It’s so quiet. Mr. Stripeypants is down by the reflective heater, listening to me type. When I think of my birth, I think of a young girl, my mother Amelia, only 16 years old. I think of Augusta, Georgia in the 1950’s, Broad Street, one of the widest streets in the world, window shopping, my grandfather hanging out at the White Elephant bar. My mother tells me I had a thick head of black hair and the photographs bear that out. One in particular has me sitting in my grandfather’s lap. He is smiling, I am smiling, in a frilly dress and patent leather shoes.
I once thought I was born out of wedlock but that was another erroneous belief. It wasn’t until a few years ago when Mom and I were talking about her relationship with my father (whom I haven’t seen since I was about 6 years old) that she told me she married my father first — it wasn’t until later that I was conceived and born. I had thought until that time that she married him because she was pregnant. Nope. That’s how I began to learn how important it is to ask all the questions you have for your parents while they are still alive. Their memories may be fading, but at least you will have their version of what happened right from the horse’s mouth.
I was born not long after my Uncle Jack drowned in Clarks Hill Lake. He was only 18. Another assumption I made was that people were sad when I was born, still mourning the death of my uncle. Mom was quick to correct me, told me how joy-filled everyone was when I came into the world. What was it like for a 16-year-old in the 1950’s to birth a child? My father wasn’t a good provider. So my mother left him when I was two and went to work to put food on the table for us. Once she started showing, they made her quit high school, something that would be unthinkable today. They also made her quit her job in the Boy Scout admin office because they thought it would not be a good example for the boys to see a married woman that was pregnant.
It does make me realize how far we have come as women since the 1950’s. I recently heard a woman speak who was a stewardess on Northwest Orient in the 1950’s. She’s written a book and they were interviewing her on MPR. She said they had strict height and weight restrictions on stewardesses and you had to periodically “weigh in.” She also said you had to wear your hair a certain way, could not have dentures or partials, or wear glasses or contacts. Can you imagine the uproar today if those kinds of restrictions were put on American women?
But back to my birth. My earliest memories are not until I am about 6 years old. But once I went under hypnosis and remembered my birth father throwing me up in his arms and catching me, a loving gesture. I was an infant, all smiles. When I think of my birth, I think of my grandmother, too. And wish I could ask her what it was like for her when I was born. My mother tells me that nursing was painful. It makes me want to ask other women if nursing is painful for them. I never hear anyone talk about it. Much like I never hear people talk about miscarriages.
There are so many opportunities for women to be shamed. Are they good mothers, do they nurse, have they miscarried — many things which are out of their control. Did they have a natural birth or was labor induced. All of this falls on women, women who become mothers. A few years ago, my mother and I tried to find her step-sister’s grave. She died shortly after birth and my grandmother had scraped together the money for a marker. It was a rainy Georgia afternoon when Mom and I wandered through the Babyland area of the cemetery and finally stumbled upon her overgrown marker. There was an angel engraved into the stone.
Mom pushed the grass away with her foot, umbrella in her other hand, and I snapped a photograph. It was one of my first ventures back to Georgia to dig up the family history, interview my mother and other family members. The journey has led to many emotional ups and downs, most good. I felt happy that we had found the baby’s grave. And wondered about the circumstances of her birth. My grandmother is no longer here to tell me. She was unlucky in love in her early life. But the last man she married, Raymond, was a sweetheart. I felt so happy she finally found a man who would be sweet to her, someone she deserved.
You know what’s odd? I more remember the circumstances of each of my sibling’s births than I do my own. I was 4 years old when my brother came home from the hospital in Tennessee. I was 14 when my youngest sibling was born. We remember more than we think we do. If the right question is asked, a jumble of strange seemingly unlinked thoughts and emotions pour through the mind and heart. And that only leaves you to wonder more — what will be the circumstances of my death?
-Related to topic post WRITING TOPIC – 3 QUESTIONS. [NOTE: This is the third of three questions mentioned by actor and writer Anna Deavere Smith in an interview with Bill Moyers (see link). She talked about the questions in the context of interviewing people and listening to them. The three questions came from a linguist Smith met at a cocktail party in 1979; the questions were, according to the linguist, guaranteed to break the patterns and change the way people are expressing themselves. QuoinMonkey, ybonesy, and frequent guest writer Bob Chrisman take on the three questions by doing a Writing Practice on each.]
-Also related to posts: PRACTICE: Have You Ever Come Close To Death? — 15min (by ybonesy), PRACTICE: Have You Ever Come Close To Death? — 15min (by Bob Chrisman), PRACTICE — Have You Ever Come Close To Death? — 15min (by QuoinMonkey), PRACTICE: Have You Ever Been Accused Of Doing Something You Didn’t Do? — 15min (by Bob Chrisman); PRACTICE: Have You Ever Been Accused Of Doing Something You Didn’t Do? — 15min (by ybonesy), and PRACTICE — Have You Ever Been Accused Of Doing Something You Didn’t Do? — 15min (by QuoinMonkey), PRACTICE: Do You Know The Circumstances Of Your Birth? — 15min (by Bob Chrisman), PRACTICE: Do You Know The Circumstances Of Your Birth? — 15min (by ybonesy), and two Guest practices False Accusation, Almost Dying.
