One of my first real memories was riding in the car with my parents. I was 3 years old. My parents had told me that I was going to have either a bay sister or brother. They were talking about what they would name the new baby. I looked out the window and saw a garden marked off with large rounded stones. Somehow this location made an impression on me, and for years I knew exactly where this spot was in Norfolk.
Getting a baby in the family was a big deal to me as a little girl. Mother said that she would like to name the baby after my father, Donald Sykes Lewis, if it was a boy and Donna if the baby turned out to be a girl.
Later I remember mother going into labor and my dad taking her out to the hospital. The next day my grandmother, my Nana, was talking to Dad on the telephone. She turned to me and told me that I had a baby brother. She said that he was a fat baby and red all over. " Just like an Indian," I asked, "Does he have a feather behind his ear?" I was very excited and I could barely wait to see my new brother. Mother and My brother stayed in the hospital back then for almost 2 weeks. Donnie was born December 13 1947 and they made it home for Christmas day with our extended family, my grandparents and my great grandmother.
I loved my brother immediately. I watched mother change him, bath him and dress him. I only remember being a little jealous once and that was when they were taking photos of "the baby." I remember hiding behind a porch chair and peaking around the corner feeling a little left out. My mother must have realized this because they then took a picture of me holding my baby brother in my arms.
Later that summer I came down with polio. It was fortunate that my brother's crib was in my parents room and my little bed was in the room with my grandparents. I had measles and strep throat and then polio. All these were contagious. Often more than one sibling contracted polio at a time. My own polio Doctor and his brother both had polio. My parents rushed me off to the emergency room and my battle with polio began then. My little baby brother was loved, but by necessity was taken care of by my grandmother and sometimes even passed off to friends to watch while mother made the trip to the hospital to visit me. I missed my brother and the only way I was allowed to see him was from my hospital window.
Eventually I was allowed to go home first for visits and then finally to stay with visits to the hospital for physical therapy. When I first came home from the hospital my parents had a photographer come and take photos of my brother and myself. They sat us both on a bench in front of some pulled drapes of my grandparents home. My baby brother was no longer an infant but a fat cherub of a baby with golden curls.
Once I was able to start walking I wore a brace on both my legs that came up to my waist and a heavy corset brace on my back. I used under arm wooden crutches to begin with and was thrilled that I could swing myself with these. Of course they instructed me in the correct manner by which I should used my crutches to walk. I was to use one and then the other just like when we walk we use one foot first and then the other. I am sorry. I just loved swinging my way around. Good thing that I enjoyed that because otherwise it would have just been awkward and uncomfortable going. Leave it to children to find some joy in little things.
I was to go up and down the stairs by myself, holding onto the railing with one hand while someone carried one of my crutches down or up the stairs for me. Sometimes I would fail trying to walk and my precious little brother would come next tome and let me pull up on him.
Don was a baby that was full of energy. I remember mother having to hold onto one arm while she tried to dress him as he was ready to run off in all directions on a new adventure.
I remember seeing him run down my grandparents driveway with our cat in hot pursuit. Some how that black and white cat, "Tippy" loved to chase Don and grab hold of the back of his diapers. This terrorized Don as a baby, and with good reason. The cat grew to be almost as big as he was before we broke the cat of that habit.
As we grew bigger I took the job of big sister seriously. Sometimes much to Don's distress. I watched his manners and made a general pain of myself. I tried to make sure he behaved and I also got him into some trouble. I remember wanting badly to join our friend, Dumpy, in climbing up onto the roof of some garages behind the apartment house that we had moved into. I could not climb up there myself, but Don could, if I told him how. So I gave my baby brother step by step instructions on how to climb a tree to get up onto the roof of the garage with Dumpy. He climbed up unto the garage, but got scared once he was up there, and mother had to climb up to rescue him.
We had lots of fun playing with our friend Dumpy. We explored his basement and the inside of some storage garages in the neighborhood. We were a little like the kids in the "Our Gang Comedies."
I was in the Brownie Scouts and mother went along on our excursions to make sure that I was alright. I should have said Mother and Donnie as he got to go with us. We kidded and called him a grilled sprout.
One day Don came home from school upset another boy had been bullying him, I got so mad I was ready to go after that kid. Nobody had better bother my little brother.
When Don was ready for High School he wanted to go away. My parents and Don discovered Randolph Macon Academy in Front Royal Virginia. One of my Dad's cousins had gone there. That fall we got his thing together that he needed and took him up to the school. They took him in and issued him uniforms as it was a military prep school and shaved his head in a buzz cut. He would not need the clothes that he had worn up there. Dad brought the clothes back to the motel where we were staying in town and hung them up. Mother found the clothes handing and burst into tears. "My baby boy is all grown up," she wailed. It had finally struck her that her baby was not going to be home for awhile. We all missed him, but we were very proud of how he had grown and matured. Needless to say she tried to spoil him as did I when he came home. I was in College then, but because of walking with crutches I went to Old Dominion College in town.
I enjoyed my brother and his friends when he came by home. He looked so handsome in his uniform.
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