SIU EDWARDSVILLE

SIU EDWARDSVILLE AND DIANA'S BIRTH

We moved from Tennessee to an apartment in Troy, Illinois, so that John could attend SIU in Edwardsville. During the summer before the new school year started we both signed up for jobs on campus. I had to take a civil service test and I got 110. When I finished doing the timed shorthand test I asked the monitor what I was supposed to do when I finished and told her I just started over. She said "I don't know. No one has ever done that before." I got a job working as a secretary in the New Experimental Teacher Education Program or NEXTEP. The program allowed participating teachers to get their Masters Degrees in one year instead of three years. John worked under the student workers program as a draftsman. He hated it but he was good at it.

The teachers picked up on the fact that I was a good writer so I got requests to re-write their Master's Thesis to improve it. I was to do it on the side with pay. I did one but that was enough for me. Too much work. I wondered why I with only a high school education was improving the work of teachers working toward a Master's Degree.

I wasn't there long until I discovered I was pregnant. I wasn't sick at all. But at three months along I began to have major cramps. Then I started bleeding. I told John to take me to the hospital emergency room. It was at night and it was snowing. The hospital was not close. I don't even remember which one it was -- possibly Edwardsville. When I got to the hospital they checked me then called the doctor. He told them to send me home. He was President of a Jewish Conference and couldn't be bothered. So John took me home but the pains got worse and closer together. I finally told John that I don't care what the doctor says, I need to go back to the emergency room. I can't stand any more. By then we were having a blizzard. It was one of the biggest snowstorms we had in a long while. The only way we got there safely was behind a snow plow. I thought it must have been sent by God. When I got to the hospital they kept me this time. They gave me a pitcher and told me to put that under me when I went to the bathroom. I did and out came my little one. I was devastated. It was blue but it had the shape of John's head and therefore it had an identity as our child.

One year later I got pregnant again and was so sick that I could no longer work. Fortunately John graduated in January. Then we moved to an apartment in Belleville for a couple of months and then to an apartment in Millstadt. I had Diana while we were living there. The girl next door had had a baby boy a short time before so we became good friends. We're still friends through facebook.

We had two walk-in closets in the bedroom and only needed one. So we took the doors off the other one and took out the clothes rack and put the baby bed in there and a changing table. It was a perfect arrangement.

Mom came to help me the first week after I brought Diana home. John cut his finger and was sure it was to the bone. Mom said she would put a Band-Aid on it so they both went into the bathroom where the medicine cabinet was. She opened the door and hit him in the head. He started swooning like he was going to pass out and Mom could hardly stop laughing. I was familiar with his phobia about blood (and needles) because he nearly passed out when we got our required blood tests before we married. It was still funny to witness.

We lived in that apartment a year or two then moved to an old German house. More about it on the next page.