Story #2-When Grandma was a little girl

Where was Grandma born? …Story #2
All of our 6 children were born in a hospital. All of you grandchildren were also born in a hospital. I was not born in a hospital or a clinic. I was born at home! I was born in Tularosa, New Mexico. Let’s take a step back in this story. My parents, your great grandparents-Douglas and Jane Bates, were born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. You may wonder how did they end up in New Mexico? When my mother had my 2nd brother, Douglas, Penicillin had just been discovered and was used as an antibiotic. They pretty much tried it out on everyone. Unfortunately my mother was allergic to it. She had just given birth to her 2nd baby, Douglas, and they gave her that shot. She got very sick. She had dormant asthma and the penicillin brought it to life, so to speak. Back then the cure for asthma was to ‘Go West’ where the climate was dry. So, they sold their home and most of their household goods. My father bought a little pickup truck and they put their goods in it and packed up their little family, their 2 boys Geoffrey and Douglas, and went west. The year was 1947. This will be another story later…

My mother was expecting a baby around my father’s birthday, October 7th. My mom was 5’5” tall and Dr. John Klump thought she was getting awfully big in her belly. She could hardly see her own feet! He decided she needed an x-ray. So she had an x-ray and things looked fine. When the doctor took a closer look he noticed a ‘2nd little spine’ in the top of the x-ray. She was going to have twins! She did not know this until one month before she was due to have her baby. It was a shock to both her and my father! Twins were quite an exciting event in that little town! Only one other person had had twins. My mom was the 2nd person to have twins! Dr. Klump was worried about how big my mom was and told her not to leave the house or go too far. He even slept in his car outside where my parents lived! He got called away on business, a doctor convention, and so he had Dr. Clapp, from the next town of Alamogordo, cover for him and take care of my mother if she should deliver early. Well, we came 3 weeks early. I was born on September 16th at 1:00p.m. My twin brother was born half an hour later, at 1:30p.m. We each weighed 6 pounds. My twin brother was quite happy being inside my mother and was not anxious to come out. He was born breach, feet first. (My mother had gained almost 50 pounds while she was pregnant and within a month she lost all that weight.) Dr. Klump was quite disappointed he was not there when the twins were born, but Dr. Clapp did an excellent job!