Linda’s story
Born May 1st, 1957
I was the second born child in my family, second girl to boot. My sister was 2 ½ years older than I. The first 5 years of my life were spent in a 2 bedroom 1 bath home in Kansas City, MO. My dad was a plumber and my mother was a stay at home mom. When I was 5 years old we moved north across the river into North Kansas City, MO, and for those interested, to a little town called Claycomo Village. We moved into a new house located between my fraternal grandmother/grandfather while on the other side my dad’s sister. About that time, along came the first of my 2 brothers, Richard six years younger, and my next sibling was born 6 years after Richard. There was quite an age gap between my sister and I, and my little brothers. I was a little tom boy growing up, and because of that, one day one of my friends and I tried to catch a mouse, which turned out to be a rat and go figure I was bit. As it turned out, the rat was sick. One of the neighbors caught and killed the rat and my family took it somewhere to have it tested. I remember it taking 2 weeks to find out if it in fact had rabies, which it didn’t. During that time my parents were informed they should not wait to find out the results, so I had to undergo shots on a daily basis during that time. I remember being terrified each day waiting to go, it seemed the needle was about 6 inches long and bowed as the doctor came towards me to administer it. My parents had to make sure there were people to hold me down during the process. To this day I am terrified of needles. I’ve always enjoyed being outside and investigating everything. It was also normal for me to be able to find the one place where I could step on a nail or something metal nearly every year for quite a while and having to have my Aunt next door (a nurse) bring home a tetanus shot so I wouldn’t get sick.
As I got a little older into my early teens, I continued to be more of a tom boy than a girly girl (just ask my sister as she was always complaining I didn’t care about dresses and girly stuff as she did). One thing I remember, almost as if it was yesterday was the first day going into Jr. high in the gym during orientation, the Principal of the school was telling us from here on in school it was just as important, if not the most important, to be able to get along with your peers as much as the academics. I was in heaven at that moment as I was much more interested in people than classes. I did ok in school above average; however, that wasn’t high on my list. Although shy most of my life in big groups my friends didn’t see me that way. Once I got to know you I was much more out going. Moving into high school and the beginning driving years, I look back on them very fondly. My dad revamped a car he had originally bought for my sister for me, and I loved my car. It was a 1965 Chevy Malibu convertible 4 speed, midnight metallic blue with a cherry bomb muffler. I had a list of do’s and don’ts that went along with the car such as, no boys allowed to drive, check and change the oil, check and gap the spark plugs. I loved my car, and I taught all my girl friends to drive a stick, we use to play that game I’m sure many of you have played at one time or another…we called it freeze out, which was done with the top down in the middle of winter, it was great.
I ran around with 2 boys pretty much most of my high school years, and because of that learned how they thought (mainly about girls- good vs bad etc), anyway eventually both of the boys took an interest in me other than a friend as it has always been. I finally chose one and we became a couple. He went into the military a year before we married. We married and during our married life we lived all over, and moving on average about every 18 months. We had our first born child, Jonathan in Augsburg Germany after two miscarriages prior. We came back to the states and lived in Sumter S.C. when I became pregnant with our second child. During my pregnancy we got new orders for Blytheville, AR and headed there. Two weeks later Jason was born, and 10 months after that the children and I moved back to the KC area. During my 5 years of marriage we had been either abroad or long distances from my family and the marriage was not a partnership as such, and therefore didn’t work out, being married at such a young age and as I grew up my independence follow, which he was not especially fond of. However, I have never regretted anything in my life as it has brought me where I am today. It was an experience that has helped mold me into who I am today. I have 2 wonderful children that are wonderful young men. I was where I needed to be every step of the way to be able to be where I am in my life now.
