Tuesday, March 16, 2004
ENTER MISS ESTHER
Didn’t you just know that when I finished with my mother and her family, my dad and his family and then my brother that I would HAVE to write about me, next. I know me better than anyone else so I am the best one to write my story. However, the first four years are very sketchy because I didn’t know I would be writing about all this later. Had I known I would have made notes along the way.
Facts state my entrance was on a Saturday night about 10:00 pm when I finally exited my mother who was pretty well out of it at the time. Poor mom had eaten her way through a cellar of raw potatoes the winter she carried me, which made me a lot bigger than her little frame could get rid of. She suffered for days until at last she heard the cry she had been waiting for. When talking about my birth mom would always say Dr. Burr held me up by my feet and said, “My God, that’s not a baby….she’s half grown.”
I weighed in like a prize fighter at a whopping 12 lbs. 2 oz. Mom said I was so chubby I had dimples above each finger and rolls down my arms and legs. I had dark hair growing half-way down my neck and I raised the roof with my hollering. The date was May 28th, 1932. Mom’s younger sister, Inabelle, was graduating from high school that evening so grandma had gone to see her graduate and grandpa stayed with mom. He wasn’t one to like dressing up or going to social functions. Mom’s aunt Nonie was the nursemaid and gave me my first bath. After some thought about a name for me, my mom’s uncle Joe (who was there at the time) said, “Why don’t you name her Esther after yer ma?” And then my middle name was for aunt Inabelle whose birthday was the day before I was born and the day she graduated…..and so it was settled. I would be Esther Belle Andersen.
Dad had taken mom to grandma and grandpa Stricklett’s when she went into labor so I was born at Blair in their house. Louis and I were the only two grand-children born at our grandparents. Mom and I were there until she was able to ride to Omaha where we lived. I was placed in a dresser drawer for a bed since it was a small apartment run by a Mrs. Brewster.
Dad was working nights and sleeping days. With the warmer weather and small quarters with a baby crying it was becoming unbearable. When dad discovered cockroaches on my bedding one morning he decided we had to get out of there as soon as we could. My brother was three years old at the time and he couldn’t go outside to play so it was not good living conditions.
Dad set about making a trailer for us to live in and worked hard to get it finished so we could move. Dad might have been poor but he was never lazy. He worked on it as much as he could and finally had it good enough to move into. Dad’s brother, Emil, and his two children, Doris and Billy lived out on 76th and Center Streets. He had their trailer parked in the yard of a farmer who grew asparagus and raised chickens. They rented space to mom and dad and so we moved immediately. We were a little west of the Aksarban Race Track on the other side of the road.
My earliest recollections are at the “Hook’s” place. Doris and Billy, Louis and I were all very young. Their mother, Helen, had died of breast cancer and their baby brother, Harold Gene, was being raised by their grandparents. Mom watched after Doris and Billy while uncle Emil worked, as well as Louis and me. In fact, she kind of watched all the children who stayed there.
One day we were playing in the chicken yard where an old cook stove had been discarded. It was under a mulberry tree and I wanted to pick mulberry’s and make a “cake.” The lids were gone on top of the stove so I picked up a piece of orange crate and placed it over the hole. I climbed up and stood on the thin piece of wood, reaching for the berries…..suddenly before I could react, the wood gave way and I fell into the firebox. A rusty screw was sticking out from the edge and as I fell it scratched my leg clear to the bone on the outside of my right knee.
A neighbor lady come running and wrapped a diaper around my leg to stop the bleeding and then took mom and me to a First Aid Station up the road a ways. They told mom it was too deep for them to fix there, that I would need to go to a doctor and have stitches taken. The neighbor lady took us on to a doctor and he took us right in. They put me on a table and laid me down. The doctor explained he needed to put me out to sew it up and told her to go out of the room and sit down somewhere.
She sat on the top step, just out of the room and heard them ask me if I liked perfume? I said I did and the nurse said she was going to give me some. She walked up behind me and slapped a cloth over my face and I couldn’t breathe or get my breath. I was crying and calling for mama when I passed out…….mom told me later it was so hard to sit there and not come in. The smell of ether just about made her sick. We were to go back to have the dressing changed in a few days.
When we did, the doctor ripped the tape off and it really hurt. On the third visit, I sat in the waiting room peeling very gently, hoping to get the tape off before we went in. No luck. He just laughed and pulled it off as before. I didn’t have to go back after that. Being so traumatized that ordeal is something I never forgot…..and so it was, that I lived over my first accident…….and never, ever stepped on anything that thin again……….