Airlines STILL have weight restrictions for their flight attendants, even now in almost 2010.
Girls still are not allowed to attend school with all the other kids once they start showing. At least in every school district I know of. They are sent to a special and separate campus for pregnant students.
You’re right about getting stories down before it’s too late. If we don’t get it directly from the source, then we may be hearing gossip, rumors, or speculation.
Aren’t families lovely? There are so many secrets surrounding just about every family. In many cases, things are not really meant to be kept secret but are just not talked about so things remain a mystery, later becoming more of a secret.
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I don’t know how much has changed with pregnant young women attending school. I think it’s allowed from the pregnant women I’ve seen in front of the local high school, but I don’t know. I’ll check on it.
In my high school a rumor circulated that the head cheerleader was p.g. (code word). When the rumor was confirmed by the principal, the annual sponsor called his staff into his classroom, handed them all exacto knives and had then cut her picture out of the yearbook. She was executing a leap in her picture.
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Remember when being a stewardess was considered a glamour position? It was a close cousin to being a model, wasn’t it?
I graduated in 1979, and all the p.g. girls in my high school stayed with us until they delivered. It was a very big deal that they were pregnant, but not a big deal (at all) that we watched their bellies swell.
Most of the girls kept their babies, and married young. When someone gave her baby up for adoption, there was such mystery. Where did Becky’s baby go? Is Karen sad about her baby? Do we know anyone in town who suddenly has a new baby? Could it be Ellen’s?
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Corina, I’m kind of stunned reading your comments. First that there are still physical body restrictions for flight attendants. I didn’t know that. But now that I think about it, I rarely see one that falls out of a certain norm. I wonder if they are the same for male stewardesses. I wonder what they are for the pilots (?).
I made assumptions that things had changed in the airline industry. But I don’t know why. I thought there were laws against discriminating against people for their body types. Can certain jobs really require that people be built a certain way? Now that I think about it again, there are constantly scandals about the requirements of the fire department and how they often restrict women from becoming fire fighters.
Corina, I’m always amazed at what comes out when I start talking with family members about past history. I think that’s why memoir is an important genre. What makes memoir sing is that there are so many different recollections of what happened. And you are telling the story from all that has integrated into your own story. It’s fascinating.
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Bob, I, too, thought that girls could carry their babies to term in high school. But maybe it varies from state to state, region to region. I can’t believe what that annual sponsor had the cheerleaders do. So you are saying the sponsor met with the remaining cheerleaders and had them cut the pregnant cheerleader’s picture out of the group photo? Was the pregnant girl there as well? I can’t believe that kind of humiliation still goes on from adults to children. And teenagers, pregnant or not, ARE still children. How shaming.
What also angers me is that no one chased down the father of the child (who knows who it was, an athlete, another teacher?), and cut his photograph out of the yearbook. No one berates whoever it was for not wearing a condom. That’s outrageous. The double standards that are still around for girls and boys are stunning to me.
When I read the comments from these 3 Writing Practices we’ve done over the last few weeks on Writing Topic – 3 Questions, I am finding myself amazed at how little things have changed around conversation around miscarriages, pregnancies, body types. What if a girl or boy tends to be heavyset? I can’t imagine what happens to them in high school. I was telling Liz last night that I feel strange because none of those bullying things ever happened to me in high school. It ended up being a good time in my life where I had good role models and felt strong and confident. But it does not seem to be the norm.
When I was in high school, a girl in my Tri-Hi-Y (we were called the Zodiacs, by the way) was going out with one of the teachers. It was one of those things that everybody knew but no one really talked about openly. Only behind closed doors. I think eventually, she stopped seeing him. But obviously, there is scandal after scandal today about teachers who date students and end up sleeping with them. I think it’s been going on since the beginning of time. Skewed boundaries.
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Teri, the woman who wrote the book ( apologize but I can’t remember her name, was listening to it in the car on the fly, will have to look it up) said it was totally a glamour position to be a stewardess in the 1950’s. Planes were like luxury yachts or ocean liners, THE place to be. I don’t think anyone then could have imagined what’s happened to the airline industry over the last 20 years. It was fascinating to listen to her talk about what it was like to fly Northwest Orient back then.
Your high school sounds pretty supportive of girls pregnant out of wedlock. Wouldn’t that be the hardest thing to deal with as a mother? I’ve read also where in some towns they would make young girls go away to have their babies. Completely leave their families and go to a convent or something. Isn’t that the strangest? It’s so obvious how women still bear most of the burden of childbirth, of bringing the world’s children into the world. They are also held the most accountable with fewer and fewer options once they do get pregnant.
Do you think those girls who gave their babies up for adoption wanted to or were pressured by their families? I often wonder how women feel about it later in life. Do they ever want to see the child? Or did it end up being better for both the child and the mother that the baby was raised by older, possibly more stable adults. A difficult question.
