Kim’s Coming

This is a story about Kim’s birth.  It is taken from the oral history of his mother and my (Sherry’s) memories.  I want to share these special memories with all of Kim’s descendants—those who call him dad and those who call him grandpa.  This is how the story goes:

It all began on a hot 4^th of July day back in 1954. And those days in southwestern Idaho were really hot.  Our family, consisting of mom and dad (Fay and Ardell) and Vicki and me (Sherry), and little Roger, were spending the day with mom and dad’s friends out at the Ted Louder farm in Homedale.

Ardell and Fay (early picture at the Downing place)

Mom (Fay) says: “It happened to be a Sunday.  We all went to the Church in the morning, then we all gathered out to Louder’s to have our picnic and fun after Church.  Everybody brought pot luck.” 

Along about 9:00 in the morning, I commenced having a few pains, but I decided I’d go to the party anyway.  Along about Noon I commenced to think that they were getting pretty close, but I decided I’d wait a while longer.  About two or three o’clock I decided maybe we’d best go home. “

“Well you don’t know Dell when he gets to one of those parties.”

I said, “I think we’d better go home, honey.”

And he said, “Well, just a minute, just a minute.”

“So along about 4:30 we commenced to get home.  I said, “You’d better get those cows milked, because I’m going to go to the hospital.”

“He finally went out to milk cows.  Well, I decided he’d better hurry just a little faster.  I went out to hurry him up and I think he had to turn those last two cows over to somebody else,  Anyway, it was about 8:30, that he got me in to the hospital, and at about 9:15 Kim was born.  It was right in the middle of the fireworks in Caldwell at the city park.”

You could see those bright and colorful fireworks light up the night from the window in Mom’s room.

Kim was born at the Caldwell Memorial Hospital. Kim really came into this world with a bang. Mother called Kim her little firecracker.

               

Happy Fourth

Kim in the yard of the Downing home at about age 2

Mom (Fay) says:  “When we went to take him home, the girls had hunted up a little flag, so we had a little flag put on his basket.  When everybody would come, here was Kim in the basket with this little flag flying over the top.”

In those days, special baby baskets were used as the babies first bed and that was the case with Kim.  That way he could sleep in Mom and Dad’s room where Mom could keep a watchful eye on him.

Mother gave me the job of taking care of Kim.  She said that was going to teach me to take care of babies.  I really did take on a lot of his care.  When I wasn’t available, Mom would take Kim out to the field with her and set him on a blanket at the end of the row in the field where she was working.  He would play with his trucks and tractor toys and would remain on that blanket until she came to get him.  One of our neighbors, Emma Johnstone,, would drive by just to check and make sure Kim was ok.

  

Roger, Ardell, Sherry, Fay, Kim and Vicki

At Sherry’s wedding.

  

I don’t have a lot of memories of Kim because he was just four years old when I was married.  It felt like I was leaving a child of my own. It was hard on me to leave him because I had taken so much responsibility for him and he was a cute little guy.

We were living on the Downing farm when Kim was born and the folks were living there when I was married. They later moved from that farm and several years after they moved, that house burned to the ground.  Mother always said that it would burn down because of the poor electrical work inside and so it did. A lot of our precious family memories were made while living there.

It is interesting to note that after Roger was born Mom had broken a large muscle in her back and the Doctor told her that she should not have another baby.  He said that if she did she would have to remain in bed.  You know mom, there would be no bed for her.  The Doctor gave in but told her that she could not gain any weight.  I can remember her weighing everything that she ate and she didn’t gain a pound.  All went well with Kim’s birth thanks in big part to her will and determination. I’m sure that it helped that Heavenly Father wanted Kim to be part of our family.  We all argued over what name he should be given.  Mom was considering the name Brett but the name Kim won out.

Well that is the story of Kim’s Coming.  He came into our lives with a bang.  Now he has become a loving husband, father and grandfather.  We are grateful for our family “firecracker”.