Some memories have been fun to relive and think about. Others are painful but healing comes with the remembering.
September 10, 1950, is a melancholy date for me. A few days earlier, Dad made an appointment with a doctor in Hutchinson for a checkup. The day of the appointment, Daddy told Mom that she needed to stay home with me because he could go down alone and come back the next day.
Daddy set out for Hutch and got about 40 miles from home where he had a heart attack. He picked up a hitchhiker who drove him to Daddy's sister's home. I'm not sure who drove him on the Grace Hospital in Hutch. Perhaps it was one of his nieces.
That afternoon brother Bill came to school to pick me up. I was in Geometry class. He didn't tell me much - mainly that he was driving Mom and me to Hutch where Daddy was in the hospital.
We stayed with some good friends there. The first day we all went to the hospital. Daddy had an oxygen tent on him (much different from the way oxygen is given now). It made a strange sound.
I said over and over that I knew Daddy was going to be fine and we would all be able to go home again.
I think Daddy lived two or three days but I am not exactly sure. The last evening I went to Warren and Zella's (our friends). When bedtime came, I went to bed.
Mom came back to the house about 2 a.m. and woke me up to tell me my Daddy died. I remember I smiled and felt guilty for many years because I smiled. It took someone to remind me many years later that by smiling I was being a good girl and doing what Mom always told me to do - smile.
The memories of this time in my life were many. So I have divided them in two parts. This is part one.
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