I guess I will start with the fact that I am the eldest of 13 children to include 2 sets of twins, born October 26, 1942, grew up in Indianapolis, Indiana and had some of the most wonderfully, strict, christian parents you could ever have.  Well it wasn't that cut and dry but I can't, I won't complain about my childhood.

Since I am the eldest I can remember several of my siblings being born.  We lived in a small house at first, outgrew it and then we moved to a great big house.  I always called it a mansion because it seemed so big.  It wasn't but I thought it was.  We were all born at home and after a while I realized a new baby was coming when my Aunt Bonnie from Kentucky would come to visit and stayed mostly by my moms bedroom door.  She waited on my mom hand and foot especially while daddy was at work.

Aunt Bonnie didn't have any children of her own so she went from sister to sister, (my mom had 7 sisters and one brother) helping out.  She was very quiet but so different than my mom in that she was so stern and so sophisticated.  She was kind, but no nonsense.  We tried to play with her but that wasn't her style.

Way back, since I can remember, I had acute bronchial asthma and was sick so much of the time.  My parents said I had my first attack when I was about 3 months old.  Mom didn't know what it was but my dad did because it was previlent in his family, his mom, two sisters and a brother suffered with it so he was familiar with what to do for me.  My parents believed in prayer, not medicine and doctors so when I would have an attack it could last as long as 3 weeks or more.  I would lose so much weight, missed a lot of school and wished everytime I had an attack that I would just die because it was just too hard to breathe.

My mom, didn't seem loving at all.  When I got sick she would come into my room to bring me something to eat but wouldn't even stay to make sure I could or couldn't eat it, which most of the time I couldn't.  The attacks were so frightning I needed her to hug me and hold me and assure me everything would be alright but she seemed so indifferent.  I would cry which made things even harder.  She would tell me that Daddy would be home soon and he would take care of me.  Daddy would come in after working so hard as a millright at a big rubber company, take a bath, eat and then he would sit up with me all night, holding me, hugging me, fanning me and praying for me - what ever I needed to get me through the night.  He could even coax me to eat a little bit.  I hated for morning to come because I knew he had to leave me.  I would beg him not to go to work but needless to say he had to go.

He was such a loving, caring man and I idolized him.  At one time I thought I could take care of him better than my mom but then there would come another kid and I knew I couldnt do that.

Mom was so bashful so anything we needed to know about life, we had to asked daddy.  He was the one who told us about the birds and the bees, menstraul periods, boyfriends.  I could talk to him about anything.  He made me feel so good because he made sure I knew I was somebody.  I was his Rosie Baby.  Mom was so hard on us girls - I just never could understand what drove her to be the way she was.  I grew up thinking she did not love me at all.

I have such a fond memory of my childhood pet.  We all wanted a dog so desperately.  Dad said yes but mom said no and she was the one home all the time so guess what?  We did not get a dog.

We raised chickens and every Saturday night we had to kill, dress and prepare them for the freezer.  Mom decided she wanted to try to raise some ducks too, so we got some.

I fell in love with this one duck.  It just had a personality plus so I did not want them to kill this one.  Finally after much begging, my mom said I could keep the duck if I would take responsibility for it and guess what I named him?  Dog.  Yep, my ducks name was DOG and I crocheted a beautiful collar for him and made a leash and took that duck everywhere I went.  I even put clothes on him.  When we went out to play softball the duck(Dog) would run to the bases with me.  Wow so special;

 and he always did have the last word.  That was my first pet.  What a love affair!

Well finally we outgrew the big mansion we lived in and moved to a very nice area of Indianapolis.  We were the first black family to move into this community and oh it was just frightful.  The neighbors did not want us there and they rocked our house, they egged it, they wrote horrible things on the sidewalk and on the house, they screamed obscenities and they swore they were going to drive us out.  Someone even altered paper work to make it look like the house had been willed to someone who wanted possession of the house immediately.  Well it was time to panic but my parents did not.  I can remember my dad saying those people were not responsible for what they were doing and through prayer everything was going to settle down.  He told us not to hate because if we did we would not be any better than them, but to pray that they realize God is no respector of person and that we were all going to the same heaven or hell and living here on earth was our practice grounds. 

There was one caucasion family who lived down the street in the next block who befriended us.  Their children were ridiculed as we were, and the same thing happened to them but they were bold enough to stand in the gap for us, they called the newspaper, the police, anyone who would listen and finally things calmed down and believe it or not we soon began to make new friends.  We walked to school together, went to church together and sometimes our new friends would actually come spend the night with us.  My parents never let us spend the night anywhere but our home became THE HANGOUT and all the kids called my mom and dad, mom and dad.  Daddys favorite saying was:  Pretty is as pretty does.  I did not understand then but I certainly do now.

That phase of my life wasn't cleared up until after my dad died.  Before he died he asked one request of me.  He wanted me to take care of my mom.  He knew we loved each other but it was a strained relationship.  I felt like I had to promise him I would do this, but how?

Mom had a hard time, a very hard tiime without daddy but I was there.  Little by little we talked and became best friends, and as time went on I found out my mom had been abused as a child.  Her dad died in a coal mine.  He was Indian and white and her mom was black and the family was shunned after her dad died and things were extremely rough for them.  And it wasn't that she didn't love me, she really didn't know how and...... my illness frightened her.  She said she was afraid to love me the way she wanted because everytime I had an attack she thought she was going to lose me. There was once I can remember that I actually stopped breathing and where ever I was was heaven or it seemed that way.

I found my mom to be a wonderful loving, caring woman, my best friend and when she got sick I was there for her.  She wanted to come live with me, I let her and I took good care of her.  I felt like the Lord allowed me to give her back some of what she gave me before she died.

I miss my parents so very much and I think so much about all the life lessons we had and how they prepared us to carry on no matter what.  Mom, Dad......I  U truly.