Part 21… Finding our calling

I would put Molly down for her nap and I’d curl up and read. I found myself inspired by a book that would change our lives. The author told the story of how she and her husband had adopted numerous children of different races, some with additional handicaps. I envisioned a household filled with the energy of a family caring and loving each other embracing the uniqueness of each person. I wanted to live a life like the author. I wanted to embrace the gift of Boyd’s survival and our return home to make a difference. 

Next was a conversation with Boyd. When I talked to Boyd about adding a child to our family through adoption, possibly an older child. He was surprised at my suggestion and didn’t immediately jump on the bandwagon but he said he would consider it. Then one day Boyd came home to tell me that he felt God was calling us and we should investigate a possible  adoption of a needy child. Our life purpose was revealed. A purpose that would lead us to a lifetime of satisfying and unique experiences.

The journey began.  We went to the first meeting at an adoption agency and listened to the presentation about children who needed homes and the satisfaction that the adoptive parents felt. The focus was mainly on black children. We went home convinced that this was for us. We were thinking of a preschool aged boy. 

After an odyssey of meetings, learning experiences, interviews and paperwork, we recieved the letter of approval for the adoption of a black child. I recall standing at the window thinking, “why was I so concerned, this is God’s Plan. In April we brought home a four week old baby boy, whom we named Rod.

Part 20… Settling into life

# 20…Molly arrives. Life goes on. 

Boyd returned home with a desire to put Vietnam and the horrors of war behind him. He didn’t talk about any of it except for an occasional off hand comment. The memories and residual traumas stayed buried. Like many of the returning veterans of the era, he was an outsider. The political tension over the United States involvement made the war a taboo discussion topic.

I too felt different than my friends. I carried a lot of trauma and no one wanted to acknowledge that a few years earlier we were like everyone else starting our adult lives, having children, buying homes, establishing careers. Two years later I no longer had a son, my husband was now disabled, trying to adjust to his physical limitations and establish a secure, well-paying job.

A year after our return, we had a beautiful baby girl, we named Molly. We bought a house. Yet, we struggled feeling like we fit in. War and the death of our son had forever changed us. We were not light hearted kids. We carried a sense of deep joy and an appreciation for Boyd’s life being spared. We looked forward to building a life with meaning. There was a sense of needing to feel more useful, almost like a calling. Once again we were going to make a big shift.

#VietnamVeteranLife

#Keepgoingbysarah

Part 19… Farmington, IL: our hometown.

It was exciting to be back to the people and places of my childhood. We were happy at our jobs. I became pregnant, we would soon be parents and normalcy would reign. One day Boyd received a letter from the Veteran Administration telling him to report to the VA Hospital in Iowa City, IA for evaluation on an abnormality in the bone of his leg and to set up getting his special built up brace and shoes.

He took a day off work and we drove the four hours to Iowa City. We spent our day sitting in uncomfortable plastic chairs only to be told that we should have gone to Hines Hospital in Chicago. We returned home. Boyd negotiated two more days off and we headed to Chicago, another three hour drive. At least I had an aunt so we could stay overnight to get everything done. Boyd got connected with Willie in orthotics, including his direct number and for the next thirty years Willie and Boyd worked together to supply Boyd shoes and brace. We, also, learned the abnormality in the leg was a pocket of osteomyelitis (bone infection) that was dormant. We were sent home with no advice concerning the leg.

Months later he had his first flare-up. He was skeptical that the VA could give him efficient treatment which would cause absenteeism that could have a negative effect. He discovered he qualified for medical care through Caterpillar. He decided to seek medical care locally. He found an excellent orthopedic surgeon to provide care. While he required surgery and antibiotics. He could go to work on crutches.  The treatment was successful.  The infection was under control. We were able to resume our happy life. A few months later our baby girl, Molly was born. Life was complete. Normalcy had returned.

Part 18… Home to Farmington

The beauty of the Rocky Mountains and our enjoyment of the metropolitan environment couldn’t compete with going home to the comfort of our friends and family. Boyd had a permanent disability. Caterpillar had a policy to rehire returning veterans. He would have a job upon our return. As a nurse I was confident in finding a job. We were going to go back. The plan was to have another baby and reclaim our small town life.

