My only Halloween story

Another submission from my life story, a class exercise.

Surely I was seven, if not eight, when my parents and I picked out my Halloween costume: Little Bo Peep. Yes, there were ready-made costumes even then. It’s a good thing, because neither my mother nor my grandmother was much in the sewing line. It was beautiful, with a little flat hat trimmed in lace. Alas, we made this decision too soon, because one day I took my costume down from the shelf where it was being kept safe, looked at it, and in a rush of despair thought, “Why did I ever want to be Little Bo Peep? All I’ve ever wanted to be was a fairy princess!”

There was an invisible “no whining” sign in my family, and I knew the rules. There was no way to complain and demand a refund. So I dreamed of the perfect fairy princess costume, and I’m quite sure I prayed. This was undoubtedly the first of many spiritual crises. Each day I looked in the closet, and the costume remained steadfastly Bo Peep.

What an anticlimactic ending; I have no recollection of Halloween that year. People must have said, “Oh, what a sweet Bo Peep,” and I must have gritted my teeth and said “Thank you.” I no doubt enjoyed the candy, which might have included a popcorn ball or two in that pre-razorblade era. But there was no joy, no joy at all.

Vital Statistics (I mistakenly published w/o title or pictures!)

I hit some button and published prematurely. So if you read the unnamed blog, here's some background to go with it, plus the ever-important photos. This started as a list, but as is my wont, it got wordier! All the pictures seem to be with baby me, but maybe most adults look their best when they're holding a baby.

I was given the name Karin Ingrid Augerson, to which I added McAdams when I married Michael. I still use McAdams, because the kids have it.

I don’t know who decided on Karin Ingrid, especially with the Swedish spelling. Augerson is an Americanized version of Åkeson, the name of our immigrant ancestor from Skåne. But my great-grandfather immediately demanded to know how to pronounce it, and I never really knew till we went to Sweden, where the Swedes, seeing it written “properly,” said oh, Kawrin (with a rolled r).

I was born in Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital. I can say that I was born in Hollywood, which is true, but technically Hollywood is just a part of Los Angeles, California.

I was born on April 8, 1940, a Monday, at 7:28 in the morning. Both the sun and the moon were in Aries, and six planets were in the 12^th house. A note to non-astrologers: the latter can be either dire or full of challenging opportunity.

The world didn’t look good about then. The United States was declaring itself apart from the war that was worsening in Europe, but there was already a draft, and the government was secretly helping England, which was being bombed heavily. Surely this was in the back of everyone’s mind. *

In my story I mentioned that there were no freeways in Los Angeles then, but in fact there was a little bit of the first freeway opened, the Arroyo Seco or Pasadena. This wouldn’t have helped my parents get to the hospital. The modern era was truly coming; that year the first McDonald’s opened, also in Pasadena, but I never saw one until we moved back to LA many years later.

My mother’s maiden name was Elizabeth Leggett Guest. Leggett, or Legate, is a family name that goes back to the seventeenth century in America and before that to England. She was always called Beth. My father was Philip Henry Augerson. Philip was after his mother’s grandfather, who lived most of his life in Iowa, and Henry was his mother’s maiden name. I always, even into adulthood, called them Mommy and Daddy; somehow Daddy still seems okay, but I can’t refer to my mother as Mommy.

My mother was born in 1915 in Detroit, Michigan. I have a telegram that my great-aunt Margaret Whittemore sent to my grandmother, saying “Congratulations on the birth of baby Elizabeth. Votes for women!” My mother died of a heart attack in 1962. My dad wasborn in Galesburg, Illinois, in 1916 and died in January 2002.

In 1963, Daddy married Elisabeth Roblee Zuckerman, my stepmother, who lived to the age of 98. She was determined to live long enough to vote for Barak Obama and to make sure he was elected. She died on December 4, 2008.

On my mother’s side, my grandparents were Emma Farrand Whittemore, born in 1883 and died in 1948, when I was eight, and Kenneth Irving Guest, 1878 – 1938. I was the first grandchild, and though my grandfather didn’t live to see me, my great-grandfather, James Whittemore, did. I remember Grandma Guest well; she was a warm and loving grandmother. When she was raising her own kids, someone took exception to her gardening, to which she retorted, “I’m raising children, not roses.”

