Families today and yesterday

For the Love of Dogs

Life is not always easy.  It is a shame that we can not continue to share our lives with the pets that mean so much to us. Unfortunately our beloved pets do not live as long as we do.

My first dog that I owned was Cedar a reddish  golden retriever. I had never had a dog before.  My parents were always worried about a dog tripping me up.  We had had several tabby cats.  My new husband wanted to get a dog almost as soon as we had come home from our honeymoon.  We checked through the ads in the newspaper and he found an ad for golden pups.  I had not wanted a big dog.  Goldens were not but so big he said.... We went to look at the puppies.  There was a large box filled with cedar shavings and twelve adorable puppies.  The parents were handsome animals, both were descendants of national field trail champions.  We fell in love with an fluff ball, who was reddish in color and smelt like cedar.  That is how our Cedar was named.  She was so small that she had to jump off curbs.  We were careful to make her stop at corners and sit before we allowed her to cross the street on her leash.  Tink would take her where ever we went and show her her boundaries.  She never went out of her space.

Cedar was our first child.  She loved and protected all of our sons.  She taught me to love dogs and thus began the understanding that I began to see between man and his dog.  Cedar lived to be around 12 years old.  She was rarely sick and was active up until a few days before she died.  I would see dogs with their heads out a car window and tears would come to my eyes.  I missed her so.  Why is it that dogs get so close to your heart?  I have had other dogs.  My parents and I had several Shetland Sheep dogs.  All have places in our hearts.  My second golden that stole my heart was a beautiful blonde Samantha, who my boys and I rescued.  She was beauty in motion and her heart shown through her eyes.  There was another bond that just captured my heart.  She also lived to be about 12.  Her companion was Shep another Shetland sheep dog, also a rescue, together they kept our tabby rescue in tow. 

Lewis' first dog of his own was Cesar, a pup whose original owners had given him the temporary name of Mr. Big Spot.  Even as a small puppy he was big in many ways.  He was one of a kind part Dachshund and part Chihuahua.  Lewis traveled all the way from Virginia to Missouri to retrieve this irresistible pup.  On the way home Lewis raced to beat the Hurricane Isabel.  They barely made it home before the storm hit.  Cesar started his life in Virginia peeing outside in the full winds of that storm.  He never let Lewis out of his sights.

Lewis carried Cesar everywhere with him.  In our shop the floors did not have rugs. His little feet just spread out not quite able to manage the slippery floors.  Everyone adored him.

When My Father and Lewis' grandfather died.  Cesar was full grown and the protector of the family.  We had a memorial service on the lawn.  A single bag piper stood to the side and started playing Amazing Grace.  Somehow Cesar escaped the house and ran in circles around the Piper until we were able to capture him and return him to the house.

He remained the family protector.  So much so that we had to stop bringing him to the shop. He loved his cats and dog friends, and the rest of the family, but most of all he loved Lewis.

He developed Chronic Kidney Disease in January 2012.  At the time we thought that we would be lucky to keep him alive even for a little while.  We looked into special diets.  Lewis took him every week for fluid injections, sometimes twice a week.  He managed to remain a happy dog, if anything he became sweeter.  Cesar fought a brave battle for six months to stay with his family he loved.  We will never forget him. Now he is running in the fields of heaven reunited with his friend Samantha.

Shep also fought a good battle living on after Cesar with cancer living a year longer than we thought possible. We adopted a miniature dachshund named Tinker from the Humane Society in Gloucester Virginia.  Tinker was to keep Shep company after Samantha's passing.  Tinker had been found running in lost in Gloucester Va. Tinker took over retrieving toys like a golden.  It was love at first sight.  Unfortunately Tinker ate a knee high stocking belonging to my mother while she was spending the night.  Over a weekend I realized that he was ill and took him to the vet.....Long story short, emergency surgery......over the weekend.  Too much money, but worth it in love. Dachshunds are part billy goat.

For the love of dog/dachshunds between Lewis and I we have 3 Tinker, Oscar, and Buddy, all of whom we love greatly.  I have come to understand that the connection between man and his dog is more than we know deeper and closer than we can understand.

Oscar too has crossed to the other side.  What a brave dog.  He is much missed by all the family dogs as well.  We could tell that the pups were really missing him as were we.  Lewis and Phoebe decided to look for a puppy.  That is how Duke, DoDo, entered our lives.  He has liven things up for sure. He is part Dachshund and part Chihuahua like Cesar.  He has a bigger than life personality.  He has bonded with phoebe and Lewis.

Warm Springs Georgia

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.  They 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 and 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 larger areas along the road side in Georgia even covering homes.  At that point it was out of control.

The Beginning a Remembering

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 and my mother's favorite yellow rose on the white picket fence in my grandmother's back yard.  It is interesting how little things will stick in your mind.

There was a fire across the street.  The fire trucks came.  It was really nothing however, while the family was distracted. I found a pair of scissors and cut off half my curls. Wow, was my mother upset.  I never had natural curls again.

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 was in love.

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. 

Some time that spring mother found some open rat poison that I had been looking at.  I told them I had not eaten any, but they rushed me to the hospital to have my stomach pumped any way.  I knew I had not eaten any, but they did not listen.

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, so I could not play in the gutter like the other kids.

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 and it 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."

My Dad picked me up carried me to the car 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.  She 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.

I was transfered from the close by Norfolk General Hospital to Saint Vincent de Paul, run by the Sisters of Mercy.  They seemed like angels swooping by with their long robes and large winged hats.

My mother hated to leave my side, so my Nana, 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 they 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 in I were Catholic 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, so that they could breath.  When there were thunder storms, sometimes 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 not 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.

The Doctors were very nice.  One young doctor did paper cuttings for the children.  I met my Doctor for the first time there, Johnny Vann.  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 and a 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 and 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," and 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 for her."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 into a solarium room for the much anticipated visit of Jean Audry, the singing cowboy.  I was able to brag about this for years.  As another special treat they gave us 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 from.  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. I am glad I did not know before.  I have not let much get in my way of enjoying life and living it to the fullest

Cousins, kissing and otherwise.....

Two sad occasions brought together cousins on both sides of my family.  Last week after the death of my Aunt by marriage Lucia Porter, and this weekend a get together of my Lewis cousins in remembrance of my Aunt Adelaide, who died in March.  It all comes down to siblings and cousins.

I am the oldest of the Lewis cousins, at 68 the youngest Rachel is in her thirties.  The support of the cousin network was great.  We celebrated my Aunt's life by remembering her and the generations that went before.  I was lucky enough to have known two great grandmothers, and both sets of grandparents.  I found myself in the position of being able to tell them something of the older generation.

Rachel is an only child, and her mother worried about her not having any siblings.  She really wanted to make sure that she had a good relationship with her cousins, especially the 2nd cousins that were closer in age.  Those being my sons and family as well as my brother's sons.

I think that we all realized that the family connections needed to be kept intact.  So we are going to have to come up with a plan for regular family reunions.  Now that our parent's generation is almost gone..... That makes me the oldest living Lewis.....How come time passes so fast, anyway?