Ricky's Birthday

20071209

Today is Rick’s birthday. That may not be news to you, but it was news to Gma and me back in those early days—our first experience with parenting. I think it turned out pretty good!

It was 1949 and Christmas was coming and so was our first baby who turned out to be Richard Alan Glass. My brother’s name was Richard, but we always called him Dick. At the time we were planning to go to South America as missionaries and we thought Rick, as in Ricardo, would be more appropriate.

He made his grand entrance at McDonald Hospital in Warsaw located at the end of Argonne Road on Route 30. Dr. Baum was a unique smoker. The cigarette ash never fell off, even when he was bending over mom when the baby was almost here. You’d have to see it to believe it! So here you can see the announcement.

We lived on the island at that time. There were no

house numbers. All the houses had names. We lived in “Pilgrim’s Rest.” It was cold that winter and the wind from the lake seemed to penetrate the house. You can see the old space heater behind mom in the rocking chair. We had a wooden rack we put on top of the heater to dry the freshly washed diapers—no throwaways back then. Every piece of furniture--including the stove and fridge--was painted battleship gray! A real exciting place to live. Not! We had to move our bed to the living room near the space heater because the bedroom was so cold.

From there we moved to the Breckenridge. It was at the top of the hill catercornered from the old Westminster Hotel. There were two apartments on the second floor. Carson and Rosalind Rottler lived across the hall from us. It was while we lived here that my home-made root beer blew up. Mom reminded me that she had laundered all of Rick's baby clothes because Ardi was now on the way. They were spread to dry in the enclosed porch just off the living room. I don't know which was worse--ruining the baby clothes or having the root beer go through the floor to the landlords apartment below.

Now it was time to to move to Roosevelt Ave. It was located almost behind the Argonne Apartments that are not there anymore. Here we would celebrate Rick's second Christmas in style. He was bedded down early and we put up the tree and started to decorate it. Some friends showed up about midnight. We had bought Ricky his first train and were trying to make a village on a platform I had made. Barbara Boatwright was an artist and in no time she had created mountains and terrain for the track to run through. A real village appeared in no time. It was fabulous. We were all excited and trying very hard to be quiet so as not to wake the little boy. All to no avail. After playing with his wind-up roller coaster we were surprised to see the toddler appear. For some reason he thought he should be playing with the toys.

Now he's grown up and still going to school. He graduated from high school, graduated from Grace College, and graduated again. I'm not sure how many times. Now he's the teacher. He never did get out of 4th grade.

We are thankful the Lord has used his talents, raised a wonderful family, and fulfilled his dreams of working with children.

May the Lord continue to bless and use you.

Happy Birthday, Rick!

Love, Dad