Sometimes life is sad...

 On October 26, 1956, a Friday afternoon, I had a small son. I started losing my water so Dr.

Crow put me in the hospital, but it didn’t help. He lived only an hour and

weighed about three pounds. Back then there wasn’t much that could be done

for premature babies. It is amazing today what is being done for them and how

many lives are saved. We named him Stephen Anthony and Gene had a funeral

for him. Mama came to stay with me for a week. Mama was always there

when we needed her. Daddy would bring her and then come back for her. We

were sad but we did have Deborah and Timmy. 

Of course,  I did not go back to work at this time.  

Pictured below :  many years later, my family added this monument to his grave site at the Thompson Chapel Cemetery. (990 Thompson Chapel Road, Spartanburg, SC)  

The back side has the death notice engraved from the 

Spartanburg Herald-Journal,  Oct. 27, 1956. 

Life with Deborah, our first child

 

Tim (1) and Deborah (3)

When my first baby was eleven months old, I quit nursing her. Deborah would cry to nurse, but I would let her use a cup with a top on it. I would almost give in because I had so much milk, but we finally won the battle and she did real well.  She learned to do many things at an early age and we would brag on her. So one day when our pastor, Reverend John Kent, came to visit us, she ran to get her potty we had trained her with. She was going to show him how she could use it. Naturally, we persuaded her to wait.

At this time Gene was on the third shift. Each day at 3 pm I would go up the stairs and call his name to come to eat. So Deborah started going up the stairs and calling “Gene, Gene”. I had to remind her that he was her daddy.