Nana Biography

Not knowing anybody, I just went out with the buggy to the park and was a mother. And at night we tipped the elevator boy, and we left that baby alone in the apartment a lot of times and he was supposed to go and check. The baby never woke up at night, he was a perfect child. Our first child was so easy to raise, he just smiled and laughed, and he never cried, and he never did anything wrong, and so I never was concerned about him at all. 

How was it to be a mother? 

I really didn’t think about it a lot. When I knew I was pregnant I was sort of excited, and I can’t really look back and feel that I had this warm feeling that some people have, I didn’t, I didn’t automatically embrace the baby, and I don’t know why. But I was a good mother, I mean, I cared for him And I thought he was cute and I played with him. He had lots of love and attention. It was not spoiled, I’m not the kind that would spoil a child, and we had a couple of hard times there. Let me just think what that was. During when we went back, that’s right, when we went back east, we stopped in Kentucky to see my mother, and I was pregnant. No, we were living in Washington, that’s it, 

Don was going to be sent to Quantico Virginia to learn how to shoot, target practice, for two or three weeks, and rather than me, this was January or February, rather than have me stay and Washington alone, I drove myself to Kentucky. It’s not very far, but it was overnight. And I stopped at one of these tourist homes on the way and I had a dog with me, and I was pregnant. I had the baby in May, so I was five or six months along then. And I got to Monte Vista, went to visit my family, and while I was there, I stayed the whole time. 

My mother was felt sure that I should not drive back alone, but she didn’t say that, she just said, “why don’t you have Shelby, he’s my brother, my half brother, drive back to Washington with you? And by that time we got along beautifully. My brother, I didn’t like him as a little baby, but now we were really buddies, and he liked me, and I liked him and I said, “oh that would be terrific. Let’s see. I must’ve been 25 or 26, and he must’ve been about 16.

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