Coming home wasn’t easy. Exciting, but not easy. We were changed. Boyd had spent the last year in a military environment with other wounded soldiers. Now he was in “the world,” (a Vietnam vet term) he recieved no acknowledgement of his service and sacrifice. Except for those close to him, his disability was ignored until he attended an honor flight in 2018, fifty years later.

Boyd could no longer do a job that required walking and standing. Caterpillar had to figure out what to do with him. The first job he was assigned did not fill the day. He sat and read a book waiting for an assignment. One day a supervisor walked by and asked him why he was sitting. He explained he had no tasks to do and with his handicap he needed to sit. A few days later the supervisor found him a desk job working in the self funded benefit area.

His first job was paying claims. He had been given an opportunity. He worked hard, including accepting lots of overtime. Eventually he advanced in this career, helping the company implement new plans and computer programs. He enjoyed the work. He liked the busy pace and found it satisfying to help employees with their benefit issues. He retired 38 years later when the benefit ar

 a book waiting for an assignment. One day a supervisor walked by and asked him why he was sitting. He explained he had no tasks to do and with his handicap he needed to sit. A few days later the supervisor found him a desk job working in the self funded benefit area.

His first job was paying claims. He had been given an opportunity. He worked hard, including accepting lots of overtime. Eventually he advanced in this career, helping the company implement new plans and computer programs. He enjoyed the work. He liked the busy pace and found it satisfying to help employees with their benefit issues. He retired 38 years later when the benefit area was outsourced.  

Part 17… Colorado Fun

As the months went by, the medical team was able to completely close all the wounds with skin grafts. The next obstacle was the large amount of fluid collection. It took months to get the problem treated. He recieved a built up shoe with a brace. His leg was 2 ½ inches shorter; he had no feeling and could not move the ankle but he was walking. He was able to stop using crutches and walk with a cane. It was another year before he gained enough strength to walk without a cane.

In typical Boyd fashion he accepted his handicap with a good attitude. Ever present was the relief and joy of surviving the war. He began living at the apartment and recieved treatments as an outpatient. Life was feeling more normal.

We loved the mountains, the climate and all the opportunities to enjoy life. My sister and her husband came out for a weeklong vacation. Close in age we had spent a lot of time with them before the war. It was good to be together. One day we headed to the mountains for the beautiful drive that would lead to Estes Park. After stopping for our picnic lunch, Marylee and I decided to hop among the rocks in the mountain stream. It wasn’t long before our feet slipped off the rocks and we had cold feet!

We showed them all our favorite spots we had found in the last nine months. The future looked bright as we began talking about returning to Illinois. My coworkers teased me that I would be back, after all who can leave the mountains?

Part 16… Enjoying the Rockies

When thinking back to our time in Denver, we have only happy memories.

The joy of being together in this big wide world.

A feeling that has sustained us for over fifty years.

I had found a job at Denver General Hospital, an apartment in the same building as my aunt and uncle just ten minutes from the hospital. Life settled into a happy rhythm: a new chapter in our lives. We discovered Mexican food and shrimp pizza. One night driving into the city, this small town girl looked around at the lights, the hustle and bustle and a new view of the world was revealed.

The first months Boyd spent the majority of his time in the hospital with occasional weekend passes, later in his recovery he spent a lot of time at the apartment. If he had times when he was not undergoing treatment he was allowed to leave. On my days off we would drive to the mountains, take a picnic, sometimes inviting Boyd’s friends to join us.

I would drive Boyd and his friend, Bill to the drive-in. I was a working girl so I’d climb in the backseat and sleep. Boyd would wake me up when the movie was over. I’d take them back to the hospital then go home to finish my night’s sleep.

We socialized with my cousin and his wife. Feeling normal was wonderful. Boyd was on crutches. He could play miniature golf so that became a fun date activity. We loved going to the City Park and Elitch Gardens. I walked into a supermarket, saw a display of oranges piled high, I had never seen such a display in my small town grocery. I tasted my first avocado and lamb. We experienced an expanding view of the world.

Part 15… Life at Fitzsimmons

From February, 1968 to April, 1969, Boyd was a patient at Fitzsimmons Military Hospital in Denver, CO. Being a patient for that long sounds pretty awful. It was not. The happiness of being alive and safely back in the United States overshadowed the difficulties. Never in all the years has Boyd ever thought sorrowful about his wounding. He is a realist and thankful for his life.

