Maxine's Story ~ My Birth

Maxine's Story

Introduction

and

My Birth

My story begins with learning how to use my new computer. David talked me into getting onto the Internet for years. As stubborn as I am, I resisted until it became joke. However, Santa Clause was not laughing when he brought me this computer last year. I am slowly learning all the intricacies of making this infernal machine do what I want. Having first learned how to document the Ward History this morning, I am now (via David's ghosting abilities) beginning my personal history.

For Christmas this year I compiled a history of Hank, which I gave to all my children. It was so well received that I now feel compelled to leave my children and grandchildren a remembrance of my life and accomplishments, including the warts as well as the joys:

So now let me begin with my childhood memories.

I was born March 27, 1928 in Bisbee Arizona to Victor and Viola Johns. I was their first child of four, including Fred, Deloris and Iris. But first, let me digress into a brief history of how Mom and Dad got together:

Dad was born November 26, 1902 in Iola, KS. He........

Mom was born October 31, 1905 in Bisbee, Arizona to ...

Ahem ... this is Maxine now and I will do my own life story in my own way please!!! David really did rescue me on the history of my ward assignment yesterday. Taught me how to do this thing, and then did it for me. I don't expect him to do my story, but sure appreciate his beginnings ... let me start by saying that I have begun a writing class, one designed to help one write a life story. So for now anyway I will follow the format of the class. For instance, the first assignment was to tell about our birth .... OK ... that's a good place to begin. Not that anyone really remembers much about ones birth, but this is what I prepared for that class.

The date by the way is January 21, 2001.

MY BIRTH

There was a hospital in Bisbee Arizona even in 1928. After all it was a thriving mining Community, one at the turn of the century that was larger than Chicago. A community that had indeed been more infamous that sits well known neighbor, Tombstone! Set in the Mule Mountains just 8 miles from the Mexican border in Cochise county, Bisbee had enough silver and copper to provide jobs for any man willing to go down into those mines for more than a century. My Grandfather, George Sabin had worked there, My Mother, Viola was born there, in 1905, 7 years before Arizona became a state. And now my father, Victor Johns worked there. Victor and Viola married on September 25, 1926, had shortly after left their homes in Idaho and found work in the Lavender Pit, for that was what they called that terrible hole. It was only after my parents were gone that I learned that the home they lived in wasn't theirs at all, but belonged to Mother's brother, my Uncle Arthur. He was a bachelor, also working in the copper mine, and they stayed with him.

So it was that Mother had a choice. She could have given birth in a hospital, but privately she suspected that hospitals were where you go to die. She chose to have me at home! The term "natural childbirth" hadn't yet been coined, non-the-less, that is what it was since there was little choice in the matter. I know little of that ordeal except that the doctor sat on the bed and talked "hunting" with my Dad and seemingly ignored what was going on-----which she found very irritating. The details are lost but the date I know. March 27, 1928. In fact the state of Arizona didn't care much about the details either, for there was no record of my birth. (In later years, in order to get a passport, I had to provide witnesses and various documents and signatures before they were satisfied that it happened.)

Since new mothers stayed in bed for 2 weeks, there was a nurse who came in and took care of us. My only baby picture is one of that good woman, in her severe dark clothing, holding a tiny bundle in a large blanket and though there was an attempt made to show my face, from a distance of about 15 feet what you see is nurse, bundle and blanket. The neighbor boy promptly pronounced that I looked just like an Indian, but he was assured that they found me under a cabbage leaf.

I was the 1st child in my family and the 1 st grandchild for both sets of grandparents. I was loved spoiled and adored by everybody. It was 1928, one year before the great depression began. Life was to become very difficult, but sheltered by love, it was many years later before I realized how hard it really was, and how blessed I was .... PS ... I am not going to let this document go down into history with an inaccuracy .... Well a downright lie I guess. In preparing for this my first assignment for my PCC class, I chose to put Dad in the wrong mine, simply for the sake of a more interesting name. It seemed to me that the name Lavender Pit was a lot more "romantic" sounding name than the Copper Queen, which I believe was the mine where he actually worked. The Lavender Pit was an open pit mine, while the one Dad worked for went deep down into the earth. He used to talk about that, the elevators that dropped them down and what it was like to work so far underground. On the only trip that I ever made back to Bisbee, in 1993, Hank and I went to the Copper Queen and found that it no longer mines ore, but tourists! We took the tour ... I never thought that I could go down into a mine .... but I did, and it wasn't that bad. I just kept reminding myself that my Dad worked there and if he could spend all those months (I'm not sure how long) there, I could do it for less that an hour. While deep down in the hole, I picked up a piece of interesting looking rock, filled with copper I was sure, and brought it home. I've lost the darned thing, but fur a while it gave me some great memories and much satisfaction that when I see him again, we will have much to talk about and that I can listen to his mining stories with new understanding. BTW I was right, my writing class was super impressed with the name Lavender Pit .... they suggested that I write a whole story on that alone ... The guilt began.

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