show any signs of pain. For that I am greatful.
Concerning her wishes, mother never wanted any fuss to be made. She was always frugal in her conduct and never wanted to be a bother or burden to her family.
She explicitly stated that she did not want a religious ceremony. The only time that I was able to get any specific wish related to the handling of her remains was on a visit I made years ago when Arlene and I were still in Chicago. I took her to a restuarant in Santa Barbara, on top of a hill overlooking the bay on a typically beautiful California day. She told me that she would like to have her ashes spread in the Pacific Ocean off the Santa Barbara pier. Our mother loved California and Santa Barbara was a beautiful and majestic place that symbolized that special quality that California represented to her. Years later she said that it really did not matter that much to her what happened to her remains. However, I believe that it did matter to her and my intention is to do exactly what she had requested. It is my way of honoring her and to express my unconditional love for her.
I do not yet have a specific time frame to carry out her wish and I do not feel rushed to make a quick decision in this regard. These details can be worked out over time and anyone that wishes to participate can let me know and I will try to make accommodations. I intend on writing a eulogy for mother which I can read before the spreading of the ashes. Anyone that wishes to write some sentiments they want expressed at that time can either participate directly or I will be happy to read those sentiments on their behalf.
We all owe a great deal of gratitude to Arlene. The care and kindness that she showed mother over the 35 years she has known her has been remarkable. But even that pales in comparison to her recent devotion. Arlene worked extremely hard to help relocate mother to be close to us in Atlanta as her health made it impossible for her to continue to live independently. Once in Atlanta, Arlene spent countless hours four and five days a week to help mother make the adjustment. Once mother became hospitalized on November 2, Arlene was at the hospital almost every day for hours at a time to try and provide comfort to her. In the 30 or so days that followed the hospitalization, Arlene maybe missed 3 or 4 days, and only when I was able to spend time with mother on the weekends. Our mother loved Arlene dearly and rightfully so. Arlene was with mother when she took her last breath and made sure that the last thing that mother heard was that we loved her. Arlene is the one who deserves the thanks. You can thank me for marrying Arlene.
Love,
Jeff
Siblings,
Tomorrow morning Arlene and I fly to LA to meet up with Joel and Corey. On Sunday (07/01/2001) we will have a brief ceremony on a charter boat and spread mother's ashes in the Pacific ocean. I put together a eulogy and we will be reciting a few poems. I will carry your love for mother on the boat with me. (along with some dramamine tablets, because both Corey and I are notorious for needing them) I've attached the eulogy and poems that we will be using. If you are thinking about it around 12:30pm on Sunday PST, you can join in as well.
Love,
Jeff
Betty Baumberger Ford
Born: April 2, 1920
Died: December 3, 2000
Today, July 1st 2001, we have returned to California to commemorate the life of Betty Baumberger Ford, and to spread her ashes off the coast of Santa Barbara. It is always difficult to summarize a life, we each carry different memories and experiences. Today I wish to honor my mother as I remember her. My beloved wife, Arlene, and our two wonderful sons, Joel and Corey, are with me to pay tribute to her and to fulfill my commitment to return her spirit and remains to the place she loved the best.
My mother loved California, the golden sunshine, the cool ocean breezes, a quality of life that begged for independence and freedom. We had lived in California earlier in the late 1950's when I was growing up. It was one of the happier periods in my mother's life with our family still intact. By the early 1960's we had moved away. But in 1984, when she lived near my own young family in Atlanta, I told her I was being transferred to California and that I would move her as well so she could continue to live close to us. It was a joyous day for my mother. ...and now, and forever, she returns again to California.
Born in St. Louis, raised in San Antonio, abandoned by her father, Charlie, before she was 5 years old, and despite being struck by lightning when she was 6, my mother had a happy childhood. She learned to play the piano and was musically talented. She and her younger sister, Sweety, sang and danced together as children, performing at functions all over town.
In high school the two sisters enjoyed the popularity that you might expect two attractive, talented young women might have. It was a happy time, before responsibilities got too heavy, when you could enjoy the vitality and physical joy of youth, when all the parts still worked, when movement was fluid and effortless, when you could almost fly like a bird.
She fell in love with my father right after high school, became a military wife, and during the war years, while my father was serving and defending our country, she began the work of raising the family. Being a military wife meant moving every couple of years, leaving close friends and beginning anew. It meant being separated for long periods of time from the husband you loved. It meant most of the burden of child rearing came to rest on her shoulders. Certainly not an easy time. But my mother was fiercely loyal to her children and protected and nurtured us in the best way that she could.
Unfortunately, she developed a drinking problem during this period that became a major disruptive force within our family. The day before she died, she told me she wished that she could have controlled it, and she tried to express her regret for the pain that she knew she had caused. I told her I understood, that I forgave her, and that I loved her.
I came along on her 30th birthday and we shared a special relationship because of this bond. We were more alike then not. I got my determination to succeed and competitive nature from my mother, I got my high aspirations from my mother, and I also got my temper from my mother. We inherit both the good and the bad. We are linked with our past, and I understood my mother because I am a reflection of her.
She loved sports and encouraged me to excel. She demanded the best from me and supported me with an outward enthusiasm that, at times, was embarrassing to me, as her shouting voice rose above the crowd cheering me on in my athletic endeavors.
Once I left home, being the youngest, my father divorced my mother after years of periodic separations and a new phase of our relationship began. As I started my own family, my mother became a grandmother to my boys when we moved her to Atlanta to be close to us. She was a terrific grandmother and took care of the boys as our permanent baby sitter. She loved our boys and demonstrated a side of her parenting that, although I benefited from it myself as a child, I could not recognize until I had a different vantage point.
Joel and Corey were a source of great pride for my mother. She enjoyed helping to raise them and marveled at the fine young men they became. I am grateful that she got to see both of them one last time over Thanksgiving, one week before she died. It was further proof of her life's contributions. I wish her other grandchildren could have known her on that same level.
When she moved to Atlanta 24 years ago, she also started on the road to conquer her drinking problem and finally succeeded. Her drinking problem masked many of her wonderful traits and blinded those around her to the positive qualities she possessed. When her mother, Muddy, passed away, Hobart, her step-father, established a trust fund for my mother. Because of my mother's drinking problem, Hobart did not trust her to handle money matters. He locked up the trust fund monies so tightly that she never really benefited much from the inheritance. Yet, for the last 30 years of her life, she managed her own finances in such a way that she was able to live on a bare subsistence income. She learned to do without. Her only luxury was a TV.
Besides her declining health, my mother's single most challenging assignment was how to make the money last. She did a remarkable job. Hobart would have been amazed at the job that she did. Before she died, I told her how proud I was of her accomplishment. I think this gave her some relief in her final days of pain as she reflected back on her life. She knew she had done well with her money situation and that she had not become a burden to her children.
When I moved my family from California to Chicago in 1989, I again offered to move her with us. She decided that she would remain in California instead since the climate in Chicago would be too harsh for her arthritis. Plus, she loved California and really never wanted to leave.
She spent 11 years in California, living alone, with no family nearby to care for her. It was her choice. It was her way of saying that she could take care of herself, that she was going to remain independent as long as she could. Her arthritis condition degenerated dramatically over that 11 year period and caused her great pain and discomfort. Her hands became virtually useless and her ability to walk severely limited. She could no longer cook for herself or go to the store on a regular basis. She had to subscribe to a meal service which delivered her almost the exact same meal every day for years. She could not afford a better service. But she did not complain or ask for help. She gritted her teeth, the few she had left, and made the best of her situation.
Always independent and filled with courage and defiance, my mother did not choose to be alone without a companion in her later life, but she adapted to it. Her greatest fear was in becoming a burden to her children. In her last ten years, she complained much too infrequently when she really needed help with her physical ailments.
Arlene and I visited her in early 2000 and I was shocked at her deterioration. We made the decision to move her to Atlanta to be closer to us so that she could receive better care. Although I knew she never wanted to leave California, and that she never wanted to become a burden to us, she also was desperate for assistance and consented to the move. The move itself was difficult. Arlene was magnificent in making this transition as painless as possible. My mother loved and respected Arlene for her kindness and kept claiming that Arlene was "the smartest woman I have ever met." Of course, I kept reminding my mother that being married to the smartest woman has got to qualify me for being the smartest man.
We tried hard to improve her condition and make her as comfortable as possible. We had made good progress and I was hopeful we would have a few more years together and we could bring her some happiness. Arlene saw her almost daily and I spent time with her on the weekends. She jealously watched her tennis, one of her last passions, and disciplined herself everyday to make it through yet another crossword puzzle to keep her mind alert. She registered to vote, determined to once again support the Democratic party and made sure she got her ballot mailed in time.
Then she developed an infection that her body could not fight off and we had to put her into the hospital. Five painful weeks later, she was gone. She was courageous during the whole period, but eventually desperate to stop the suffering.
She lived her life with dignity and courage. She handled her daily pain with true grit and determination. I admire her and respect her for that. And for being my mother, well for that, I love her unconditionally.
She is now free at last, free from the arthritic pain, free from the crippling movement of deformed joints, free from the worry of financial constraints. At the end of her journey with us she knew she was loved, she knew she was forgiven, and she did not die alone.
Today, we release her spirit back to her golden California, where she can bask in the sun and feel that cool ocean breeze, where she can sing and dance once again,
...where she can fly like a bird.
Born: April 2, 1920
Died: December 3, 2000
Today, July 1st 2001, we have returned to California to commemorate the life of Betty Baumberger Ford, and to spread her ashes off the coast of Santa Barbara. It is always difficult to summarize a life, we each carry different memories and experiences. Today I wish to honor my mother as I remember her. My beloved wife, Arlene, and our two wonderful sons, Joel and Corey, are with me to pay tribute to her and to fulfill my commitment to return her spirit and remains to the place she loved the best.
My mother loved California, the golden sunshine, the cool ocean breezes, a quality of life that begged for independence and freedom. We had lived in California earlier in the late 1950's when I was growing up. It was one of the happier periods in my mother's life with our family still intact. By the early 1960's we had moved away. But in 1984, when she lived near my own young family in Atlanta, I told her I was being transferred to California and that I would move her as well so she could continue to live close to us. It was a joyous day for my mother. ...and now, and forever, she returns again to California.
Born in St. Louis, raised in San Antonio, abandoned by her father, Charlie, before she was 5 years old, and despite being struck by lightning when she was 6, my mother had a happy childhood. She learned to play the piano and was musically talented. She and her younger sister, Sweety, sang and danced together as children, performing at functions all over town.
In high school the two sisters enjoyed the popularity that you might expect two attractive, talented young women might have. It was a happy time, before responsibilities got too heavy, when you could enjoy the vitality and physical joy of youth, when all the parts still worked, when movement was fluid and effortless, when you could almost fly like a bird.
