In My Garden - The Child Who Never Was And The One Who Came to Take It's Place

My mother held in her arms two children who were recalled before their lives barely began. Esther Jeanette, who at nine months, left. Then Raymond Jay, who's days only spanned twenty-one.

But her greatest grief was for a child who never was. That grief was never far from her, even a half-century later.

My brother Bobby's birth in 1934 had been traumatic and extremely difficult, the only one of mom's children born in a hospital. Now in 1938, she found herself pregnant again. "Oh No" she cried, I can't face another baby right now. In addition to dad's uncertainty about employment, Bobby's short four years had been filled with one crisis after another. A pugnaciouns, bright, beautiful child, he left you laughing uproariously with him one moment and the next crying with frustration. His birth was overdue and the umbilical cord had almost strangled him. For several months after his birth he was often ill. One night when he was a few months old the nipple cam off his bottle and he lay choking. Mom grabbed him by the feet and ran next door. Swinging in the wind, he coughed and began to breathe again. Later, in San Jose, where we were moving into a rented house, he found a bottle under the sink and drank from it. It was household ammonia and he had another trip to an unknown doctor. We never finished our move into that house but returned to Preston. On our way Dad stopped in Ogden and secured a job with a new sugar factory being built in Nyssa, Oregon. Since coming to Oregon, other near misses had happened to our Bobby. Once, while putting doll clothes through an electric clothes wringer, he all but tore his arm off when his hand went through the wringer along with the clothes. Now Mom felt it was all she could do to get this son grown up.

1940 Robert Lee Jones

But she was to have another child. The "box" came out again and was covered and she reconciled herself to that fact. She was ill from the beginning and frightened that she might die and leave her other children behind. This child was not to be though. In the middle of one hot summer night, she miscarried. A "tubal pregnancy", the doctor said. She, however, always felt that she was responsible because in the beginning she had been reluctant to bear another child. She spent hours on her knees begging the Lord to forgive her. She went to Luther Fife, our stake president, and asked for a special blessing. She asked that the child be sent back to her so that she could make up for her earlier lack of faith. A year passed, but her wish was not fulfilled. Then, in the late summer of 1939, she had Dad drive her to Boise where I was going to school to tell me her secret. She was to have another baby. God had forgiven her. It was not an easy pregnancy, but it was a happy one. I went back to school after Christmas, but did not stay for the next semester because I was needed at home. Mom would go to the hospital the early part of April, but meanwhile, she had to be careful for she had promised the Lord that she would not let anything happen to this already beloved child.

Then, on the afternoon of the thirteenth of March, she began to hemorrhage. The doctor and nurse came to the house and it was decided she could not be moved the 20 miles to the hospital. Dad was sick with a very bad bout of the flu in the basement bedroom. The doctor worked his way up and down the stairs between Dad and Mama. Before dawn, on March 14th, Margret Ann was born. The doctor worked diligently to stop the bleeding, to save Mom's life and to keep checking on Dad.

I took the tiny new baby to the kitchen. I bathed her and dressed her in the clothes Mama had so lovingly prepared. The doctor came out and watched as I pulled the little flannel gown over her head and tucked her feet into the booties. He pronounced her perfect and went back to care for Mama. I rolled her in a blanket and took her to my bed and snuggled her down between Joyce and myself.

When the Relief Society sisters came in the morning to help care for the children and fix breakfast, they found the three of us in the bed sound asleep. They awakened me and took the tiny one to her mother, who snuggled and cuddled her, then to the top of the stairs for her Dad to see, though the doctor still kept him from coming up and holding her.

Mama recovered quickly. Margret Ann was the light of her life, always. She loved all her children, but this baby was living proof that her Father-In-Heaven truly loved her and forgave her sins.

1940 Evan Laverna and Margaret Ann

Yet--. All her life she secretly grieved for the child who never was. Almost fifty years later, tears would stream down her face when she talked with me about that time. I pray that death has now brought her complete peace.