O Boy! Chapter 5 - A New Era with a New Brother

On the morning of October 14, 1924, I rubbed my eyes sleepily. My sister and I were sharing the double bed in the large back bedroom. My father was standing there saying, "How many brothers do you have?" I pushed back the blue and white patchwork quilt as I tried to figure out what he meant, and Molly and I answered in unison, "Two."

"No! You have three! Your new baby brother is here and his name is Richard Crawford Burrowes!"

My first blind reaction was, "It would have been more fun to have a little sister‑‑3 girls and 2 boys would certainly be better than 3 boys and 2 girls."

My second reaction was, "Why the name Richard?" The only Richard I knew was Richard Baldwin in my class and I didn't like him.

My third reaction was, "How would we ever divide a dozen cinnamon buns?" (which could be shared so tidily in a family of six and would surely make endless complications with such an untidy number of people).

All of these reactions were formed in a split second and they were overturned within the next ten seconds by my father's obvious joy and enthusiasm. The baby weighed 9 pounds and 9 ounces and was born in the Englewood Hospital, and yes we could see him and visit my mother who would be there for the next couple of weeks. And he was a beautiful baby. And mother would need extra care, but she was fine too.

This was the beginning of a new stage in my life. At the age of 8 1/2 it was quite the most exciting thing that had ever happened to me. Every day that I could I set out from Cleveland School as soon as classes were over, walking across fields to take a shortcut across the train tracks and the trolley tracks up to the hospital about a mile away. Nurses had more time with their patients in those days and it seemed as if mother had a kindly nurse with her at all times. I was allowed to stand by her bed and hold the baby. Mother made it seem as if this was the best thing that ever happened. Presently the nurse took the baby away and came back to take mother's temperature and pulse. One day she turned to me and said, "Would you like to take her pulse?"

The nurse held my fingers on her wrist and told me to count while she held the stop watch. Suddenly she said, "Stop, what number did you count to?" I blurted out a number. What I didn't know how to tell her was that I had lost count, that I had lurched ahead a few numbers and just reported the number I'd fudged. She didn't say anything, but wrote on her chart. I thought, "She will surely ask me something else...or she'll do it again." But she just paid no attention to me. I worried about it every night when I went to sleep for days. Would it affect my mother's recovery? Would she know I had cheated?

At the end of two weeks mother came home. We had a nice woman in to help for a little time, and I could hardly wait to get home from school every day. To watch mother nurse the baby. the ritual of the bath, and baby oil and baby powder ‑‑ every part of the routine was a wonderful new adventure. You must never let the powder fly for it wouldn't be good to have the baby breathe powder. And you must always put the safety pins just so. I am sure Molly took care of Dick as much as I did and that Mother was exceedingly skillful in making each one of us feel as if it was a great privilege to be allowed to care for the new baby. All I remember is what I did. I loved wheeling him in the carriage. I loved bathing him. Mother showed me that the bowel movements a breast fed baby made were sweet smelling and I found it was true.

Dick was a sunny infant and I soon came to believe that there never had been a child quite like him. I treasured a picture snapped as I came in from school at noon, and he waved his rattle and said, "Ca!" According to my reckoning it was the first name other than "Ba" for "mama" that he had mastered.

None of my friends had baby brothers or sisters and I felt special showing Dick off. Of course we never called him anything but Richard for several years, and I immediately learned to love the name. I don't think I ever had as much time with my own children to just play with them. And it was a marvelous preparation for being a mother of five boys! I, who had wanted a baby sister who would be like a doll, suddenly discovered that a little boy was even nicer.

Within a few years my partiality for Dick was to make another complication in my relationship with my brother John. I was already used to being a "middle child". The addition of Dick to the family gave my whole life focus and purpose. I suspect, however, that John, while he certainly loved Dick as a sibling, was really displaced as the cute youngest member of the family. I don't know whether it was jealousy, or natural jostling for a pecking order, or that he quickly realized he could get my goat by teasing Dick. But as soon as Dick was old enough to tease, it was my perception that I had to protect Dick against John.