She fell in love with my father right after high school, became a military wife, and during the war years, while my father was serving and defending our country, she began the work of raising the family. Being a military wife meant moving every couple of years, leaving close friends and beginning anew. It meant being separated for long periods of time from the husband you loved. It meant most of the burden of child rearing came to rest on her shoulders. Certainly not an easy time. But my mother was fiercely loyal to her children and protected and nurtured us in the best way that she could.
Unfortunately, she developed a drinking problem during this period that became a major disruptive force within our family. The day before she died, she told me she wished that she could have controlled it, and she tried to express her regret for the pain that she knew she had caused. I told her I understood, that I forgave her, and that I loved her.
I came along on her 30th birthday and we shared a special relationship because of this bond. We were more alike then not. I got my determination to succeed and competitive nature from my mother, I got my high aspirations from my mother, and I also got my temper from my mother. We inherit both the good and the bad. We are linked with our past, and I understood my mother because I am a reflection of her.
She loved sports and encouraged me to excel. She demanded the best from me and supported me with an outward enthusiasm that, at times, was embarrassing to me, as her shouting voice rose above the crowd cheering me on in my athletic endeavors.
Once I left home, being the youngest, my father divorced my mother after years of periodic separations and a new phase of our relationship began. As I started my own family, my mother became a grandmother to my boys when we moved her to Atlanta to be close to us. She was a terrific grandmother and took care of the boys as our permanent baby sitter. She loved our boys and demonstrated a side of her parenting that, although I benefited from it myself as a child, I could not recognize until I had a different vantage point.
Joel and Corey were a source of great pride for my mother. She enjoyed helping to raise them and marveled at the fine young men they became. I am grateful that she got to see both of them one last time over Thanksgiving, one week before she died. It was further proof of her life's contributions. I wish her other grandchildren could have known her on that same level.
When she moved to Atlanta 24 years ago, she also started on the road to conquer her drinking problem and finally succeeded. Her drinking problem masked many of her wonderful traits and blinded those around her to the positive qualities she possessed. When her mother, Muddy, passed away, Hobart, her step-father, established a trust fund for my mother. Because of my mother's drinking problem, Hobart did not trust her to handle money matters. He locked up the trust fund monies so tightly that she never really benefited much from the inheritance. Yet, for the last 30 years of her life, she managed her own finances in such a way that she was able to live on a bare subsistence income. She learned to do without. Her only luxury was a TV.
Besides her declining health, my mother's single most challenging assignment was how to make the money last. She did a remarkable job. Hobart would have been amazed at the job that she did. Before she died, I told her how proud I was of her accomplishment. I think this gave her some relief in her final days of pain as she reflected back on her life. She knew she had done well with her money situation and that she had not become a burden to her children.
When I moved my family from California to Chicago in 1989, I again offered to move her with us. She decided that she would remain in California instead since the climate in Chicago would be too harsh for her arthritis. Plus, she loved California and really never wanted to leave.
She spent 11 years in California, living alone, with no family nearby to care for her. It was her choice. It was her way of saying that she could take care of herself, that she was going to remain independent as long as she could. Her arthritis condition degenerated dramatically over that 11 year period and caused her great pain and discomfort. Her hands became virtually useless and her ability to walk severely limited. She could no longer cook for herself or go to the store on a regular basis. She had to subscribe to a meal service which delivered her almost the exact same meal every day for years. She could not afford a better service. But she did not complain or ask for help. She gritted her teeth, the few she had left, and made the best of her situation.
Always independent and filled with courage and defiance, my mother did not choose to be alone without a companion in her later life, but she adapted to it. Her greatest fear was in becoming a burden to her children. In her last ten years, she complained much too infrequently when she really needed help with her physical ailments.
Arlene and I visited her in early 2000 and I was shocked at her deterioration. We made the decision to move her to Atlanta to be closer to us so that she could receive better care. Although I knew she never wanted to leave California, and that she never wanted to become a burden to us, she also was desperate for assistance and consented to the move. The move itself was difficult. Arlene was magnificent in making this transition as painless as possible. My mother loved and respected Arlene for her kindness and kept claiming that Arlene was "the smartest woman I have ever met." Of course, I kept reminding my mother that being married to the smartest woman has got to qualify me for being the smartest man.
We tried hard to improve her condition and make her as comfortable as possible. We had made good progress and I was hopeful we would have a few more years together and we could bring her some happiness. Arlene saw her almost daily and I spent time with her on the weekends. She jealously watched her tennis, one of her last passions, and disciplined herself everyday to make it through yet another crossword puzzle to keep her mind alert. She registered to vote, determined to once again support the Democratic party and made sure she got her ballot mailed in time.
Then she developed an infection that her body could not fight off and we had to put her into the hospital. Five painful weeks later, she was gone. She was courageous during the whole period, but eventually desperate to stop the suffering.
She lived her life with dignity and courage. She handled her daily pain with true grit and determination. I admire her and respect her for that. And for being my mother, well for that, I love her unconditionally.
She is now free at last, free from the arthritic pain, free from the crippling movement of deformed joints, free from the worry of financial constraints. At the end of her journey with us she knew she was loved, she knew she was forgiven, and she did not die alone.
Today, we release her spirit back to her golden California, where she can bask in the sun and feel that cool ocean breeze, where she can sing and dance once again,
...where she can fly like a bird.
God Saw Her
God saw that she was getting tired,
And a cure was not to be.
So he put His arms around her
And whispered, "Come with me."
With tearful eyes we watched her suffer,
And saw her fade away.
She didn't deserve what she went through,
So we could not make her stay.
And when we saw her sleeping,
At peace and free from pain,
We could not wish her back
For her to suffer that again.
A golden heart stopped beating,
Her twisted hands at rest,
One last sigh she gave us all
She gave to us her best.
God saw that she was getting tired,
And a cure was not to be.
So he put His arms around her
And whispered, "Come with me."
With tearful eyes we watched her suffer,
And saw her fade away.
She didn't deserve what she went through,
So we could not make her stay.
And when we saw her sleeping,
At peace and free from pain,
We could not wish her back
For her to suffer that again.
A golden heart stopped beating,
Her twisted hands at rest,
One last sigh she gave us all
She gave to us her best.
On Death
Speak to us now of death.
And he said:
You would know the secret of death.
But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?
If you would indeed behold the spirit of death,
Open your heart wide unto the body of life.
For life and death are one,
Even as the river and the sea are one.
For what is it to die but to stand naked in the world and to melt into the sun?
And what is it to cease breathing,
But to free the breath from its restless tides,
That it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?
Only when you drink from the river of silence,
Shall you indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountain top,
Then you shall begin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs,
Then shall you truly dance.
Kahil Gibran
Speak to us now of death.
And he said:
You would know the secret of death.
But how shall you find it unless you seek it in the heart of life?
If you would indeed behold the spirit of death,
Open your heart wide unto the body of life.
For life and death are one,
Even as the river and the sea are one.
For what is it to die but to stand naked in the world and to melt into the sun?
And what is it to cease breathing,
But to free the breath from its restless tides,
That it may rise and expand and seek God unencumbered?
Only when you drink from the river of silence,
Shall you indeed sing.
And when you have reached the mountain top,
Then you shall begin to climb.
And when the earth shall claim your limbs,
Then shall you truly dance.
Kahil Gibran
Some Time At Eve
Some time at eve when the tide is low,
I shall slip my mooring and sail away,
With no response to the friendly hail
Of kindred craft in the busy bay.
In the silent hush of the twilight pale,
When the night stoops down to embrace the day,
And the voices call in the waters' flow--
Some time at eve when the tide is low
I shall slip my mooring and sail away.
A few who have watched me sail away
Will miss my craft from the busy bay;
Some friendly barks that were anchored near,
Some loving souls that my heart held dear,
In silent sorrow will drop a tear--
But I shall have peacefully furled my sail
In moorings sheltered from storm or gale,
And greeted the friends who have sailed before
O'er the Unknown Sea to the Unseen Shore.
Elizabeth Clarke Hardy
Some time at eve when the tide is low,
I shall slip my mooring and sail away,
With no response to the friendly hail
Of kindred craft in the busy bay.
In the silent hush of the twilight pale,
When the night stoops down to embrace the day,
And the voices call in the waters' flow--
Some time at eve when the tide is low
I shall slip my mooring and sail away.
A few who have watched me sail away
Will miss my craft from the busy bay;
Some friendly barks that were anchored near,
Some loving souls that my heart held dear,
In silent sorrow will drop a tear--
But I shall have peacefully furled my sail
In moorings sheltered from storm or gale,
And greeted the friends who have sailed before
O'er the Unknown Sea to the Unseen Shore.
Elizabeth Clarke Hardy
Windward Passage
Beating against mediocrity,
always pointing high.
Sunshine warmth atop golden swells
Loving Breezes passing through
Flowing winds soaring fluid Wings
Flying Floating Dancing Free
Singing sweetly eternally,
memories anchored leeward key.
(in memory of Betty Baumberger Ford
written by her son Jeff)
Beating against mediocrity,
always pointing high.
Sunshine warmth atop golden swells
Loving Breezes passing through
Flowing winds soaring fluid Wings
Flying Floating Dancing Free
Singing sweetly eternally,
memories anchored leeward key.