The first months of Boyd’s hospitalization he stayed in the hospital the majority of time but often received weekend passes to leave the hospital and come home to the apartment. We were able to enjoy some normalcy. The pattern throughout the year was in the hospital and out depending on treatments.

Boyd’s mother came out to visit him. As we headed to the hospital she told me that she didn’t want to actually see his leg. I assured her that it was in a cast so she wouldn’t have to look at it. We walked in, the cast had been removed and the bloody leg was suspended up in the air in a clear plastic aircast. His leg was being prepared for skin graft surgery. We have no idea of how many surgeries, casts or treatments that he had. Medical treatment under the army banner was different from anything we experience in the private sector. Surgery and treatment happened without any consultation. Boyd met it all with an attitude of “get it done and move on.” Boyd accepted what was necessary, moving forward and staying in the joy of the day.

The hospital was filled with young men. The sense of comradery among patients was strong. Friendships grew. The population varied from the severely wounded to those who would heal and go back to serve their country. Boyd bonded with a group of guys whose lives would be forever changed.

The hospital was part of a complex of buildings and services. Patients were free to move around it. Directly behind the main hospital building was a movie theater. There was an open area for stretchers and wheelchairs. The guys were always looking for someone to push them over to watch a movie. They offered three different movies a week. How the soldiers loved their movies.

Life went on.

Part 14… Face to Face

I would like to be able to vividly describe the moment I saw Boyd. I cannot remember. I remember snippets of my first visit. He was in a bed and he had a long leg cast with windows cut in it for the open wounds. I was content to just look at him. There was a sense of unreality. He had bought a radio in Japan. He had gotten paid in cash and someone stole the money. He was very thin, almost emaciated but oh, so very happy to be back. Our joy was immense.

Fitzsimmons hospital looked like any hospital from the outside but when I arrived at the medical floors it was nothing like a hospital I’d ever seen. The space was very large and filled with long rows of beds. There were no walls, just partitions and hanging curtains for privacy. Spaced sporadically along the large room were nurses’ stations. Everything was out in the open. The beds were filled with the wounded with all types of injuries. I recall a guy across from Boyd whose shin bone was exposed and they cleaned it with ether. Wow, it brought back my memory of having my tonsils out. It was loud with guys yelling at each other, throwing things, and trying to relieve the boredom. There was no television or anything for entertainment. To pass the time Boyd read a lot of books and we played a lot of cribbage.

There was no sense of sadness and illness. They had all survived and were alive and back in the states. They had not yet experienced the name-calling and disrespect of their fellow Americans who protested the war. They were insulated in an environment of camaraderie and safety after the horrors of war. Eventually, they would leave and have to reenter the “world” and experience the cruelty of others as well as flashbacks and nightmares. Some, like Boyd, would go home to families and jobs. They would be supported in their transition. Others would be lost to the streets unable to find their way.

Part 13… He’s Back

I did not anticipate being notified of Boyd’s return from a phone call. It was evening and I was at work. I answered the phone and there was his voice. His actual voice. He was back in the United States. The plane of wounded soldiers had landed at a base in California. The next day he would be flown to Fitzsimmons Military Hospital in Denver, Colorado.

I hung up the surprising phone call thinking he’s back, he is really back. I raced down the halls of the nursing home, where I worked, telling everyone who’d listen “he’s back” and “I’m going to see him.” There was this great sense of unreality.

I was going to Denver and we’d be together. I had no idea of the medical challenges ahead. I didn’t care if he had a leg or not, we were going to get to start again. I began making my plans. I knew there was a train that left Illinois in the evening and would get me to Denver midday the next day. I decided I’d take the train the next night which meant only two days until I saw him.

The hardest part of the train ride was having no one to talk to. I wanted to share my joy with the whole wide world and here I was sitting in a seat with a book and hours to occupy myself before reaching Denver. If only some friendly soul had made eye contact, I would have been off and running with my story of reuniting with my love.

My aunt and uncle lived in Denver, not too far from Fitzsimmons which gave us wonderful family support. In fact, the day Boyd arrived they visited him and took him his first ever Whopper. The next day I arrived.