And we had many a royal battle, mostly when my parents were not around. Looking back I imagine I may have exaggerated the actual physical harm that John would or could have done to Dick, but he knew if he got Dick to scream I would immediately react and we would have a wild scene. These years really embittered me toward John and later on I prayed more about my relationship with John than with any human being. We just seemed to be on different wave lengths.

Anyway Dick was lots of fun. One memory I have recorded in my diary. It reads as follows:

"Sunday, October 6, 1929

I went to Sunday School and after I got finished, I went to get Richard and take him into church, but I could not find him anywhere so I went into church and told mother, and then Molly and I hunted for a while until Mother came out.

We hunted everywhere and telephoned Katie but still we couldn’t find him.

Mother went in and took communion and when she came outshe telephoned Katie and found that Richard had walked all the way home‑‑at least 1 1/2 miles!"

Then there were entries about Richard's birthday on the l4th, the crayons Paul sent him from Yale, and how Father went to Washington on October 18; and then on October 20, my diary reads "I went to Sunday School and walked home with Richard."

What it does not record is that I wanted to find out the route that a little boy almost 5 years old would have taken. Much to my surprise he went straight to the trolley tracks, and we walked the whole way home on the tracks including a very scary trestle. I was indoctrinated with the idea that I must not show fear in front of Dick. In fact it was through him that I overcame both my terror of dogs and of thunder and lightning, for I would never let him see how I felt. The trestle petrified me, but after gulping and looking in both directions we stepped from one railroad tie to the next, and Richard said, "Don't be scared." After we had gotten safely across I asked him what he would have done if a trolley had come. He had obviously never thought of that.

It used to fall to my lot to take Dick to "Junior Church" at the end of the Children's Sermon. This particular Sunday we were having a special program in the East Room, a large formal living room in the church where the flowered lounge furniture was augmented with a lot of folding chairs. A display of Bibles had been set up on tables and a visiting lecturer was to tell us of what they all meant. It was an unusually warm Sunday and the speaker was unusually boring. The room was crowded and stifling. Dick looked his most angelic in a little two‑piece pongee suit. Joyce Blaikie leaned over and whispered to him and a moment later Dick climbed to his feet on the sofa, and during a pause, announced grandly, "I'm full of baloney." The tenuous decorum of the occasion was shattered. Loud guffaws and giggles and uncontrollable laughter shook the room while Miss Murphy glared at me as if I were responsible.

Another day that summer we were all sitting at the breakfast table late on a Saturday morning. Suddenly a large chunk of plaster several feet in diameter crashed down from the ceiling right in the middle of the table. Dick was sitting in his high chair and he was the only one who was even slightly hurt, a small fragment grazing his arm. Of course it was a frightful mess and there was a mixed feeling of gratitude that nobody was really hurt, and at the same time a realization that we kids had all been told many times not to tromp so heavily in the room above. Anyway, later that same day I took Dick for a walk. As we started to cross Hudson Avenue, he suddenly clutched my hand and said very intensely, "The ROAD will fly up in the sky!" A rather logical conclusion for a little boy whose world had suddenly been turned upside down!

Dick continued to be a ray of sunshine. He was so smart and so affable and he loved to be read to or to play games. I read him everything from Kate Greenaway poetry to The Swiss Twins, The Adventures of Jerry Muskrat, Pinocchio, and all the Oz books I could lay may hands on. Sometimes I would hide the book we were about to read and then "magic" the book into existence. He always seemed to enjoy the game of it.

Years later, after I had graduated from college and was living at home and working in New York, I went to my first major league game with Dick. In fact I became interested in baseball because of his interest, and when I proposed taking him to a game, he suggested a double header at the Polo Grounds. I didn't even know what a double header was, but I was captivated by the skill of the great Giant team with Carl Hubbell as pitcher.

The deadline came for Dick to send in his application for Swarthmore, and I discovered that this wonderful brilliant young man had a block against tackling it‑‑I sat up with him until after 3 in the morning to get the thing done even though I had to get up by 6:30 to get to work. I took a lot of satisfaction in having helped someone who was so incredibly dear to me.

And even though our lives have gone in different directions the joy that he brought into my life has not diminished.

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