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Teri, I found the link to that book on MPR. There are some great old black and white photos in the slideshow, too. The author’s name is Anne Billingsley Kerr and the book is Fujiyama Trays and Oshibori Towels. Here’s the LINK and a blurb for those who want to listen and view the slideshow of photographs:
The author’s also got a website: Lady Skywriter (LINK) Looks like Anne Billingsley Kerr’s grandfather was from Milaca, MN and she had her first flight in the womb when a barnstormer wanted to use his field to give air rides to the locals. Looks like a fun site!
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QM, I know there was a lot of pressure to give up “illegitimate” babies for adoption so the girls could live a “normal” life as a teenager, if they got pregnant in high school. By the time I graduated in 1970, girls denied their pregnancy until they couldn’t and then had and kept the child.
The yearbook sponsor called in the staff of the yearbook to cut out the picture of the head cheerleader. She married the father and, last I heard, they were still married some 39 years later. She was a very good person by the way.
Teri, there is an apartment building over on Warwick betwen the burned down house where Hemingway lived with his Uncle which was know for the number of flight attendants who lived there. The parties they threw were legendary at the time and that was in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Flight attendants were a good catch.
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I listened to the MRP interview…those planes were amazing Imagine, room to pass another adult in the aisle!
One of the books we had to read for Natalie’s November workshop was by a former stewardess. The book is by Beverly Rollwagon and called “Flying.” Is there a rush on stewardess memoir?
It was interesting to hear in the MRP interview that becoming a stewardess was a big adventure in those days…and a way to escape the hum-drum choices available for women: nurse, teacher, secretary.
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In my high school there was a definite social line between the girls who kept their babies, and those who gave them up for adoption. The adoption girls were smart, going places, upwardly mobile. The ones who kept theirs were on a dead-end track.
We thought anyone who would give up their youth to raise a baby was nuts.
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Everson, that’s interesting about the contrast in your high school between those who gave their babies up for adoption and those who decided to keep them. It makes you wonder what those same girls will think years from now. I see so many teens walking around the city with young babies in tow and wonder how in the world they manage to do it. And I still wonder why fathers are not held to the same level of accountability as the mothers. Will that ever change? Thanks for weighing in.
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Bob, I know just where that burned down house is (thanks to our visit to Kansas City). 8) Didn’t know about the flight attendants who lived there. Fun detail.
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Teri, isn’t that a great slideshow link to the Anne Billingsley Kerr MPR book interview? I love old photographs like that. I wonder if all this airline memoir phase is coming up because of how downhill the airlines have gone over the last 10 years or so.
If you think about those passengers sitting on the tarmac for all those hours. Or the pilots that overshot MSP and even admonished the stewardesses for bringing it to their attention. Things have really changed.
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I’M BACK !!!! I finally have my computer back, yea.! A few notes for QM. Angela, Mother’s baby, was full term and drowned during delivery. It was a rare happening, she became pregnant while already pregnant and when Angela was being born she broke the placenta to the second baby and drowned before they could get her out. Mother almost died also. I was 19 at the time and had to take care of everything , that was quite an experience! The baby looked just like you did when you were born, too. Beautiful and a head full of black hair.
I could probably write a book on deliveries, since I have had them natural , with inducement, early, late, and with twilite sleep. I’ve also had miscarriages. My miscarriage didn’t effect me emotionally, maybe because I already had a few children,or my nature. Your sister’s was very trumatic for her though.
When I was in school we had to do a piece on what we wanted to be when we graduated and guess what mine was on? An Airline Stewardess!! At that time you could only be 5’4″ so I just made it. My weight was fine also though I don’t remember how much was allowed, I think it was about110lb.
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MOM, I’m so happy you’re back! And the computer is up and running. YEAH! (And thanks to R3!) I’m so glad you clarified about your sister Angela. I had totally forgotten that Grandmama almost died. And I don’t know if I knew that you had to take care of everything. A lot for a 19-year-old. You really went through a lot during that time. Your brother Jack, Angela, taking care of me. You had your hands full. I didn’t know Angela looked like me either. I did have a full shock of hair, didn’t I? 8)
MOM, I didn’t know you wanted to be an airline stewardess! You would have made a great one. Did you ever think about it again after I was born or wish you had applied?
I’ll try to write more later. Just getting home from work and we ordered a Canadian Bacon & Pineapple Take-n-Bake Pizza from Cecilia’s. I’m starving. Happy New Year to everyone, family, friends, red Ravine readers. The Blue Moon rose giantly full tonight while we were driving to get the pizza. We’re supposed to wake up to -5 air temps in the morning. We’ve hunkered down.
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So great to see that you’re back, MOM! We’ve missed you.
It’s always so rich to hear your memories. This double pregnancy sounds so medically bizarre. Don’t mean that in a bad way, just that it’s one of those conditions that a person hears about and immediately wants to find out more.
You raise a good point about individual response to trauma. Not everyone has the same response. Like how the miscarriage affected you; very different from your daughter or me, for example.
I know people who can not even visit gravesites of loved ones, so traumatizing it is. We are all such different emotional creatures from one another. Good thing, too, eh?
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