The next time we moved, we shared an apartment with Brenda's sister, Karen Ottley. She was a dental assistant with visions of being a model. Anyway, the house was at 36th & Campbell and we had the third floor. I believe that it had once been the home of a past mayor of Kansas City and the third floor was the nursery. We had two bedrooms, a BIG living room and a nice kitchen. The living room was so big that we had two couches and still had room.
Ginger and Paul were engaged by now and fixed me up on a blind date with Jim Fulton. We went to see Lawrence of Arabia. You all probably know how this turned out! (The date, not the movie!)
This is the apartment where Mom and Becky and Jan came for Christmas. It was probably 1962. The living room had lots of windows and window seats. There were doors under the window seats and that is where we told Becky and Jan that little elves lived and came out at night to clean our house!
At this time, I was working as a bookkeeper at Commerce Trust Co., now known as Commerce Bank. I processed the checks of individuals, one by one! Some of the employees were going to classes to learn how our jobs could be done by computers. Like that could happen! ( Reminds me of when I worked for Southwestern Bell when Lauren was a baby. They told us about plans in the future when an operator would answer a call and the caller's number would show on a screen. Like that could happen!) We were quite smug about the importance of what we did!
About this time, Ginger had broken her engagement with Paul and we learned that she was pregnant. This is also about the time that I learned I had been accepted by TWA for hostess training. All this led us to another move. This time, we had a smaller apartment on Roanoke road, about 41st street, I think. We were living there when I went through training. Even though I had to live in an apartment on the Plaza with other trainees, we kept that place.
Ginger's doctor knew an attorney who arranged private adoptions and I believe the adoptive parents paid some of her living expenses. The real creativity came keeping Mom in the dark about the pregnancy. Now to those of you to whom these machinations seem archaic, times do change. Remember that in the past, when women were pregnant, they did not even go out socially. Pregnancy was known as "her confinement." Well, in the late 50's and early 60's, "nice" girls waited until they were married, etc, etc. Nice as opposed to "loose."In fact, health insurance did not cover pregnancy until 9 months after the policy went into force. I was actually hoping Lauren would be "late" as we did not have a health insurance policy until 8 months before she was born. We had to pay for her delivery. $350 I think it was.
But I digress. Ginger delivered a baby girl on July 14, 1963. We did not get to see her. One really hard thing was that Ginger was kept on the labor and delivery floor. The only thing we knew was that the doctor's nurse said that she was the most beautiful baby she had seen. (Skipping ahead a few decades, we met the woman that baby girl grew up to be- Krista!)
The attorney arranged for an employment history for the time Ginger had been out of work. She applied to TWA and was accepted for hostess training.
Time for a pause for brain rest.
I am thinking that Aunt Ruth and Uncle Don also came for xmas that year. I remember being skeptical about the elves, but also not being able to think of a reason for a house to have tiny little doors! Thanks to Harry Potter, I can now picture Dobby the house elf working away behind those doors!
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