Life Goes On after Divorce

After my divorce there was a lot to get use to.  I had taken a while, many months in fact, to get over the surgery on my back.  Then I had to get use to living on my own.  Before I could leave my parents, I had to find a way to make a living.

I had made all sorts of things at my shop.   I designed jewelry out of semi precious stones.  I also had done arrangements out of the silk flowers that we sold at the shop.  I had talents, and I knew how to work with people and how to sell.  Even before I had fully recovered I started making jewelry and selling the pieces to friends.  I also started painting seriously, and to my surprise I sold a painting.   Dad had taken my painting to his gallery to be framed.  A designer from Richmond Virginia had come into his gallery and seen my painting and wanted to buy it.

I also sold some paintings to friends of my parents.  I worked getting together a show and had a one man show of my work at a local shop selling several of my paintings.  I put out feelers for jobs.  I was hired by a small local gallery as a sales person.  Unfortunately they wanted me to promote an artist's prints telling people that photo prints of her work were  good investments.  These were not artist made prints, but really just signed photographs of her work.  I knew my art, and these were only of decorative value.  I could not honestly tell people that they would increase in value.  So I quit on principles.

After that I worked as a substitute teacher.  Every school that I was called to help in had different hazards for falling.  I also did home bound teaching.  I had begun to have some trouble with stairs.  I never knew what kind of house I was going into.  I had begun to worry about falling.  Post Polio was raising it's ugly head and I did not fully understand what was happening.

I went on several job interviews to work as a sales person and as a floral designer.  It became obvious that the people who interviewed me did not want to hired a handicapped person.

I sold my jewelry to a couple of museums gift shops in Virginia and to a local department store.  I gave art lessons in my home.  My minister's wife had a showing of my work and I started doing portraits of children in landscapes.  One month I would do fine another not so good.

We had sold our home in Williamsburg.  In the divorce settlement Tink, my ex husband got the business and I got the house.  We had built our own home on an estuary of the James River.  I received a good amount after the sale of the house.  It helped us live.  I invested in CD's and they paid well at the time.  I also received $500 a month child support for two school aged boys.  My parents also helped.  Medical insurance was climbing in cost. Somehow we made it.

I had to deal with the boys not understanding.  My two older sons had been away in school.  Chris graduated and started college at Virginia Wesleyan College in Norfolk.  Scott wanted to live in Williamsburg with is father.  I told him that I need to talk to his father to make sure that he would be there for him.  I explained to Tink that teenage boys needed to have a parent at home and regular dinner hours.  Just before the divorce, he had been working  unusually long hours at the shop.  He wanted to talk to Scott.  He told Scott that he could not stay with him because he could not trust him.  Scott broke down in tears.  It wrenched my heart to see the child so unhappy.  If only he had said," I can not be there for you when you need me."  He put the blame on the child instead of taking it himself. 

I had to deal with a lot of anger in Scott.  Several fist were put through  walls, but all and all we managed through this period of trauma. It took Scott meeting Kate Johnson, his soul mate, who gave him her heart.  He finally felt the love his father had so thoughtlessly with held. All of my boys grew up to be fine men. I am truly proud of them. Not one of my sons was a major problem.  There were of course small problems, but fortunately nothing major.  Lots of love as well as tough love got us through.

Having to live life on your own has had its advantages. I have been able to follow my own path rather and following another path.  I have accomplished so much on my own that I would not have done if I had stayed married. 

Scoliosis and change

He really was a support during that very scary time.  The operation would keep my back from worsening.  After seeing my x rays my GP doctor was worried that I would fall and become completely paralyzed.  I was never the less scared.  I did a lot of praying and put myself into God's hands. 

The time finally came for me to go to Minneapolis for my operation.  Mother it was decided would come up to our house to take care of Lewis while he was in school so he did not have to leave his class.  Lewis was now ten years old.  Mother's first cousin Warren came up with her to help out.  We were not fully out of the shop at Wythe Green.  We had a big blow out sale, but things were still in the shop.  Tink went with me for moral support to stay with his nephew's family in Minneapolis. 


The first surgery went as planned and After a week I was to go back in for the second surgery.  When I came out of surgery my husband was not there.  This was strange, he had always been there when I came to.  A nurse came in and explained that he had a kidney stone while I was under.  He was doing fine but needed to recuperate.

Because of this no one had called our parents to let them know that I was fine.  There was some explaining to do, my parents were worried as were the boys.  Later that day a weak Tink came in and called my folks and the boys.  Poor guy he was probably hurting when he held my hand before the surgery.

That week they started trying to get me to sit up.  After doing this a couple of times I fell back unto the bed.  I experienced a pain like a pinched nerve running down one side.  They had to give me a muscle relaxer as well as pain medicine.  One of the rods had slipped and they needed to operate again.  This time they would wire the rods instead of using clips like they had the first time.  I had been looking forward to going home and now my stay had lengthened. 

After the third surgery I felt like I had been run over by a truck


Finally after being away from home for five weeks, we were able to go home.  We took a flight back to Virginia.  We were met by my parents and our son, Lewis at the air port in Norfolk VA.  My parents took us back to their home in Virginia Beach.


For the first time in weeks I actually enjoyed a meal.  I had been on a low fat diet before the surgery to lose weight.  My stomach was not accustom to rich foods. The after effect of all the various medicines made everything taste bad.  I had lost an additional twenty pounds in the hospital.  It was decided that my mother, angel that she was, would accompany me home.  The doctors had projected that I should be back to normal with the exception of having to wear a heavy back brace for several months.  The problem was that I was a polio survivor and I had different issues in my recovery.

My husband was ready for me to be up and back to working in the business.  My body was not up to that as yet.  As my recovery time lagged on, it became obvious that it was going to take months for me to get back to my normal.  I also had mountains of paper work to do working with the insurance company and paying the part that they did not cover.

I ended up going to the beach to stay with my parents taking Lewis with me and enrolling him in school in Virginia Beach.  Over a period of time my husband and I became estranged.

He was the love of my life.  There were things that added up to our estrangement.  Emotionally he was immature.  I believe this was due in part to the loss of his mother, who committed suicide when he was thirteen. He found her body.   I can not imagine a more horrifying experience for a child.  Through out our marriage I had always tried to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Although I loved him there were differences that divided us.  Some were related to basic values.  We ended up separating and eventually getting a divorce.  I knew this was the best for me and my boys; however, I wish it could have been different.

Thus began another phase of my life.  A single mother raising three sons.

Back to Virginia

 We drove back over the Bay Bridge Tunnel to Norfolk  to be welcomed home by my parents and my son, Chris.  We got my other son, Scott situated in a Kindergartner associated with the Good Shephard Church in Norfolk.  It was just around the corner from my parents home.  Tink went to work setting up the extension of Auslew Gallery in Wythe Green, Williamsburg Virginia.  The shops at Wythe Green were a cluster of shops that looked like some of the homes in Colonial Williamsburg. They were situated on a green with brick paths meandering though, a gazebo and a small bridge added to the charm of the area.

That December we were blessed with the birth of our third son, Lewis.  Once I laid my eyes upon him there was no more longing for a girl.  I was so glad that one of the ladies who worked in the area had mentioned that my boys had said that they were going to have a little sister.  They had prayed for a sister.  I immediately explained to them that even if we prayed for something, that did not mean that God would grant our prayers. God was going to sent us whatever was right for us to have.  How right it was for me to have sons. 

Tink  came home one day early in 1971.  He had heard that the gift shop across from the Gallery was going to be up for sale.  He thought that since we had made money on the School House we sold in Vermont that we should go ahead and buy the gift shop.  There were ladies that worked there as sales people and I could be the buyer.  We took the plunge and purchased the business for the wholesale value of the merchandise.

I jumped into running a business.  Actually I believe that this is part of God's plan for me, why else would I find myself thrust into being in a business?  I love dealing with people particularly chatting and visiting with the public.  I never much liked or felt comfortable going to big parties where I knew very few people.  But being in my shop was like being in my home and it was easy to be gracious to people who come into your home or shop. 

 I ran the Leigh Gift Shoppe with my husband.  I was responsible for ordering the merchandise for the shop.  Since we had bought a preexisting shop, I was able to use the example of what was previously purchased in order to figure out what would sell.  I soon was connected with the various salesmen who represented these companies.  Then I relied on my up bringing and personal inherent taste.  Being a Virginian, I was aware of the type of items that Virginians would buy. Unfortunately I never had any training in business.  Perhaps, I should have taken a course or two in business.  My Art History background helped me with buying.  It taught me to look for quality and good design. Where I had problems was keeping up with the book keeping.  I ordered items for resale and projected sales.  As long as I was the only one doing the ordering I was able to keep up.  When my husband started to order framing materials we began to run into some problems.  I kept records in my head, that was not a good plan.  I still tend to have this bad habit.

All the while that I was running the gift shop, I had small children at home.  Lewis was a baby when we bought the business, Chris was eight years old and Scott was five years old.  Some how we maneuvered running a business and a family at the same time.  Actually,  I ran the gift shop with help from the ladies that worked for me and my husband ran an extension of my father's art gallery, for a while.  I took Lewis to work originally in a baby seat  and play pen, years later people would come in and asked about the cute little baby.  Thinking about this now, I have to stop and wonder that I could do all this.  Some how I did manage.  I would leave work and head home in time to be there for the boys to get home from school and pick up Lewis from baby day care.  Then I would start dinner and help the boys with their home work.  There were bullies to deal with hurts to heal, swim team and soccer practice. Games to go to.  As I write this I am marveling at how I could have managed all this.

