20 - Connie
Laura: All right. It is February 7, 9 30 AM on a Saturday. And how are you this morning, mom?
Jonathan: Oh, I’m old.
I’m all right. Good. I’ve had three visits to the ER in the last 10 days, and I am going to be getting injections on my spine. We’re hoping to control the pain. So I’m dealing with quite a few medical issues right now. And Mimi is taking me to all these appointments. So, and she keeps very good records of all the things that the doctor says. So I’m covered well.
Laura: That’s great.
Jonathan: Anyway, today we’re going to talk about Connie first, my second child. And so if you’re ready, here we go.
Laura: I’m ready.
Jonathan: Aunt Connie was at Calvin and earning her room and board at an East Grand Rapids Jewish family, the Glazers. And I was expecting Connie soon. I told Connie that she could come to the hospital with me. But Mrs. Glazer told her it was a crazy idea and that she should be spared the gory details as long as possible. that was sort of symbolic of how women talked about childbirth in those days.
In fact, Grandpa Bartleson told me once that he got so tired of hearing grandma’s screams that he told the doctor to cut the baby out if he had to. That’s when dad was born. Anyway, I couldn’t understand why Mrs. Glazer would scare Connie that way, so I was determined to take her along for the excitement. On February 19, in the afternoon, I called Connie and told her that I thought the baby was coming. I was certain I was in labor, so she came over and sat and looked at me as though I was going to explode. But things just were taking their sweet old time. I was really pretty comfortable, so we decided to go to a movie to pass the time. I wish I could remember what movie it was, but anyway, when the movie was over, I thought the pains were just false labor. And so we decided to take Connie back to the Glazer’s house and go to bed. She made me promise to call if I was going to the hospital that night. We were only about an hour away from Connie. And Connie started coming all of a sudden after we had dropped my sister Connie off, my daughter Connie started coming like gangbusters. I didn’t dare to call Glazer’s because it was night and especially since I knew Mrs. Glazer frowned on my exposing my little sister to such a horror. I’ve always felt sad that Aunt Connie didn’t share the thrill of the birth of her namesake.
Connie was beautiful. She had little black curls all over her head, and I hadn’t taken a single bone meal pill the whole pregnancy.
With Teddy’s pregnancy, I had hoped for a head of hair and taken that bone meal to no advantage. When Connie was born, I had not taken any, and lo and behold, her head was full of little black curls. After all the experiments and bloopers that I had done trying to learn to take care of Ted, I was more relaxed with Connie. She sat in a little comfy babe bouncing chair for hours, showing no interest whatever in moving her chunky body around the room. But she didn’t need to because Ted got everything for her.
Everyone that came over marveled at how this little girl could sit in the middle of the floor without crawling, creeping, or trying to walk and speak sentences. At 20 months, I finally took her to the doctor to see if something was wrong. He said she’d walk when she was good and ready. And she did a month later.
Connie always was a good sport when we kidded her about her physically handicapped genius.
It was she herself who said of her overbite that she was the only person she knew who could eat straw through a picket fence. Well, with her beautiful smile, she can’t brag about that anymore today, but she still shows evidence of a delayed large and small motor development.
I’ve seen her walk into walls, drop her school books in a puddle,
And she’ll never live down the time she got her head caught in the revolving door of the Palmer House in Chicago when we had all gone there for the teachers convention.
Connie was always the creative one. Every Mother’s Day or birthday, she would organize the kids to make homemade presents and string up signs to let me know they loved me. The one that sticks out in my mind the most was a birthday when I was in my late 30s. Of course, the kids knew where I went first in the morning when I got out of bed. As I sat in a stupor on the upstairs bathroom toilet, I suddenly saw my likeness on the wall, a huge drawing of a very broad woman with her feet resting on the real bathroom scale and a big sign that said, We still love you, Mom. Connie hated dresses and especially nylons. I think it was because I made her wear hats and gloves and tried to emphasize the importance of looking and acting like a little lady in church. Anyway, Connie ran her hosiery at some of the most inconvenient times, like just before she had to play for a district solo festival.
Connie’s most traumatic grade school experience was the time she had to perform a routine in gym for Mr. Vanderkamp as part of a unit on gymnastics. I wish I had it on video. She had a real love for being different. Who else would dare to go to school like she did on class day? She also soon got the reputation for her humor and creativity and was in constant demand to produce posters and audio announcements at Christian High.
The whole family, even Uncle Ted and Aunt Jo got in on a funny series of spot announcements that were played every morning at Christian High for a week, just before Valentine’s Day. to promote a close-up club sale.
I never should have let her go on close-up twice. I guess that then already she was preparing me for her plans to see the world.
Connie was our dog handler and she was good at it. The proof came when she told Marmee to stay, went inside for supper, forgetting all about her.
Later we looked out the window and there was Marmie stretching her neck to spot Connie to free her from the command. I soon learned that Connie was cheap labor, full of ideas for an elementary classroom. Her artwork has brightened my classroom and did those for years.
I miss her. She died three weeks ago after being a very wonderful teacher herself.
Her principal said that every year in August, she was bombarded with parent requests that their child be assigned to Connie’s classroom for the next first grade year. She had many wonderful stories as a teacher. And when she died, there was a memorial service at her school that was well attended by many of the parents who loved her.
She married a wonderful, wonderful man. And I consider Bob Johnson to be every bit my son. And he’s still in touch with me every week I get a letter from him. So that’s my story of Connie.
Stop.
Laura: That’s great. Are there any other informal things you’d like to share about con?
Jonathan: No.
Laura: Okay.