Arrival Part II

Dad and Mother had rented the large two-story home for their growing brood.  They had sub-let the second floor to four college girls to help with the cost.  The girls were huddled around a floor vent that went between the first and second floor bedrooms waiting to hear my first cry.  Mother said quite a cheer went up when the girls finally heard me.

Mother had chosen two sets of names for me and she asked my father which set he preferred. The choices were: Harriet Hope and Florence Carolyn.  (Can you imagine being called Harriet Hope Hughes?)  I am extremely glad my father chose Florence Carolyn.  Mother's choices were names of special people in her life.  Florence was a close friend of Mother's, a nurse who had taken care of Mother when my sister, Beverly, was born.  Carolyn was the name of Mother's voice teacher. Mother never explained why chose the other set of names, but I've always like my name, Carolyn.

Florence was a nurse overseas during World War I.  She gave Mother a large rose-colored glass bowl for me when I was born.  It is very heavy and beautiful.  I don't know whatever became of her.  Carolyn was killed rather young.  She was driving her car much too fast and drove up over a raised railroad crossing out in the country.  Her car became airborne and was impaled on a tall broken-off pole on the far side of the tracks.  She was killed instantly.

Perhaps because of the circumstances around my birth, all my life my favorite kind of night, or day for that matter, has been one that has pouring rain, lots of thunder and crashing lightening!  I love to put on my jacket and boots, grab an umbrella and just walk.  I love the sounds and find them all very soothing, restful and peaceful.  As Mother would have said, "Storms to Carolyn are hyacinths for her soul."

That is true!  Is there any more beautiful sound than rain beating on a metal roof, or perhaps against a windowpane?  No, not to me.

Arrival

A fierce storm raged overhead.  Rain came down in torrents.  Lightening slashed the black midnight sky, and thunder rolled and rumbled through the heavens.  The clock in the town square slowly pealed twelve times, the sound flowing over the darkened, sleeping little city.

In a large clapboard house on the corner, however, all the lights were ablaze, the storm was hardly noticed.  In a bedroom on the first floor lay a young mother, twenty-two years of age.  Her husband of six years was with her, and so was a doctor who was helping her through the final stages of labor.  For the young mother it was the first time she had been away from family when one of her babies was born.  The new child was baby number four for her, and all four of the babies had been born at home.  The mother was afraid if she went to the hospital to give birth she might not bring her own baby home.  That was unthinkable!!

The town clock pealed once, it was 12:15.  Labor continued.  Time passed so slowly.  Then the clock pealed twice, it was 12:30.  Labor was ending.  A little after midnight on January 24, 1925, as the storm screamed and howled around the corners of the house, a baby girl was born.  I was that baby girl.