To begin with we lived in an apartment before we could find a house.  The apartment had a pool and our family enjoyed that a lot.  I always enjoyed swimming as it was one form of exercise that I could do.  Even though my left leg was completely paralyzed, I was able to move it in the water.  When I swam, I was able to keep my weight in tow. That summer we were able to find a house in time for the boys to start school in the district where were going to live.  We moved into a two story home in the Druid Hill, Kingswood area of Williamsburg.  There were a lot of children in the neighborhood.  We quickly struck up a friendship with the couple next door.  They had girls about the same age as our boys.

Corliss and Jim Tacosa were originally from California.  She taught in the high school and Jim worked as an mechanical engineer for the newly opened Bush Gardens.  My friend did not have a bathroom on the first floor so she asked if I would mind if she brought her youngest girl in to use our first floor bathroom while she was potty training her.  We would sit on our front steps and talk while the children played in the neighborhood.  Soon we became fast friends, and we still are the best of friends today.

As Lewis got older I worked more hours at the shop, taking on some of the sales duties, especially during the Thanksgiving Holiday.  I learned what black Friday was all about.  We had about 1,000 square feet of showroom space.  The ladies informed me that we would need to all help out over the holiday weekend.  The Williamsburg Pottery was across the street from our shop.  Sometimes we would get bus loads of people coming to our shop.  There would be a line of traffic to go to the pottery and many of these would come to our shop as well.  I would find that on that weekend I would be on my feet all day long.  When I would go home that night my good leg would ache clear up to my knee, and because I walked with the aid of crutches my hands and arms would ache too.  I had no idea that this could cause me problems in the future.  I did what the other sales ladies would do.

Around 1980 I was nominated for the Handicapped professional woman of the year by the Pilots club, a woman's business organization.  This was quite an honor.

Some years after we started the business, we decided that Tink was needed in the gift shop.  We were doing quite well with selling framed prints that we purchased from a supplier.  What set our shop apart was the unusual items that we tried to handle.  Tink knew how to frame.  We began doing our own framed prints for the shop.  This way we had more control over what we had for sale.  I also started buying semi precious stone beads that I used to design necklaces for the shop.  I used antique Chinese jade and ivory pieces.  My jewelry was well accepted.

The fun part of working at the shop was going on buying trips.  We would stop at the design center in Chicago after visiting with the Trimbles.  I had a friend who lived out side of town in the Lake Forest area and we left the boys with her girls and a sitter and went into town together.  This was a new experience for my friend.  I felt safe with the boys at her house.  Another time we hired a sitter to stay with the boys in Chicago.

We also would attend the various Washington D. C.  gift shows.  My friend Corliss would help watch the boys.  We would trade off sitting with each others children.  Some how I never attended the shows in New York City.  One time after a good friend moved outside of  Dallas Texas, I flew down to do the Merchandise Mart there.  I rented a car and  we drove from Plano, where she lived into Dallas.  I drove and she did the navigation.  I can not believe now how brave I was at that time.  Texas was an eye opener.  I had been to Dallas several years before representing my sorority PI Beta PHI for a meeting of their Financial advisers. I had worked with the chapter at William and Mary.   Texas was exciting.  While I was there my husband took care of our boys.

In my mid thirties I heard the first murmurs about a thing call post polio which was effecting a lot of people who had polio as children and largely had recovered.  I was aware but also in denial.  I was concerned about my back.  I had begun to develop scoliosis in my teens.  Considering that I had polio from my shoulders down, this more than likely was caused by polio.  Mother I have noticed has a very slight curvature to her spine.  I decided to go to visit my old polio Doctor, Dr. Vann, for some reason he was not available.  A young Doctor in his office saw me.  I had seen something on television about people having rods put in their back to straighten their backs.  I wanted to inquire about this surgery.  The young Doctor had none of my  records ( someone cleaned house and got rid of all the old records).  He told me that I was too old.  I was about 36 at the time.   I had been a patient there since I was four years old. They had gotten rid of my records.  I am sure that no one asked Dr. Vann, as he knew our family.  I left the office mad, and in tears.

Later, my back started bothering me hurting enough to interfere with my sleep. I consulted my family practice doctor and he took immediate action sending me to an associate who had taught him.  He said that if I was going to have something that drastic done to my back that I needed to go to the best there was.  I was send to see Dr Bradford, who was then working at the Scoliosis Clinic in Minneapolis Minn. 

I got an appointment with Dr. Bradford and Tink, Lewis and I flew out to La Crosse to his family and then rented a car to go the rest of the way to Minneapolis.  Lewis had not visited his grandparents in Wisconsin for a while and the other boys were away at Randolph Macon Academy, a prep school in Front Royal Virginia run by the Methodist Church. 

When we got to my appointment, we found out that I would have to wait about five or so months to be able to have surgery, there was a waiting list.  I was also told to go home and diet.  The surgeries would be two, one to take out a rib in order to make a mortar to use to have the interior of my back fused.  After that a second to straighten and reinforce the exterior of my back with rods. 

I went home to diet and wait.  This was the first time that dieting was hard.   I kept working at it watching my intake, but at forty years old the weight did not slough off as easily as it had in my twenties. 

During this time, our nine year rental agreement for the shop was up.  The Wythe Green had been sold to another investor, who was greedy.  He wanted to up our rent to the extreme and we in turn had seen a drop off of business in the area.  The decision was made to move the shop.  I had experienced problems with having to buy such varied merchandise for the gift shop that I had begun to think that we needed to rethink our direction.  So a change of venue was initiated and we rented a shop across from the Bush Brewery called the Kings Mill Shops.  We found a side shop that also opened up to the interior of the shopping center.  This shop also had a second story.  Tink had a frame shop in the upstairs of the Wythe Green Shop and another at our second home on Hickory Sign Post Road.  This new shop gave him a large area in which to do his framing.  In the new shop we began cutting down on the smalls and selling Tink's talent as the Master Framer of Williamsburg.  We bought some furniture which we had a lot of success with in our original shop.  Also we carried a lot of the Chinese pieces we purchase from Carol Fang, who grew from trading from the back of her van to having a warehouse full of Chinese goods.  We went for the Antiques that she bought back from China and the rosewood stands.

A Place Where Time Stood Still moving to Vermont

When you are married sometimes you find yourself doing things that you really did not want to do.  When my husband, Tink, had finished up his degree at the University of Virginia in Physical education, we found ourselves needing a better position.  He put in applications for jobs all over the country, but somehow the right job did not come along as easy as we would have liked.  It was getting along the summer a year after he received his Masters Degree and he had not found a job as yet.  Don't worry he said, I'll find a job just before school starts up.  Trusting in blind fate we packed up our boys and the family dog, Cedar, and headed out to visit his parents in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

He had posted his request with his undergraduate school Springfield College. They were checking out positions that would work for him.  While we were in Wisconsin, a call came from Springfield saying that there was a position at Lyndon State College, in Lyndonville, Vermont.  Would he come out, check out the college and talk to the head of the P.E. Department, Dudley Bell?  Vermont sounded like a dream to Tink, who was used to cold weather, ice, snow and lots of skiing.  Not so much to me, but we needed a job, and he had worked so hard to get this education.  The pay was pretty good too.  So we packed the car and headed to Vermont. That drive took us across the entire state of  New York. It kept going, and going.  I thought that we would never make it across the state.

We finally arrived in Pittsfield, Mass. Dudley was acting as tennis coach for the summer at the Country Club there.  We pulled up to the house where he was staying, an old converted pony barn.  They had graciously offered to let us stay the night.  With our funds running short this was a real bonus.  The barn turned out to have been a studio for Alexander Calder.  I imagined him working on his mobiles here.  As an art major this was really exciting.  Calder had actually worked there. 

Dudley had also gone to Springfield College.  He and Tink really hit it off.  He offered him the job, if he would like.  It starting almost immediately.  We left and headed north to check out the school and talk to the administration there. Lyndonville itself was not much.  It was not as picturesque as  New England villages and towns further south in the state.  The college itself consisted at that time of an old Mansion that had been donated to the state as well as some modern buildings.  President Taff used to visit, and there was a chair where he had sat next to the fire that was extra large to accommodate his girth.

Tink was truly enchanted the answer to his dream.  He would be the gymnastic and soccer coach as well as teaching anatomy and physiology.  He could stay in a college apartment, until we were able to find a place.  Then the boys and I could move up to be with him.  He really wanted it.  I was scared of the snow and the cold winters and being so far from home.  I remember hesitating and then relenting.  Yes, he could take the job and we would move to Vermont. Oh, me.

We headed home so he could get ready to return to Vermont and start teaching.  I remember worrying about having enough money to make it home.  We must have had a Visa, but it was not as easy to use as it is now.  Somehow we made it back to Charlottesville.  That was when my work really began.  There were things to finish on the house that belonged to my parents.  My brother was still in school at U.VA and he was living with his new wife Ellie in the basement apartment.  A neighbor had expressed interest in the house if we ever wanted to sell it.  We called them and they decided to purchase the house letting my brother stay in the apartment.