(in memory of Betty Baumberger Ford
written by her son Jeff)
Page first published by Erin Howarth at geocities.com 21 Oct 2001
Re-published by Erin Howarth @ blogger.com 24 July 2009
Re-published by Erin Howarth @ blogger.com 24 July 2009
Saturday, April 1, 2000
Autobiography of Dianna Solmes (2000)
HASTINGS, MICHIGAN, APRIL 2000
I was born in Palm Beach, Florida, on August 13, 1943. My father was in the Air Force stationed in South America most of the time during Mother's pregnancy, but he managed to be with Mother before she left the hospital with me. I was born in the Breakers hotel(1) which was requisitioned as a hospital during these war years. I was the second daughter and the second child of my parents. My sister, Suzanna, was a year and a half older than I. We were great friends all of our youth
I had a brother, Brian, born three years later in West Palm Beach, Florida, but I don't remember him until later when my last brother, Jeffrey, was born in 1950. By then, we lived in Montgomery, Alabama
>Dad never stayed in one place for long. We moved from Florida to Texas, to California, to Florida, to Arizona, to Alabama, to Maryland, to Virginia, to New Mexico, to Germany, to Morocco, to Virginia, to Ohio, to California, to Florida. I'm not even sure about the order in the earlier years
My grandmother lived with us for a few years from 1951 to 1953. She was a wonderful influence in my life. She talked to me about God and encouraged me to go to church with our neighbors in Clovis, New Mexico, the Huttons. Reverend Hutton was the pastor for a Baptist Church in Clovis and Suzanna and I went with them every Sunday. They had five sons all of whom were grown and married except Jimmy, who was two years older than Suzanna. He was neat
Suzanna and I were baptized the summer of 1953. Then Dad received orders to go to Hahn Air Force Base in Germany as the Fiftieth Fighter Bomber Wing commander. He left in August and we followed in December. We flew to New York and waited for several days. We met Mother's cousin, Will (Bill) Pahlman, and his friend, Margaret Cousins, who was the author of several biographies for young people. She gave me a copy of her biography of Benjamin Franklin and autographed it for me. They took us to the ice capades in Times Square. Then, we flew to Frankfurt, Germany. On the airplane we read horror comics. I had some bad nightmares because of one in particular. I was afraid the ceiling was going to fall on me in my sleep and puncture me with a thousand spears! Dad met us at the airport. It was nighttime and very dark. We drove for a long time before we got to the base. Dad entertained us with stories of bears and wolves in the German woods along side of the road. He laughed and laughed when we shrieked in fear! He didn't know about the comic books
We lived on post in a double apartment and we had a German housekeeper. It was great. We didn't even have to make our beds! But we got spoiled. If our beds weren't made we had a fit. We even learned to do it ourselves the German way. That resembled the military way (tight corners -- tight everything!). We had every base privilege which included free shuttle bus service anywhere on base, a movie theater, a commissary, a gymnasium, school, everything we could want. We had the freedom to explore the nearby German woods, go to summer camp in the black forest, and shop in quaint little German towns. Frau Zeiler, our first German housekeeper, would go on picnics in the woods with us. She would warn us about the mines that were still buried there. We felt immortal, I guess, because we never let that stop us from exploring and having fun. Some people weren't so lucky. They got blown up!
The following year, Dad was transferred to Ramstein Air Force Base, which was more of the same, it was great. We loved playing in the woods. Then he received orders to go to Rabat, French Morocco. This was different. We had to live on the economy, which meant no military housing. It took three months to get a house fixed up for us in Rabat. The house was French and had black marble floors upstairs and down with a curved marble staircase and three balconies. In the meantime we rented a tenant house on a fruit farm in Salé, a small place outside the city. We spent a lot of time at the beach on the Atlantic Ocean swimming, body surfing, and picnicking. We rode a bus for an hour to get to our American school in Quonset huts in the middle of a cork forest. We even had basketball courts and baseball diamonds. In the spring we had a caterpillar epidemic. The trees and buildings were totally covered with them. They had to be burned off with torches.
During a softball game that I played in, I lost my temper with the coach/teacher and threw the ball at him as he turned around and walked away from me. I hit him in the back of the head. I was more shocked at my actions even than he was! When he turned around to see who had hit him, the fear on my face tempered his anger, and he let me off with a warning. I never did anything like that again.
Mother played softball on an Officer's wives' softball team. I don't remember who they played, but it was probably the non-commissioned officers' wives. They lost I was a cheerleader for mother's team. I lost heart and couldn't cheer much toward the end of the game. But mother never lost heart. She was dynamite! And she was a gracious and generous loser. I really admired her that day.
Just before we came home to America, the Moroccans won their independence from France. There was a showy procession into the city by the King and his mounted army on their day of independence. We stood at the top of the hill watching them. They were colorful and proud and happy. Even though the Americans were under curfew for several weeks prior, I heard of no blood being spilled.
We returned to the U.S. on the USS Hodges, a military ship converted into a passenger ship. It was the pits. Everyone was seasick, but the food was great. I was the only one well enough to do the laundry.
We moved to Annandale, Virginia, near enough to the Pentagon for Dad to commute. Our neighbor had two horses and didn't have time to exercise them both so she let Suzanna and I take turns exercising one of them. Suzanna had always loved horses, so we made a pact with each other to save every penny we could get our hands on until we could buy our own horse. We talked Dad into paying us per job rather than a flat rate for chores. It worked out great for both of us. For a year and a half, the house, car, and yard never looked so good, and we got enough money to buy our first horse!
The next time we moved, to Columbus, Ohio, Dad purchased a place with enough land to keep a horse. This time the Air Force didn't move him, because he retired and went to work for Space and Systems Information Division of North American. We bought our first horse from a riding stable that was going out of business. We were amazingly lucky, because she still had a soft mouth and was still willing to go. In fact she could go very fast. I won a race on her with a farm boy that my best friend, Mary Ann Sumption, had a crush on. Merry Frolic was her name, but we changed it to Reveille, a good military name. In the winter, we boarded her at a nearby farm. The second winter, Suzanna could drive, so we boarded her at a stable. John Dean Phillips, also know as Jack, was hired to run the stable. I was fifteen and he was twenty-one. He was ready to get married and we were in love, My parents decided to move to California. They really didn't like the way things were going with me and Jack! Jack was going to come to California and bring Reveille to me, but after three months' separation, we broke up and he sold our horse and sent us the money. He sold her for twice as much as we had paid. Now we had money to buy a horse in California. In fact, we ended up getting two. But horses sort of lost my interest after my junior year in High School and we finally sold them both. Suzanna went to Stephens college in Springfield, Missouri. I bought a car. I started hanging around kids who drank and smoked and I started doing the same. Up until this time, I was known as Miss Goody-Goody, but I soon lost that status. I could never admit how much I missed it.
Mother and I had been at odds for years, but now things became very volatile. She wanted me to be good and study hard to make something of myself and I wanted to goof off and be popular with my bad friends! As soon as I graduated from high school, I got a job with the Redondo Beach Telephone Company and two weeks before my eighteenth birthday, I moved out of my parents' house into my own apartment on the beach. It took one month for all my friends to take advantage of me, and get me evicted from my apartment. I found another one and Pat Berrin, one of my girlfriends moved in with me. She didn't have a job, but enjoyed spending my money for groceries. She loved cheese and crackers. I hated them.
I quit my job and moved back home! I started working for the Downey plant of Space and Information Systems Division of North American as a clerk. When I had enough money, I found myself another apartment, but this time I stayed away from my old friends. Then I was transferred to the Seal Beach Facility and my Dad was transferred to Satellite Beach, Florida, and I elected to go with him and help take care of my brothers, because he wasn't taking Mother with him. I started going to college at Brevard Junior college, but by now my habits of drinking and not studying were so entrenched, that I did poorly in school. I was not a good influence on my brothers and I wasn't much help in any respect. One day I just left without a word to anyone and returned to California. I found a job working with Pat Berrin. I moved in with her and her mother-in-law. Pat had married Bob Corbin just before he was sent to Okinawa with the Marines. The day President Kennedy was shot, I was sitting at a bar in some town in Redondo Beach, California watching it all on TV. I was devastated. I sat there for the rest of the day, drinking.
I went to San Luis Obispo, where Suzanna and her husband, Mohammed Al-Bakhit lived with their son, Eyad. There was nothing for me there so I went east. I stopped to see a few friends on the way but I ended up in New York. It was big and unfriendly. I went to the Army Recruiters Station and tried to enlist in the WACS.(2) The Sergeant put me on a plane and sent me home, telling me to enlist from my home in Florida. To my amazement, I was greeted at Dad's door by my mother. I didn't even know that she had left California and come to Florida. My parents didn't try to stop me from joining the Army, so I joined up in March 1964.
I hated basic training. It was just like home. Somebody was always yelling at me. I tried to keep up so I wouldn't be yelled at and I was made the platoon leader. That wasn't too bad except when the other girls would bring me their problems and expect me to solve them. My sergeant didn't like what I told one girl, so I was demoted and the girl I had chastised took my place. I was humiliated of course, but still glad to be out of the focus of leadership.
After nine weeks of basic, I was assigned to flight simulator operator school at Fort Rucker, Alabama. It wasn't much of a move from Fort McClelland, Alabama. I had been there several weeks when I sort of encountered Russell Solmes. He offered me a ride one evening as I was on my way to the movie theater (actually he "picked me up"). He decided to go to the movie too. Afterwards he went with me to the Little Wheels Club, and finally left since I had joined up with some other friends. However, the next day he came around and every day thereafter. He would pick me up right from school in his pink Cadillac convertible until his windshield was broken by a kid with a tomato and had to park the car off post. Then we started marching all over post.
I went off post a few times. But I didn't like it. The townspeople didn't like the military much, except for their money, and if you had a black or Hispanic friend with you they didn't even want your money! That was such a shock to me that I preferred to stay on post.
Russ and I decided to get married when he received orders go to Vietnam. We made hasty plans, and were married by the base chaplain with a few of our friends present. My parents came out from Florida, and Mother brought me a white dress with blue cummerbund and white shoes. I was very grateful, because I was prepared to get married in my WAC uniform. The amazing thing was that it fit me perfectly. Mother just knew that I would be thin again after gaining so much weight in basic training. Actually, I think she didn't think anyone would marry me unless I was thin, so she bought a size 10 dress. I requested a discharge and it was granted, so when Russ was allowed to go home just prior to shipping out to Vietnam, I was free to go with him.
I lived with Russ's parents while he was gone. I got a job at White Products in Middleville, When he came home, we went to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. There I worked as a typist and property researcher for an abstractor in town. Russ worked an odd shift and we didn't see each other much. We came close to getting divorced then. When his time to reenlist came around he refused. He was discharged and we went home to Hastings, Michigan, where he immediately started working for his father in the auto body repair business. WE came close to getting divorced again. Guess what saved the marriage? Procrastination! Now, how many people can say that?
On June 8, 1970, our first daughter was born. I named her Erin Elizabeth. Erin was just a favorite name of mine, but I named her Elizabeth after my favorite grandmother whom I loved dearly because she was always so kind to me. She never spoke harshly ever. I wish I had emulated her on that so my kids could say that too. They can't. I used a lot of rather inventive language.
Russ and I had been renting a house on Center Street in Hastings up until Erin was about a year old, and because Russ's brother, David, was getting divorced, we took over his house payments. This was our first house, at 628 Colfax Street, and the only way we could afford it was because we didn't have to put anything down on it. All of our savings were always borrowed to invest in the business and we would get it back in commodities rather than cash, but it all worked out very well for us.
On October 12, 1972, Anna Mae was born. She wasn't as easy to take care of as Erin had been and it took me five months to figure out what her problem was. She didn't like nursing. It took too much effort or something. But when I finally gave her a bottle, she became a model baby.
I became pregnant again about two years later, but I miscarried, and it was another two years almost before I had Gabrielle Elaine on November 14, 1976.