Until tomorrow,
Essentially Esther
Facts state my entrance was on a Saturday night about 10:00 pm when I finally exited my mother who was pretty well out of it at the time. Poor mom had eaten her way through a cellar of raw potatoes the winter she carried me, which made me a lot bigger than her little frame could get rid of. She suffered for days until at last she heard the cry she had been waiting for. When talking about my birth mom would always say Dr. Burr held me up by my feet and said, “My God, that’s not a baby….she’s half grown.”
I weighed in like a prize fighter at a whopping 12 lbs. 2 oz. Mom said I was so chubby I had dimples above each finger and rolls down my arms and legs. I had dark hair growing half-way down my neck and I raised the roof with my hollering. The date was May 28th, 1932. Mom’s younger sister, Inabelle, was graduating from high school that evening so grandma had gone to see her graduate and grandpa stayed with mom. He wasn’t one to like dressing up or going to social functions. Mom’s aunt Nonie was the nursemaid and gave me my first bath. After some thought about a name for me, my mom’s uncle Joe (who was there at the time) said, “Why don’t you name her Esther after yer ma?” And then my middle name was for aunt Inabelle whose birthday was the day before I was born and the day she graduated…..and so it was settled. I would be Esther Belle Andersen.
Dad had taken mom to grandma and grandpa Stricklett’s when she went into labor so I was born at Blair in their house. Louis and I were the only two grand-children born at our grandparents. Mom and I were there until she was able to ride to Omaha where we lived. I was placed in a dresser drawer for a bed since it was a small apartment run by a Mrs. Brewster.
Dad was working nights and sleeping days. With the warmer weather and small quarters with a baby crying it was becoming unbearable. When dad discovered cockroaches on my bedding one morning he decided we had to get out of there as soon as we could. My brother was three years old at the time and he couldn’t go outside to play so it was not good living conditions.
Dad set about making a trailer for us to live in and worked hard to get it finished so we could move. Dad might have been poor but he was never lazy. He worked on it as much as he could and finally had it good enough to move into. Dad’s brother, Emil, and his two children, Doris and Billy lived out on 76th and Center Streets. He had their trailer parked in the yard of a farmer who grew asparagus and raised chickens. They rented space to mom and dad and so we moved immediately. We were a little west of the Aksarban Race Track on the other side of the road.
My earliest recollections are at the “Hook’s” place. Doris and Billy, Louis and I were all very young. Their mother, Helen, had died of breast cancer and their baby brother, Harold Gene, was being raised by their grandparents. Mom watched after Doris and Billy while uncle Emil worked, as well as Louis and me. In fact, she kind of watched all the children who stayed there.
One day we were playing in the chicken yard where an old cook stove had been discarded. It was under a mulberry tree and I wanted to pick mulberry’s and make a “cake.” The lids were gone on top of the stove so I picked up a piece of orange crate and placed it over the hole. I climbed up and stood on the thin piece of wood, reaching for the berries…..suddenly before I could react, the wood gave way and I fell into the firebox. A rusty screw was sticking out from the edge and as I fell it scratched my leg clear to the bone on the outside of my right knee.
A neighbor lady come running and wrapped a diaper around my leg to stop the bleeding and then took mom and me to a First Aid Station up the road a ways. They told mom it was too deep for them to fix there, that I would need to go to a doctor and have stitches taken. The neighbor lady took us on to a doctor and he took us right in. They put me on a table and laid me down. The doctor explained he needed to put me out to sew it up and told her to go out of the room and sit down somewhere.
She sat on the top step, just out of the room and heard them ask me if I liked perfume? I said I did and the nurse said she was going to give me some. She walked up behind me and slapped a cloth over my face and I couldn’t breathe or get my breath. I was crying and calling for mama when I passed out…….mom told me later it was so hard to sit there and not come in. The smell of ether just about made her sick. We were to go back to have the dressing changed in a few days.
When we did, the doctor ripped the tape off and it really hurt. On the third visit, I sat in the waiting room peeling very gently, hoping to get the tape off before we went in. No luck. He just laughed and pulled it off as before. I didn’t have to go back after that. Being so traumatized that ordeal is something I never forgot…..and so it was, that I lived over my first accident…….and never, ever stepped on anything that thin again……….
Until tomorrow,
Essentially Esther