My mom and her best friend, Betsy Martin, came up to help me organize and pack.  We even polished silver and wrapped it in saran wrap. We got things ready for a garage sale.  Making enough money to help us fund the move.  A month later, Tink arrived, to drive the family to Vermont.  We had all the boxes packed.  There were some loose ends left to finish: however, Tink was stunned.  He had trouble getting a handle on doing anything, he was just too disorientated.  Some how we did get everything together.  The last thing was trying to catch the family cat who was scared by all the confusion.  We lured her into the car with a piece of a hamburger.

On the way to Norfolk to drop my Mother home, we were stopped by the police because a light was not working on our car.  A fuse was replaced and we were on the road again.

After a nights stay in Norfolk with my folks, we left to head north across the bridge tunnel to the Eastern Shore of Virginia.  When we made it to Vermont, I was amazed at how the yards were all decorated with pumpkins and scare crow people stuffed with leaves.  We stayed in the College facilities until the moving Van came with all our stuff.  It had already started getting cold in early October.

We shopped in St. Johnsbury, Vermont for a winter ski Jacket for me.  I was shocked when at 4:00 pm it was already beginning to get dark.  Life was about to be a lot different than what I was used to in Virginia.

That first Sunday we started going to  church in East Burke, Vermont.  An older lady who reminded me of some of my grandmother's friends greeted us after Church.  She made a strange noise. Ah-yup.  It sounded like a belch to me.  Afterward I mentioned this to my husband.  He laughed at me saying that was their way of saying yes.  Well, I guess I did have a lot to learn.

 When you are not looking life rushes by.  Remember how when you were a child, it seemed like centuries for Christmas to come.  Now It seems like by the time you get through one Christmas another is on it's heels.  When my boys were still children, people would say enjoy them while they are still little.  Fortunately, I really did enjoy them.

We moved to Vermont in the early 1970's.  Everywhere we went I had the impression that time had not only stood still, but actually had slid back into the earlier part of the twentieth century.  The house that we rented was an old farm house.  The floors were linoleum covered. You entered into the country kitchen.  This was a large room that was divided in two by a partition.  We ended up using the front section as our family room.  Behind the house was a field and beyond that was a woods. Iin the woods was a pond, which the locals referred to as the duck pond. When you walked in the woods you could see pheasant tracks.  I never thought at the time that there were more than likely bears in the woods.  Down the road was a beaver pond.  I remember being very upset that they had set traps for beaver there.  While we were there a stray dog, Border Collie, that we had saved from porky pine quills, got his leg caught up in a trap and tore up his leg.  Unfortunately this happened on a weekend and there were no vets to help a farmer friend had to put him out of his misery.  I still feel regret to this day.  What a gentle dog, he was.

 Across the street from the house was an old barn.  This was a medium size barn and we toyed with the idea of buying it and renovating it.  We thought about making half of  it into a bunk house for skiers coming to ski at Burke Mountain, just outside of town, and the other half into a home for the family.  I remember toying with the idea of making do, using a Gallo wine jug as a hanging lamp shade, and using flat small river stones to pave counter tops in the baths and kitchen.  The beams in the barn were huge rough cut maple. All these ideas ran through our minds, but we also were looking for a house at the same time.  Then we found just the thing, a one room school house!

The house was the Old White School in East Burke, Vermont.  The man who had been living there had put up a partition in the main room of the school and added a kitchen, and  a laundry room.  The basement was divided in two with the furnace and utilities on one side and a bar rec room on the other.  We used this area as a bedroom for the boys to begin with. The partitioned off area on the main floor was our bedroom. It was not long before we started our own renovations.  We had fourteen foot ceilings in the main area.  We took down half the ceiling and lowered it to eight feet.  We found a stair case that had been taken out of the railway station in Saint Johnsbury, Vermont and recycled it.  The lowered area of the second floor became the master bedroom with a balcony that over looked the living room.  You would go up eight steps to the original attic area.  We divided this into two small bedrooms each with a closet and a window.  These were for our sons, Chris and Scott.

 .I was scared of freezing as the temperatures would drop way below zero.  One day Tink came home and announced that he had found some old wood stoves.  One called the General had originally been in a one room school.  I was excited.  We purchased those stoves and went to work placing them in the house.  The General was a large round oak stove of the Victorian era. Tink built a raised brick hearth and backed the wall to the ceiling with brick as well.  This became the center piece of our living area and did an excellent job of keeping us all warm and snug.  After the arrival of the General, we rarely used our oil furnace.  There was the one night where the temperatures dropped drastically way below zero.  Forty below zero was just scary.  So, Tink, ratchet up the General to get the house nice and warm.  We awoke that night hot.  I looked over the balcony to see the General glowing orange. I woke up Tink and he said, " Oh, no, I forgot to turn down the damper."  He raced down the stairs and managed to turn the damper down.  Then he came back up stairs and opened the windows to let some of the heat out.  I can only imagine what a passerbys might have thought if they had seen all our windows up at forty degrees below outside. When the temperature got that cold you could hear the electricity moving through the lines.  The skies would be clear and beautiful, but don't take a deep breath.  If you did you would feel the pain from the cold in your lungs.

While living in Vermont, we would take treks into the woods.  One time we found a secret place that seemed designed just for us.  Up, up a hill through a meadow, into a woods to a place where fir trees grew.  Where if you ducked down under a branch, you would come upon an opening into a circle of trees. Their evergreen fragrant branches bent low forming walls.  The ground was covered in lush, green, deep moss.  This felt like a place of dreams where magic surely could happen in an enchanted Forest.  We sat down on the soft moss floor, and looked up to a roof of tree tops.  Everyone was quiet experiencing the magic of that special place.

There was a stream behind our house and on hot summer days the family would sit on the large stones with our feet in the water or swim in the icy cold swimming hole.  Afterwards we would feel cool no matter how hot the day.  No need for air conditioning.

There were times that we would walk up a hill to pick wild blackberries. One time on our property we found an old orchard of apple trees.  We picked a basket full of the apples even though we were bumpy and not perfect.  I peeled and cut and cooked those apples making some of the best apple sauce ever. 

In the winter the boys loved the snow, playing in the snow piles with their trucks just like they did in the dirt.  They both learned to ski, even Scott, who learned at three years old.  He would cry when he would fall down for me to come pick him up. I had spikes that I could extend from my crutches, so I was able to manage very well. All bundled up, how they loved the snow.

One winter in Vermont.  After church service one of the local men brought his horse drawn sleigh and gave rides to the children who had never ridden on one before.  He gave our whole family a wonderful ride through the open fields.  Years later Chris would hire a sleigh for Melissa and himself, on their honeymoon in Vermont.  There was something about living in the cold north that gets into your blood and keeps us coming back.

We lived there three years.  Everything was an adventure.  We bought and fixed up an old one room school house.  It had huge school windows that looked out across fields.  It was in these same fields that we saw our first and only Moose while we were living in Vermont.  We lower half of the fourteen foot ceilings and made an loft bedroom and bath plus over the original ceiling two small bedrooms for the boys.

We put a huge deck on the back looking over the woods.  I planted great ferns around the decking. Chris had a birthday party out there

From our windows we could see the top of Burke Mountain, and a vast field with a farm house at the far end.  My friend Mary Lou Bell would call and say put on some coffee I'm skiing over.  I could look out the large school house windows and see this little figure in the distance cross country skiing toward my house.

Tink bought a ski mobile.  He loved taking it out in the winter.  There were dirt roads across the river and up the hill from our house.  These were fun to run the ski mobile on.  He insisted that I go out with him to tan old logging road across the road from our home.  I have never seen anything like that before.  The trail ran under huge fir trees that were laden with snow.  It looked like something off a Christmas card.  While we were riding in the wild, I suddenly thought about what would happen if the ski mobile broke down.  I would have really been stuck.  There was no way for me to have gotten out of the situation on my own.  I walked with crutches.  The snow was deep even for an able bodied person.  This thought, that drifted across my mind, took the pure joy of the moment away.  Fortunately we made it home safely.  I don't remember going again, but the experience has lived forever in my mind.

Another adventure that I had in the north was riding a motorcycle.  I would sit behind my husband and hold on tight.  I had my own helmet.  On one ride in particular we stopped at the East Haven Church where I was scheduled to sing a duet with a friend from church.  Those of you who have heard me sing do not laugh.  I was always told that my voice sounded nice, but that I could not carry a tune.  In East Burke, they were so desperate for voices, even my voice would do.  Also, I could follow another singer.  My friend Chris Finley, a contralto, was very good and I could follow her.  So I got off the motorcycle grabbed my crutches, that were strapped unto the motorcycle, walked into the church and hung my helmet on the coat rack and proceeded to go in to sing.  After singing "Ten Thousand Angels," I went out grabbed my helmet got back on the motorcycle sitting behind my husband and left. This stuck me as being slightly absurd.