My uncle picked me up from the train. We stopped at the state capital and I applied for a transfer of my nursing license to Colorado. I found an apartment in the same building where my aunt and uncle lived. I was more than ready to explore the adventure of living in Denver. I spent every minute I could with Boyd during my visit then returned to Illinois, packed up my belongings, got in my gold mustang and headed west.

Life was good, he was alive and he was back.

Part 11… The Wait

After Boyd’s initial letter, the days passed slowly. I went to work and waited for each letter. Every time I got a little more information that I pieced together. His injury was caused by one bullet entering just below his knee and severing the main artery in his right leg. In a field hospital in the middle of the Tet Offensive they operated and replaced the artery with a vein from his left leg. It was an experimental procedure that has supplied blood to that leg for over fifty years.. He developed gangrene and had a lot of infected tissue and bone removed leaving the leg looking like red meat. There were discussions about the possibility of amputation. My joy was not dampened. With or without his leg, he would come home.

I continued to get letters sporadically for the next six weeks, never with as much information as I wanted. He was kept in Vietnam for several weeks due to the vascular transplant. He tells the story of being transferred to Japan in a helicopter wearing only a sheet with his catheter clamped. He returned to the states with little. They had paid him while in Japan and he bought himself a radio. Months later some of his personal items were shipped back. He never recieved his dog tags. He did receive a purple heart.

Part 10… Wounded

Everything changed on a cold Sunday in January when I made my usual trip to the post office to check my mailbox. Mail from Vietnam was very sporadic. I went every day, “just in case.” I found a white envelope, addressed red ink, with unfamiliar handwriting and Red Cross stamped on the back. Boyd had been wounded and was unable to write. He was concerned the military would notify me and scare me. A Red Cross worker wrote for him. My heart sank. His letter told me very little about his injury, saying he had been shot in the leg and was in a field hospital.

Monday morning I called the Red Cross to try to get some information and was told if the military hadn’t contacted me then it wasn’t serious. I have no idea why I accepted that answer and didn’t push for more information. For the next six weeks I learned what was happening through letters from Boyd.I was never contacted by the military. In the next letter he told me the bone in his leg was broken. I was relieved. I knew they wouldn’t patch him up and send him back to fight.

I was to eventually learn it was very serious. His squad had been caught in an ambush. They were under fire and ammunition was needed. When no one would go, Boyd volunteered. A bullet hit his right leg just below his knee. He was pinned down. A medic managed to get to him and apply a tourniquet. Eventually he was taken to a waiting helicopter to be flown to a field hospital. He recalls getting thirstier and sleepier as he laid in the jungle waiting for help. He was bleeding to death as he was taken to safety. Lying on a gurney in a waiting area, he remembers the guy next to him saying, “we’re going to live, this isn’t where they put the dying ones.”

Part 9… 8584 Miles Apart

Boyd was experiencing the horrors of war serving as part of the 25th Infantry Division of the US Army. His base camp was located in the Cu Chi district, his squad would leave base camp and head into the jungle to engage an enemy could rarely see until shots were fired at them.

As they returned to base camp at night the Vietnamese would count how many returned, calculating if any were missing. They’d eat, sleep and prepare to head back out the next morning.

It is hard to imagine the impact of spending one’s days trying to kill without being killed. Fifty years later he has occasional nightmares. As we celebrate Independence Day, he will suffer a day of PTSD flashbacks from the fireworks. 

Often the squad was transported by helicopter into the jungle for patrol. He told me the worst part was when the helicopter dropped them in rice paddies and they had to push bodies that were floating out of the way as they walked toward land.

Boyd was determined not to allow himself to feel fear. He believed those were the soldiers who were killed or were so afraid, they would hide and not engage in the fight. Boyd was there to do his job, no matter how hard the enemy tried to frighten, threaten, intimidate, capture, or kill him. His survivor personality kicked in when he was shot January 15, 1968

I was trying to be brave as I waited for the year to pass, for his return, for when we would start over and life would be happy. I recognized that my storybook vision of happiness wasn’t realistic, yet I still believed God would redeem us.

