Idaho Life

This is an updated version:

“Steve, wake up!  My water just broke.”

I must have given her a sleepy uncomprehending look because she went on;

“That means the baby is coming.  You are going to be an uncle again.”

That got me up and moving fast.  I had been up earlier and did the morning chores.  Milked the cow, fed and watered the horses, chickens, rabbits, and turkeys (We had two turkeys, Hobble for Thanksgiving, and Gobble for Christmas.) I was living with my sister, Janet, her husband, Roger, and their three daughters.  We lived in an old farm house on forty acres in northern Minnesota on the Iron Range between Virginia and Hibbing.  We got our water from the pump house with a hand pump.  We had a really nice pump house and a mediocre outhouse.  The old unpainted outhouse had cracks in the walls that allowed snow to seep in on those cold windy winter days.  It was a two-holer which is something I never did quite understand.  In all my years of using outhouses, I can’t remember ever sharing that intimate sit down time with somebody else.  Maybe in times gone by the old farm hands would use that restful break as a social opportunity similar to the water cooler conversations that occur in office situations.  The two-holes always made for interesting decisions.  Left or right?  Was the chance of splinters more on one or the other?  In the coldest times you would look for which one had been defrosted by a previous user.  I once came across a three-holer!  That brings up a whole lot of other questions.  Maybe it was in case of emergencies.  A contagious stomach bug or everybody shared that week old tuna casserole.  And they say times were simpler then!

Roger and the girls had already left for work and school.  I was only home that September morning because my old Ford was out of gas and I was out of money and could not make the 15 mile trip to attend my college classes.

The nearest neighbor was about a mile away, so with broken water haste I saddled up Lady and headed for help.  Of course, nobody was home.  The next farm was across the river another mile down the road.  They too were gone.  Where was everybody?  I thought about breaking and entering to use the phone, but a couple of growling farm dogs deterred me.

I took a short cut through the woods and forded the river just below our house to find Janet still calmly packing a bag.

Now all northern Minnesota farms worth their salt had a few old cars sitting around.  These cars were sometimes used for spare parts; some were used for chicken coops or snow fences, some were on blocks while others rested on flat tires sunk in the pasture.  We also had our share of vehicles in different states of discomposure.  Some farm yards had these cars just scattered wherever they died.  Ours were neatly and orderly lined up on the edge of the pasture.  We had standards!  I grabbed a length of garden hose and a gas can and started siphoning the dregs of each gas tank with various levels of success and finally put together just under two gallons of questionable quality gas.  I poured the fuel in my ‘56 Ford and ran to the house to see if I was going to be a chauffeur or a mid-wife.

Janet was ready to go and not deliver so we set out down the gravel roads.

In 1956 Ford had equipped some of its modern vehicles with a two speed automatic transmission.  Low gear was used until you got up to around 30 miles per hour, then it automatically shift to high.

My Ford had a slight problem.  Low gear would slip badly under any load.  On flat roads I could nurse it up to speed and when it shifted to high gear everything would work fine.  About two miles down from our house there was a tee in the road and it didn’t matter if you went left or right, the road was uphill from the river.  We could not climb the hill in low gear.  When I was alone in the car I could take the turn in a power slide and keep the speed up enough to make it up either hill.  I did not think that was a good idea to try with “Mrs. Broken-water” sitting next to me.  So we just turned around and backed up the hill.

If you look in the dictionary under the word “calm” there is a picture of my sister Janet.  She had taken all of this excitement with a big smile, but when I looked at her now she had a terrible look on her face and was bracing herself between the dashboard and the seat.  My natal education was progressing.  Already this morning I had learned about breaking water and now I was learning about contractions.

We made it to Dale and Phyllis’s house and of course they weren’t home either, but their dogs knew us and invited us in.  Janet phoned the doctor and he said to get to the hospital as soon as you can.

Gee, thanks for the advice!

Janet had raided the change jar so we stopped at the CO-OP and bought $2 worth of gas.  In 1966 that was enough gas for a couple of trips to the hospital.

We made it to town with no more problems except for a couple of more contractions.

Memories from a few decades ago are always suspect and times and details are always vague, but my understanding of events are that I pulled up to the emergency room door and got a couple of nurses to bring out a wheel chair and collect the smiling calm mother-to-be.

By the time I parked the car and got back inside my nephew Scott was wailing and Janet was still calm and smiling!