One treat for the boys was going to the zoo.  We had to go up past Island Pond, Vermont, over into Canada to go to the Granby Zoo in Sherbrooke, Quebec.  Most of the people spoke French.  I had taken several years of French in High School. I understood more than I could speak.  My husband on the other hand had never taken French and knew nothing at all of the language.  So we lost our way and needed help to find the zoo.  Being the man, Tink said he would ask directions.  I watched from the car.  He spoke to a man and I saw the man gesturing.  When he came back to the car, I said," You spoke to someone who knew English?" " No," he said, "But some how I understood everything he said."  He did find the way.

One thing that seemed so much from another era to me was the town meetings.  The town hall definitely predated anything that I'd ever experienced in Virginia.  It was very interesting attending the meetings and listening to the discussions.

 The drug store in Lyndonville had cokes for fifteen cents!  They never changed their prices while we lived there.  There were no Chinese restaurants near by and no place to buy pizza.  I had to learn to make my own.  I would buy supplies from the Chinese grocery while I visited family in Virginia. There was Luigi's in Lyndonville.  On Tuesday nights you could get spaghetti and a small bottle of Lancers for $2.50 now that was not bad, but no pizza.

While living in Vermont, with Tink teaching at the college, I was able to get free education.  I decided to get my teaching certificate.  When the time came to do my student teaching, my good friend Sue Throckmartin was teaching in a one room school, something that to me was from another era.  It worked out that I could be her aid and do my student teaching at the same time.

The spring of 1975 we decided that we would try for a baby girl.  Scott was turning five that June. I wanted a girl so badly that we try every crazy thing.  My husband said that I had him doing everthing except standing on his head.  I remember that we discused names.  We never did really find a girls name that we agreed on.  Finally deciding on Leigh Anne, however we decided that a boy should be named after my Dad, Donald Lewis.
did not want me to get pregnant again as I had a long labor with my second son, Scott. I think that they really missed having us close by.  After hearing about the new baby to come. Dad offered to let us open a branch of his art gallery in Williamsburg Virginia.  The temptation was too much and we decided to sell our house and go back to Virginia.
We got things together and put a  'for sale' sign out in front of the house and staged a garage sale.  Before we knew it we had a sale for the school house.  We invited all our friends to a wine and cheese party.  We supplied the cheese and crackers etc and everyone brought a bottle of their favorite wine.  It was a wonderful party.  We had the opportunity to say good bye to all our friends.

Just prior to our move Tink threw his back out.  Fortunately we had movers taking care of the heavy lifting.  School was starting before we left for Virginia.  Chris flew down to Virginia by himself where he was met by my parents.  Mother said she would never forget the sight of that little boy clutching his stuffed toy.

We packed up Scott and our golden and the same cat that tried to escape when we left Virginia and headed back to the south.  Part of our hearts have always loved Vermont.  I have truly been privileged to have lived in these two beautiful states.

Traveling back to Virginia when we reached the Eastern Shore we could smell the salt water and knew we were coming home again.

Bumps in Life...

While we were living in Charlottesville, I took a fall and hurt my left knee.  That was the leg that was effected most by Polio.  I was meant  to wear a brace on that leg as my knee and ankle needed support.  I enjoyed going without my brace at times walking with bare feet and my crutches. After that fall, my knee hurt a lot and was quite swollen.  I tried to keep it elevated and had trouble sleeping.   My husband and I decided that I should see a doctor.  I was afraid that I had cracked a bone.  Xrays came back and the Doctor said that he did not see anything.

The next week we took a trip down to Norfolk, Virginia to visit my parents.  Dad was looking at a big old home off the Elizabeth River, that had belonged to someone who was high up in the Norfolk and Western  Railroad.  He took us over to look at the outside of the house.  We walked around looking at the property. When we got to the cement close to the garage, I noticed that there had been some patching done and there was some moisture on the pavement.  I was distracted by the boys or the golden retriever, and before I knew it I had fallen with all my weight landing on my left knee.  I heard a crack and the pain was almost unbearable.  One of the Doctors in the same practice as my Polio Doctor lived across the street.  Someone ran over to see if he would help.  He was off duty and would not come across the street to help instead telling us to go to the emergency room.  My husband and father got me into the car and drove me to the emergency room at Norfolk General Hospital.  Another Associate of the Doctor came as soon as possible and he preformed an operation to repair the knee. 

My knee had broken in two places with a crack up the femur.  He put in a plate to reinforce my bone that ran about 3 inches. I think that they used a pin as well.  I more than likely did have a slight crack that the doctor in Charlottesville over looked.  Mother took care of my two small sons and Cedar.  The family decided that night I should have a nurse sit with me in case I need something. The operation had gone on until after 8 o'clock that evening.  The next morning the nurse asked me if I was the Leigh who had been at De Paul Hospital with Polio in 1948.  I said yes I was there.  She said that her son had been in the hospital at the same time.  He was the little boy who I had been so fond of.  One of his arms had be effected by polio.  In the ward at De Paul, he would come and visit me standing by my bed.   He was a year younger than I was.

The next day he came to visit and we traded stories.  He was feeling sorry for himself and blaming the fact that he had polio on not getting many dates.  I told him that he needed more self confidence.  I am afraid that I was not as nice as I should have been.  I had felt like I would have had more dates if I had not walked with crutches, but on the whole I had a good experience.  On occasion I too have felt sorry for myself, but my mother never let me get by with that.  I in turn told him to stop feeling sorry for himself and take some positive steps.  That he could ask girls out.... He was good looking and had a lot going for him.  I was in pain and I'm afraid that I was not very patient.  I hope that I helped him and that he has had a good life.

I was in the hospital for a week and remember needing pain medicines as often as I could have them.  Even after I as home at my parents, I still was on pain medicine.  Mother had her hands full with a daughter in a full leg cast and two little boys, one a toddler.  My husband was in the middle of a semester and had to go back to the University to teach and coach.  He managed to come down on the weekends. While I was there mother's maid, Nellie May,( who had worked for my grandmother) did not come in one morning.  Her friend called to say that she had passed away in her sleep. She only helped us once a week, but was always a good help and family retainer.  We were all very sadden by this.  I think her friend, Pinkie, who use to help me,  came to help in her place...mom certainly did need help then.

Mother had a little cat and she would leave a window in her bedroom slightly ajar so the cat could go out on the roof for fresh air.  Scott my youngest son, a toddler, managed to squeeze through the opening and mother found him walking on the roof top.  Mother had to climb out the window and get hold of Scott before he fell off.  It scared her.  Down stairs I was set up in the family room on the hide a bed sofa.  I heard walking on the roof and wondered what was going on.  Mother came down to relay her story.  We both breathed a sigh of relief.

I found it difficult being in bed and not having the ultimate say over how my children were made to behave.  Mother did it her way and refused to listen to how I wanted it done.  I was thankful that she took care of us but I did want my children to not be spoiled and to be made to behave.  Because of being handicapped I needed to have them mind me.  Mother could pick them up and put them where she wanted them.  It was a whole different matter for me.

We were at my parent's for Thanksgiving that year and Christmas.  I had to order Christmas gifts for the boys out of the Sears Catalog.  They got cowboy outfits, vest and hats.  Chris got a pair of chaps that had belonged to his dad.  Mom and I made felt ornaments Winnie the Pooh, piglet, and others.  It gave me something to do. Tink came home and with the help of a wheel chair he took me shopping for Christmas gifts for the rest of the family.   In spite of everything we had a good Christmas.

Around Valentines Day I was finally able to go back home.  The first weeks were a little hard but I worked through them and got back to normal for me.  I did learn then how useful a wheelchair could be. While recovering I sat in my old wheel chair that I had as a child. I learned that I could do some things more easily from my chair.  I could put Scott on my lap and put him to bed or dump him into the bath tub.  I had not realized that I could use my old chair as an aid to doing work around the house.  Up to then I had never thought of using it as an aid.

That fall we moved to Vermont.

Off to the University of Virginia

That fall we moved into our home in Charlottesville Virginia.  Earlier in the year we went up to find a place to live.  There was student housing for married couples, however my brother, Don, was starting his Masters at the University of Virginia as well.  My parents reasoned that if they purchased a house for all of us to use during this time it would end up being less expensive.  We would take care of the utilities and would feed my brother.  There was a bedroom, bath and sitting room on one end of the house that he could use.  The sitting room ended up being communal with a sofa an television..  I washed the clothes and did the cooking for the family.

I was delighted to find that the Pediatrician connected to the University was a neighbor.  He had children the same age as ours.  Scott our second son was prone to ear infections so we were able to call up and run around the corner for help.  I use the word run loosely of course even then I did not run.  The first year that we were there, Scott was a very small baby.  I had to stay at home with him until either my husband or my brother could help me get him into a car.  After a while with Chris' help (a responsible three year old by then) I could manage.  Chris was always very helpful.  He minded me well when it suited him.  

There was a family that lived two doors down from us Chuck and Mary lLyn Davis.  They had two sons close in age to our boys.  Big wheels were all the rage then for children.  We had a driveway that went from the front of our house on a hill to the rear of the house.  The boys started at the top and got up speed and would tear down the hill into the back yard.  They never got tired of this.  If I shut my eyes and concentrate, I can still hear them roaring down that hill.

