I WAS BORN

Dickens began his novel “David Copperfield” with the phrase “I was born.”  It is considered a prime example of how only a genius like Dickens could begin a novel that way.  Maybe I am not a genius, but this is also how I will begin the story of my life.

I was born on Sunday, March 17, 1929, in St. Joseph’s Hospital in Fort Worth.  I have no memories of the first couple of years of my life.  All I can tell is what I’ve been told – although through the years I now look from a different perspective than when I was young.
  
“Sunday’s child is fair of face.”  Well, not me.  My brother Lyle was always telling me how ugly I was.  Lyle was only 13 months younger.  I have no memories of when I did not have a brother.

St. Joseph’s was a Catholic Hospital.  When I was a little girl, nuns wrapped up in black habits still walked quietly guiding us to visit Mother in the two weeks she spent hospitalized after Don’s birth.  I was seven years old.  I was 15 when our youngest brother, George Preston, was born in Methodist Hospital. But that is a story that will told much later.     

My family were all Baptists.  And Baptists believe that children should not be baptized until they were old enough to say they "accepted Christ as their personal Savior."  Catholics were wicked people who baptized babies.  So why was I born in a Catholic hospital?  This takes some explaining, especially about my grandmother, whom we called “Nonna.”

My grandfather, Lyle McDonald, died in the 1918 fly epidemic, leaving my grandmother as a penniless widow with two small children.  Sue Wade McDonald moved to Fort Worth to be near her sister Lena, who was married to a prosperous lawyer, George Wharton.  When Lena had to go to a tuberculosis sanitarium, Sue and her children moved in with the Wharton family to  take care of the three small girls

Lena Wade Wharton and George Wharton both died.  “Uncle George” left his estate in trust for his three daughters, Vivian, Patsy, and Georgie Sue.  As guardians he appointed his two best friends, Judge Barwise and Dr. Coffee.  (I never knew their first names.)  My grandmother stayed on as unofficial housekeeper and caregiver.   Nonna – or “Aunt Sue” as the girls called her – devoted her life to taking care of “the girls” She determined to make everyone aware of how important a role she was playing.  She dominated Mother and my life, but I will postpone telling any more about that.   

Dr. Coffee was the girls’ official guardian, so we all went to the Coffee Clinic for our health care.  Dr. Coffee was a Catholic.  And I was born in St. Joseph’s Catholic Hospital.

Since I was born on St. Patrick’s Day, the nuns at the hospital insisted I be named “Patricia”.
My Mother said, “No!  She is Pattie enough already.”

I will tell you about that Patties.