In 1922 my mom was born (Doris Rose)
at home, as most babies were at that time.
My Grandma (Madeline Kolbe) had 2 more children after tat but either lived, one was said to be stilled born the other according to Grandma died because the umbilical cord was wrapped around the baby’s neck but the doctor was too drunk (he was at
the local bar when he was found to help with the delivery) and could not help the situation. Because of the lack of Medical knowledge / availability is a 1 reason there was a 10 year difference between my Mom and her sister (Aunt Audrey). Jackie was born 10 days before my mom’s 62nd birthday,
so at Grandma’s birthday she was the youngest grandchild at the party. Here she is with Jackie, Megan-2, Mike-4, Marc-5. Our very sick baby, Jackie, recovering with the help of modern medicine, in the background her oxygen “tent” is sitting in her bed. Arm full of IVs and having her bottom soaked. Finally out of the hospital back at home with that big brother her. Not happy about having to go to yet another hospital, for a double hernia operation, a finale steps in treatment after a tremendous illness. Jackie being our diamond in the sky, being normal and happy in her 2 month old picture.
this is in envelope
I had my little girl, Jacquelyn Rose on May 9, 1984 and she was perfect. At the time I was a stay at home mom so at times I would have my nephews and niece spending time with us (actually splitting babysitting time with Grandpa). When Jackie was 4 weeks old (dealing with a stuffy nose) it wasn’t a surprise to have the living room floor covered with sleeping kids. One night Jackie was having a fit full night and I ended up falling asleep in the lazy boy chair holding her. I woke up a few hours later because my hand that was on her back was so hot, due to the high fever she was running. I called the pediatrician office at 6 am and some one answered, I was told to come in a 7 am. I had to leave immediately with 5 half asleep kids on my floor but at least cousin Colin was 11 at the time, plus I called my dad to let him know what was happening so he could cover for me when & if needed. When Jackie and I arrived at the doctor’s office we were placed in an examination room instantly and the doctor came in as soon as he arrived. After being with us a few minutes he left the room and when he returned the news was shocking. He told me most babies were pink but mine was gray, she was struggling to breath and she had to high of a fever. He continued telling me that I needed to take her immediately to St Johns Hospital (Now Mercy) because it would take to long for an ambulance to arrive and I was to go straight to the emergency entrance. So I started the 17 mile drive, going as fast as possible as I heard Jackie wheezing in her car seat. Along the way I realized the wheezing wasn’t as loud as it had been, so while driving I reached back and put my hand barely felt weak puffs of air coming from her nose. I then put both hands on the wheel and pushed the gas petal to the floor. I could barely see from the tears that wouldn’t stop pouring out of my eyes. I was mentally wishing someone would try to pull me over so I would have an escort down the highway. I really never remember parking or the walk in to the hospital but the minute I walked in a nurse came up to me and asked if I was Mrs. Zimmermann. She stated the doctor had called and she was waiting there to take my baby for testing. So I followed as they took her to the first examination room, they came out and I followed again, the third time some one came out to the small visitor’s room I was sitting in and told me I was disturbing others in the room. They then took me to some doctor’s office and asked if I could call anyone to help me cop with what was happening. So I called my dad (which he told me was over 3 hours after I last time I talked to him) to get Ron’s numbers. Ron found me about an hour later when the priest came in and informed us they would like to Baptist the baby because of her severe condition was not improving, so we moved forward with that, the two of us were just numb. Next we were told that a specialist was coming from Children’s Hospital to look at Jackie, during the wait an Internist told us her liver was shutting down. Then the specialist arrived, he looked at Jackie’s x-rays for a few minutes turned around and started giving orders. He said she had a double hernia that would be taken care of after the immediate problem of pneumonia was treated. They then took us to the Intensive Care Unit where IV drips were stuck in veins in her head (that way they wouldn’t have to restrain her movements) and put her in an oxygen tent which looked like a cake cover with a neck hole. That was the first time I was alone with my baby in hours. She just laid there glossy eyed and worn out. There were puncture holes all over the heals of her feet where blood samples had been taken. I couldn’t even pick her up and hold her there were so many tubes and monitors attached to her. Jackie’s stay in Intensive Care went on for 4 more days; the nurses would fight to be her care giver since she was the sweetest patient they had. At night when I could not stay any longer they would sit and rock her through the night. She wasn’t allowed on the infant’s floor because they didn’t want her to possibly infect any other baby so they would have to call some nurses down from that floor to put in IVs and administer some injections. It was discovered on day 2 that meningitis was developing but the doctors had that covered in an IV drip. On day 5 they were testing her for cystic fibrosis, for that test they injected her with radio active fluids so when they did the CAT scan they could examine her lungs, the consensus was that her lungs were not clearing as quickly as they thought they should. We were blessed when those tests came back negative. During this time Jackie’s little bottom had a bad case of diaper rash so we had to soak it to help the healing; there were still IVs in her arm. Day 5 we were moved to a general peditactic room and no more complications accord. Jackie was released on day 10. But the day before her release the family was given an antibiotic to make sure none of us were carrying the germ that made her so sick in the first place. Mike was quite amazed the first time he went to the bathroom and the water turned a brilliant bright orange. The first day we were home I had to contact the Specialist at Children’s Hospital to set up the operation for her double hernia. For 10 days Mike had been staying with his cousins & grandparents. During this time he dived into an empty pillow case and broke his nose so there was one more doctor trip. He had just been hearing about his new sister being so sick so when we finally were all home he had fun playing hide from Jackie and checking out her new special pacifier, a bottle nipple stuffed with gauze and taped shut. Jackie was getting stronger every day so when I dressed her on July 8th she was not happy, but I wonder if she knew she was headed for yet another round of doctors and nurses at a hospital. We had to go have the double hernia operation preformed. She only came home with taped cuts from that surgery which healed very quickly. Since that whole experience my thoughts about Medicine have been – All in the Medical field does their best but at times they don’t have all the answers, the constant improvements that are made are all in our favor. My theory is if Jackie had been born 60 or even possibly 40 years earlier she would of not of been able to go have her 2 month old picture taken.