We took care of the up keep and improvements on the house.  Tink always loved to work with his hands and he replaced the roof by himself, scaring me half to death.  Once that was done he worked on making the attic into a playroom for the boys.  We put a television up there and all the boys blocks and trucks.  Sesame Street and Mister Rogers gave me a time to relax and start dinner.  I did learn to use the new paper diapers to cut down on my work.  I loved baby Scott by Scott Paper Company.  Maybe because it was for my baby Scott.

Down the road from our house was Macintire Park.  In the park was a pool that was swallow.  Mothers would take their children to the park and let them play in the water.  We, the mothers, would sit on the edge of the pool with our feet in the water.  On hot days this felt wonderful.  Mary Lyn and I would often take our boys there.  It was a time for the mothers to visit with each other. The other attraction in the park was a fighter plane.  The boys loved to go there and climb all over the plane.  It was a time for their imaginations to take flight.

After redoing the Attic, Tink next tackled the basement.  He worked to turn it into an apartment.  I think that his rightly earned his nick name of Tink. 
 
That  fall Tink purchased a scooter and I was able to have a car when I needed it.  If the weather was bad, he either took the car or I would drive him to work.  

He was the gymnastic coach during this time at the University.  We would entertain the students with a cook out on occasion.  One year the team got hold of an old army bus.  We fixed it up and decided to take the team to Florida on Spring Break.  We loaded up the boys and our stuff.  Then all the Gymnast that wanted to go and headed out.  Our goal was to go down to the Florida Keys and then to Disney.  The best of plans can go array.  We made it down as far as Georgia close to the border of Florida, when something was terribly wrong.  The bus came to a grinding halt.  Oh, no.  Tink jumped out of the bus to check to see if he could figure out what was wrong with the bus.  The transmission, what do we do now.  Fortunately some of the students were familiar with auto mechanics and Tink knew a little about engines.  We were able to find a replacement.  The bus was towed to a near by junk yard.  There we were sitting on the side of the road next to the junk yard on Easter Sunday.  The Easter bunny left candy for Chris and Scott in the bus. We all camped out there.  The students and Tink pooled their moneys together to get the necessary part.  They managed to get it back together and working and we headed South.  We made it finally to one of the Keys to a camp ground there and pitched tents and set up our camp.  The next crisis happen when one of the gymnast stepped on a sea urchin and had to go to the emergency room.  Disney was out.  We had spent our funds.  However, we did make it back home without any more crisis.

There was a Christmas party at our neighbors home.  One of our other neighbors was there.  He was also a student studying to get his Law degree.  One moment we were talking and then another before I knew it he came around behind me and picked me up, crutches and all.  He proceeded to carry me held in front of him through the house.  I remember asking to be put down and calling for my husband to rescue me. Tink followed along but did nothing to help me.  Finally the neighbor put me down.  Later I asked Tink why he had not tried to rescue me.  He said that the guy was bigger than he was.  I was madder than a wet hen, indignant that he was not more forceful.  Anyway it was an experience to talk and write about.

That next summer, my cousin Ginny who was a teen came to help me with the boys.  Her grandmother lived in Charlottesville.  That same summer Don married Ellie Adams, who he had met at the University.  We ended up traveling to Baltimore to the wedding taking Ginny with us to meet up with her parents.  She was a wonderful help, chasing after Scottie, who was in the terrible twos. 

We loved being in Charlottesville.  The Skyline Drive was less than an hour away.  We enjoyed driving up to the mountains. When the clouds were low we would tell the boys that they could wash their hands in the clouds.  My favorite spot on the Skyline Drive was big Meadows.  When I was younger we use to vacation there and from there go to Luray Virginia.  The mountains have always been in my blood, as is the ocean.  living in Virginia we are blessed with easy access to both.

More Early Years..Portsmouth to UVA

Just before Christopher's first birthday, we moved into our first house.  Tink had not completed his Master's Degree so his time at Old Dominion College was up.  He had worked establishing the gymnastic program there and at Virginia Beach Public Schools. 

We moved to The Churchland area of Portsmouth, VA  across the river from my home town of Norfolk VA.  I was a stay at home Mom with a year old baby that was very smart.  Not being able to pick him up and carry him to bed or to get him in the house, I had to resort to outsmarting him and sometimes to bribery.  "Come in the house and you can have a cookie."  Was something that I found myself saying.

Our parents were full of advise on how to raise our child.  Particularly Tink's step mother, who I felt did not approve of how I was raising my son.  However, she did not fully understand the difficulty of taking care of a baby with out being able to scoop him up and put him where you wanted him to be.  Chris was particularly smart, so it was a challenge to say the least.  Looking back on things,  I had done a good job.  Good thing that I was so young.  Tink was always a help when he was around.  I was on my own while he was at work.  In our new house there was a baby gate on one doorway to our family room/ Kitchen and a door on the other doorway.  there was also a door to the back yard, which had a small fenced in area.  This was just about perfect.  I could be in my kitchen/ family room working and Chris could be playing nearby. 

Having contained areas helped a lot.  My parents realized that I needed help keeping up the house.  My Dad own an Art Gallery in nearby Norfolk.  I had a job once a week helping him do restoration of oil paintings in his gallery.  I made $5.00 an hour.  While I worked I had the help of a maid, Pinkie Hankerson, who helped mother at home once a week.  She took a bus from Norfolk to Portsmouth.  I would pick her up and she would help take care of Chris and vacuum for me.  When I would come home, Chris would be sparkling clean in his best clothes and Pinkie would be smiling widely.

 Tink particularly liked chocolate chip cookies.  One day after making a batch, I put them on the counter to cool.  There was a chair next to the counter.  Chris climbed up onto the chair to reach the cookies. He took two.  I watched he climbed down get behind the chair where Cedar, our golden was sleeping.  With a cookie in each hand he proceeded to feed one to our dog and eat the other himself.

Another time after his bath he got away from me and made a run for it in his birthday suit, opening the back door and dashing into the back yard.  He took a lot of teasing later as the family streaker.  Because he was walking, I gained a lot more freedom myself.  He would climb into the car and I could go to the store or for a ride.  We would give Tink a ride to work and pick him up.  One time I ran a stop sign by mistake and Chris popped up to tell me that I had missed that sign.

I was lucky that one of my best friends lived in Portsmouth as well.  Polly's  husband, Tom Glassburner, worked at Frederick Military Academy in the city.  She was close enough to visit back and forth.  Tom would call and say, "Tonight's Hamburger Night, come on over."   We would pack up Chris and head to their house.  Tom and Tink were good friends as well.   

That summer Tink worked at a day camp somewhere off the James River.  We went to see the camp one day and he took Chris and myself for a ride in a row boat own by the camp.  We went through marsh grasses in a tidal area.  I had never seen an area like that before. 

That same summer I attempted to potty train Chris, at under two.  What was I thinking?  He would turn two that August.  He was almost trained, when my folks asked if Chris and I could go with them to New York on a vacation.  Dad always combined business with pleasure.  He had a friend who owned a gallery, who let us stay in an Apartment of his off the Hudson River Parkway.  There was a doorman at the front of the building.  It was very exciting being in the city.  We when to dinner one night to a famous Italian Restaurant.  It was getting late and Chris was tired and a little cranky.  A nice waiter noticed his head nodding and brought a stack of napkins for him to put his head down on.  Chris fell fast asleep.  I wished we had a camera to get a photo of that.

We also visited with my great uncle and aunt in Old Saybrook, Connecticut.  My brother helped carry Chris.  Because Chris had coloring similar to my brother, Don, all the girls his age thought that Chris was his.  There was not much flirting for him that vacation.  Another uncomfortable factor for Don was that Chris was not totally potty trained and had several accidents while he was being held.  In other words mother was trained rather than baby.  I forgot my birth control pills on that trip.  "Oh, well," I thought, "I will start back up as soon as I get home."  Famous last words.  A month or so later, I had a urinary infection.  Went to the doctor for medicine and the doctor told me that I was pregnant.  We had planned on having another baby, but wanted to wait a little longer.  We were over joyed.  I remember that we went out for pizza to celebrate. 
That anniversary, Tink bought me my first bicycle.  Because I had polio and had little power in my legs and poor balance, I had never had anything other than a tricycle.  What he gave me was a bicycle built for two.  We strapped a child seat on the back and road all over our neighborhood.  He did most of the work and I was able to get some exercise.  It was so much fun.

The spring of the next year, we decided that Tink should go back to school to finish up his Master's Degree.  He called the University of Virginia inquiring about a teaching scholarship.  He knew the person in charge. They said," Send us your records.  We have an opening and it can be yours."  Just like that life changed.

After College..

On the fourth of July 1966, Tink called me, while I was still in Gatlinburg Tennessee.  He ended up proposing to me over the phone.  I accepted.  I did not stop to think about what a short time I had know him.  He drove to Tennessee  to pick me up.  Where I ended asking him to propose to me on his knees, and he did.  On the way home we stopped for the night with my Aunt and Uncle in Western Virginia. 

Tink wanted to be married before the school year began.  I wanted to wait a while.  We ended getting married at the end of August.  When I think about it, my parents were marvelous.  We accomplished so much with in a little over a month's notice.  I had a beautiful wedding, in our church with a long gown and mantilla borrowed from a family friend. 