In April, when Gabby was about five months old, I met my first Mormon missionaries. I had seen them walking around our neighborhood several times, but they had never ever knocked on my door before. We had been going to the Nashville Baptist Church for about three yeas and Pastor De Groote had preached a sermon once about the dangers of talking to them because they belonged to a cult and they could deceive you and take you to hell with them. When I found out that he had been talking about those clean cut, handsome, well-dressed, young men who were walking about my neighborhood, I thought it a terrible shame that they were going to hell, and why didn't someone help them? After all, the only thing it would take to save them, would be to tell them about Jesus Christ, that he died for their sins, and if they would only believe in Him, they could be saved like the rest of us!
There was only one problem with this. As a parent, I could feel that this was misleading and over simplified. I loved my children more than anything I had ever loved in all my life, but I certainly expected and desired more from them and for them than just to trust me and go about their self-centered way. I knew they had many things to learn and conform to if they were to become independent, successful, productive and happy.
Finally, one Saturday afternoon, two of these young men did come to my door. Russ was home and I was afraid he wouldn't support, understand, or tolerate my efforts at straightening out these doomed young men. I told them I couldn't talk to them now, but if they would come back on Monday, I would listen to their strange notion that Jesus had visited the Americas after his resurrection. I couldn't imagine where they got such a bizarre idea.
I never even had the chance to argue with them, because everything they said was true. They did believe in Jesus Christ, so how could they be doomed? Not only that, but they knew things that I had never been taught, but when they spoke, I knew they were speaking the truth. I knew that I had lived in heaven with heavenly Father before I was born, and wonder of wonders, I even knew that I had a mother there! Never had I heard this concept verbalized before, yet it was as clear as spotless glass.
Then, they began to teach me about Joseph Smith. This was harder for me to swallow. There are so many self proclaimed prophets and men called by God to do this, to go here or there, to teach and preach, to build this church or that church or whatever. The idea wasn't exactly original. They told me to read the Book of Mormon and pray. I didn't do it.
The next time they came back, I was willing to listen to more, even though now there was a different missionary with Elder Johnson. Elder Brown had gone home, I was told, and Elder Todd had replaced him. Elder Brown had done all the talking. Elder Johnson was very quiet and shy. Fortunately, Elder Todd had no trouble picking up where Elder Brown had left off. He told me that he had joined the church while he was in the Air Force, and after serving his term of enlistment, he began to serve his mission. I was very impressed.
He talked more about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. They left too soon, but they wanted me to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. That night I started reading after I prayed to know if the Book was true, or if it was the work of the devil, as I had been taught by Pastor DeGroote. I read 1 Nephi chapters 1, 2, and 3. I prayed between chapters. After a few more, I said to myself, what in the world was Pastor DeGroote talking about? If this was of the devil, then so was the Bible. I knew that if one was true, the other was true, too.
I became very excited. I called the missionaries. We had set another appointment for the following week. There was no way that I could wait a whole week for more information. I told them that I had read the first five or six chapters of the Book of Mormon, and I knew it was true. Could they please come over sooner than next week? They asked me when, and I said how about tomorrow morning? They came and they kept coming. I couldn't get enough. I talked to Russ incessantly about the things I was learning. He seemed interested but in no way willing to do any studying himself. The missionaries were very reluctant to teach me any more until Russ became involved. He finally agreed. The first night that he listened to the missionaries and watched a film, I was frightened to death. Later the missionaries asked me if I could feel the Spirit, and I told them I felt a terrible spirit the whole time they were there that night, but I never felt it again. I wanted to be baptized, but I didn't know if I was worthy . I had already quit drinking and smoking. Russ had actually quit smoking two years before me. Russ had made it clear to me that if I wanted to keep my children, I had to stop drinking. I couldn't smoke without wanting a drink so I quit that too. It was really hard. That was when I spent all my days reading the Old Testament and telling Russ everything I had discovered that day and each day when he came home from work.
Russ simply didn't want to be committed for the longest time. The missionaries kept working with us patiently. They invited us to come to church. The first time I went, I rode my bicycle and carried Gabby on my back while Russ stubbornly went to Nashville with the older girls.
At that time, the Saints were meeting in a small wooden church in the south quadrant of town. I was sure that Russ would hate it, but I loved it. It sort of reminded me of the Blacklick, Ohio Church that I used to attend with my friend Mary Ann Sumption because it was so small. Everyone was so friendly. The missionaries sat beside me, took me to classes and stayed with me, gave me a hymn book, helped me find the page, helped me with Gabby, and really made me feel at home. I never went back to the Nashville Baptist Church. Russ and the girls came the following Sunday, and every Sunday thereafter. The Gibson family fellowshipped us and we became very close friends. Their youngest son, Grant, was born the day before Gabrielle. Dawne Gibson knew Russ in high school. The Gregorys, the McMillans, Lucy Karcher, Sandy Gillum (now Wilkins), Bee Fuller (now Dunham), and others, all contributed to our sense of feeling at home. We finally were baptized, on September 1, 1977, in Grand Rapids at the old stake center with almost the entire branch present.
When Elder Todd confirmed me a member of the Church by laying his hands upon my head after my baptism, he gave me a blessing. I heard him say that if I was obedient and faithful, as Laiya was, I would receive the same blessings that she did. I thought I had misunderstood him, because I had no idea who Laiya was. Before the blessing was finished, he repeated the same words a second time. Later, I asked him what he had meant. He had no recollection of having said that, and he had no idea who Laiya was either. I know I heard it, because I was planning to ask him about it after the first time. When he repeated it, I was extremely curious. I still do not know who Laiya was, or is, or will be, but I do know that someday I will know. And I will be very disappointed if I fall short, because I was specifically promised the same blessing that she obviously was, is, or will be worthy of.
The day that Elder Todd left us was the saddest day I had ever lived. Fortunately, we have kept in touch and visited with each other over the years. He went to college, married, rejoined the Air Force as an officer in public relations and now has five children.
Elder Johnson's family came to Michigan to take him home when his mission was finished, and they spent a day with us. They were the sweetest people I had ever met. The following Christmas, Sister Johnson sent each one of us a gift, including our newest and yet unborn child . . . a baby quilt that she had made herself! He now has five or six children and is living in Wickenberg, Arizona.
Jessica was born February 1, 1979. She is the only one born in an odd-numbered year. She is also the only one who has rebelled against the church. However, I am comforted to know that her rebellion is not unlike my own, and it will go away someday and she will come back, if only for her own children?s sakes.
By now we lived on a forty acre farm south of Hastings. I loved it there. I thought I never wanted to move again. I wanted to raise goats and drink their milk and raise chickens and vegetables and be self sufficient. That lasted seven years and two sons later.
Levi Daniel was born November 13, 1980, When he first appeared to me in the doctor?s arms, I wondered where in the world this little slanteyed baby came from. I had watched him come from me, and he never left my sight so I knew he was mine and Russ?s. But he definitely looked Oriental to me and though he lost some of that look, he could always tip those eyes and make his "wolf-look". Dr. McAlvey thought I was nuts to give him the initials LDS. I just let him laugh at me. What did I care?
>Isaac was born August 13, 1982. I actually planned it that way. My mother had her last child, a boy, on her birthday. It so happened to be on her thirtieth birthday. I was slower than she was, and Isaac was born on my thirty-ninth birthday. Also, he was born at home, on the farm in my very own bedroom. I had wanted each one of my children at home after my first, but my husband wouldn't hear of it; too risky and dangerous. But I finally convinced him that I knew what I was doing by now, and besides, I would keep on having them until I had one at home. He finally relented. He didn't want to watch, but Lorna Adams, my friend, and a member of the church, pulled him into the room to see, and then he couldn't tear himself away. He was as eager as we women were about what was happening. I had one midwife and two support sisters to help me. The week before, I had made and decorated a beautiful birthday cake for him and put it in the freezer. When I started labor hard, I went down into the basement and got the cake out so it could thaw and be ready for the celebration that would soon follow.
The evening of Aug. 12, 1980, Russ and I went to the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel for dinner and dancing with our Amway Group. I was huge and many people asked me when I was due to have my baby. I always told them tomorrow, because I knew that I would have him on my birthday. It was the plan. My contractions started on our way home after the dance. (I danced with exuberance. I figured it would help move the baby, and besides, I always danced with exuberance.
He was born very conveniently at 8:45, Friday morning. I was a Friday the thirteenth baby, too. I was so happy and so proud. Heavenly Father blessed me with my heart's desire. Not only did I have a perfect baby, but it was a son, so that Levi wouldn't be the only boy in a family of all girls. I am still trying to convince Levi that it was a good gift. I hope their rivalry will be completely resolved by the time they both complete their missions.
I was blessed to stay home with my children until Isaac was three years old. Then I had to go to work to help with the family finances. Also, I wanted to go to school and learn computer programming so that I could do something that I liked that would pay me a decent wage and compensate me for being away from my children.
I worked for Rodees, Inc. During the day as a secretary, and went to school three nights a week and Saturday mornings. It took me ten months to get through the course, and when I did I confidently quit my job and started looking for a job as a computer programmer. It took me three months to find one but to my utter surprise, and it was only temporary. However it temporarily lasted twenty-two months , and I loved it. I was an operator and programmer for the IBM System 34 at the E.W. Bliss company right here in town. We had sold the fame and moved back to town for convenience sake and I couldn't take care of all my animals while I worked and went to school and the kids needed to be closer to school and activities.
When that job phased out, I learned that I was not qualified for a job as a programmer because I had no degree and not enough experience. Erin went to college at BYU and I wasn't helping with the finances. Finally when she got home after her first year, we went together to get factory work. I worked in the factory three weeks and found another job in town as a secretary for a realtor and a land surveyor. Also, I started working nights as a waitress. Finally, I went to work for Russ in the Body Shop as his secretary, and eventually quit the waitress job, too because I was always so tired on Sunday mornings after no sleep for twenty-four hours that usually dragged out to forty hours before going to bed Sunday night and starting over Monday morning.
I am so proud of all my children. Erin became a missionary who served 18 months in Venezuela Caracas East, and then returned to finish college at BYU with a major in History and a Minor in Spanish. She then taught Enlace as a second language to Spanish speaking people, and then she taught Spanish to high school students for two years. Anna graduated from BYU with a Major in Family Science. She is the best mom! Gabrielle is grooming dogs at the present and managing a Petsmart Grooming Department. Jessica worked for Dewey's body shop until after her second son was born. Now she stays home to take care of her little family. I am so proud of her and she is a very good mom.
Levi has entered the MTC to prepare for his 2 year mission to Hiroshima Japan. This was his heart's desire. Could there be a premortal connection? I don't know, but I wonder.
Isaac is still in High School He loves sports. He hasn't decided what he will do yet, but he plans on serving a mission too.
I am so proud of all my children. Maybe this is the blessing that Laiya has. I really want to meet her. I wonder if it will be in this life?
