Memory Lane
*Edited to Add: for more detail on the photos, click on comments and read my mom’s comments.*
Trip down Memory Lane
I took a bagful of photos from my mom’s place to scan in. I thought I would share a few I did today, partly because I need dates on them (hint, hint mom), but mostly because they are sort of neat.
Me and my Daddy
I was obviously pretty young here, but I am not sure how old. When I was born my dad had cateracts so bad that he wasn’t sure if he would ever see me. I would guess this is after his (very experimental) cateract surgery since he has bandages over his eyes. He was among the first to have the surgery.
When I was a tiny thing, my mom had to go do the chores since my dad was blind, and wasn’t sure he would ever be able to see me. They would put me in the crib and if I woke up, Dad would turn on the porch light that mom could see from the barn and farrowing shed and she would come running. It had to be a frightening time for them.
Potty Time
look at me…I posted a picture of myself naked on the internet. 
Mary and Joseph
Look how serious we are about this whole thing. I was wearing a tablecloth & doily, and Steve in a blanket. My doll filling in as Jesus, with a pillowcase as a blanket.
great pix! you were such a cute child!
Too Cute Jennifer!!!!! You need to post some close-up pictures of you as a kid.
Hello, Sunshine!
It’s good to see those old pix again.
The first one with your dad and you must have been taken in Nov. of 1970. That was his first (right eye) surgery. The dr wouldn’t tell us how many he had done. One of his interns said that this one had been number 4 or 5. The dr was a pediatric eye surgeon, and your dad, at age 25, was no longer a child (the stage of his eye) nor was he an ‘old person’. They eyeball gets more solid with age. We were very fortunate to have one of the only surgeons in the country who would do this type of surgery on this age of person. His vision was 20/400 and 20/600 at the time of surgeries. (that means that what the ‘average’ eye can see at 400 or 600 feet, he had to get it 20 feet away to see it)
You are mostly right about my having to do chores. The reason I went out while you were sleeping is because your dad couldn’t lift more than 5 lbs for a couple of weeks. You were more than 5 lbs by then. (It took a month for you to achieve this after you were born. You were born 4 lbs 5 oz. You dropped to 3 lbs, 13 oz and at 3 weeks you were back to birth weight) So I got you to sleep, went out to chore the hogs, who were farrowing (having babies) until you woke up. Dad turned on the porch light and I came running. Then when you went down for another nap, I went out again. The reason we didn’t have much help from family that winter is because the weather was so terrible. The snow drifts were so high between the garage (where we stored the sacks of feed) and the farrowing shed. (the old long white building that was taken in the tornado. It was where dads shop is now) I carried those 50 lb feed sacks between the buildings on a path between snow drifts that were several feet above my head. Fortunately, the water didn’t freeze up within the building, so I didn’t have to carry water from the house. The sows were warm and kept the building warm enough.
These were the sows that we had raised from piglets, so we couldn’t chase them, I had to LEAD them. They followed me. That was cool! Howard bought them from us and enjoyed that too. We sold the pigs when you were old enough to be able to go outside. We didn’t want anything to happen to you in the pig pen.
One of the sows died during the birth process while I was out there. It was probably a heart attack, they said. Her body had to stay there, where she had died, for several days until your grandpa and dads uncle could come pull her out. There was too much snow to come sooner.
A few weeks after this surgery, he had the second surgery, this one on the left eye. The next winter he had corrective surgery on his right eye. The surgeon had made vast improvements after your dads surgery, and he needed to go in and clear (scrape) the back of where the lens had been. This improved the quality of vision considerably in that eye. It’s too bad that they didn’t do that in his left eye too. As you probably know, he now has macular degeneration in his left eye. As of right now, it’s the kind (I don’t remember if it’s ‘wet’ or ‘dry’) that they can’t correct with surgery. The dr. says they are working on that surgery, so he might be able to get something done ’someday’.
The second ‘potty’ picture I’m not sure about. In your baby book it says that your first ‘dry day’ was June 28, 72. You enjoyed rinning around like that. And yes, you were (are) a cutie!
The third picture of (as you used to say) “Jofus and Meery” must have been taken around Christmas in ‘73. If the wall has wallpaper, that would be right. The tornado hit in May of ‘74 and we had wallpaper before and paint after the re-modeling in ‘74-75. Maybe you can tell better. You loved to dress up and make up stories. This is one time that you convinced Steve to join you. You guys probably saw a similar scene at church Christmas eve practice or a story I read to you.
G-ma and G-pa S really loved this picture. It made them smile and I can still hear G-ma’s ‘hahaha’ and see her cover her mouth with her long lovely fingers, and see the love in her eyes when she looked at it.
Hope this helps date things a bit.
(With these few pictures, you can see why I call you ‘Sunshine’)
Love you!
Mom
Thanks Jfers_mom! I love the history!