I found that I could wear Tap shoes that had ribbon ties.  So we ordered a pair in white.  For many years I had worn girl Scout brown leather tie shoes with everything.  Mother had told me that no one paid attention to my shoes as long as I had a smile on my face.  In fact, when someone mentioned my shoes to a friend, she revealed that she never knew that I wore anything different than she did. But I knew.

We went back to Tennessee on our Honey Moon.  We spent it on a house boat on a lake.  I had to cook on a gas stove, and it was not until almost the end of our week that we realized that they had steaks in the grocery store at the lake.  We had eaten canned food up to that point. It was close to the beginning of the school year there were very few people on the lake.  We got into a row boat to fish.  We did not catch many fish, little ones at that.  The beds much to our regret were narrow single bunk beds.  We went long periods of time without seeing anyone else on the water. Tink wanted me to go skinny dipping.  I was too shy then.

When we got home, we settled into our the row house, which we had rented in the Hague area of Norfolk.  Tink resumed his teaching and coaching job at Old Dominion College.  I started my new Teaching job at The Hebrew Academy in Norfolk.  Together we made about $10,000 that year.

All of a sudden I was in a position where I was called by my new married name.  I was Mrs. Trimble.  I picked up my second grade class to led them across the street to our class room.  Behind me I heard one little boy say to another.  "New teacher, She is pretty, but look at those sticks!"  I turned around and said," You better watch out. I know how to use them too."   My husband had warned me to be tough to begin with, because it was harder to change later.  The boys eyes got big and they did not say another word.  I taught two whole grades that year.  I had a second grade class and a fourth grade class.  Half of the day they took their Hebrew classes the other half the regular classes.  I learned that year what it was like to be a minority.  I distinctly remember one child calling the other a dirty rotten Christian. It was a good experience working in that school.  I learned a lot about the Jewish faith.

Tink had wanted a dog.  He talked me into going with him to get a puppy.  I had never had a dog before, as my parents were worried about a dog tripping me up. We went out to an area between Norfolk and Virginia Beach.  There we found golden puppies in a large piano box on a porch.  There were twelve adorable puppies in all.  One female in particular won our hearts.  She was reddish in color and smelled like the cedar shaving in the box.  We named her Cedar.  We walked this small pup on a leash getting her to stop at corners until we had looked both ways.  Some how our early training worked.  She never went out of her limits. 

That  December, we went to Wisconsin to have Christmas with his family.  I had never been away from my family at Christmas.  I felt bad to because my grandfather had died that fall.  We also left behind Cedar. Christmas in Wisconsin was different. there was most definitely snow on the ground.  They opened presents on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas Day.  There were all sorts of new things to adjust to.

While I was visiting my in laws that Christmas, I realized that I was most likely pregnant.  After having a glass of cold Duck with Christmas Eve Dinner, I felt dizzy and had to lie down.  When I got back to Virginia my Doctor confirmed my suspicions, I was expecting in late August one year almost exactly after my wedding.

I  went to see my Polio doctor, John Vann.  He said that I should have no problem carrying or giving birth.It was amusing to see the men rush to open doors for me when I was great with child walking with a brace on my leg and crutches.  I was able to keep my weight down only gaining about twenty five or thirty pounds.

The week before my son was born, we went fishing in a row boat in the middle of a tributary of the James River.  Also fishing and crabbing off a pier on the Elizabeth River.  In fact my husband said I should have been crowned the Mud Toad Queen of the Elizabeth River.  I caught so many mud toads.

Mother, Dad and my brother decided to go up to Pennsylvania to visit my Aunt and cousins.  I assured them that I was fine first babies were usually late.  After dinner on August 28th I talked to them and said that I was fine.  We had pizza and green grapes that night and I had a little indigestion. That indigestion turned into labor pains and Tink rushed me to the hospital Christopher came early the morning of the 29th of August.  I was over whelmed with motherly love and pride.  Chris was a perfect little blonde baby boy. 

That day the family hurried back from their visit.  Dad wanted to stop and buy something on the way home but my brother said that they could not stop.  They needed to get home to see me and the new baby.  After my hospital stay we carried Chris home to my parents where Mother helped me get use to taking care of a baby.

The logistics of caring for a baby when you walk with crutches is not as easy as if you did not have to manage with crutches.  I still marvel at how well I managed.  I used a carriage in order to carry my baby from one room to another in the house.  I was forced to think things out in order to be able to care for my child.  I needed to plan.  Mother or my husband or a kind neighbor would help me take the baby out to our car.  We were in a first floor apartment however there were eight steps or more to get outside. 

As Chris grew things got a little better.   He was able to help me pick him up.  He would hold up his little hands or stand up and hold on to me.  It was like he knew that I needed him to help me.  He even started walking at the early age of nine months.   He would hold onto my finger and walk with me.  This was both a blessing and a curse. One day he was crawling in his room.  I left the room for some reason.  When I came back I found him standing in the open window against the screen watching children playing outside.I was scared that he would fall.  I blamed it on his father being a gymnast.

The College Years

My parents did not want me to go away to College so I went to the local extension of William and Mary.  It was a little more difficult getting around than they had anticipated.  I ended up having to walk from one side of campus to the other carrying a bag full of my books.  For the most part the professors were helpful, and would lend me a book to use in class.  One English professor wanted us to carry the New Oxford Dictionary with us.  I found a paperback that was lighter weight.  He refused to let me use it.  Later because I miss spelled three words he gave me a poor grade on my final exam.  All the other teachers could not have been nicer.

I always seemed to be in a hurry and more often than not I was slightly late for some of my classes.  I finally learned to schedule classes so that they were all close together, or allow a break so that I could make it to class in time.  There were steps up to  many of the classes that were held on the second floor.  The English Building had an elevator which really helped. When I think about it now, I am amazed that I did so well.  The students were very helpful as well.  There was one young man who was in a wheel chair and his fellow students could be seen carrying him chair and all up the stairs.

I was so happy to be able to study art and take some other classes that I was interested in.  I took Basic Design early in the morning with Charles Sibley as my Professor.  Sibley was one of my Dad's good friends.  I was not impressed with the exercises that we had to go through.  I persisted, but I really did not understand the value of the class until much later.  The Art Department was on the second floor of the Fine Art Building, there were open stairs to the second floor and an outside hallway.  I had my Art History and my Fine Art Classes in that building, as well as the Language Classes.

Some of my Art  History Classes were held at night.  My mother had never finished her college education so she decided to audit some of these classes.  The night classes were once a week lasting all evening, three hours at a time.  To break up the time we all donated a certain amount at the beginning of the year and took turns in being responsible for the nights dinner break. 

I dated a local boy during the first couple of years.  We had a good time together.  He treated me very well taking me to shows, out to diner, and to the movies.  I was never serious about him, however he was more serious than I was.  After I realized that he wanted to marry me, we broke up.  I was not ready for a serious relationship.

I did join a sorority on campus.  They encouraged us to be active in school.  I ran for Vice President of the senior class and was elected.  It was serving in this duty that I met Tom (Tink) Trimble.  I had to help sell tickets to the senior class dance.  I remember being reluctant to do this.  I went into the student center at the time, set up a table with my sign and sat down concentrating on a drawing I was doing for my studio art class.

That was when a young man came up and asked if he could sit down.  I said certainly.  He asked how long had I  been going to the school.  I said for four years , that I was a senior.  In turn I asked him the same question.  "This is my first year," he said.  "Are you a freshman?" I asked. "No, I am a teacher." Whoops.  All ended well he asked me to go to a student show that evening and to a fraternity party later that night.

The fraternity party was held in an old house behind my father's art gallery.  So, we parked in his parking lot and walked through the back to the frat house.  There was a puddle blocking the way I was worried about my crutches slipping.  He picked me up and carried me across the puddle.  That night he kissed me good night as he left.  My heart jumped a beat and I melted.

He had asked me out the next day to go sailing with him.  I had my GRE exams that morning.  My mind was not on the exams.  When we went sailing, he again picked me up in his arms an put me in the small sailboat.  Later when I told my mother of both instances, she had a funny look on her face.  She revealed that she had had a dream not long before that a young man had picked me up and carried me away.  In the dream she said that she was not worried but had felt good about it. She felt as though she had dreams about future events, some of her dreams had not been so pleasant.

I had applied for being an aid at the Arrowmont School in Gatlinburg Tennessee run by my Sorority, Pi Beta Phi, in conjunction with the University of Tennessee.  I was awarded a scholarship instead.  This was the first time, that I had ever lived away from home.  I took classes in pottery making and in enameling on copper.

Early Memories and Polio

Some people remember things that go way back into their childhood and some do not recall much of their early years at all.  I have some early memories that stand out in my mind.  The earliest memory that I had to  was that we were going to have a new baby in the family.  I remember exactly where we were driving while my parents discussed what they would name the new baby.  Don, after my Dad if it were a boy, and Donna, also after my Dad if it was a girl.  I remember getting out of the car in the driveway at my grandparents, where we lived.  My mother's favorite yellow climbing rose was blooming on the white picket fence in my grandmother's back yard.  It is interesting how little things will stick in your mind.

I remember my mother going into labor.  The next day my grandmother, Nana, sitting at the phone talking to my Dad about the new baby ....A Boy!  I asked my grandmother what he looked like she said he was red all over.  I said," like an Indian? Does he have a Feather behind his ear?" I was so excited I wanted to see my brother right away.  But, I had to wait, Donnie was born on December 13, (our family's lucky number 13).  He was my Christmas present.  I loved him from the start.

