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Family Stories
A potpourri of stories about various family members or events
Tim's Birth
Marcia and I spent our first summer of marriage working together at Big Oaks Park (for Northern States Power employees--now NSP is known as Exel Energy). Shortly after this summer (either at the end of September or in early October), Marcia requested an appointment with her doctor. Marcia's concern was that she had symptoms that made her wonder if she was allergic to some substance. If my memory is correct, she visited the doctor that both of us (coincidentally) had as children, Dr. Autrey. It turned out that the tests taken showed no evidence of any allergies, but, by the way, “you are pregnant”. This was our first announcement of the coming of our first child.
At this time, Marcia was teaching third grade in Monticello at Pinewood Elementary as a long-term substitute. When she was first hired, we were both a bit disappointed that she didn't find a full-year position, but in hindsight, it was to her benefit to be done at the end of March. This helped her near the end of the pregnancy. By mid-May, Marcia was far along in her pregnancy, and our work began again at Big Oaks. We were thankful that we found a larger trailer that we could rent from a farmer who only used it in the fall, after harvest. (It had a kitchen, bathroom, could sleep four, and was much better than our previous one).
Tim on Al in front of the larger trailer
Al and Marcia in front of the previous trailer
However, we also had a lot of work to prepare the park for the opening weekend in mid-May. (The park was only open on weekends before Memorial Day and then again after Labor Day until mid-October.) Since I had a lot of mowing to do (with my brand new Dixon ZTR lawnmower it was done more quickly), I asked Marcia to only work on cleaning out the bathroom/shower house and the collection of outhouses scattered around the campground.
Tim is holding his push-along mower and I am on my Dixon mower
In her pregnancy, the situation became increasingly taxing, leading to exhaustion. During a doctor’s appointment in Monticello, the physician expressed concern about her health, particularly regarding a serious condition known as preeclampsia (I believe). We were told that it was a serious condition and that it was crucial for her to greatly reduce her cleaning contributions, so I took over those responsibilities. Interestingly, I recently found in her Bible in Prov. 27:18, which says “He who tends the fig tree will eat its fruit”, and she wrote “5-27-79 If I take care of myself, I will enjoy the fruit of my womb.” This was the day before Tim’s birthday.
Marcia Pregnant with Tim
On the evening of May 27, Marcia was a bit restless. She had gotten up several times in the night, and in the early hours of May 28, she woke me up. She told me that she thought she was in labor. She had described the symptoms to someone else in the bathroom at the campground, and that person confirmed that this was likely labor. So, off we drove our Datsun 510 across the Mississippi River into Monticello and took a left towards the hospital. While we were both brand new to all of this, the delivery went fairly well. We had a son for our first child sometime mid-morning. I don't recall any female name in our pool, but I also think we both suspected the child would be male. (There was no testing done.) We had decided to name him Timothy Andrew. We liked Timothy since timao is the Greek verb meaning “to honor” and theos is Greek for God, and so this means “to honor God”. Andrew just seemed to flow well, and we liked it. We were very pleased.
The next day, I think, Paul and Nona stopped by as they were coming back from Northfield, and I think Harold and Gladys (Marcia's parents) came by the hospital also. My parents and Bruce were taking over doing tasks at the campground since Tim's birth was on the Monday of Memorial Day weekend, and there was a lot to do afterwards. I think we also brought him home that day. Unfortunately, either the next day or the one following, we had to bring Tim back so that he could be under the lights to fight off jaundice. While this was hard on Marcia, we both had a good attitude and knew that this was best for him.
Tim and Marcia enjoying the clover before I mow the field
Published 2021-05-28. Revised 2025-08-12.
If you find any error(s) in the text, please let me know. Thanks. Contact me with errors or comments using hibbardac@gmail. [Back to the top] [About the author, Al]
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