PART 8… Home Alone

The operative word for me was survival: control the grief, fear and sadness as best I could. I settled into a life of biding my time, trying to avoid the pitfalls of the grief I carried. I remembered how much harder it must be for Boyd, living in harm’s way.

I attempted to develop a lifestyle that would keep me from socializing with my friends with their families, a painful reminder that I had none. One night I went to a gathering of friends and someone brought a baby.

I couldn’t stand it. I left.

I worked second shift in a nursing home to avoid evenings home alone. I would get home from work at midnight and read late into the night so I could sleep until noon and then go back to work.’
At my mother’s we converted the tv room for me. I was able to have my own television and a little spot to sit and watch it, trying to make it feel less like a bedroom. It was my escape spot when the fear and grief overtook me and I needed to be alone.
My mother and I got along well. Each of us extended extra grace during this precarious time. My aunt and grandfather lived next door. I enjoyed my family. Even though we were a family that didn’t openly share emotions, they understood my pain. In our small farming community, I knew pretty much everyone and they knew me. Most people were kind, regardless of what they might believe about the rightness or wrongness of the war. They understood the burden of having someone serving in Vietnam.
Boyd and I kept connected through letters and cassette tapes. I rented a post office box so I could get letters on Sundays. Our audio tapes meant we could hear each other's voices. On Christmas night I sat on the floor recounting my holiday, dreaming of next year when we would be together.
I made a chocolate cake and packed it in popcorn and sent it to him. When he opened the box he wondered why I would send a box of popcorn until he found the chocolate cake at the bottom. I put a packet of Kool-Aid in every letter as I was told the drinking water tasted awful. He got too much Kool-Aid and told me not to send it!

Slowly I built a routine as I waited for the year to go by.

Part 7… TIME TO GO

Fall is my favorite time of year. Boyd and I celebrate our birthdays in September. We were married Oct. 9 and our son was born Oct.1. In the fall of 1967 Boyd came home from Fort Polk with a thirty day pass before he was deployed to Vietnam. How happy we were to be together! The cool crisp air, trees beginning to change color, wiener roasts and applesauce making were my happy fall things to do. We would get in our Mustang and enjoy our favorite spots. We loved being outside and in Midwest farm country there were lots of spots to hike.

My aunt and uncle ran an ice cream and sandwich spot. They had a table in the back where food was prepared and family members would sit and visit as they worked. They were known for yummy pork tenderloin sandwiches. My uncle would cut an inch wide slice from the tenderloin, pound it until it was paper thin, bread it and drop it in the deep fryer. Yum, yum, add all the toppings and it said home to me.

We were determined to enjoy the time we had.

When October 1 arrived we should have been celebrating Little Boyd’s first birthday. I was thankful we were together and able to share our pain. Rest of the 30 day leave we were determined to enjoy the time we had.

We made plans for the year we would be apart. Before leaving he helped me move and get settled at my mother’s. I felt safer living with my mother. If he was killed, I wouldn’t be alone.

The day came for him to leave. I drove him to the airport. He left on a commercial flight. Supporting one another was very important to us. He felt guilty that he had to go and leave me to deal with the grief and fear. I was petrified he would die and I’d be alone. I don’t remember crying. He remembers waving as he boarded the plane. I left the building and I stood outside watching the plane taxi down the runway heading into the sky and thought “he’ll either come home or he’ll die.”

He was allowed to call me one last time from Seattle, Washington. It was a brief conversation. What does one say other than I love you? Hanging up the phone I wondered if I would ever hear his voice again.

My son was gone. My husband was gone.

Part 6… It Happens!

The black cloud of war hung over us as we drove home from the draft board encounter. I struggled to understand the coldness and lack of compassion in our treatment. We avoided the news and tried to not think about it. Our future was not in our hands.

The letter came: Order to Report for Induction. There was a sense of relief that it was happening. It was settled. We would go forward as best we could.

Life speeded up as he would have a physical and if he passed the physical he would immediately be sent for basic training. Boyd was the type of man that accepted his plight and went to serve his country. He would go if he must, that was what an American did.

After his physical he called to tell me he was being sent to Fort Leonard Wood, MO. I was thrilled that the base was a four- hour drive from our home. When he got a weekend pass, I was in my Mustang on my way to see him. In the 1960s, St. Louis was known as a rough, crime-filled city with no interstate roads. Driving alone through St. Louis did not scare me. I was on my way to see my man.