The next memory that I had was of everyone taking his photo and asking me to move over so they could get a picture of the baby.  I still remember feeling left out and a little jealous. Mother must have noticed this because she let me poise for the next picture with my baby brother in my arms.  In the photo you could see how pleased I was.

Later that year in the summer, we had a rain storm and the water at the corner was deep enough for the kids on the block to play in.  I wanted to play there too, but mother said that I could not.  There was a lot of polio going around, and she did not want me to catch it.  I could not play in the gutter like the other kids.

Everyone was worried about an out break of polio.  At that time there was nothing that could be done for polio except to pray, and hope that nobody in your family got it.  There was a big out break of the disease in neighboring North Carolina.  They had actually closed the border between Virginia and Carolina just below where we lived in Norfolk, VA.  In spite of all mother's precautions, I got polio at the age of four in 1948.  First I had the measles. It must have been German Measles, because they kept me in a darkened room, for fear of the light effecting my eye sight.  Sometime shortly after that I had a strep throat.  My parents had gone out for an evening. I hurt so bad, I remember crying for my mother.  My Nana tried to comfort me.  The next morning, they called the doctor to come.  He examined me and asked me if I could walk.  I remember saying that I could not, but that I could crawl.  "Just put me down on the floor and I'll show you."

My Dad picked me up carried me to the car.  Mother held me in her arms, and we hurried to the hospital.  Here they gave me a spinal tap to see if I had polio.  I remember screaming.  No one had ever hurt me like that.  Mother heard me, but they would not let her come to me.  They put me in isolation.  When she could mother sat in the room with me for hours on end and read to me.  She said at one point she was afraid that I might die.  After a while they put me in a room with a glass window on one wall.  They wrapped my legs and arms with hot wet wool to keep my muscles from contracting. The smell of wet wool made me feel sick well into my thirties.  Mother was upset with my paternal grandmother, because she did not come to visit for fear of germs.  She did stand on the other side of the window and waved at me. She had been through this before as my dad's older brother also had polio as a child.  He had no visible effects for polio and even serve in the army during World War II.

My mother hated to leave my side, so my Nana (maternal grandmother), and good friends took turns during the day taking care of my brother.  I missed him and wanted to go home.  They transferred me from Norfolk General to De Paul Hospital, to their children's ward.  There were a lot of beds with lots of children in a large room.  The Nuns, Sister's of Mercy, worked wonders there.  They were nice. Some of the nurses were not. One Nun asked me if I were Catholic, and some how at four years old I knew to say that I was Methodist.

In the ward with me there were children in iron lungs.  Without these they could not breath.  When there were thunder storms the electricity would go out.  All the men would take turns cranking a generator in order to keep the iron lungs working. Without these devises the children in them would have die.  There were others that came into the children's ward too.  There was a little Chinese girl, whose mean brother had put her in a box and put fire to it.  She was terribly burned. there was an older girl who had fallen off a horse while riding and had a metal plate in her head. There was one small boy that I was particularly fond of.  He had polio too.  It effected his arm.  We actually met again after I had married.

The Doctors were very nice.  One young doctor did paper cuttings for the children.  I met my Doctor for the first time there, Johnny Van.  He was a young Doctor who walked with a limp.  It turned out that he had contracted polio as a child. The smell of alcohol permeated the air as you moved about the hospital. This smell also bothered me for a long time.  I was in De Paul for months.  One day my mother asked me as I pleaded with her to stay,"What would you like me to bring you tomorrow?"

I answered, "Please bring me a fairy."

Oh dear, my Mother thought.  She did not want to let me down, but a fairy.  How on earth was she to find a fairy for her daughter?  That evening she worried and thought.  The next day she she came in carrying a very small doll with wings made out of a man's shirt collar decorated with sequins and a soft gossamer dress.  I knew that this was just a doll, but mother had a story that went with the doll.

She and my Dad had pulled the car into the drive and from the garden area she heard a tiny cry like a tingling of a bell.  She walked over to discover a tiny fairy who was caught up in a web.  My father reached down and freed her and lifted her up.  Mother told her that her young daughter had been very sick and was still in the hospital.  Her only desire was to have them bring her a fairy the next day.  Would she go to the hospital with them?  "Oh....I can't," she said, "It is way too dangerous, I might even die if I go.  But, I will help you."  At that she took out some fairy dust and turned a small doll into a fairy doll.  "Tell your little girl that it was not possible for me to come, but I will visit you and tell you some stories of the fairies. "Mother was ready with stories that she had made up and written down to read to me.  For years I thought that there were fairies in the garden at my grandparents home.

There was one definite high light to my hospital stay.  The nurses gathered all the children that were able to be moved into a solarium room for the much anticipated visit of Jean Audry, the famous singing cowboy.  I was able to brag about this for years.  As another special treat they gave us was hot dogs for our lunch.  We all felt very special.

One of the visits that I particularly looked forward to was that of my Uncle Billy, Nana's brother.  Every time that he'd come to visit he would bring me bubble gum.  One time I asked him where did he get all that bubble gum.  He told me that he had a very special bush in his backyard that had gum as it's fruit.  At the time I had trouble believing this, but I persisted.  Could I see this marvelous bush.  One day after I had recovered we went to visit, and there in his back yard was a bush with gum hanging all over attached with scotch tape.  He had gone to a lot of trouble to make a little girl happy. 

I was finally able to come home for a visit, and then at last home for good.  Mother had to do physical therapy to try to keep my legs limber.  They had always told me that the polio had effected me from my shoulders down.  Some how I never thought that it had effected my arms.  That was until I went to be tested for Post Polio Syndrome.  Suddenly I went from being a paraplegic to being a quadriplegic.

.After I had polio and was home.  I remember learning to walk with crutches.  This was an adventure.  Although in the beginning I had braces on both my legs and a corset on my back I remember being able to swing off a curb.  I felt like I was flying.  I was the poster child for the march of dimes in the Norfolk, Va. area when I was six or seven.  There was a picture of me walking with crutches that was blown up to life size and it appeared in a window of a store on the main street in downtown.  For years we kept this in our attic.

After I had been home from the hospital for a while,  Doctor Vann decided that it would be a good idea if we went to Warm Springs GA. to the facility there where President Roosevelt had gone.  The Warm Springs Foundation was know for their work with rehabilitating people who had polio.  He wanted to make sure that I was getting the best care possible.

We got into our car to travel all the way to Georgia.  My uncle Judd had married Helen Matthews, she joined us on our trip.  Along with Helen came her new cat, Tandy, a beautiful Siamese kitten with big blue eyes.  During the night stay in a motel, Tandy decided to play with the light attached to the head board.  She walked the head board and batted with her paw at the chain that dangled just above my Dad's head.  He was not overly fond of cats and remained asleep as we held our breath.

When we got to Georgia, we stayed with Helen's family.  It was there that I saw a TV for the first time.  It was small and almost round.  The black and white picture on the tube was very fuzzy.  It was interesting  and memorable to a little girl.  Helen's family were very nice to us and a lot of fun. I think it was her sister that told me that they used to make dolls out of corn husk, using corn silk for hair.  It was there that I discovered that there was such a thing as yellow watermelon.

When we stayed in Warm Springs, the streets in town had wooden sidewalks,  and the water in the hotel tasted terrible.  The doctors at the foundation said that Dr. Vann was as good a doctor as any one that they had on staff, and that I was very lucky to have him as my doctor.  We visited the little White House where President Roosevelt stayed when he visited there for treatments. We made two trips there and they get mixed up in my memory, but on the last one I believe I had my first loose tooth. I wiggled it all the way there and all the way back home.  We even tried the trick of tying a string on the tooth and a door nob, slamming the door....but of course it did not work.

The Appalachian Mountains, run all the way into Georgia.  We visited a State Park in the mountains.  In a general store my parents bought me my first pair of blue jeans, and a toy monkey.  On the way back we listened to the radio play "the Tennessee Waltz."  I also remember the kudzu that had taken over large areas along the road side in Georgia even covering homes.  At that point it was out of control.

Due to going to Warm Springs, and operations to keep my limbs straight, I could not attend kindergarten.  Mother ordered books from the Calvert School for kinder garden.  I had a operation and my body was in a cast from my waist down encasing both legs.  One of the things that I remembered was that we made a model of a farm.  With little plastic animals including ducks that mother made a pond for out of a mirror.

They did all sorts of things to keep my mind busy.  They ordered an ant farm.  Where the ants built their community between two sheets of glass.

Several girls would come by to play.  One of these was one of my best friends today, Polly.  She came up from The Dominican Republic, where her father was a British Banker.  Her grandparents lived down the street from my grandparents, when she was in town they brought her by to visit.  We played with clay making all sorts of things like rabbits, turtles, cats and dogs as well as food for them to eat. 

I was able to start real school in first grade.  I went to Ferebee's School, a little private school run in the Sunday school area of Saint Andrew's Church around the corner from our house on Graydon Avenue in Norfolk, Va. To keep my legs warm Mother dressed me in my wool coat and leggings.  This was a fine and dandy until I had to take the leggings off and put them back on.  I remember sitting on the landing of the stairs struggling to get them on and off.  I was always behind. Finally I just told mother that I was not going to wear the leggings any more.  We bought high socks for me to wear in the colder weather and that solved that problem. I still remember the coldness of wearing dresses in the winter.

