Today, January 7,
2024, marks my sister Kate’s 70th birthday, her Heavenly
birthday, as she has been gone for many years. I like to think back to the time
of her birth and want to share those memories with my family.
The year was 1955 and we were living in Tuscola, Douglas
County, Illinois, in a small trailer court, in a small trailer, but not as
small as the one we would be living in later that year. By “we” I mean our
mother, Mildred, and her first three children, Pam, Mike, and Fran.
Our dad,
Joe, was out in Colorado that winter of 1954-1955, working for a mining exploration
company, searching for evidence of uranium in Grand County, Colorado, near Hot
Sulphur Springs.
Before Christmas of 1954 our sixty-one-year-old grandmother,
Verla L. Smith, came up from her home in southern Illinois
to stay with us and help mom with us kids while she was hospitalized. Since
Grandma never did learn to drive a car I know one of her other children drove her
those 200 miles to our place in Tuscola.
Mom told us that when Kate was born she had a shock of dark
red hair, a coppery color, on top of her head and the nurses tied a ribbon in
her hair when they first brought her to mom to nurse. Mom named her Kathy Sue,
and most of the time she called her Kathy while the rest of us called her Kate.
I suppose that was dad’s doings as his mother’s family was big on nicknames.
When they came home from the hospital Mom showed me the white
cloth belly band tied around Kate's tummy that held her belly button flat against her stomach, with the remnant of umbilical cord still attached. Each time she
changed Kate’s diaper she removed the belly band and cleaned that area with rubbing alcohol.
Soon Grandma went back home and Mom cared for the four of us by
herself. We had a small black and white television and watched Howdy-Doody,
Topper, and The Loretta Young Show among others, a good baby-sitter when there
is a newborn in the home.
Dad came home in the spring and made plans to move us all
out west as soon as school was out in May. He had a mining job lined up in
Wellpinit, Stevens County, Washington, at a new uranium mine on an Indian
Reservation. His buddy Joe Geiser, who had spent the previous winter with him
in Colorado was also taking his
family back out west and they made plans to drive together, Dad driving our car
and Joe driving his. (This photo is out of order, taken as we entered Colorado).
Within walking distance of the Tuscola trailer court there
was a small park and in May of 1955 there were apple trees in full bloom.
That’s where we had a small end-of-school party, or maybe it was to celebrate my
eighth birthday. It is a happy memory for me and magical with those apple
blossoms dropping their pink petals on the green grass. You see, when you grow
up in a trailer court there is no grass, no flowers, at least not in ours.
Shortly after that Dad packed all of our belongings into a
green canvas car-pack perched atop his 1953 Kaiser car, held in place with
straps and clips. There was a big zipper along one side giving access to
clothing and such during our trip.
In the front seat of our car Mom held four-month old Kathy
on her lap and on the floor boards in front of her she had the makings of
baloney sandwiches in one bag and baby supplies in another. There were no
disposable diapers in those days and I have no idea how Mom dealt with washing
and drying those cloth diapers Kathy wore. In the back seat sat my six-year-old
brother, four-year-old sister, and me – no seat belts to confine us so lots of
room for rough-housing, pinching, crowding, and whining.
Dad drove us from central Illinois,
across Missouri and Kansas,
waiting for nightfall to drive through Kansas
in our car with no air-conditioning. Then into Colorado,
through Denver to Idaho Springs
where we first saw the Rocky Mountains and marveled at
their steep slopes covered in pine trees. Somewhere in Colorado
we met up with guys from the mining company driving a jeep, pulling a small
trailer house. I don’t know how many days it took for the entire cross-country trip
but it was several, before we settled in our new home in Washington
State.
During Kate’s first year of life we lived near Wellpinit in
small bowl-shaped clearing that had once been a CCC
camp. It was close to the uranium mine and had few amenities. Mom carried water from a nearby spring
for us to drink and for her to boil her family’s clothing and those daily
diapers, in a tub over an open fire. We lived in a ten foot long trailer (see it in the back of this photo) and
soon there were two or three other families there near us, including the mine
boss and his wife with two children, a family from Canada, a woman named Pat
Faye and her husband, and a couple of bachelor engineers.
Someone set up an
out-house and a generator for lights. By Thanksgiving, and before the first
snow, we left Wellpinit for Salmon, Idaho,
crossing into Idaho near Coeur
dAlene.
That winter of 1955-1956 in Salmon, Idaho,
was rough. We were living in a motel room on the outskirts of town while Dad
drove over a treacherous mountain pass in that low-slung Kaiser to Cobalt,
Idaho, where he worked in a Cobalt mine. I don’t know how often he made that
drive, probably once a week. Dad had to have his tonsils removed that winter at
the small hospital in Salmon, a risky operation for someone his age. And Kate
was sick that winter, too, possibly with the same bacterial infection that was
in Dad’s throat, for her ears and throat were infected and she became feverish
and listless. I remember that because early on Christmas morning we wanted Kate
to join us in celebrating the holiday, opening gifts together, but Mom said she
was too sick.
As soon as school was out in May 1956, Dad drove us up to
Cobalt where we moved into company housing in that small community, our home
for the next two years. For us three older kids this was a childhood dream come
true with mountains to climb, a fast flowing stream nearby, and the freedom to
roam and explore.
Kate was only sixteen months old when we arrived in Cobalt and a little over three years old when we moved back to Illinois the summer of 1958. As adults us four kids often reminisced about those years out west and Kate felt a little left out because she had no memories to share of that time in our lives.
We returned to Illinois
in our 1956 Pontiac stationwagon, to
southern Illinois where we lived
with my mother’s parents for a few months until Dad rented a house in that tiny
town of Harco, Illinois.
He worked in a coal mine for a short while before, once again, leaving us in
Mom’s care while he looked for work, this time in Chicago
Heights, Illinois, some three
hundred miles north. Dad landed a good job with Ford Motor Company Stamping
Plant in Chicago Heights and right
before Christmas he came to Harco, loaded us up in the Pontiac,
and drove us north to our latest home, an upstairs apartment, rented to him by
a older Polish couple in Chicago Heights.
That was a turning point in our lives for Dad started making good money as a
welder repairman at the auto factory. Financial security was important to Dad and beneficial to us all.
Kate would spend the rest of her life in Illinois,
except for a brief few months in Minnesota
after she married. My sister, brother, and I all moved out west again when we
were older, out of school. Even Dad moved to Arizona
after retiring from Ford, but Kate didn’t yearn for
mountains and streams, the dry climate and mystique of the cowboys and Indians.
She did enjoy visiting us in Colorado
but her heart and home was always Illinois.
Happy Birthday to my baby sister who lives in my heart and
my memories forever. We had some fun adventures together over the years, many
taking place in southern Illinois
at family reunions with Kate's young daughters. I will always be thankful that Kate
invited me to travel with them, camp out, go on road trips, and share her life.
She is the person who taught me to love genealogy, my most passionate hobby
today. And she trusted me with her children, Rachel and Aimee, whom I love
dearly. We all miss you, Kate, and love you forever.
