Wedding Bells to Baby Rattle

After the excitement and flurry of activity of the marriage ceremony was over, we settled down in our own little garage apartment.  We had a tiny kitchen, living room, bedroom and bathroom.  We had new furniture we had purchased with weekly payments.  We had a borrowed car. 

Around October, it became pretty obvious I was pregnant.  I was sick as a dog and wanted to throw up my toenails.  A visit to Dr. Brown verified my suspicion, and we proudly announced to everybody that would listen we were going to become a family.   Our friends the Lawson's were expecting as well.  They had married just a couple of week before us so we had lots to talk about. 

Since we had to climb about 18 steep stairs, we decided it wasn’t very safe and found a cute little bungalow off N. Main Street and moved in by Thanksgiving.  It had the same amount of space but was a walk in from outside, and we felt like we had our own little home.    

Our social life consisted of visiting with our friends, Martha Jane and Al, Jimmy and Shirley, and Buck and Bunny and playing bridge at each other’s homes and fish fry's at somebody's house.   None of us had much money but we had a lot of laughs and enjoyed sharing stories.  Those who did have children would bring them along and make pallets for them at their bedtime in one room and we would gather in another for a game of cards. 

I wasn’t much of a cook then, but I was willing to tackle anything.   Sollie, the great white hunter that he was, brought home a couple of squirrels and wanted me to fry them up for supper with some gravy.  I was pretty naïve, but if he wanted squirrels, he would get them.  He skinned them, and I floured and fried those little things in a pan of hot grease, making gravy just like my Daddy had taught me – flour and water.  It looked pretty good.  I’m not even going to try to explain what this stuff tasted like but, being pregnant and nauseous, I’m not quite sure how I made it through the process.    

Our heat, a little gas heater, was cozy and warm.  I scorched my nylon slip many times as I backed up to warm my buns.   During the day, I would get in our borrowed car and drive over to my Momma’s house playing with Charly or sit in the beauty shop while she worked,  thereby getting all the latest local news and killing time waiting for Sollie to get off from work.  

Around Christmas, or maybe a little later, my Daddy asked Sollie if he thought he would like to work at the shipyard in Savannah where he had worked during the war.  Daddy had a cousin who worked there and said he thought sure he could get Sollie a job there if he wanted to.  So, here we go off to Savannah leaving our little bungalow.  

Working in the shipyard was a downright dirty job!  All I could see was the whites of Sollie’s eyes when he got home, but he was proud of his job and was making pretty decent money for a couple of newly married young’un’s like us.    We found an apartment in Garden City which had two bedrooms, a living room, kitchen and bath.  Ours was on the second floor and the stairs were not too bad in the front.  The back was a different story.  Straight down to the clothes line. We didn’t have a washing machine or dryer so every day I would put Sollie’s dirty clothes in the bathtub with detergent, let them soak, wash them, wring them out and put the pants on stretchers.  Then, I hauled them down those wrought iron stairs to the clothes line to hang to dry.  If the wind was blowing the wrong way, I would be in trouble.  Anyway who has lived in that area in or near Savannah knows all about the soot from the Union Bag’s smoke stacks, not to mention the odor.   Many is the time that I’d bring in those clothes which had dried, but during the process accumulated enough black soot so that sometimes I’d have to wash all over again. But when you’re young, in love, and stupid, things like that don’t matter and you only know happiness and joy that you’re going to have a baby and be a family living in a vine covered cottage very soon.  Yeah, right.  

My days were spent washing by hand the sweet little diaper shirts, long gowns, and bibs that had been passed to me that Momma had made for baby Charly.  Then I’d iron them, fold them, sprinkle with baby power and place in the chest of drawers in anticipation of the birth of my baby.   We did have a small black and white television and I watch soap operas while I ironed.  We had no air conditioning, but a big box fan.  The floors were black asphalt tile and I mopped and waxed them to shiny perfection.  We had no friends locally.  I was lonely, but happy.

Since I had already started seeing Dr. Brown, I continued to see him after our move.  Daddy helped us find a car and we would drive back to Swainsboro for my doctor visits and Sollie’s National Guard duties.   When it was near my due date, I went to Momma’s and Daddy’s to stay until the birth of the baby.  Momma had made the most precious bassinet decorating it with white tulle, satin, and little tine ribbons of pink and blue.  It looked like a mini casket!    Bottles, nipples, rings, caps, pot for boiling were on hand so all I needed was to get the show on the road and have that baby.  And he was going to look exactly like my sweet brother, Charly,  who I thought to be the most beautiful little baby boy in the world.   I waited and I waited.  Two weeks, three weeks, and no baby. 

It was the middle of June and watermelons were ripe and I love watermelon!   Daddy brought home a huge watermelon one day, sliced it open and I ate watermelon like I’d never had anything to eat in my life.    About dark, I began to have the stomach ache from hell.  I thought to myself, now you’ve done it.   I huffed and puffed and waddled around trying to get comfortable.  Then, we all decided maybe it wasn’t the watermelon after all.  Duh. Maybe I was actually in labor.  A call was made to Sollie who was in Hinesville at summer National Guard Camp.  He jumps in our little red Ford and races to Swainsboro.  Somehow after he gets to Swainsboro, the pains just stopped.  I mean, stopped!  What the heck?  Now what? Sollie had driven 90 miles home at 100 mph for nothing.  He went on back to Hinesville. 

Sollie probably had not gotten out of town good before those pains came back with a vengeance.  I’m talking serious, stick stack, no take back, pains that left me knowing there was no doubt this was it.  By the time Sollie drives up to his barracks in the wee hours of the morning, they tell him I’ve gone to the hospital and he needs to come back.  OMG.  Now, he’s got to turn around and drive the 90 miles back in time to get there for the delivery.  God was surely with him because I’m sure the needle circled the dial and he drove like a mad man to get back to Swainsboro to see his baby be born! 

As it turned out, it was well after daylight, but sure enough, the beautiful baby we were looking for came into this world sporting a whole head of hair, hairy legs and arms, beautiful blue eyes, and all 8lbs 8 oz. of him looked nothing at all like Charly, but he was the most beautiful blond haired, blue eyed baby we had ever seen. 

As providence would have it, after all those times I had driven back to Swainsboro to have Dr. Brown deliver the baby, he had left for a fishing trip that week and Dr. Moye, a local doctor, brought my baby boy into this world.   Wouldn’t you know it?