Time is flying by so fast. This short autobiography tells so little really, yet is seems as though my life has gone as fast as these words. I hope that I can learn to take advantage of the time I have left, and accomplish more of the tasks mentioned in my patriarchal blessing so that I may experience the blessings that I was promised. 1. See photo on page two. 2. Women's Army Corp
File uploaded to geocities.com 20 Sep 1999.
Updated 09 Mar 2005
(c) 2005 Dianna Ford Solmes
transferred to blogger.com 01 Aug 2009.
I was born in Palm Beach, Florida, on August 13, 1943. My father was in the Air Force stationed in South America most of the time during Mother's pregnancy, but he managed to be with Mother before she left the hospital with me. I was born in the Breakers hotel(1) which was requisitioned as a hospital during these war years. I was the second daughter and the second child of my parents. My sister, Suzanna, was a year and a half older than I. We were great friends all of our youth
I had a brother, Brian, born three years later in West Palm Beach, Florida, but I don't remember him until later when my last brother, Jeffrey, was born in 1950. By then, we lived in Montgomery, Alabama
>Dad never stayed in one place for long. We moved from Florida to Texas, to California, to Florida, to Arizona, to Alabama, to Maryland, to Virginia, to New Mexico, to Germany, to Morocco, to Virginia, to Ohio, to California, to Florida. I'm not even sure about the order in the earlier years
My grandmother lived with us for a few years from 1951 to 1953. She was a wonderful influence in my life. She talked to me about God and encouraged me to go to church with our neighbors in Clovis, New Mexico, the Huttons. Reverend Hutton was the pastor for a Baptist Church in Clovis and Suzanna and I went with them every Sunday. They had five sons all of whom were grown and married except Jimmy, who was two years older than Suzanna. He was neat
Suzanna and I were baptized the summer of 1953. Then Dad received orders to go to Hahn Air Force Base in Germany as the Fiftieth Fighter Bomber Wing commander. He left in August and we followed in December. We flew to New York and waited for several days. We met Mother's cousin, Will (Bill) Pahlman, and his friend, Margaret Cousins, who was the author of several biographies for young people. She gave me a copy of her biography of Benjamin Franklin and autographed it for me. They took us to the ice capades in Times Square. Then, we flew to Frankfurt, Germany. On the airplane we read horror comics. I had some bad nightmares because of one in particular. I was afraid the ceiling was going to fall on me in my sleep and puncture me with a thousand spears! Dad met us at the airport. It was nighttime and very dark. We drove for a long time before we got to the base. Dad entertained us with stories of bears and wolves in the German woods along side of the road. He laughed and laughed when we shrieked in fear! He didn't know about the comic books
We lived on post in a double apartment and we had a German housekeeper. It was great. We didn't even have to make our beds! But we got spoiled. If our beds weren't made we had a fit. We even learned to do it ourselves the German way. That resembled the military way (tight corners -- tight everything!). We had every base privilege which included free shuttle bus service anywhere on base, a movie theater, a commissary, a gymnasium, school, everything we could want. We had the freedom to explore the nearby German woods, go to summer camp in the black forest, and shop in quaint little German towns. Frau Zeiler, our first German housekeeper, would go on picnics in the woods with us. She would warn us about the mines that were still buried there. We felt immortal, I guess, because we never let that stop us from exploring and having fun. Some people weren't so lucky. They got blown up!
The following year, Dad was transferred to Ramstein Air Force Base, which was more of the same, it was great. We loved playing in the woods. Then he received orders to go to Rabat, French Morocco. This was different. We had to live on the economy, which meant no military housing. It took three months to get a house fixed up for us in Rabat. The house was French and had black marble floors upstairs and down with a curved marble staircase and three balconies. In the meantime we rented a tenant house on a fruit farm in Salé, a small place outside the city. We spent a lot of time at the beach on the Atlantic Ocean swimming, body surfing, and picnicking. We rode a bus for an hour to get to our American school in Quonset huts in the middle of a cork forest. We even had basketball courts and baseball diamonds. In the spring we had a caterpillar epidemic. The trees and buildings were totally covered with them. They had to be burned off with torches.
During a softball game that I played in, I lost my temper with the coach/teacher and threw the ball at him as he turned around and walked away from me. I hit him in the back of the head. I was more shocked at my actions even than he was! When he turned around to see who had hit him, the fear on my face tempered his anger, and he let me off with a warning. I never did anything like that again.
Mother played softball on an Officer's wives' softball team. I don't remember who they played, but it was probably the non-commissioned officers' wives. They lost I was a cheerleader for mother's team. I lost heart and couldn't cheer much toward the end of the game. But mother never lost heart. She was dynamite! And she was a gracious and generous loser. I really admired her that day.
Just before we came home to America, the Moroccans won their independence from France. There was a showy procession into the city by the King and his mounted army on their day of independence. We stood at the top of the hill watching them. They were colorful and proud and happy. Even though the Americans were under curfew for several weeks prior, I heard of no blood being spilled.
We returned to the U.S. on the USS Hodges, a military ship converted into a passenger ship. It was the pits. Everyone was seasick, but the food was great. I was the only one well enough to do the laundry.
We moved to Annandale, Virginia, near enough to the Pentagon for Dad to commute. Our neighbor had two horses and didn't have time to exercise them both so she let Suzanna and I take turns exercising one of them. Suzanna had always loved horses, so we made a pact with each other to save every penny we could get our hands on until we could buy our own horse. We talked Dad into paying us per job rather than a flat rate for chores. It worked out great for both of us. For a year and a half, the house, car, and yard never looked so good, and we got enough money to buy our first horse!
The next time we moved, to Columbus, Ohio, Dad purchased a place with enough land to keep a horse. This time the Air Force didn't move him, because he retired and went to work for Space and Systems Information Division of North American. We bought our first horse from a riding stable that was going out of business. We were amazingly lucky, because she still had a soft mouth and was still willing to go. In fact she could go very fast. I won a race on her with a farm boy that my best friend, Mary Ann Sumption, had a crush on. Merry Frolic was her name, but we changed it to Reveille, a good military name. In the winter, we boarded her at a nearby farm. The second winter, Suzanna could drive, so we boarded her at a stable. John Dean Phillips, also know as Jack, was hired to run the stable. I was fifteen and he was twenty-one. He was ready to get married and we were in love, My parents decided to move to California. They really didn't like the way things were going with me and Jack! Jack was going to come to California and bring Reveille to me, but after three months' separation, we broke up and he sold our horse and sent us the money. He sold her for twice as much as we had paid. Now we had money to buy a horse in California. In fact, we ended up getting two. But horses sort of lost my interest after my junior year in High School and we finally sold them both. Suzanna went to Stephens college in Springfield, Missouri. I bought a car. I started hanging around kids who drank and smoked and I started doing the same. Up until this time, I was known as Miss Goody-Goody, but I soon lost that status. I could never admit how much I missed it.
Mother and I had been at odds for years, but now things became very volatile. She wanted me to be good and study hard to make something of myself and I wanted to goof off and be popular with my bad friends! As soon as I graduated from high school, I got a job with the Redondo Beach Telephone Company and two weeks before my eighteenth birthday, I moved out of my parents' house into my own apartment on the beach. It took one month for all my friends to take advantage of me, and get me evicted from my apartment. I found another one and Pat Berrin, one of my girlfriends moved in with me. She didn't have a job, but enjoyed spending my money for groceries. She loved cheese and crackers. I hated them.
I quit my job and moved back home! I started working for the Downey plant of Space and Information Systems Division of North American as a clerk. When I had enough money, I found myself another apartment, but this time I stayed away from my old friends. Then I was transferred to the Seal Beach Facility and my Dad was transferred to Satellite Beach, Florida, and I elected to go with him and help take care of my brothers, because he wasn't taking Mother with him. I started going to college at Brevard Junior college, but by now my habits of drinking and not studying were so entrenched, that I did poorly in school. I was not a good influence on my brothers and I wasn't much help in any respect. One day I just left without a word to anyone and returned to California. I found a job working with Pat Berrin. I moved in with her and her mother-in-law. Pat had married Bob Corbin just before he was sent to Okinawa with the Marines. The day President Kennedy was shot, I was sitting at a bar in some town in Redondo Beach, California watching it all on TV. I was devastated. I sat there for the rest of the day, drinking.
I went to San Luis Obispo, where Suzanna and her husband, Mohammed Al-Bakhit lived with their son, Eyad. There was nothing for me there so I went east. I stopped to see a few friends on the way but I ended up in New York. It was big and unfriendly. I went to the Army Recruiters Station and tried to enlist in the WACS.(2) The Sergeant put me on a plane and sent me home, telling me to enlist from my home in Florida. To my amazement, I was greeted at Dad's door by my mother. I didn't even know that she had left California and come to Florida. My parents didn't try to stop me from joining the Army, so I joined up in March 1964.
I hated basic training. It was just like home. Somebody was always yelling at me. I tried to keep up so I wouldn't be yelled at and I was made the platoon leader. That wasn't too bad except when the other girls would bring me their problems and expect me to solve them. My sergeant didn't like what I told one girl, so I was demoted and the girl I had chastised took my place. I was humiliated of course, but still glad to be out of the focus of leadership.
After nine weeks of basic, I was assigned to flight simulator operator school at Fort Rucker, Alabama. It wasn't much of a move from Fort McClelland, Alabama. I had been there several weeks when I sort of encountered Russell Solmes. He offered me a ride one evening as I was on my way to the movie theater (actually he "picked me up"). He decided to go to the movie too. Afterwards he went with me to the Little Wheels Club, and finally left since I had joined up with some other friends. However, the next day he came around and every day thereafter. He would pick me up right from school in his pink Cadillac convertible until his windshield was broken by a kid with a tomato and had to park the car off post. Then we started marching all over post.
I went off post a few times. But I didn't like it. The townspeople didn't like the military much, except for their money, and if you had a black or Hispanic friend with you they didn't even want your money! That was such a shock to me that I preferred to stay on post.
Russ and I decided to get married when he received orders go to Vietnam. We made hasty plans, and were married by the base chaplain with a few of our friends present. My parents came out from Florida, and Mother brought me a white dress with blue cummerbund and white shoes. I was very grateful, because I was prepared to get married in my WAC uniform. The amazing thing was that it fit me perfectly. Mother just knew that I would be thin again after gaining so much weight in basic training. Actually, I think she didn't think anyone would marry me unless I was thin, so she bought a size 10 dress. I requested a discharge and it was granted, so when Russ was allowed to go home just prior to shipping out to Vietnam, I was free to go with him.
I lived with Russ's parents while he was gone. I got a job at White Products in Middleville, When he came home, we went to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. There I worked as a typist and property researcher for an abstractor in town. Russ worked an odd shift and we didn't see each other much. We came close to getting divorced then. When his time to reenlist came around he refused. He was discharged and we went home to Hastings, Michigan, where he immediately started working for his father in the auto body repair business. WE came close to getting divorced again. Guess what saved the marriage? Procrastination! Now, how many people can say that?