I first tried out for the Volleyball team in the 5th Grade; I still remember how nervous I was. Only 8 girls could make the team. It was done based on a skill score that you received from various drills. I was shocked to see when the team roster was listed that I was on the team! 5th graders were on the “C” team. I remember getting so excited for our once a week practices. I completely fell in love with the game- every part of it. So of course I tried out again in 6th grade. If you were good enough, you could potentially be put on an upper class team. I was secretly hoping to make it on the “B” Team- or the 7th grade team. I again when through tryouts- when the list of each team was posted, I read mine name on C Team- ok good, I made a team, then saw my name on B Team, awesome, BUT ON THE A TEAM LIST?! SERIOUSLY?! WITH THE BIG BAD 8th GRADERS????!!!! I was elated but tried not to show it to much to my friends who hadn’t made a higher team. I could hardly contain myself that I would be practicing with 8th Graders!!!! I remember telling my Mom after school that day that I made the “A” team and she was completely excited for me. Volleyball played a huge role in my life, it taught me how to set a goal and achieve it, how to deal with pressure and how to assess everyone’s strengths and weaknesses and make the team as effective as possible. We must have done something right- we went to State our senior year!
What I remember the
most about gym class at Rosary High School were the locker room and the ugly
gym uniforms. They were a hideous gold, one piece, jump suit with shorts sort
of thing. Everybody had to wear them, so it was just normal. We started each class
with calisthenics. It was during the time of the President’s fitness challenge
where you had to do so many sit-ups, push-ups, chin-ups and jumping jacks.
Considering I was at my most physically fit due to all the sports I played, it
amazed me that it was so hard. Of course, back then, “working out” was not part
of sports. We played basketball, field hockey and volleyball at school. Nobody
really liked gym. But we sure did like the gym locker room---and not because we
had to take a shower after each class. Since it was a Catholic school, in the
name of modesty, we each had our own dressing room and private shower. We were
supposed to come out in a towel
I went to Riverview Gardens High School way back in the early 70’s. It was mandatory for all students to take a Gym class. We all had to wear the appointed gym clothes & tennis shoes. {The outfit was a white button short sleeve shirt and blue elastic waist shorts with white crew socks, along with white tennis shoes} Our gym clothes were stored in a blue draw string cloth bag and kept in our lockers until you decided to take them home to be cleaned, some hung out in the bags longer than they should have. In my Jr and Senior years we would take the person’s locker closest to the gym and our group of friends would use it for gym clothes storage so all the stink was in one spot. One disappointment was that out of the group of 8 girls none of us had gym class together. Gym class was some what of a joke; you only ended up with 35 mins to do what ever activity we were learning at the time, the other 20 minutes were used for dressing, then undressing, showers and redressing. So most of our group did more in intramural sports after school, which Rita (Pfeffer) always excelled in (she even played on varsity teams). But intramurals were quite fun, especially the walks home which would lead up to some of our best grand ideas. One trip we decided that we needed to have our own soccer team. At that time girls were just starting to play soccer so there were not manyleagues and it was hard to get any place to sponsor a girl’s team. We ended up paying for our own league fee and then we ended up coming up with our own team name. We used Tasmanian Space Gophers, the name came from Maggie’s older brother so all of us teen age girls said “cool” we’ll use it. {To this day we wonder if it meant more but it will just be one of those unanswered questions} We talked Linda Gillette’s boyfriend & his brother to couch us. They played soccer so it was just more work out for them, making us run, run and run some more. (I ended up being in the best shape of my like at that time.) The league we ended up in was very competitive but we fit. One season I made this Score Board to hang in our Gym locker, to keep track of our games, wins and goals. That season we learned how to play rough, Berkley’s T Js team was full of hackers and many were good at cheap dirty shots. The first game against them they marked Rita and would trip her up any time possible. For the next game we learned to pay back. It worked out that we beat them and ended up taking 2nd place in the league. Those games were played in all weather conditions, good or bad, rain, snow, ice and one never to forget thick shoe sucking mud. All in all we got more out of this “idea” then we ever did in High School Gym Class.