This period was surreal. Six months ago we were parents, living our happy life and here we were in Rolla, MO. Boyd in the army and life looking very scary. Rolla was a college town near the base. They had a little old fashioned hotel where we would get a room still numb with grief and disbelief at our future. Always happy to be together.

In typical army fashion, they offered an extra weekend pass, if the recruits did well on a shooting challenge. It was Boyd’s nature to do his best and he qualified for his weekend pass. He also got sent for Infantry training in Fort Polk, Louisiana immediately following his basic training. We were not naive. He was destined to be sent to Vietnam.

Part 5… Grieving is Hard

Grieving is hard. In the 60’s grief was ignored and avoided as much as possible. It was like my child never existed and I had not been a mother.

No one else my age was going through grief. Boyd and I staggered through our days, trying to make sense of our tragedy and the loss of our happy life.

Both of us were determined to move forward, have more children and recreate our life. I changed jobs to work days, so we could be together. We were determined that this loss was not going to define us.

As the initial shock began to wear off, we realized that Boyd’s draft status would go back to 1-A. The black cloud of war had returned. The idea that Boyd, a grieving father, would be drafted was abhorrent. We had six weeks to notify the draft board of Boyd Dale’s death. I counted up the six weeks and circled the date on our wall calendar.

Believing in the compassion of others, we decided to go make a personal appeal, we believed our loss was a horrible tragedy and we should be allowed to have time together to grieve. Boyd deserved better than being shipped off to war just months after his son’s death.

The day arrived, with heaviness in our hearts and minds and still feeling like deer in the headlights, we got in our Mustang to go plead for time.

The draft board was located in a typical nondescript depressing government building. Filled with people working at various gray metal desks, we were greeted with a sense of annoyance and bother. There were no chairs or private offices, just people at their desks ignoring us. Our hopes for some type of connection were dashed.

From across the room a lady loudly identified herself as the person in charge. She did not walk across the room to speak to us personally. We voiced our plight and asked for time to grieve. Couldn’t we have six months at least? She spoke loudly, bluntly, coldly, informing us that it was our tough luck and quickly dismissed us.

Shocked, we drove home in a daze of disappointment and disbelief at our treatment.

With the looming fear of war, all we could do was cling to the hope that miraculously his number wouldn’t be called.

Part 4… Tragedy Strikes

Arriving home from work the night of February 20, 1967, I followed my normal routine of tiptoeing into Boyd Dale’s room to check on him. That night, I knew something was wrong when I looked into his room. He was unconscious. I screamed for Boyd and called our physician. He told us to meet him at his office.
I drove our Mustang madly through our small town honking through every intersection as Boyd gave Boyd Dale mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. We raced into the office, our baby motionless in Boyd’s arms. Even as we rushed him into an exam room and the doctor looked him over, I knew it was over. My beautiful baby was dead. A victim of SIDS.
The doctor offered us a moment for a final good-bye. I kissed him on his forehead, overwhelmed by the grief. Boyd didn’t say a word. He touched Little Boyd’s hand in a silent goodbye as we left him with the doctor and drove our Mustang to my mother’s house slowly, in silence.
Thus began the rituals of death.
We went to my mother’s. Our pastor met us there and drove Boyd the eight miles to his parents’ to tell them. While we were away from our house, my aunts went in and removed all traces of our baby. We returned home and it was as if we never had our beautiful baby boy. It was as if we had never been parents.
Boyd later found a bib and secretly carried it in his pocket for months.
We borrowed money to buy a burial plot near my father’s grave. Walking into a room filled with tiny caskets was horrifying.
We had Boyd Dale dressed in his baptism clothes and laid in a powder blue casket. It was a cold, bleak February day when we walked across the hill with the wind blowing, our hearts full of dread at saying good-bye to our precious firstborn.
I knew life would go on but I lost my sense of pure joy and happiness. No matter what other wonderful things came into my life, I would carry this grief, a deep wound in my heart forever.