On June 8, 1970, our first daughter was born. I named her Erin Elizabeth. Erin was just a favorite name of mine, but I named her Elizabeth after my favorite grandmother whom I loved dearly because she was always so kind to me. She never spoke harshly ever. I wish I had emulated her on that so my kids could say that too. They can't. I used a lot of rather inventive language.
Russ and I had been renting a house on Center Street in Hastings up until Erin was about a year old, and because Russ's brother, David, was getting divorced, we took over his house payments. This was our first house, at 628 Colfax Street, and the only way we could afford it was because we didn't have to put anything down on it. All of our savings were always borrowed to invest in the business and we would get it back in commodities rather than cash, but it all worked out very well for us.
On October 12, 1972, Anna Mae was born. She wasn't as easy to take care of as Erin had been and it took me five months to figure out what her problem was. She didn't like nursing. It took too much effort or something. But when I finally gave her a bottle, she became a model baby.
I became pregnant again about two years later, but I miscarried, and it was another two years almost before I had Gabrielle Elaine on November 14, 1976.
In April, when Gabby was about five months old, I met my first Mormon missionaries. I had seen them walking around our neighborhood several times, but they had never ever knocked on my door before. We had been going to the Nashville Baptist Church for about three yeas and Pastor De Groote had preached a sermon once about the dangers of talking to them because they belonged to a cult and they could deceive you and take you to hell with them. When I found out that he had been talking about those clean cut, handsome, well-dressed, young men who were walking about my neighborhood, I thought it a terrible shame that they were going to hell, and why didn't someone help them? After all, the only thing it would take to save them, would be to tell them about Jesus Christ, that he died for their sins, and if they would only believe in Him, they could be saved like the rest of us!
There was only one problem with this. As a parent, I could feel that this was misleading and over simplified. I loved my children more than anything I had ever loved in all my life, but I certainly expected and desired more from them and for them than just to trust me and go about their self-centered way. I knew they had many things to learn and conform to if they were to become independent, successful, productive and happy.
Finally, one Saturday afternoon, two of these young men did come to my door. Russ was home and I was afraid he wouldn't support, understand, or tolerate my efforts at straightening out these doomed young men. I told them I couldn't talk to them now, but if they would come back on Monday, I would listen to their strange notion that Jesus had visited the Americas after his resurrection. I couldn't imagine where they got such a bizarre idea.
I never even had the chance to argue with them, because everything they said was true. They did believe in Jesus Christ, so how could they be doomed? Not only that, but they knew things that I had never been taught, but when they spoke, I knew they were speaking the truth. I knew that I had lived in heaven with heavenly Father before I was born, and wonder of wonders, I even knew that I had a mother there! Never had I heard this concept verbalized before, yet it was as clear as spotless glass.
Then, they began to teach me about Joseph Smith. This was harder for me to swallow. There are so many self proclaimed prophets and men called by God to do this, to go here or there, to teach and preach, to build this church or that church or whatever. The idea wasn't exactly original. They told me to read the Book of Mormon and pray. I didn't do it.
The next time they came back, I was willing to listen to more, even though now there was a different missionary with Elder Johnson. Elder Brown had gone home, I was told, and Elder Todd had replaced him. Elder Brown had done all the talking. Elder Johnson was very quiet and shy. Fortunately, Elder Todd had no trouble picking up where Elder Brown had left off. He told me that he had joined the church while he was in the Air Force, and after serving his term of enlistment, he began to serve his mission. I was very impressed.
He talked more about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. They left too soon, but they wanted me to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. That night I started reading after I prayed to know if the Book was true, or if it was the work of the devil, as I had been taught by Pastor DeGroote. I read 1 Nephi chapters 1, 2, and 3. I prayed between chapters. After a few more, I said to myself, what in the world was Pastor DeGroote talking about? If this was of the devil, then so was the Bible. I knew that if one was true, the other was true, too.
I became very excited. I called the missionaries. We had set another appointment for the following week. There was no way that I could wait a whole week for more information. I told them that I had read the first five or six chapters of the Book of Mormon, and I knew it was true. Could they please come over sooner than next week? They asked me when, and I said how about tomorrow morning? They came and they kept coming. I couldn't get enough. I talked to Russ incessantly about the things I was learning. He seemed interested but in no way willing to do any studying himself. The missionaries were very reluctant to teach me any more until Russ became involved. He finally agreed. The first night that he listened to the missionaries and watched a film, I was frightened to death. Later the missionaries asked me if I could feel the Spirit, and I told them I felt a terrible spirit the whole time they were there that night, but I never felt it again. I wanted to be baptized, but I didn't know if I was worthy . I had already quit drinking and smoking. Russ had actually quit smoking two years before me. Russ had made it clear to me that if I wanted to keep my children, I had to stop drinking. I couldn't smoke without wanting a drink so I quit that too. It was really hard. That was when I spent all my days reading the Old Testament and telling Russ everything I had discovered that day and each day when he came home from work.
Russ simply didn't want to be committed for the longest time. The missionaries kept working with us patiently. They invited us to come to church. The first time I went, I rode my bicycle and carried Gabby on my back while Russ stubbornly went to Nashville with the older girls.
At that time, the Saints were meeting in a small wooden church in the south quadrant of town. I was sure that Russ would hate it, but I loved it. It sort of reminded me of the Blacklick, Ohio Church that I used to attend with my friend Mary Ann Sumption because it was so small. Everyone was so friendly. The missionaries sat beside me, took me to classes and stayed with me, gave me a hymn book, helped me find the page, helped me with Gabby, and really made me feel at home. I never went back to the Nashville Baptist Church. Russ and the girls came the following Sunday, and every Sunday thereafter. The Gibson family fellowshipped us and we became very close friends. Their youngest son, Grant, was born the day before Gabrielle. Dawne Gibson knew Russ in high school. The Gregorys, the McMillans, Lucy Karcher, Sandy Gillum (now Wilkins), Bee Fuller (now Dunham), and others, all contributed to our sense of feeling at home. We finally were baptized, on September 1, 1977, in Grand Rapids at the old stake center with almost the entire branch present.
When Elder Todd confirmed me a member of the Church by laying his hands upon my head after my baptism, he gave me a blessing. I heard him say that if I was obedient and faithful, as Laiya was, I would receive the same blessings that she did. I thought I had misunderstood him, because I had no idea who Laiya was. Before the blessing was finished, he repeated the same words a second time. Later, I asked him what he had meant. He had no recollection of having said that, and he had no idea who Laiya was either. I know I heard it, because I was planning to ask him about it after the first time. When he repeated it, I was extremely curious. I still do not know who Laiya was, or is, or will be, but I do know that someday I will know. And I will be very disappointed if I fall short, because I was specifically promised the same blessing that she obviously was, is, or will be worthy of.
The day that Elder Todd left us was the saddest day I had ever lived. Fortunately, we have kept in touch and visited with each other over the years. He went to college, married, rejoined the Air Force as an officer in public relations and now has five children.
Elder Johnson's family came to Michigan to take him home when his mission was finished, and they spent a day with us. They were the sweetest people I had ever met. The following Christmas, Sister Johnson sent each one of us a gift, including our newest and yet unborn child . . . a baby quilt that she had made herself! He now has five or six children and is living in Wickenberg, Arizona.
Jessica was born February 1, 1979. She is the only one born in an odd-numbered year. She is also the only one who has rebelled against the church. However, I am comforted to know that her rebellion is not unlike my own, and it will go away someday and she will come back, if only for her own children?s sakes.
By now we lived on a forty acre farm south of Hastings. I loved it there. I thought I never wanted to move again. I wanted to raise goats and drink their milk and raise chickens and vegetables and be self sufficient. That lasted seven years and two sons later.
Levi Daniel was born November 13, 1980, When he first appeared to me in the doctor?s arms, I wondered where in the world this little slanteyed baby came from. I had watched him come from me, and he never left my sight so I knew he was mine and Russ?s. But he definitely looked Oriental to me and though he lost some of that look, he could always tip those eyes and make his "wolf-look". Dr. McAlvey thought I was nuts to give him the initials LDS. I just let him laugh at me. What did I care?
>Isaac was born August 13, 1982. I actually planned it that way. My mother had her last child, a boy, on her birthday. It so happened to be on her thirtieth birthday. I was slower than she was, and Isaac was born on my thirty-ninth birthday. Also, he was born at home, on the farm in my very own bedroom. I had wanted each one of my children at home after my first, but my husband wouldn't hear of it; too risky and dangerous. But I finally convinced him that I knew what I was doing by now, and besides, I would keep on having them until I had one at home. He finally relented. He didn't want to watch, but Lorna Adams, my friend, and a member of the church, pulled him into the room to see, and then he couldn't tear himself away. He was as eager as we women were about what was happening. I had one midwife and two support sisters to help me. The week before, I had made and decorated a beautiful birthday cake for him and put it in the freezer. When I started labor hard, I went down into the basement and got the cake out so it could thaw and be ready for the celebration that would soon follow.
The evening of Aug. 12, 1980, Russ and I went to the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel for dinner and dancing with our Amway Group. I was huge and many people asked me when I was due to have my baby. I always told them tomorrow, because I knew that I would have him on my birthday. It was the plan. My contractions started on our way home after the dance. (I danced with exuberance. I figured it would help move the baby, and besides, I always danced with exuberance.
He was born very conveniently at 8:45, Friday morning. I was a Friday the thirteenth baby, too. I was so happy and so proud. Heavenly Father blessed me with my heart's desire. Not only did I have a perfect baby, but it was a son, so that Levi wouldn't be the only boy in a family of all girls. I am still trying to convince Levi that it was a good gift. I hope their rivalry will be completely resolved by the time they both complete their missions.
I was blessed to stay home with my children until Isaac was three years old. Then I had to go to work to help with the family finances. Also, I wanted to go to school and learn computer programming so that I could do something that I liked that would pay me a decent wage and compensate me for being away from my children.
I worked for Rodees, Inc. During the day as a secretary, and went to school three nights a week and Saturday mornings. It took me ten months to get through the course, and when I did I confidently quit my job and started looking for a job as a computer programmer. It took me three months to find one but to my utter surprise, and it was only temporary. However it temporarily lasted twenty-two months , and I loved it. I was an operator and programmer for the IBM System 34 at the E.W. Bliss company right here in town. We had sold the fame and moved back to town for convenience sake and I couldn't take care of all my animals while I worked and went to school and the kids needed to be closer to school and activities.
