Ok, so in this first year we have my seventeen year old mother and her new seventeen year old husband living in a trailer with my sixteen year old aunt. And my grandparents have up and moved to Kansas. Can anyone imagine anything like this happening today? You can not just move your teenage kids into some shoddy single-wide aluminum shelter and take off. But that is what happened in 1967 in Marshalltown, Iowa.
Without school to go to, my mother sought out employment. She took advantage of some social connections my grandparents had with people who worked at a small manufacturing plant in town. But, in 1967 it was not common for a woman with a new born child to be out of the home working. So, the company suggested that they could hire my mother if she did not have a baby at home which would be a distraction from the labor and such. My grandparents agreed to take me in for the better part of this year so my mother could work. My mother's plan to stay in Marshalltown and have a child was probably not working out exactly as planned, I would guess.
So, without the baby around, two seventeen year olds living together and being teenagers....well, their relationship soured. Big shock! Who would have thought that two seventeen year olds would fail at marriage under these conditions? Vegas odds makers would not take that bet.
But fear not, somewhere across a crowded manufacturing building my mother finds favor with another fellow worker. Don Frohwein. Hmmmm.....that last name sounds familiar.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Year Zero - 1966
I am starting a blog to recount my memories from each year of my life. These are things I have been told and things I actually remember. I am going to attempt to blog once a week, so by the end of 2011 I will have covered each year in my 45 years on the planet.
I am not doing any extensive plotting or planning to recount these memories. Some things might actually be a generalization of the events for that year or time of my life. I am going to attempt to make each year unique and include the important events that happened to me or around me.
I do not plan to offend or disparage anyone with these blog posts. Anyone who is featured in my blog that has a different take on how or what happened - you are welcome to make corrective remarks in the comments section. I will not be offended and I hope you won't either, if I happen to recall something incorrectly.
So, on with the blog......
Year Zero
I was born on November 23, 1966 in Marshalltown, Iowa. It was the day before Thanksgiving. I remember my mother telling everyone in later years that she had to have Thanksgiving dinner in the hospital that year. But they did serve turkey and stuffing. Thanksgiving has thus become my defacto birthday week. I Try to celebrate the whole week and have regularly taken that week off from work. For many years I have made the entire Thanksgiving dinner including a whole turkey, even if I am celebrating alone.
My birth was a whole dramafest in itself though. Being a November birth means that my mother got pregnant in February. Possibly a Valentine's Day baby...I guess. But the drama was that my mother was only sixteen years old when she got pregnant. See, my grandparents had made a decision to relocate the family and my mother was simply not interested in moving. She was a strong willed young woman and made the declaration that she would not be moving. She would do anything to make sure that she did not move - including getting pregnant! Well, she made good on that promise. I guess she wanted to stay in Marshalltown, Iowa with her friends and possibly graduate with them instead of moving to some new town where she knew no one. I can kind of understand her view, but not really the methods she went to to achieve her goal. Even though they did result in my birth.
My mother had a boyfriend named Dave Presnell. I hear they had been going out for a while. And upon learning of my impending birth, Dave supposedly did the right thing and proposed to my mother. Not really the order things happened in at that time. My mother was summarily dismissed from Marshalltown High School. Pregnant girls were not really welcome in the public school system at that time. At least my mother was not shipped off to some secret birthing home as you see in some old movies and tv shows.
My mother was set up with a nice trailer to live in and her younger sister, Patty, stayed in Marshalltown too and lived with us. My mother's older sister, Charlene, was pregnant at the exact same time. She gave birth to my cousin Kyle on November 13th and it is legend that both women were at the hospital on that day with labor pains. Only I was not born, the pains I made were considered false. Ten days later I was born.
Well, I was born. That is the start of this story. I hope you enjoy the ride this year. It's going to get bumpy pretty fast. As if year zero was not already a roller coaster.....
I am not doing any extensive plotting or planning to recount these memories. Some things might actually be a generalization of the events for that year or time of my life. I am going to attempt to make each year unique and include the important events that happened to me or around me.
I do not plan to offend or disparage anyone with these blog posts. Anyone who is featured in my blog that has a different take on how or what happened - you are welcome to make corrective remarks in the comments section. I will not be offended and I hope you won't either, if I happen to recall something incorrectly.
So, on with the blog......
Year Zero
I was born on November 23, 1966 in Marshalltown, Iowa. It was the day before Thanksgiving. I remember my mother telling everyone in later years that she had to have Thanksgiving dinner in the hospital that year. But they did serve turkey and stuffing. Thanksgiving has thus become my defacto birthday week. I Try to celebrate the whole week and have regularly taken that week off from work. For many years I have made the entire Thanksgiving dinner including a whole turkey, even if I am celebrating alone.
My birth was a whole dramafest in itself though. Being a November birth means that my mother got pregnant in February. Possibly a Valentine's Day baby...I guess. But the drama was that my mother was only sixteen years old when she got pregnant. See, my grandparents had made a decision to relocate the family and my mother was simply not interested in moving. She was a strong willed young woman and made the declaration that she would not be moving. She would do anything to make sure that she did not move - including getting pregnant! Well, she made good on that promise. I guess she wanted to stay in Marshalltown, Iowa with her friends and possibly graduate with them instead of moving to some new town where she knew no one. I can kind of understand her view, but not really the methods she went to to achieve her goal. Even though they did result in my birth.
My mother had a boyfriend named Dave Presnell. I hear they had been going out for a while. And upon learning of my impending birth, Dave supposedly did the right thing and proposed to my mother. Not really the order things happened in at that time. My mother was summarily dismissed from Marshalltown High School. Pregnant girls were not really welcome in the public school system at that time. At least my mother was not shipped off to some secret birthing home as you see in some old movies and tv shows.
My mother was set up with a nice trailer to live in and her younger sister, Patty, stayed in Marshalltown too and lived with us. My mother's older sister, Charlene, was pregnant at the exact same time. She gave birth to my cousin Kyle on November 13th and it is legend that both women were at the hospital on that day with labor pains. Only I was not born, the pains I made were considered false. Ten days later I was born.
Well, I was born. That is the start of this story. I hope you enjoy the ride this year. It's going to get bumpy pretty fast. As if year zero was not already a roller coaster.....
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