The first time that I realized that I was some what different was while I was in school there.  Some child, that I did not know, asked me why I walked with crutches.  I knew that I walked with crutches, but  my good friends accepted me as who I was.  To my mind I was normal, I just used crutches to get around.  I have never viewed my self as handicapped in any way.  With the aid of my crutches I could do anything the other kids did. I played on the playground, climbing up the slide, swinging on the swings, climbing the monkey bars.  I even remember standing on a merry go around thing that was kid powered, falling and knocking my breath out just like any other kid.

While I was at the Ferebee School my mother helped to pay for my tuition by acting as the art teacher for the school.  I am sure that it helped pay my way, but it also served as a way for her to keep an eye on me.

The school was not quite a block from our house on Graydon Avenue.  Mother either walked me home from school or some one in the family would pick me up.  One day they were late. So I took it upon myself to walk home on my own, after all I knew the way.  The thing was that I wanted to experiment.  I decided to take the long way home.  I went down the street that crossed Graydon over to the street that ran behind the house Westover Avenue.  There was a field that had overgrown behind my grandparents home.  I decided to walk back through this field.  This took much longer than I had expected.  When I got home hot, tired and dirty.  Both my mom and my Nana were frantic with worry.  Boy, did I get it.  I never did that again.  The fascination with the field behind and next to the house continued.  My friends and I would explore the trails and the fields.  We would pick the wild blackberries and my mother or grandmother would make a blackberry pie.  We would pick great bunches of the wild flowers especially in the fall to carry into the house.  Once I picked a bunch of golden rod for my paternal grandmother, who would not take them because she thought that she was allergic to them.  I have always loved going into the wilds.

We put on a show for our parents at the end of each year.  We would march in to the tune of " the Animals on Parade." We would stand on the stage and sing at the top of our voices.  After the second grade, I graduated to the public elementary School, Walter Heron Taylor School.  My teacher Mrs Sills did a good job of keeping us all in line.  We put on a show "Jack and the Beanstalk."  I was a magic Harp.  There were several of us girls in party dresses holding paper harps covered with Aluminum foil and yarn for strings. 

That year Dr. Van said that I was going to need to have another operation.  I was not happy about this at all.  But of course we went ahead and proceeded with the operation.  The day that I arrived at the hospital there were a couple of small boys racing around in the big wicker wheel chairs that were standard then in hospitals.  One boy had an operation for a club foot, the other a broken leg.  There was a little girl with a hair lip.  The morning of the operation the nurses forgot to get Mother to sign the release form.  So the doctor came into the operating room and said that they were going to have to wait until they found mother.  She had gone to the coffee shop to get a cup of coffee.  While they were waiting on the signature, he proceeded to tell the nurses exactly what he intended to do. When he finished, I repeated his instructions to the nurses. I have claustrophobia, so when the nurse went to put the mask for the ether over my nose, I resisted.  The nurse who was not as kind as she should have been said.  If you don't like it just count backwards.  I fought that thing until I passed out with the ether. 

There was a sweet little girl my age in the adjoining room she would come into my room to visit. She had anemia and later died.  There was not much hope then for children with that type of cancer.  Thankfully now there is bone marrow transplants, that have saved children like her.

They took me home from the hospital in an ambulance.  I needed to be in the cast from my waist down again for a couple of months.  Mother did things to help me past the time.  We got a parakeet.  I named him Jojo.  We tried to teach him to talk.  He did not say much; however one time he looked at my Dad and called him stupid.  He would use my cast as a landing pad and skid from one end to the other.  When Mother would pin her patterns to cut a piece of material he would pull the pins out and drop them over the side of the bed where she was working.  The funniest thing that happened occurred when my brother, who was a little over four at the time decided to pretend to go hunting.  He had a pop gun with a cork attached with a cord.  He put the gun over his shoulder and walked around the apartment saying, "Where is that bird?  I'm going to get me a bird."  We all started laughing.  He could not understand why.  Jojo was perched on the end of the gun he had slung over his shoulder.

When it came time to take my cast off.  Doctor Van came to our home to cut it off with a cast saw that was designed to cut off when it hit something soft.  The cast was lined with cotton and a stocking material.  The saw made a lot of noise. and produced a lot of heat.  It scared me but did not hurt.  The pin that held one leg in place did hut when he pulled it out.  We had a maid that when out back and started praying.  Poor Doctor Van bent over to work on cutting off the cast and threw his back out.  He said that he had to sleep on the floor for at least a week. 

 I am a romantic, I guess I've always been one.  I remember pining away for my hero and next door neighbor, Dumpy.  I was only eight years old.  He was a whole year older and could do no wrong in my estimation.  He lived with his parents and grandmother next door. We had moved from my grandparents home to an apartment across the driveway from Dumpy's house.  When I had my operation for polio, he rigged a walkie talkie from their kitchen to my bedroom. When I think about it  we had sort of an "Our Gang" time.  He was the hero and my brother and I were his followers.  We had wonderful made up adventures.  We slipped through the window to their basement, only to be scared of being discovered.  Being scared made it that much more exciting.

We explored the back of our apartment and one time the garages behind us were left open and the three of us explored the interior.  These garages were used as storage unites, we walked through looking, but not touching piles of furniture and assorted things.  It was spooky and fun.  Our imagination took all sorts of turns figuring out stories about the pieces.  Now that I think about it, this was perhaps one reason that I like finding old things.

One time he climbed up unto the roof of one of the garages.  I wanted to join him up there.  But there was no way for me to get up unto the roof.  There was a tree that grew next to the garage.  I could do a lot of things, but I did have the sense to know when I was beat.  Well, not to give up I could live vicariously.  I told my little brother exactly how to climb up unto that roof.  Unfortunately once up there he became very scared and started to cry.  The only thing for me to do was to fess up and get my mother to help him down.  Oh yes, I was in big trouble. 

I new that I was in love with Dumpy as a little girl, that was my first love.

I had many crushes and was some what devastated when one of my girl friends started dating Dumpy, now using his real name, Harry. 

The year that I graduated from grade school we had a school dance for graduation.  I was a grown up twelve year old.  At that dance one of my friends, who was also a boy gave me a kiss.  Never having this happen before, and not knowing what to do, as well as having seen too many old Judy Garland movies I believe that I slapped his face.  I really would love to apologize to him now.  I am really sorry.

After graduation from grade school and because the junior high school and high school had too many steps, for me with a long leg brace and crutches, my grandparents helped my parents send me to a private school.  This was a private all girl school that taught the classics.  The Graham School, in Norfolk Va., was the center of my life as a young girl. It was an institution or maybe a relic from the Victorian era. This was a school for young ladies. When I attended the school, there were about sixty five to seventy students total in grades seven through twelve. These young ladies received a classical education. We were required to take six full years of Latin. I never really understood what taking a dead language would do for me. However, while majoring in Art History in College I learned that I could read a lot of Italian when studying Renaissance Art. I also realized that my scores on the English S.A.T.'s were greatly improved by those six years of Latin. At the time I would have rather done something else. Especially at exam time. I think I tried to memorize Cesar's Gallic Wars in English in order to just pass Latin.  One of my favorite classes was ancient history. We also took three years of French.

Our English courses required a lot of writing and reading. All those book reports helped me be able to write and think as well. My math teacher Miss Batten was Walter Reed's granddaughter, she never mentioned this. The school was run by two old maid sisters the Misses Grahams. Miss Sarah was the oldest and the head mistress, her sister Miss Cary taught lower grade English. I remember what a stickler she was for grammar.  I had a tough time with grammar in seventh grade, but it was very necessary for Latin to know English grammar.  The one thing lacking was science.  They added this for our class in ninth grade, due to some parents complaining.  For art we would go to take Saturday classes with a local artist in his studio.  My dad was just as happy not to have me be too influenced by other artist's style. 

While I was in school there, I did the same sort of things that other girls did.  I took classes in ball room dance with the other girls.  I could dance slow dances but not the fast ones. It was at this time that I probably had more problems with being handicapped.  The old adage, " Boys don't make passes at girls that wear glasses," is even worse for those who have crutches.  I did not feel like I dated much; however, when I look back I realize that I did have a fairly good amount of dates.  While at Graham School, I dated a brother of one of the girls in my class for about two years.  He even asked me to his Senior Prom.  I turned him down.  Which I realize was not very nice.  I had gone to one other dance with him at his school  I did not know anyone there.  I ended up sitting at a table all night.  I did not want to do that again.

There were only twelve of us in my class and I was a good student but not the highest achiever. I've always been able to brag that I was in the top 10 of my class, only to admit that that was not such a great feat since there so few in our class. In fact there were several very high achievers in the class I would have been lucky to have been in the top half of my class.

My senior year we all started applying to colleges.  I really wanted to go away to school; however, my parents decided that it was too dangerous for me to be away from home.  Seeing that they made some sense coupled with the fact that there was a college in town, I gave in.  I applied to and was accepted to The Division of William and Mary in Norfolk, which became that fall Old Dominion College.