Sample stories

A Timely Birth

By Rhonda Schulte

     Since the day I turned 2, I have shared my Dec. 29 birthday with my sister, Davee. Because our birthday fell between the Christmas and New Year’s holidays, we usually had a quiet celebration with family that involved a homemade birthday cake for each of us and a few presents from Mom and Dad, our grandparents and baptismal sponsors.
     Our birthday seemed anti-climactic after the excitement of Christmas, yet the coincidence of sisters being born on the same day two years apart gave the day a special meaning, and with school on break and freezing temperatures outside, I didn’t mind sharing the spotlight with Davee on that special day.
     It wasn’t until 25 years later when my doctor was planning to induce labor for my second child, Brandon, that my mom told me Davee and I shared birthdays because our births were induced, resulting in the benefit of income tax deductions. Davee and I had similar due dates, and by having their babies born before the new year, my parents saved enough money (about $250) in taxes to pay the hospital and doctor bills.
     In December 1960, my due date had passed when Mom’s labor pains prompted my parents to drive my 23-month-old sister, Robbin, in their 1955 two tone car to our Schuh grandparents who lived on a farm 10 miles southwest of Parkston, S.D. On their way home and despite Mom’s persisting pains, Dad took time to shoot jackrabbits. With furs worth $1.25 apiece, comparable to an hour’s wage, rabbits were a good source of income at the time.

     Although Mom continued to experience pain, the labor was not progressing and so Dr. John McCann decided to give her medicine to help the labor along, resulting in my birth at 12:50 p.m. at St. Benedict Hospital in Parkston. I weighed 7 pounds, 2 ounces and was 20 inches long. The birth of Rhonda Gay Schuh (pronounced “shoe”) to Cleone Rosalie Uecker (pronounced “you ker”) and Shelton Gideon Schuh was recorded at the Hutchinson County Courthouse in Olivet, S.D. (The county seat was so tiny that whenever we drove through we would say, “That’s all of it. ”)
     Dad awaited the outcome of each birth from the hospital waiting room. Fathers were not allowed in delivery rooms in those days. Although I’m sure he would have been excited to have a boy, Dad accepted the arrival of one girl after another as a matter of course.
     “Well, (the hospital staff) said you had a girl, and then I went in and look at them, I guess,” he said, summing up his reaction each time one of us was born.
     Two years later the opportunity arose for my parents to reap yet another tax break. So on Dec. 28, 1962, they invited both sets of grandparents to our house to celebrate my second birthday early, and then sent Robbin home with the Schuh grandparents and me home with the Uecker grandparents in planned anticipation of Davee’s arrival the next day. With the help of inducing medication, she entered the world at the same hospital on the same day and at approximately the same time as I had, around noon. Mom recuperated in the same maternity room.
     Hospital stays in the early ‘60s were longer than new mothers are allowed today. My baby book records a long list of visitors during my mother’s five days at St. Benedict that included grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, and friends. Mom shared a room with two or three other mothers while their babies - kept in nurseries much of the day - were brought in for bottle feedings.
     “Rarely did anybody nurse,” Mom said.
More relatives came by our small rental house to give their best wishes. Many gifts listed in my baby book were inexpensive, practical items: booties, blankets, sleepers, a rattle, tights, bib, a washcloth set, soap, rhumba pants (ruffled baby panties) and rubber pants (because these were the days before disposable diapers). Mom used cash gifts of $2 to buy me a sweater and $1 for a new dress. I’m sure the presents were welcomed by my young parents. Dad, who worked at the Parkston Creamery, was 19 and Mom was still in her 18th year.
     According to my mom, Robbin, a few weeks shy of turning 2, was too young to notice the new family member, but in my mind, her oblivion to me changed soon enough, evident in how she naturally assumed command. As much as she liked to torture me in later years, she gets credit for bringing about my first laugh when I was three and a half months old.
     Baptisms in my family were occasions to gather the family for a church ceremony and lunch in the home afterwards. On Jan. 29, 1961, I was baptized at Salem Lutheran Church in Parkston by the Rev. R.W. Schwarz. My sponsors, or godparents as we called them, were my dad’s first cousin, Harlan Schuh, and his wife, Sharon. They were ever faithful in providing me with gifts each Christmas/birthday throughout my childhood.
     My parents say I cried all the time. Dad named me “pumpkin head” after my bald, round head, which was somewhat flat in the back. Because Robbin was a skinny baby, Mom worried about her being sickly, so to her my plumpness was a sign of good health. Until I grew hair as a toddler, my mis-shaped ears were obvious to the world with their lack of proper curl along the sides and one with a divot.
     Mom recorded my daily schedule as a 9-month-old in my baby book. I fussed for a bottle at 6:45 a.m., woke at 8:30, played in the crib until 9 and then had cereal. Once dressed in shirt and overalls, I played on the floor, crawled around and examined every object within reach until 11:15.
     “She was then put to bed for a nap, taking a bottle of orange juice, two and a half ounces. She woke at 2 o’clock and played on the floor and later went for a walk in the stroller. Came back at 5:30 and went to bed with a bottle, slept til 7:20. Had a bath at 9:30 and was put to bed for the night with a bottle. Had fruit for dinner and vegetables and meat at 6:30,” she wrote.
     At this age I said “ma ma” and “bye bye.” By 14 months I could say “hi” and “see.” My first toys were rattles tied across the crib and later I became fascinated with purses, especially those filled with junk. As soon as I could walk, I gravitated toward Robbin’s tricycle and rocking horse, so perhaps she had good reason to dislike her little sister at times.
     My tendency to disrupt her playtime is illustrated by my behavior upon our return after Davee’s birth. Robbin, who arrived home a few days earlier, had nicely arranged her tea set on a child-sized table in a corner of the dining room. When my grandparents dropped me off, I walked into the room and brushed the dishes off the table and onto the floor with a “quick flush of the hand,” as Mom put it. Robbin, then about 4, was so upset that 40 years later, Mom still remembers how she screamed and cried.