Weekend Creative

It's a cold, snowy day - a perfect day for writing assignments! Over at her blog, Ali Edwards has a weekend creative challenge to journal your life story. So I wrote a little part, after 2 phone calls to my mom for more details.


Part 1 - Birth
I was born on Good Friday, April 8th, 1955, right at midnight. Dr. Dykes, Mom’s doctor, asked her if she wanted the date to be April 7th or 8th and she chose the 8th. Later she said she wished she’d chosen the 7th as it was my Great-Grandma, Emma Tauber’s, birthday but she’d forgotten that in the delivery room when the doctor asked the question. Ramona Asp was the delivery room nurse. Through the years, my birthday has often fallen on the festival days of Palm Sunday, Good Friday or Easter. I was due on May 11th but my Mom has RH- blood, which can cause complications for babies. Fifty + years ago it was a pretty big deal.

I was born in Wetaskiwin Hospital, the first child of Gustav Eddy Lange and Elfriede Hulda Hetman. I was the first grandchild for Wilhelm Hetman and Hulda Tauber, my mom’s parents and the ninth grandchild for John Lange and Helen Pohl, my dad’s parents. My maternal great grandparents were Emma Becker and Ludwig Tauber and Gottleib Hetman and Amelia Krueger. My paternal great grandparents were Friedrich Lange and Julianna Kottke and Emelie Eckert and Gottleib Pohl. All of my great-grandparents were in Germany or Poland. In 1967, Great Gramma Tauber came to Canada for a visit but she was the only one I ever met.

My dad chose my name, Crystal Louise. Other names they considered were Gwendolyn (can’t imagine that!) and Teresa, after my Mom’s aunt in Germany and which they later gave to my sister.

Mom stayed in the hospital for a week and then took me home to the farm, 2 miles west of Millet. Two days later, Dad drove to Onoway and picked up Gramma Hetman, who came and stayed with Mom for a week. Dad went back to work that week with Tauber Construction, where he worked with plaster and stucco. In the evening after work he came home to more work on the farm. They had a few cows to milk, including a red one named Bossy, which my grandparents had given to them as a wedding gift.

More to come soon, I hope!