Part 3

When Boyd Dale was three months old we needed more money to meet our expenses. Not wanting to leave our child with a babysitter, we decided to work different shifts and watch him ourselves, always one parent on duty with our beloved baby boy. I’d hop in the Mustang, take Boyd Dale to our neighbor to stay for the one hour between the time I left for my evening shift and Boyd got home from his day shift at Caterpillar Inc.

I enjoyed working as a nurse, knowing that Boyd was home with our son made it that much more satisfying. I worked out my schedule so I had Wednesdays and Sundays off. We could see each other in the middle of the week and have our Sundays together. It worked well. Life changed with two full time jobs, we were young, strong and willing to work hard to build our life.

We functioned as a team, sharing chores, always happy to be with our son. Boyd would walk around with Boyd Dale in his arms singing silly songs. In the mornings I would put him in the stroller and take walks, telling him about the big wide world we lived in. It was common for me to put a load of clothes in the washer before leaving for work, and Boyd would hang the clothes on hangers and a rack to dry during the night since we didn’t have a dryer.

I would arrive home to my little family sleeping. The first thing I’d do is tiptoe into Boyd Dale’s room to check on him and give him a kiss on his head before sliding into bed next to Boyd.

Even though we were working at different times, we were satisfied with our life and our son was with one of his parents the majority of the time.

Our future was bright.

Part 2… Becoming Parents

A year to the date of my nursing graduation, our firstborn son, Boyd Dale Christy, arrived.

The nurse laid him in my arms. I stared at him, amazed at the depth of my love for him thinking: “Did my mother love me this much?”

After being up with me all night while I was in labor, Boyd went to the waiting room while the baby was delivered. Easy-going and exhausted Boyd fell asleep

What joy when he was awakened to come meet his beautiful son with a crown of dark hair. Boyd had grown up in a chaotic childhood and my father died when I was a child. Our deepest desire was to create a family. With Little Boyd tenderly swaddled and safe in our care, our desire was fulfilled.

We were a family.

Boyd Dale’s arrival meant that Boyd’s draft status was changed. He was reclassified from 1-A to a paternity deferment, unlikely to be drafted. The cloud of fear surrounding being sent to fight in Vietnam was lifted. We could live the life we dreamed of.

Life was sweet and beautiful. We were optimistic, we were new parents and we were very much in love. He was the first grandchild for both sides of the family and happy to volunteer to babysit. We were happiest when the three of us were together.

We had a gold 1965 Mustang. Long before car seats were invented, we’d lay Little Boyd between us on the carpeted console and off we’d go. A bonus, Boyd would warm up the car for the baby, something he hadn’t ever done for me.

We drive to the houses of family or friends and spend hours together playing games and visiting. I remember a happy night with everyone sitting around on the floor playing Monopoly as our babies slept on their blankets on the floor near us.

My elderly grandparents lived nearby and I would take Boyd Dale to see them regularly. They would exclaim how strong and adorable he was. My grandfather had limited vision and he tried to position his great-grandson so he could see his face. Grandma, who had raised seven children, would give me advice about raising him. I loved anything she told me.

My life in 1967 with my little family felt safe. I felt untroubled by the world.

Part 1…Young Love

I entered high school in 1960, the beginning of a decade of change and unrest: civil rights, the Cold War, the Cuban missile crisis, and the growing conflict in Vietnam. By the time I was completing my high school career, the military draft and Vietnam were hot topics. The pictures on the news made the war very real as we were facing graduation and future decisions.

As the guys turned 18 and registered for the draft, they knew going to war was a possibility. Parents were worried about their sons. The options were debated: go to college, head to Canada, serve time in jail like Muhammad Ali, volunteerly join a branch of the service and try to get a job that would not cause you to be sent to Vietnam or simply hope that your number would not come up.

I felt this anxiety personally, I wanted to marry my boyfriend, Boyd.

Boyd was laid back, so I probably worried more about his getting drafted than he did. But there was an undeniable cloud on the horizon: the draft and Vietnam. We thought about his receiving the dreaded letter saying: “Order to report for Induction from the Selective Service draft board.”

By the time we completed our educations, he hadn’t been drafted. As we neared my completion of nursing school, we picked a wedding date. I graduated on Oct 1 and we married the next weekend on Oct. 9, 1965. We had been dating for three years. Finally we’d be together as man and wife.

Filled with the optimism of young love, we spent our energy on establishing our first home.