Young Palma

The circumstances attendant to Palma’s birth are less clear to me. I do recall that Jean went to Alta Bates but when she arrived there nothing transpired for some time and she walked in order to start the birth process going again. I think that finally she was given something to induce labor. I believe that this was along toward evening and that the birth occurred about mid evening. Muriel must have been temporarily with Jean’s sister in Walnut Creek — I have no recollection of her on the scene when Palma and Jean came home from the hospital.

There are several happenings in Palma’s early life that are indelibly etched in my memory. Perhaps the first of these is her “reading” ’Twas the Night Before Christmas for the assembled family one Christmas Eve. And I remember her reading the abridged version of Black Beauty that she knew by rote long before she could read.

Then there was the time when we were on vacation with my brother Verner’s in Rock Island and she strayed off with her doll and buggy. That was surely a scary experience until she turned up. I wonder if that may have been the start of her reluctance to be alone. I seem to recall that it may have started, according to Jean, once when she woke up from a nap and Jean wasn’t around to respond to her call. At any rate she was very averse for a long time to being out of sight of either Jean or some familiar person. This extended to being left at Rhythm School [pre-school] although I think she finally accepted this.