Mom's descriptions of her children

Suzanne and Mary Jane

 Suzanne was born so soon after Mary Jane (14 months) that they were babies together. Mary Jane, even at an early age was fast paced (walking and talking),

impulsive and sparkling, with a phobia about all things soft and fuzzy.She was frantic when we used cotton batten to oil the infant Suzanne.

   Mary Jane just developed in the womb, and got born at a steady pace, well under the time allotted for a first birth. The fact that I had unaesthetic didn't affect her any. The nurses couldn't believe that she was actually holding her head upright, and checking her surroundings, shortly after birth.

   Suzanne was different. She was restless in the womb, given to swift, jerky movements. I woke up one morning, grossly misshapen, with the baby crowded to one side. I touched my stomach, and she dove away from my finger. She also sat for a few weeks on my sciatic nerve---ouch! She was born so quickly that I almost didn't make it to the delivery room, and the doctor got there after she had arrived.

   After birth she was equally restless. She rejected food, and lost weight until it was discovered that she was allergic to the corn syrup in her formula. (I had such problems trying to nurse Mary Jane that I didn’t even try for Suzanne.) She barely made the required weight to take her home from the hospital with me, and the first few months were hectic. She had colic, slept fitfully during the day, and cried most of the night. I had a path worn from dining-room, living-room, to hail to kitchen to dining room in the McDougall Street house. I stayed downstairs so we wouldn't keep everyone awake, thus interfering with Jim and Mary's late evening courtship. Once all the quirks in her stomach were ironed out, she settled into a routine, and was a contented baby.

   There were times, as a three year old, when she would stand in front of me, stamps her foot and say, "No!", even though she had not been directed to do anything. She drove her kiddiecar through the downstairs rooms as if practising for the Indy 500, parking between the chairs, backing in, circling the tables, and whizzing around the corners. She was a traffic hazard.

   As she grew, she became very attached to home. She would not play outside unless all the doors were open so that she could retreat quickly indoors if a stranger passed. This continued until her Teens when, unbeknownst, she hitch-hiked to Toronto with a knife in her cuff for protection.

   Like her Aunt Mary, cats were a passion. She was always hauling them home, saying they were "lost", and crying wildly when I forced her to take them back from whence she had lured them. We always had a cat -- hers. Doorbell I; Doorbell 11; Candy and Hippy, the King of McDougall Street.

   The big tragedy of her childhood was the day her chameleon ate the guppies, and the cat ate the chameleon. She and Louise McLurg organized many funeral processions. In the yard at McDougall Street there is a large rock with a nail-polish inscription in memory of a favourite turtle.

   When it was time for her to go to school she was agreeable, as long as the whole family could go with her. I was the large body in the back row of the Grade I class (no kindergarten at that time) for the first week. One noon hour Jim McIntyre tied up traffic on Wellington Street when he delivered her to Sacred Heart School and had to pry her fingers from the car door and leave her writhing and crying on the side walk.

That frightened little child became an unflappable Emergency Nurse. Thus Suzanne-- a contradiction!