Barbara Rogers - Chapter 3

Looking back, stories of the elders and ancestors.

The Ford Fairlane and me, with the Corpus Christi apartment no. 2 upstairs background

From single to married to motherhood.

It was busy, interesting, full of excitement, boring at times, challenging, disappointing, and full of mistakes, mostly unintentionally.

I'd met my fiancé' while a freshman in college, as he was a friend of the college household where I was living that year. Doug was riding a motorcycle, which I thought to be great fun (never having been on one) and for our first date we drove down from the campus to the nearby town for pizza. (There may have been a movie also.) We kidded around and he left to go to California to join the Coast Guard where his older friend, MacMillan had also joined. Since Doug had quit college before graduating he became an enlisted 'Coastie' while Mac became an officer. I didn't meet Mac until after I'd married Doug.

In the meantime we corresponded for several years. He was stationed for a year in isolated duty in the Aleutian Islands of Alaska, back when the cold war still made it imperative to know what the Soviets were doing (before satellites there was LORAN, long range radar.) 

What's amazing to me, all these years later, is that Doug saved my letters and sent them to me when he finally downsized from his house to move into a senior living apartment a few years ago. I'm slowly transcribing them, as I edit out many of my silly comments. And sorry, I don't have his replies still. But in the early 60's I see I was clearly flirtatious, romantic to a fault, and always teasing about who I'd marry (since that was the goal of my friends and myself apparently.)

So of course he knew about my failed romance and how I'd become a stewardess living in Miami. And I invited him to come visit when he got his month long leave after isolated duty. Of course he took me up on that, and we spent an intense week or more together, before he returned home to Connecticut where his parents lived. I managed a flight in that direction to meet his parents. He met mine before when I lived in St. Louis, but I don't remember that, however I mentioned it in one of my early letters to him!

A tangle develops now. First we are engaged, and I meet parents. We rushed to get to a beach before he went home because. honestly, he had no tan yet...because we spent a lot of time being intimate. But it was not enough and he still wasn't tan...we said it had rained a lot! Then his next posting was in New Orleans, but somehow I had his car with me in Miami. So when I was dearly missing him and thought I'd have a long Labor Day weekend without any flights, I drove nonstop to New Orleans. Put that long drive on top of probably coming down with tonsilitis, and I fell into fever and non-stop crying. I decided to quit flying in order to live with Doug. We found a small efficiency in the French Quarter. But by then I'd probably given the bug to Doug, and he felt pretty bad but made it to work for a few days. However when I called to quit at Pan Am they told me I was supposed to be on a flight that day to New Orleans. I didn't have my uniform with me, and they didn't exactly want me to get on the flight, since they'd found a replacement. So I drove back non-stop to Miami, and quit in person. The driving was not on interstate highways most of the time, so today's 13 hour trip must have taken quite a bit longer.

Then packed up all my worldly goods into Doug's car, and arrived back in New Orleans. I was still feverish and  didn't know what that was all about really (due to being raised in Christian Science.) I finally went to a doctor who said I no longer had any tonsils, that they must have been removed. I said no, but I sure had had a sore throat for a while. They said sometimes they burn away with a fever...so I guess that happened.

I then decided to go home to St. Louis and we could plan a December wedding. So I flew home to my parents, with engagement ring, no longer a stewardess after just 7 months, and no tonsils. Little did I know, I was already pregnant!

Then Doug got transferred to Corpus Christi. This may have been the result of either my moving in with him in New Orleans, or his being sick, or I don't know what. However he called that he was going there on the ship, and could I come back and drive his car to his new posting from New Orleans.

So I flew back, and drove his car to Corpus Christi, and we looked into seriously living together by apartment hunting. By then we knew I was pregnant, though didn't have a confirmation (there weren't those little sticks back then, it had to be a bunny test). So we made up a story that we'd already secretly married in Sept. in New Orleans, at about the time I would have gotten pregnant!

And after the Dr. said for sure we were expecting, then we went to a church and really got married, just the wrong month. We took a few pictures, and sent them to parents on both sides, and my folks made an announcement for the St. Louis papers reflecting the Sept. date. We found a little apartment and dealt with becoming a domestic pair, when he wasn't on long trips for the Coast Guard. We did travel by train for the Thanksgiving holiday in St. Louis where my folks gave us a wedding announcement reception and the only new clothes I had were maternity garb. That made everyone know just what was what of course, though I was only 3 months along! This had all happened in the year 1963...my life did many turn-arounds that year!

I found out the woman across the hall from us was a hooker, and other things happened (late night parties?) so we moved to another apartment above a minister for the Bible thumping church across the street. They also made lots of music (drums, tambourines, horns, guitars) but it was on Sunday mornings, and maybe a few evenings too. I got to know another woman across the way in another apartment.

 And we had our first child in May of 1964. I've written about that experience which was never to be called a blessed event by me!  Here.

When Doug's enlistment period was over in January of 1965 we took little one by car first to St. Louis...though my parents had visited us when he was born. I didn't really want to live where I'd be constantly in contact with my mother (a bit domineering I thought.) so we decided to move to Hartford CT to be near his parents. Oh boy, fun with a mother-in-law now, and again being disappointed that all my romantic ideals were just ideals, not real life.

More to next chapter! Fortunately, I don't think I ever again did as much as I did the year I turned 21.