By Velma M. Rose Smith (late 1940s)

At 4:00 P.M. on Wed. December 6, 1922 I received a phone call, “Esther has a baby girl”. We were always competing, so I started labor pains at once. The first baby is always thought of in anticipation and reprehension. We were anxious to see this baby but he was very comfortable where he was and decided to stay there. After 24 hours of labor and use of instruments, he arrived. On his third day, he started to breath strangely. Aunt Jen picked him up and rushed to the kitchen. Mama grabbed a bottle of whisky, kept for medicinal purposes, and they gave some to the baby. Arnold called Dr. Neal, he said what they were doing was good. He began to breath normally. Dr. said it was shock, due to the trauma, and cuts received at birth. He was a good baby, I nursed him and he grew, weighed 19 lbs at 19 months. He had a bad cold, developed quinzy, and had to have it lanced at 5 months by Dr. Neal. He had scars in his cheek and on his head from the instruments and now the quinzy scar on his neck.

When he was 9 months old, the spring on his swing broke and hit him on top of his head, Arnold dressed it, and it healed nicely. We were living then on the Smith farm. A few months later, a new retied spring broke and cut a V at the hair line, we could see the bone under the flesh. We took him to Dr. White, and he stitched it. Wayne had a bad heart so he couldn’t give him an anesthetic, and we had to hold him still. Later on, he ran into the sewing machine and cut a gash over his eye. At 3 years, his heart was normal and we took out Prudential Insurance on him.

He loved his baby sister and looked after her. I had to leave him, when he was 3 years old, in the house alone with her, when I did outside chores. When he was 21 months old, he took a walk by himself, dressed in Merritt’s brown fur coat and cap, he disappeared in the freshly plowed brown furrow. I was frantic, but Arnold said, “He is smart, he’ll come home”. He did, by himself. Before that, at 18 months, while I was picking red raspberries, he climbed to the top of a 20 foot ladder, that had been left in an apple tree. I heard him call out “Mama”, I looked, and there at the top of that ladder, hanging by his hands, his feet had slipped off the rungs, was my baby. I spoke to him, and carefully went up that ladder, grabbing him as his hands were slipping.

When we lived in Montoursville, he rode a tricycle off a high porch of the milk house. He swallowed a steely (marble) and has it yet, for all I know! When we lived in Blossburg, he cracked a bone in his arm, playing Tarzan, in the tree by the river. He and Billy Watkins nearly blew up a house with the chemistry set that Uncle Jay sent him and some materials they borrowed from the pantry.

He was always a good student in school, getting good grades, one time with the help of his teacher in 3rd grade, who gave him all As, because Arnold told him he would give him 25 cents for every A. He could have been the highest in all his classes. In spite of all the cuts and bruises, he grew up, well and strong.

One day he said to us, “I joined the National Guard last night”. I was stunned! I lay awake all that night, with tears running down my face. In the morning I was able to act as if all was well, but a lump was at the pit of my stomach, and it stayed there for 5 years.

He was in the Service for 5 years. I realized he was grown up and would be going out on his own. I had no idea of keeping him “tied to my apron strings”. I realized the world is full of danger, farm machinery, auto accidents takes many lives. But to me, sending our boys out to face guns, bayonets and bombs, where they face death every minute is terrible. I can’t describe this feeling, this boy, only a short time ago, my baby son. Now, I can’t take care of him, every minute, whether you are stirring up a cake, taking a bath, sweeping the floor, nursing the baby, your mind isn’t on what you are doing, it is wondering where is Wayne, is he alive, is he lying dead somewhere, is he being tortured in a prison camp? You are praying, praying, it is the one thing you can do, it was my comfort.

I know now, of one close call. He was on a plane, ready to leave England for France, for the invasion. An officer came to the plane and told him to bring his equipment and get off the plane, he was needed there as a rigger. That plane never reached France. I asked him what date that was, and I remembered that at that time I felt a sense of great danger to him, and had prayed to God to protect him. In answer to my constant prayers, God returned our boy, Wayne, to us, with no physical injuries, but neither of us were the same.

I am glad that this part of his life is behind him. He is happily married to a very nice girl, and they have a lovely baby girl. I still remember them in my prayers. He is fortunate, he has a good life ahead of him.