Hannibal: Our Nightmare Winter

      Right in the middle of our Hannibal life, Barbara was pregnant again. This was not a planned one this time. We still needed Barbara's income. She was using the Dalcon Shield, a birth control device that was later found to be flawed. The time was getting very near, but Barbara was not doing well. I took her to see her doctor. He kept his stethoscope to her abdomen a long time. Finally, he took me aside. “We may be in trouble with this baby.” When I went back in with Barbara, she wanted to know what he said. I didn't know what to say, I couldn't tell her the truth at this point. The baby was full term, and very large. A hard delivery was still ahead of her. So I lied. “He may have to take the baby.” She was still fretting about that when they came for her. It was a long, and very hard delivery. The Baby was dead, and we were crushed. I had a call to make, and right now. I called one of our friends in our neighborhood, who was in the middle of throwing a big shower for Barbara, right at that moment. Everyone at the shower took their gifts back, and gave us the money.

      When I walked by the waiting room, it was full, and people were standing. Our whole church, it seemed, were just there. Silently.

      Another couple in that hospital at the same time had twins. I was thinking, “Now, where's the justice in that? They have two babies, we have none.”

      I had to take care of things, and our kids, while thinking of arrangements for the baby, while still staying with Barbara as much as possible. She still was not doing much of anything except crying.

      I went to the funeral home the next day. The director smiled and told me, “That's about the biggest, prettiest baby I have ever seen.” I didn't need to hear that, but I guess, in his job, you just get hardened. But I still think of that big, pretty baby, wondering what her life would be like today if she had lived, and the big, pretty grandchildren she would now have for us.

      The church had arranged for a small plane to fly me and the baby to Wing. Harold picked us up at Russellville, 35 miles away. After a nice graveside service, attended by a lot of the old timers around Wing that I had known growing up, we buried her at the foot of Dad's grave.

      When I got back to the plane, the pilot confided to me, “You stepped out on the wing when you got out, a big no-no for a small plane like this. I've been checking it over all the time you were gone, and it seems like it's OK.”

      Barbara was not doing well. In spite of the hard delivery, the doctor thought it would be best if we took her home. She, and I, have just never gotten over that hard time.

      That was a very hard winter. Barbara had to go back into the hospital again, then again with bronchitis, and while she was there, both kids got a bad stomach bug. They were standing in front of me, and when Corey threw up, I just pushed them back a couple of steps out of the mess. Then I had to push Kinley back out of her mess as she threw up. I pushed both kids, two steps at a time, all the way across the room before it was all over that night.

      When we first arrived at Hannibal, they were just beginning to recover from the Great Flood of 1973. High water marks were on the downtown buildings, chest high. They endured an even greater flood, years later. Since then a Sea Wall has been built. To my knowledge, it has not been breached.

      We loved Hannibal, except for the very long winters. Barbara threw me a birthday party once, on May 31. It was so cold we had to move it inside. A Hannibal friend told me recently, “We have never had any winters since that were as cold, with as much snow, as those three.” They're equipped for snow there, and school is not called off when it snows. Corey walked close to a mile to school and back, his first grade year, with a bunch of neighborhood kids. Up and down two of the tallest, slickest hills in town. So when he starts telling that old story that so many old timers love to tell, "When I started to school, I had to walk through knee deep snow, and" --- you can believe him.

     After three years, Barb was ready to start teaching. She substituted almost every day, but that didn't pay much. No full time job was to be had. We both signed a contract at McCrory, Arkansas. When I went in to resign at Hannibal, they said they now had a job for Barbara. Too late. We were headed back to Arkansas.