One of Seven

OK, everybody, I’m starting a new wrinkle on my guest pieces on Jeff’s blog. I’m going to be talking about my CHILDREN, all seven of them, in their young days when I knew them best (probably, well, maybe). So stay tuned for all the lowdown on them as viewed from their devoted mother’s eyes…
First of the 7 member crew, of course, was LINDA RAE. Born 19 July 1948, 2 weeks early, she was actually scheduled for very close to our first marriage anniversary date, which would be 4 August 1948. But this girl has always been a mover and shaker and even at that early stage, was in a hurry to get here. Actually, I probably encouraged her arrival by walking around the exhibiton grounds (the fair was on in Edmonton) all day long; maybe just a touch of pre-meditation there, I was very sick of being pregnant and anxious to get it all over with. Anyhow, she arrived after a fairly long labour, weighing in at 6 lbs. 10 oz. Good weight, and strong, healthy baby EXCEPT a birth defect, hare lip and cleft palate. This was the first strike against poor baby Linda, to have a disfigurement which could prove to be a great deterrent to her future well-being, socially and emotionally…..but NOT SO, this was (and still is) A VALIANT SPIRIT! And through the blessings of cosmetic surgery and a medical miracle, she endured surgery three times, at 6 weeks, 9 months, and 8 years of age …… the first to fix her lip, the second for some better repair on lip and beginning on the palate, the third to construct a pseudo-palate using a brand new technique improvised by her very skilled surgeon who devised this just for her. It consisted of going further down into her throat and bringing a "flap" of skin forward in hopes that it would survive and help her speech. I was to be extremely careful, only feed her liquids after this procedure, and this I adhered to as closely as I could. She was to go back to the surgeon (Dr. Hitchin) after a week, he looked in her mouth/throat with a flashlight, "It’s all shot to HELL!" he snarled, quite enraged at the thought his work would not appear in the medical journals after all, very disappointed. "What should I feed her now, doctor?" I said. "Anything she wants. It doesn’t matter, it’s a failure!". So the kid was starving for solid food after a week of soup and juice and milkshakes….and tied right into a hamburger and fries as soon as we got away from the Doctor’s office. Fast forward a month, she was to go back for a further check-up to make sure no infection, etc. When I phoned for the appointment, Dr. Hitchin himself came on the phone, and inquired, what colour is the child’s mouth where I tried to put the flap?" I answered, "Doctor, it’s pink, and it certainly doesn’t look like it did when she was born!" He virtually yelled into the phone, "Bring her in to the office as soon as you can get here!". So I did, he examined her palate, and with a huge sigh of relief, said "It’s all there! There must have been so much slough-off that I couldn’t see that it was intact. This is miraculous, it’s never been tried before, and I’ve now proven that it works!". OH HAPPY DAY! The night before the operation I asked the elders to come and give her a blessing that everything would go well, and our righteous desires be fulfilled, NEVER, EVER DISCOUNT A PRIESTHOOD BLESSING!
The picture you see here was of Linda after the 2nd operation, she was 9 months old then, holding her favorite teddy, see the white hospital tag still around its neck. I took this picture of her on our sofa an hour after we brought her home. She was such a favorite of the nurses at the hospital, they wanted to keep her there as long as they could! She recovered wonderfully well, and truthfully, her birth defect, largely corrected, never slowed her down for one minute. She was very bright, very cute with her big blue eyes that could look so innocent when she was actually planning another bit of deviltry. When her neighborhood friends failed to show up, she would play by herself, but she developed an imaginary friend, called "Kibbie", talked to her in a constant stream of conversation, set a place for her when she held her own little tea party. Kibbie had to be included in all her doings, until the ‘real’ kids showed up, then she did the disappearing act. Linda never walked until she was 15 months old, simply because we bought her a ‘state of the art’ walker that was so streamlined and efficient, she could go like the wind in it, negotiating curves and corners with all the skill of a race-car driver. Hey, just thought of it, that was the beginnings of her very accomplished driving skills to this present day!
Linda was a great animal lover, especially dogs, I think I mentioned in the pet post, how she thought nothing of going over to the pound, which was near us in the river valley, looking over the stock, and choosing to BUY the one that struck her fancy. Remember I told you about the Alsatian she paid $5 for, that had such an attitude toward men, that it wouldn’t let Doug into the house when he got off shift at midnite. And remember the Capital Cleaners’ guard dog she ruined! There never was a dog that Linda didn’t like, and needless to say, they liked her back! She was magical with all animals. When she got into her teens, she decided she really liked horses, and so that precipitated many a trip to a local riding academy where she enjoyed learning to ride.
She did develop a bit of a fetish when it came to birds; I think it dated back to when we would let our succession of budgies out of the cage and allowed them to fly around the house, one startled her by landing on her head, and she began a life-long aversion to identified flying objects!
We were really fortunate that Linda developed many close friends with church girls, they kept each other on the straight and narrow, so to speak! In her teens it seemed to be a never-ending exchange of confidences, etc. on the telephone. It was as though the phone was glued to her ear, yattatayattata, for hours on end. Her life revolved around the YWMIA, school, friends, girls, boys.
After high school grad, she went into a nursing training program, worked at it in a half-interested fashion, and finally decided it wasn’t for her…gave that up, and enrolled at the U of A. Here she became heavily involved with the LDS doings at the Institute, and here she met the love of her life, whom she married a few months later. BUT THAT’S ANOTHER STORY. LINDA, will you take it from here? STUART PAUL FAIRBANKS comes into the picture!