When that job phased out, I learned that I was not qualified for a job as a programmer because I had no degree and not enough experience. Erin went to college at BYU and I wasn't helping with the finances. Finally when she got home after her first year, we went together to get factory work. I worked in the factory three weeks and found another job in town as a secretary for a realtor and a land surveyor. Also, I started working nights as a waitress. Finally, I went to work for Russ in the Body Shop as his secretary, and eventually quit the waitress job, too because I was always so tired on Sunday mornings after no sleep for twenty-four hours that usually dragged out to forty hours before going to bed Sunday night and starting over Monday morning.
I am so proud of all my children. Erin became a missionary who served 18 months in Venezuela Caracas East, and then returned to finish college at BYU with a major in History and a Minor in Spanish. She then taught Enlace as a second language to Spanish speaking people, and then she taught Spanish to high school students for two years. Anna graduated from BYU with a Major in Family Science. She is the best mom! Gabrielle is grooming dogs at the present and managing a Petsmart Grooming Department. Jessica worked for Dewey's body shop until after her second son was born. Now she stays home to take care of her little family. I am so proud of her and she is a very good mom.
Levi has entered the MTC to prepare for his 2 year mission to Hiroshima Japan. This was his heart's desire. Could there be a premortal connection? I don't know, but I wonder.
Isaac is still in High School He loves sports. He hasn't decided what he will do yet, but he plans on serving a mission too.
I am so proud of all my children. Maybe this is the blessing that Laiya has. I really want to meet her. I wonder if it will be in this life?
Time is flying by so fast. This short autobiography tells so little really, yet is seems as though my life has gone as fast as these words. I hope that I can learn to take advantage of the time I have left, and accomplish more of the tasks mentioned in my patriarchal blessing so that I may experience the blessings that I was promised. 1. See photo on page two. 2. Women's Army Corp
File uploaded to geocities.com 20 Sep 1999.
Updated 09 Mar 2005
(c) 2005 Dianna Ford Solmes
transferred to blogger.com 01 Aug 2009.
Sunday, January 1, 1995
How to write an autobiography (or biography)
Remember! As you now desire information about your ancestors, so will your descendants desire information about you. Will you leave it for them? Pictures too? Write your histories in chronological order as the life was actually lived. First make an outline, listing every event in proper sequence. Small, three by five inch slips of paper with the day, month and year of each individual event can be arranged in chronological order easily. Write interestingly and in detail--paper is cheap (see Saviors on Mt. Zion, chapters 6-11).
Suggestion list:
Suggestion list:
- 1. Your full name, day of birth, house or hospital where born (town, county, state or country). When listing homes, schools, church houses, etc, give exact address and dates if possible.
- 2. Your father. Give full name, date and place of birth; his parents' full names and where they came from (trace back to the foreign countries on your lines--city and country). This can be done in a brief paragraph.
- 3. Your mother. Give the same information as for your father.
- 4. Infancy and early childhood. Date and place of blessing (Ward and Stake), by whom; early memories, health, etc. Get interesting incidents of early life from parents and other old-timers who were associated with the family.
- 5. Early environment. Financial, social, physical, religious (Primary, Sunday School, etc.)
- 6. Home training. Incidents (happy, humorous, mischievous, tragic), problems, duties, your brothers and sisters, playtime activities (inside and outside), other memories, etc. (include pictures of homes, wards, play areas--infancy up to about age six.)
- 7. School days. Early recollections, activities, special teachers, friends, your health, report cards, etc. (Pictures of schools, class pictures, activities, etc.--see yearbooks, scrapbooks, newspapers, etc.)
- 8. Baptism. Date and place (Ward and Stake or Branch and Mission), by whom baptized and confirmed, place of confirmation, etc. Special instructions received from your parents, recollections, thoughts and feelings, etc.
- 9. Youthful memories. School days continued; adventures, accidents, amusing incidents, thoughts, problems, friends, parties, vacations, travels, sports, hobbies, clubs (school, civic, etc), gangs, scouting (merit badges, activities, etc), M.I.A. activities, parental discipline, studies, books read, movies that influenced you, Sunday School, church activities (ordinations to the Priesthood--dates and by whom ordained), etc.
- 10. High School, Seminary, College, Institute. Activities, sports, clubs, parties, social life, hobbies, part-time jobs, most valuable or enjoyable classes, teachers, friends, scholarships, courses of study, honors won, graduation, diplomas or certificates received, etc (include appropriate pictures of schools, homes, seminaries, play areas, etc).
- 11. Patriarchal blessing. Date and place received, by whom given, etc.
- 12. Mission. Travels, places served (positions held, dates of service, faith promoting experiences, converts, investigators, companions, special problems, etc (include pictures). Be sure to tell the story of getting your own testimony--let your posterity know how you really feel.
- 13. Military Service. Travels, promotions, experiences, buddies, religious experiences, battles, wounds, dates of service, schooling, training, health, citations, (include pictures and don't forget army letters which may have been preserved--check in the attic and other storage places).
- 14. Courtship and marriage. When and how you met your spouse, interesting events, dating activities( dances, parties, movies), problems, proposal (date and circumstances), engagement, planning, preparations, marriage date, place, by whom married, honeymoon, travels, in-laws, (include pictures).
- 15. Occupations. Type of work, responsibilities, promotions, dates of service, where you worked, (city and state, name of company).
- 16. Parenthood. Full name and particulars of each child, experiences in rearing your family (pleasurable, humorous, tragic), sickness, disappointments, vacations, special traits of children, duties, etc.
- 17. Public and political life. Appointments, positions held, work in clubs, civic activities, etc. (Give dates, places and appropriate pictures).
- 18. Special achievements or activities. Publications, inventions, pastimes, handwork, tangible treasures, music, drama, degrees, honors, church positions, travels, faith promoting experiences, difficult problems overcome, baptisms for the dead, genealogical research, and other Temple work, etc.
- 19. Future plans and ambitions. Things you most desire to accomplish (in business or vocation, in home life, in Church service, etc.)
- 20. Leave a message to your posterity. Let them know what you really think about life and church service, and what you would most like them to achieve in their lives, and how to avoid some of the pitfalls encountered.
Friday, March 9, 1990
Another Biography of Roberta Hagar Jamieson
ROBERTA HAGAR JAMIESON
A BIOGRAPHY
CORRESPONDENCE WITH
DIANNA SOLMES
IN ANSWER TO HER LETTER
INQUIRING AFTER HER GENEALOGY
BY
ROBERTA M. JAMIESON LOCHER
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA
MARCH 1990
ROBERTA HAGAR JAMIESON
Roberta Modesto Hagar was born in Mansfield, Ohio, January 20, 1895 to Robert Hagar and Louise Modesto Bettencourt. Louise Bettencourt was one of several sisters of a New Orleans family named Bettencourt. Bettencourt is an Anglicized version of the original de Bettencourt pronounced in the French manner. The father of this family, as the story goes, was the governor of the Canary Island who had a large number of sons -- nine, I think. His wife made a Novena promising that if she had a daughter the sons would all become priests. When the daughter was born, the parents placed all the boys in the monastery. Two or three of them ran away to sea. We are their descendants. Our branch of the family came from one who settled in the Charleston, S.C. area. His offspring became railroad men, running as far as new Orleans. Roberta's maternal grandfather was a railroad man in the New Orleans area. He and his wife had several daughters all of whom, except for Louise, became nuns. I think two left the orders. The names that I remember are Aunt Dessie and Aunt Carrie. Aunt Carrie remained in the convent, and she was still teaching at the age of 80. Louise married Robert Hagar, a Jewish pharmacist, and moved to Mansfield, Ohio. There she had two daughters, Roberta Modesto and "Josie." Her husband Robert died unexpectedly during an epidemic. Louise took her two babies and returned to her family in New Orleans.
Young Roberta and Josie attended Catholic schools until Josie died of "acute indigestion" contracted at school. Louise had married a Mr. Bitterwolf. He had a hard time keeping a job. Roberta quit school and went to work in a cotton mill to help support the family which now included two half brothers, Alvin and Richard. When she as a teenager, she was removed from the family and became a ward of the court due to some family trouble.
The chief juvenile officer offered her a position in his home as governess of his two young sons -- Wallace and Damon. While she was employed there, she met a prominent young man named Pool. He asked her to marry him. They eloped across the state line and lived together. Roberta became pregnant. Mr. Pool's society matron mother was irate because Roberta was not their "kind." She used her influence to have the marriage annulled. This treatment of Roberta incensed the juvenile officer. Since Roberta was still under age, he had Mr. Pool charged under the Mann Act. A sensational trial which ended in a hung jury followed. Mrs. Pool sent her son to Mexico for an extended trip.
Roberta delivered a son, whom she named Wallace, after her earlier charge. A Dr. King was the attending physician. In an attempt to support herself and the baby she took employment as a recreational aid at the Methodist-operated Mary Wherline Mission in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Hugh Jamieson, the lay minister in charge of this "neighborhood house," encouraged her to enroll in a Methodist school for girls. He arranged for a family, friendly to his own family, to care for her young son while she was at school. In the fall of 1915, Hugh Jamieson went to Shreveport, Louisiana, to attend Centenary College and finish his schooling for the ministry. He invited Roberta to attend the state fair there, in January 1916 and talked her into marrying him rather than returning to school. Thus, on January 15, 1916, they were married in a friend's home. Hugh continued school where he was the editor of the student paper. Roberta helped him with his student pastorate assignments which included the Queens' borough Church (a newly organized church in a suburb of Shreveport and now Mangum Memorial United Methodist Church) and a county circuit.
Roberta looked forward to a reunion with her son. Hugh kept putting her off. She was pregnant again. She delivered a baby girl, Roberta Melissa, in October 1916. In January 1918, she had a second son, Hugh William, Jr. World War I was in progress; Hugh became an Army YMCA secretary serving at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, and other places. Roberta took her two children and went with him to all these out of the way places. Meanwhile, she was trying to arrange for the return of Wallace. In the course of time, she found out that Hugh had indicated to the Ford family that they could adopt Wallace. Roberta never did accept this condition and repeatedly refused to sign adoption papers. She had two more sons, Robert and David. She never spoke to Hugh's children about Wallace when they were young, but she often called little Hugh Wallace when calling him. The children never knew why. Roberta Melissa remembered the stories about Wallace and Damon and accepted that as the reason. (I do not recall being told that I had a half-brother until I was in high school.)
The Hugh Jamieson family moved to New Orleans where Hugh's mother, brothers and sisters and their families all lived. The Hugh Jamieson family fell into the middle of the expanded family. Hugh was the middle of this mother's seven children. He had two older brothers who were followed by his older sister. Then he came, followed by his second sister and two younger brothers. His older sister never married and lived with her widowed mother. All the others did marry and have families. All of these people lived in or near New Orleans plus other members of Hugh's father's family. This group had close ties with the grandmother, who acted as the center. This condition made for fun for the 14 grandchildren but for some touchy relationships with in-laws.
