After a few months the Army decided Orville should go to Chickasha, Oklahoma for further treatment of the hepatitis he had contracted due to the yellow fever shot. I went home again to wait for a place to live. Again, he found a motel and we ate all our meals at the hospital where he had to spend his days. This lasted again for a few months and the Army decided to send him to Ashville, North Carolina. Since it was coming reasonably close to time for the baby to be born it was decided I should go home. When it came close to my due date Orville came to Iowa. My father drove a cream truck and was supposed to be a pall bearer at a funeral on September 25 and asked me on the 24th how I felt. I was fine so he asked Orville to drive for him the next day. Unfortunately for him, early the next morning I did not feel so well so Dad had to make other arrangements while Orville took me to the hospital. David was born at 4:28 that afternoon.
Orville had to return to Ashville shortly after David was born and not tool long after that was sent to Ft. Sam Houston. Again, it was getting close to holiday season and Orville started looking for a place for us to live. The best he could do was a motel/kitchenette. Of course, we still had no car so he had to find a place where he could walk to work. Fortunately, he had found good friends who invited us for Christmas dinner. I got very lonesome in the motel all day with no one to talk to or anything. I noticed that the people next door had Minnesota license plates on their car so one day I went over and knocked on the door and asked the woman if she was lonesome. She was not, she and her husband had been coming to San Antonio from Minnesota for many years and she knew more people. They were the Coopers and remained friends for many years.
While living in the motel I saw a portable washer advertised and thought it would be perfect for washing the diapers so I ordered it sent C.O.D. without mentioning it to Orville. It arrived one Saturday afternoon just as I was getting ready to leave to shop and Orville was going to care for the baby. He was furious and I was glad to leave. When I arrived home, he already had assembled the washer and thought it was one of the neatest things he had seen. Of course, since I had a washer, I could also do his uniforms, even though it meant ironing them on the table.
Eventually we found an apartment through a friend, no lease (because of post-war price controls, and the rent was illegally high), and the rent had to be paid in cash. It was too far from Ft. Sam to walk but the person who told us about it also worked in the lab and Orville could ride to work with him. We had a good time living there, nice neighbors and a good civilian family named Juenke with whom we spent a lot of time. Orville always wanted to be Regular Army which was denied him because, as a First Lieutenant, he was overage in grade so in June he decided to get out of the Army, take his reserve commission which was Captain and try again to apply that way. We bought an old 1939 Chevrolet which was not in good shape but all we could get. It used about a quart of oil every 20 miles, the horn honked for no reason, the footfeed fell apart and all in all it was sad. Orville spent his leave fixing it up. His application for Regular Army was still turned down so he requested a return as a reserve officer which was accepted and we returned to Ft. Sam Houston again. This time we lived again in the motel/kitchenette until we got a two-bedroom quadruplex on Infantry Post. We lived on the second floor of those quarter when Douglas was born and moved downstairs just before Diane was born.
While living on Infantry Post in 1948 and '49, we became good friends with John and Lois Shively. He had just recently graduated from med school and they had a son named David, just a few months younger than our David. We often went to the Gulf coast at Port Aransas with them for the weekend. I remember two of thes trips well. The first was when Lois and I were both pregnant and when we arrived we were tired and asked the men to watch the boys while we took a nap. They agreed. When we woke up, the men were in he middle of a good conversation, and the boys were in the other bedroom having a good time eating and smearing a special concoction John had made up at the pharmacy as a sunblock. While the men discussed if it was toxic or not, Lois and I cleaned the boys up. The men decided it was okay and so we went out to eat. In the middle of the meal, our David suddenly said "Ummm" and passed out. I cried, "Get a doctor!" John will never let me forget that one. The men discussed the makeup of the sunblock again and agreed it was not toxic and decided that David was just asleep, but he would not wake up! He did later after Orville took him out into the fresh air. He had just pushed himself as far as he could push.
Another weekend was after Douglas was born and I was complaining to Lois about not feeling well. I had not gotten a period since Doug was born and was spotting and wished I could have a good period and I would feel better. She discussed it with John and he said he thought I was pregnant and should go to the clinic to be checked. I said that was nonsense. A short time later he was proved to be right again! John and Lois continue to be good friends to this day.
About this time we decided to buy a house on Harmon Drive in San Antonio and had just moved into it when Orville received orders to go to Germany. We loaded the children into a new 1949 Chrysler we had purchased and drove to Illinois and Orville left from there. Our good friends, the Dremanns (Remember them? Orville worked for them when he had to leave home before going to college) helped me drive back to San Antonio where I began finding what single mothers do, taking care of children alone, making decisions I had never made before and wondering when this would end.
When the Dremanns left me in San Antonio and went home I really felt alone and responsible. I admit it, I was scared. I had always been self sufficient but I worried if I could care for the children in an emergency. Every night before I went to bed I put my jewelry box, purse and car keys on the dining room table and closed the doors to the bedroom section of the house, hoping whoever broke in would get the message that this was all of value in the house and leave us alone. I rarely slept until sunrise. I was very fortunate, though, I had really good friends and neighbors, and an excellent babysitter. When I got too tired, I would have her come over, we would tell the children I had gone somewhere, and I would go in the bedroom and sleep. One time all of the children and I had the flu at the same time. I knew I could not get them all in the car and out to the E.R. My neighbor came over and found us and took us out. The doctor gave all the children penicillin shots but gave me sulfa tablets. At that time I had to take one soda tablet for every sulfa and the initial dose was six of each, or maybe, as it seemed twelve. I was as bad at taking pills then as I am now. It took me all evening to get them down.
When it got close to Christmas I knew I needed to go home. I made arrangements with the neighbors to see about having household goods packed when I got my port call, loaded up hold baggage, and the children and started north. I had decided to go 400 miles a day and stop at the first motel. By then, I was in Oklahoma and motels were very scarce. I found one on a second floor and was glad to find it. I also found that waitresses in restaurants in small towns were great. They would help me get the children fed. When I got to Cedar Rapids the defroster blew out but a friendly mechanic assured me there was enough heat in the car to get me home to Ryan, Iowa. There was. I had it fixed the next day.
We had a good time in Ryan, went with my brother Lonnie and his friends to a snowy hill and rode sleds. The children enjoyed the snow and cold weather.
When I got my port call I called my neighbors in San Antonio and made arrangements for packing household goods and renting the house for us, called Orville's brother Lee Roy and told him we were coming and started out. It had sleeted the day before and the day we left it snowed, not a good day to be travelling. We stopped about 8:00 at a motel and I went in to see about rooms. I told the man I wanted two adjoining rooms, thinking Lee Roy and David would have one room and Doug, Diane and I the other but I could get to David if he needed me. The man said he did not have anything like that but had a single room with two double beds. I said that would not do as the man I was travelling with was not my husband. He looked down his nose at me and said, "I don't have any rooms for people like you." I was so embarrassed and ashamed I just told Lee Roy they did not have any rooms. We never found another motel or open gas station and ran out of gas on the outskirts of New York about 5:00 a.m. We sat in the car until after six when Lee Roy walked and tried to find a gas station. It was way below zero and he came back nearly frozen and had not found one. We did not know what we were going to do when a truck pulled up beside us to see if we needed help. He had noticed our Texas plates. He pulled us to a gas station and would not take a cent for his help. I said many prayers of thanksgiving for that man. Lee Roy got us to our temporary quarters, sent our hold baggage, shipped the car, and then after a good night's sleep, left on the next plane for Illinois. What would I have done without him????
