So fun to be a mother, Lana and Lynne.
How cute is that of my Lana.
There were 18 months between Lana and Lynne and 16 months between Lynne and David. Lynne was walking and running by the time David was born. I remember
being very pregnant and chasing Lynne as she ran up the street, sometimes with rocks in her mouth. I was so worried she would fall and swallow one of those
pebbles. I finally used something, I don’t remember what, and tied her to the little tree out front. That didn’t last long as she found a mud puddle close by,
making a terrible mess!
Just before David was born, Lynne started having fevers every afternoon. Lana was having a hard time breathing at night. Dr. Thomas said he was worried Lynne
was getting rheumatic fever and that Lana’s tonsils and adenoids were growing together. The conclusion was to take both of their tonsils out!
At that time, Dr. Thomas did those particular operations in his office. Dr. Thomas was a surgeon, so I trusted him. Both Lana’s and Lynne’s operations were done
on the same day. Scott left the office during the operations because he couldn’t take all the “yuk” that occurred during the recovery. Pregnant, a little nauseous
and a little bugged, I stayed with them, regularly changing their bloody, wet gauzes (this is the “yuk” part) and making sure they were okay until Dr. Thomas said
we could take them home. They lived off of popsicles, 7-Up and ice cream until their sore throats could handle solid food. I can see them now: three-year-old
Lana, with her head on one end of the couch and 16 month-old Lynne at the opposite end, as I handed them each a Popsicle. They were such good little patients.
I delivered David a week later.
We didn’t know beforehand what the gender of the baby was to be. When I was told by Dr. Thomas that I had a boy, I couldn’t believe it! There were six girls and
just three boys in Scott’s family. Scott’s brother, Clair, had five girls and no boys! I didn’t sleep at all that night in the hospital. I just lay there and thought, “I
have a boy!” over and over again. And then I thought, “I have never been around little boys.” I had one sister and no brothers. I just couldn’t get over it! “I
HAVE A BOY!”
Bill, Scott’s younger brother, was so excited about my having a boy that he wanted us to name the baby after himself. He was afraid that when he married and
had children, he would never have a boy. (He had three boys and four girls.) We consented and named our wonderful little boy William David Orrock.
As was typical back then, I always stayed in the hospital for three days. I would get so homesick. Scott would come to visit and bring the kids where I could look
out of my hospital window and see them. They would wave and be so excited. I would go back to my bed and cry.
We were still living in Wymount when I had David. On the Sunday we were to have him blessed, I had gotten him all ready. Mother was there and was helping with
the girls. We all got in the car, and while driving down the street, Mother said, “Where’s the baby?” I looked around and my stomach caved in!! Where was my
baby?! For some reason, I thought Mother was holding him. We turned back for home, and until we arrived, I was praying that nothing would happen to him until I
could hold him in my arms again! When we arrived back at the apartment two minutes later, we found him sleeping soundly. I gently picked him up and held him
in my arms, choking back tears, and we proceeded on to church.
David had many sides to his nature. He was very obedient. One Christmas Santa had brought a little record player for Lana and Lynne. It sat under the Christmas
tree for awhile where the girls could easily play their records. David, still just crawling, immediately went for that little machine that moved around in circles. I
saw him reach for it and I said, “No, don’t touch it, David” in a very mater of fact voice. He looked at me and then back at that interesting moving thing. He sat
down and just looked at it. Sometimes he would reach out towards it and then pull his fat little hands back looking sad. As far as I know he didn’t bother it any
more.
David could be stubborn. He was very picky about his food. We had been feeding him canned baby food for what I felt was long enough and I wanted to change his
diet. He refused to eat any kind of different food other than his canned baby food. He kicked up a big fuss. I coxed and coxed him but he refused any food but his
canned baby food. I remember thinking, “He’s going to be taking his baby canned food with him to the army!”
David could get angry. He was sitting in his highchair one day when I gave him the wrong toy or something. I wasn’t sure why he got upset but he cried and kicked
his feet and pounded his fists on the tray. I kept trying to find out what I had done wrong, but he just kept crying harder and getting madder and madder. Yep, I
finally gave up and walked away.
When David did get upset as a little boy he would lay on the floor kicking his feet, pounding his fists and crying hard. Yep, I also walked away. Finally, there is a
time when mother’s have to leave there cute little boys who are having a fit, and get on with her work.
When we lived in Pomona, California, Scott had put up a fence in our new backyard. We were able to get a swing set for the children. We had purchased a little
tree and planted it. I had made a nice little circle of dirt around the tree and put in flowers. Something about running in those flowers, probably the dirt, enticed
David. I would hear calls from the back yard, “David’s running in the flowers again!” He also loved the new vine we had planted against the garage. Almost every
day for awhile, when Scott would come home from work, he would angrily ask me if David had pulled more leaves off the vine. I didn’t know. I wasn’t counting
leaves. I asked Scott and David when they were traveling through Pamona many years later and had taken pictures of the house, if the vine had survived. They
hadn’t noticed.
One day David did something that embarrassed me. He threw rocks over the fence and it hit a little girl. Wow! Was that mom mad!
David loved to throw rocks, balls, anything. We were experiencing our first boy and David was a real boy. Of course, he loved throwing things.
When David was older and played baseball he became the pitcher on his team. He would be so anxious before a game that he would get sick, and sometimes even
throw up, and then he would go out there and pitch a great game.
“Can I go to bed now?” Those were the words I heard out of David’s mouth when he was only five or six. I had never heard those words from my girls. What a
shock!
Of course, David was always the first one up in the morning, having gone to bed earlier the evening before. He loved his oatmeal cereal in the morning. Often, I
was so tired so many mornings and had many a bad night. I was most likely pregnant and having to share a regular sized bed with Scott (and a child or two who had
wandered into our bed at night) it would leave me hanging on to the edge of the bed. Rather than get up and make the cereal for him, I told him how to make it.
He did, and has been making it to suit himself, many mornings since.
David took over mowing the lawn when he was just seven years old. We had a push mower back then. I had done most of the mowing before that. He became our
‘outside-man.’ He also became his Dad’s right-hand-man. Those experiences were not always the most pleasant because Scott wasn’t the most patient. Scott was a
perfectionist and liked things done just right. Even though it could be hard at times and a lot was expected of him, David learned a lot from working along side
Scott. Because of these experiences he can now fix most anything around a home and yard. He has partially built his own home and is now the fix-it man, caring
for his and Julie’s own rental apartments.
David is now writing his history. He is a natural story teller. So we know another thing about David, he is a good writer. He has been able to capture many of his
childhood adventures in story form. I have loved hearing and reading them.
Scott graduated with his Bachelor of Arts degree on June 2, 1952.
Scott had inquired about a job with the Indian Affairs in Brigham City, Utah. He received a telegram from the Western Union dated October 16, 1952, informing
him that there was a vacancy and he was being considered for the position. It was signed by Paul W. Bramlet, Office of Indian Affairs.