The children all attended school in a comfortable part of town. Hugh worded at Tulane University part-time. Roberta took graduate medical students into her home as boarders. This load of management even with black help took a lot of diplomacy on Roberta's part. To add to Roberta's problems, beside trying to raise four young children, she found herself with health problems. In those years, she had four pregnancies and two miscarriages. She also had a serious case of influenza and a bout with tuberculosis. She was expected to participate in Hugh's church work and his YMCA and college affairs as well as extended family events.
A big change came in her life when Hugh was asked to go to California to take a church attached to a "neighborhood house" in the mission district of San Francisco. This was a whole new situation. The mother of four young children ages three to ten years found herself and children residing on the fourth floor of a downtown building. The children were "underfoot." There was a gymnasium in the building which helped a bit. But the many steps to climb took its toll on Roberta. She became very ill. She underwent major surgery (a hysterectomy) at Stanford University Medical Center. She almost died during this operation.
This event brings to mind Roberta's health history. She was a premature baby, carried around on a pillow in the cold January of Mansfield, Ohio. She grew up in a financially underprivileged home in New Orleans and went to work under poor conditions as a child. When she was twelve years old, she developed a paralysis in her hands. I was discovered that she was suffering from a very unusual condition. Her cervical ribs (the small ones near the base of the neck) were growing abnormally and cutting off the nerves to her hands. It was decided to try a brand new operation to correct this problem. Dr. Rudolph Matas, a surgeon on the faculty of the Tulane University Medical School read the record of the two previous operations and did her operation "by the book." This was the first operation ever done where the heart could be seen functioning and Roberta was the third person to undergo it. When one remembers this was in 1907, long before antibiotics were in use you can understand the amazing feat. During this operation, Roberta had "death" experience of going to the bright light. This experience made her supersensitive most of her life. She seemed to have a bit of E.S.P. At the time of her hysterectomy in 1927, she had another "death" experience and "came back" when she heard one heard one of her little boys crying "mommy." Her "delicate" condition for the next year or so mandated rest. She used this time to read -- As a child, she read as she went to the store for her mother, bumping into trees in the process. Now she read deep philosophical and other nonfiction books. She was getting "college" education on her own.
After two strenuous years in San Francisco, Hugh and his family were moved to southern California. His first appointment there was to San Bernardino on the edge of the desert at the fool of the mountains. Here with all the children in school -- the oldest now beginning junior-high -- Roberta began to have better health. After one year in San Bernardino, Hugh was assigned to Norwalk, a small town closer to Los Angeles. Here Roberta worked closely with the elementary school where she became P.T.A. president, in addition to her work at the church. At church she worked with a Mrs. Hepler to refresh the interior plus decorate the sanctuary beautifully every week. A money making opportunity came up. The church was offered a secondhand furniture shop to run. Roberta was the main force behind the success of this project. She also convinced the parishioners then it would be a good deal to swap very old furniture in the parsonage for better furnishings from the shop. These activities were indicative of the ingenuity and energy with which Roberta faced life.
A surprise appointment moved Hugh and Roberta from Norwalk to trinity Church in Los Angeles as associate pastor. Because this large down town church had no parsonage, the family had to find their own quarters in the LA area. The first home was in Alhambra, California, where she continued her garden work. Soon it became evident that a residence in Los Angeles itself was more practical. The family lived in several different houses. All near Los Angeles High School. Roberta Melissa and Hugh William Jr (now known as Bill) attended there and graduated. Hugh and Roberta were able to put a down payment on a home at 2121 Overland Avenue in the west Los Angeles area. From this house, the daughter and oldest son began attending UCLA. The second son attended University High School while the youngest went to a nearby grade school.
Roberta was always active in teaching Sunday school and attending women society activities. However, because of the size of the church, she was no longer expected to "hold the place together." She had a full time job caring for her active family and entertaining their friends and the church folks. One very special visitor in the summer of 1936 was my half-brother Wallace Ford who was a handsome cadet at West Point. (I enjoyed having a big brother with whom I had serous talks.) Roberta visited Wallace at Christmas time in 1935. They met in New York City. Her youngest son David went with her on that trip. In the fall of 1936, Hugh was appointed the district superintendent of the San Francisco-Fresno District of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. Hugh and Roberta and youngest son David moved to San Francisco. Soon, daughter and son, Bill, transferred from U.C.L.A. to U.C. Berkeley. Then the family moved to Berkeley.
A new era opened for Roberta. She traveled with Hugh the many miles he had to drive to cover his district. The family had a base in Berkeley, but they were more or less on their own. The two older children graduated from Berkeley about the time Hugh's term on the district was over. Following that Hugh seven churches in Hollister, Colusa and Farmington. The children had found work in different areas. During the war years, while Roberta was in Farmington, she served long hours as an aircraft observer and helped harvest the walnut crop. She grew a healthy garden full of food which she canned and shared with anyone who needed it. Finally, she gave in and agreed to help out by working as a sales clerk at JC Penny in the baby department in nearby Stockton. After Farmington, they moved to Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco. Roberta got a job at the Emporium and worked there until Hugh's death. In frail health herself, she moved to Sacramento, where she bought a house near her daughter who checked in on her daily and grandchildren took turns staying overnight with her.
Finally, in very frail health, she moved to her daughter's home where she lived for twelve and one-half years. She reached the point where she needed extended nursing home care and arrangements were made through her doctor for placement in an excellent facility close to her daughter's home. She lived there with her daughter a daily visitor and grandchildren and great grandchildren coming several times a week. She lived there eighteen months and died on April 4, 1983. She just went to sleep after lunch and never woke up. Her daughter was with her, feeding her lunch, and put her to bed for a nap. She went home and within a half hour was notified that Roberta had passed away.
© 1990 Roberta Locher, File uploaded September 20, 1999 (Happy Birthday, Dad!), Updated March 26, 2002
Saturday, April 9, 1983
Biography of Roberta Hagar Jamieson
ROBERTA HAGAR JAMIESON
A BIOGRAPHY
MEMOIRS OBITUARY SUBMITTED TO
THE JOURNAL OF
THE CALIFORNIA-NEVADA CONFERENCE OF
THE UNITED METHODIST CHURCH
BY
ROBERTA M. LOCHER
SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA
1983
ROBERTA HAGAR JAMIESON
Roberta Hagar Jamieson was born in Mansfield, Ohio, January 20, 1895. After her father's untimely death, her mother brought her two daughters back to New Orleans, Louisiana where her family lived. Roberta attended Catholic schools in that city and was a sensitive teenager when she began to work full time to help support her impoverished family. One of her jobs was helping at the Mary Wherline mission in New Orleans French quarter. Hugh Jamieson, the lay minster in charge of this "neighborhood house," encouraged her to enroll at a Methodist school for girls. In the fall of 1915, he went to Shreveport, Louisiana to enroll in Centenary College and finish his schooling for the ministry. He invited Roberta to attend the state fair in Shreveport in January of 1916 and convinced her to marry him rather than return to school. Thus, on January 15, 1916, they were married in a friend's home -- incidently, this friend was a cousin of Mrs. Lizzie Glide. Hugh continued school where he was the editor of the student paper. Roberta helped him with his student pastorate assignments which included the Queensborough Church (a newly organized church in a suburb of Shreveport and now Mangum Memorial United Methodist Church) and a county circuit.
In October 1916, their first child, Roberta Melissa, was born. In January 1918, their first son, Hugh William Jr. was born. Later that year, Hugh became and Army YMCA secretary serving Fort Sam Houston and other locations in this capacity.
After the war ended, Roberta and Hugh moved back to New Orleans where Hugh served as Army and Navy executive secretary for the YMCA and served several churches as supply minister. One was a rural circuit north east of New Orleans and finally as pastor of Second Methodist Church in New Orleans. During these years, Roberta had two more sons, Roberta Hagar, and David Lewis. Also, during this time, Tulane University played a big part in their lives. Hugh did "Y" work on the campus, and Roberta took medical students into her home as housing on campus was scarce.
In 1926, Hugh accepted Bishop Cannon's call to come to the Pacific Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church south to serve at Wesley House in the mission district of San Francisco. Roberta, often in frail health, became very ill in San Francisco. She found strength returning after they moved to southern California. With her children all in school, she became active in the PTA, serving as a unit president one year as well as in women's society and Sunday school affairs at church.
During those years when she served with Hugh in San Bernardino, Norwalk, and Trinity Church in Los Angeles, she taught children's classes and helped decorate the church often, with flowers grown in her own garden. Her home was always open to anyone need, from groups of one hundred youth for an after church Sunday evening "sing" with refreshments, to lonely troubled folks who needed a quiet place to refuge for a time.
Though never in robust health, she coped with the double demands of church responsibilities and a lively, active, growing family. In the fall of 1936, she moved with Hugh and youngest son David to the San Francisco Bay area where Hugh became presiding elder of the San Francisco-Fresno district of the Pacific Conference. After the older children transferred from UCLA to UC Berkeley in January 1937, she traveled the district with Hugh. After unification with the Methodist Episcopal church, their service remained in northern California, including pastorates at Hollister, Colusa, Farmington and Glide. During World War II, she was an honored plane watcher and at the request of parishioners, went to work in their walnut orchards. Man power shortages took Hugh into Stockton to help with the boys work at the YMCA and Roberta into the children's department of JC Penny. Both continued their church work at Farmington -- she grew vegetables and canned them and fruit in quantity for whoever needed it. They moved to Glide where he served until retirement. After retirement, Hugh served Hunter's Point Church, where Roberta decorated the altar and taught the children -- including an extended session with handwork for the needy children. While they lived in San Francisco, Roberta worked regular hours as a retail sales person at the Emporium. She continued this work until Hugh's death in 1958.
Becoming ill soon thereafter, she moved to Sacramento to be near her daughter and lived out her days there -- in her own home at first, with grandchildren staying with her. Later when she became ill, she stayed with her daughter. Failing health in November 1981 necessitated the medical care of a convalescent hospital where she lived peacefully until God took her home on Easter Monday afternoon.
Those Sacrament years were one of a ministry of prayer and meditation. Her special prayers were for the Bethlehem Mission and the American Bible Society but all the needs she knew of she lifted to God many hours a day. Her grandchildren, great-grandchildren and many refugee children honored her as their Grandma J who had a word or gift or thought for them. Her minister son -- now deceased, dedicated his first sermon and three study books he authored to her. Her electrical engineer son emulated her study patterns. Her son and daughter teachers continued her example of work with children and youth, especially those less fortunate. Now her grandchildren are continuing the chain she started. All possess her love of God's beautiful things, too, as their love of flowers and gardening attest. God's work continues as her example is followed.
File uploaded, September 20, 1999. by Erin copyright 1983 Roberta M. Locher, Updated March 26, 200
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