BEGINNINGS

This week's prompt on Amy Johnson Crow's #52 Ancestors, "Beginnings" is very appropriate here since this post is the beginning of my family history blog.  I would like to tell the family stories here, so that present and future generations can enjoy them. 

And the prompt also makes me think about my beginnings in the family, and one of my favorite family stories - hey, it's about me, so why wouldn't it be?

For most of the 20-plus years during which my father was employed by the City of New York, and had the family enrolled in its health plan,  beneficiaries were required to use New York City doctors.  In 1955, my parents and their children were living on Long Island, in Suffolk County, about an hour's drive from the city.

I was due to arrive on August 26.  On the 24th,  my Mom was in New York City visiting her Mom, and having given birth to five children previously, she was quite relaxed about the process.  She said to her Mom, "You know, I'm in the city already.  Let me call the doctor and see if I can deliver today.  Why drive in again on the 26th?"  

The doctor was very happy to induce the birth because, he said, "I can watch the [something-something] BASEBALL!!"  When Mom told the story, it was the "WORLD SERIES!!"  Sounded good to me, but neither I nor my mother were baseball fans, and I have since learned that the series didn't start until late September.  The doc was probably just excited about the Brooklyn Dodgers playing the Yankees - maybe every game was like the Series to him.

"So, I had  a cup of tea, and an hour later I was in the hospital getting hooked up!"

Yours truly in the blanket, my Mom Eleanor Gregoire
Tobin, and my brother Mike, across the street from
Mt. Sinai Hospital, New York City, probably Aug.

28 or so, 1955.