Hi Ho-Hi Ho Off to Germany I Go

I was able to have a lot of fun experiences while my husband was stationed in Germany many years ago. Christi and I traveled to be with him when she was two months old and the ban had been lifted for dependents to travel over from the USA. You see the Berlin Wall had just gone up and the travel to Germany for dependents to live was very limited. If I had to go over there I really wanted to live in a little house like Heidi’s in the novels. Really. You know the houses where the people lived upstairs and down stairs, in the barn, is where the animals were. I wrote this request to my husband who thought I had lost my mind. Now that I am a little more mature I can imagine that the smell would have been ever so delightful. Can you imagine waking up with morning sickness to that smell, yuk, yuk!


Danny made sure that I had a blessing before Christi and I left and his Uncle Wayne came up from San Jose to do that. The plane trip over was so frightening for me. Christi and I left from San Francisco and when I hugged my parents goodbye I hung on to them for dear life because I really felt in my heart that the plane would drop out of the sky and I would never see them again. I was 19 and had never flown in my life. Or done anything else much up to that point except to live in Amarillo, Texas.

The plane was huge and the stewardesses were very nice. Christi looked so cute in her darling little outfit that my friend Linda Hunter had given her. Linda worked in the hair salon at Joseph Magnin’s in Sacramento and had gotten it there. She had also done my hair up in a funny little style that I somehow thought was cute. My now dyed,  dark brown hair (to match Christi’s) was swept up from the back up to my bangs with a little swirl on each side that looked a little like a doughnut. Very adorable, very. My hair had been blonde all through the time I had dated Danny in high school and our early married days, you know like Sandra Dee’s,  and now I was going to show up in Germany looking like a funny replica of my former blonde self with a doughnut hair do.


Christi had been started on solids early because she had a huge appetite and the doctor had me giving her rice cereal and applesauce since she was four weeks old. Once the plane went up in the air the force of whatever caused her to potty all over everything she had on. What a horrible mess. Thankfully she smelled like applesauce, but what a mess she was. I had brought one change of clothes for her, (great planning on my part) her red and white Christmas jammies. I had to clean her all up and get her dressed in that tiny little bathroom on the plane. Fun, very fun. We landed  in Montreal and had to deplane because the plane had broke down, wonderful, wonderful a broken down plane well at least we landed safely. I put Christi’s cute little bunting on her and got ready to get off of the plane. A German women traveling on the plane got a wool blanket from the stewardess and told me I would kill my baby getting off the plane in the freezing, snowing weather outside because we had to walk down those stairs to the ground and not into the terminal. You know like you have seen on the news when Jackie O walked down the long flight of stair off of the huge airplane. Like that. So the German lady was right, it was very cold outside. They bussed us to a hotel and gave me a room because I had a little baby. Everyone else went to the little pub that the hotel had. Not me, I sat in my room on the bed all alone, except for Christi. I thought they would call us right away to get back on the plane so I was afraid to do anything much but nurse Christi and wait.


Love,Grammy T.

I Called 911 With Reckless Abandon

It's The Freckles

It was a cold night in Arizona and I was visiting with my two youngest girls. I had been helping my youngest daughter Jessie with the eight children that were in her care while her sister Amy was on a cruise. Four were Amy's and four were Jessie's. Amy had just gotten home and was showing us all of the beautiful (musty smelling) things she had brought home for everyone. It was about one in the morning and Amy was very tired from her big excursion and decided to go to bed. She went into her room and noticed that little Ryan was coughing a funny little cough and she came out to get a little purple strip to put on his tongue to help him breath better. It took forever and Jess and I waited for her to tell us he was OK. But when she brought him out he was not OK, he was a light blue color. Oh my gosh!! He wasn't breathing and then he coughed and it sounded like a funny little dog or seal. Croup!!  I said and into the bathroom I rushed them and turned on the shower and had Amy set him on her lap on the commode. It got steamy really fast and Ryan said "I can't breath", OK girls, I'm calling 911!! I got the phone and with a shaky hand told the dispatch lady what was happening, I picked up an envelope on the desk top so I could tell her the address and when she asked for the phone number I ran the phone into Amy in the steamy bathroom so she could give the rest of the information. Then they handed the phone back to me and the lady told me to go outside and show the EMT's where we were. So I ran out front and Wha-La an ambulance and a huge fire truck were coming down the street with lights a blazing. I jumped up and down and motioned them to the end of the street. So while one grandpa, one husband and seven children sleept peacefully, 10 Firemen and EMT's all in uniform, entered the house. One of the men told us to get a blanket for Ryan and go outside into the cold. We got the cute strip quilt that I had made for Tate and wrapped it around little Ryan. When we went outside the gurney was there waiting for us and Amy sat on it with Ryan on her lap and he looked up with his now rosey cheecks and gave his best "Dennis the Menace" grin to the men in uniform. He was able to get a little air into his lungs at last!! Then off to the hospital they rushed with Jessie following in her van. I woke up my husband, the grandpa, and told him what had happened. He later asked me if I remembered to pray. I told him I did not have time to kneel and say a prayer but I knew that Heavenly Father had guided me to put them in the steamy bathroom and to call 911. And then I prayed after they left and thanked Heavenly Father for 911. I then worked on little hats for the babies at my hospital in Utah until Tate woke up with a messy diaper and I changed him and rocked him until the girls and Ryan got home. Ryan got benadryl and a steroid shot at the hospital and benadryl for every six hours after that.

Very interestingly I had just read in Gerald Lund's book, Divine Signatures, that his little girl had a croup attack and he had been told by the doctor on the phone to go into the steamy shower with her. And now we know there is one more step, take them out into the cold air after the steamy shower trick. And if you are reading this call 911. I really believe in this instance it saved a baby's life. And once more proved that I am Super Grammy. :)

Love,

Grammy T.