My dad's parents are the ones I really knew. From the time I was five until I was nine we lived next door to them, I spent more time at their house than I didat home. Grandpa Augerson (Herbert Rutherford) was born in 1884 and died in 1969, about the time my son Ian was born. My mother once accused him of being “a bigoted old man,” which he undoubtedly was, but he was always gentle with me. I helped him pick boysenberries and slaughter chickens.

Grandma Augersonwas a beloved and affirming part of my life. She would patiently take part in my playing pretend, and she let me wring out clothes in the wonderful wringer and hang them on the line. Not really liking to cook, she had no problem with me experimenting in her kitchen. Living from 1886 to 1979, she had a long life, though her mind became shaky toward the end. She was born Stella Mae Henry in Galesburg, Illinois, the oldest of eight children.

I’m an only child. In spite of great-grandfather Whittemore’s advice to get a better doctor next time, my parents probably preferred not to take that risk again; also, the war undoubtedly intervened. Luckily, I have cousins; more about them in another installment.

*The day after I was born, Germany occupied Denmark and Norway.

I was given the name Karin Ingrid Augerson, to which I added McAdams when I married Michael. I still use McAdams, because the kids have it.

I don’t know who decided on Karin Ingrid, especially with the Swedish spelling. Augerson is an Americanized version of Åkeson, the name of our immigrant ancestor from Skåne. But my great-grandfather immediately demanded to know how to pronounce it, and I never really knew till we went to Sweden, where the Swedes, seeing it written “properly,” said oh, Kawrin (with a rolled r).

I was born in Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital. I can say that I was born in Hollywood, which is true, but technically Hollywood is just a part of Los Angeles, California.

I was born on April 8, 1940, a Monday, at 7:28 in the morning. Both the sun and the moon were in Aries, and six planets were in the 12^th house. A note to non-astrologers: the latter can be either dire or full of challenging opportunity. I can’t find the weather, but it was probably another day in paradise, sunny with the high in the low seventies.

The world didn’t look good about then. The United States was declaring itself outside of the war that was worsening in Europe, but there was already a draft, and the government was secretly helping England, which was being bombed heavily. Surely this was in the back of everyone’s mind. *

In my story I mentioned that there were no freeways in Los Angeles then, but in fact there was a little bit of the first freeway opened, the Arroyo Seco or Pasadena. This wouldn’t have helped my parents get to the hospital. The modern era was truly coming; that year the first McDonald’s opened, also in Pasadena. I never saw one when I was a kid, though.

My mother’s maiden name was Elizabeth Leggett Guest. Leggett, or Legate, is a family name that goes back to the seventeenth century in America and before that to England. She was always called Beth. My father was Philip Henry Augerson. Philip was after his mother’s grandfather, who lived most of his life in Iowa, and Henry was his mother’s maiden name. I always, even into adulthood, called them Mommy and Daddy; somehow Daddy still seems okay, but I can’t refer to my mother as Mommy.

My mother was born in 1915 in Detroit, Michigan. I have a telegram that my great-aunt Margaret Whittemore sent to my grandmother, saying “Congratulations on the birth of baby Elizabeth. Votes for women!” My mother died of a heart attack in 1962. My dad was born in Galesburg, Illinois, in 1916 and died in January 2002. In 1963, Daddy married Elisabeth Roblee Zuckerman, my stepmother, who lived to the age of 98. She was determined to live long enough to vote for Barak Obama and to make sure he was elected. She died on December 4, 2008.

On my mother’s side, my grandparents were Emma Farrand Whittemore, born in 1883 and died in 1948, when I was eight, and Kenneth Irving Guest, 1878 – 1938. I was the first grandchild, and though my grandfather didn’t live to see me, my great-grandfather, James Whittemore, did. I remember Grandma Guest well; she was a warm and loving grandmother. When she was raising her own kids, someone took exception to her gardening, to which she retorted, “I’m raising children, not roses.”

My dad’s parents are the ones I really knew; from the time I was five until I was nine we lived next door to them, I spent more time at their house than I did at home. Grandpa Augerson (Herbert Rutherford) was born in 1884 and died in 1969, about the time my son Ian was born. My mother once accused him of being “a bigoted old man,” which he undoubtedly was, but he was always gentle with me. I helped him pick boysenberries and slaughter chickens.

Grandma Augerson was a beloved and affirming part of my life. She would patiently take part in my playing pretend, and she let me wring out clothes in the wonderful wringer and hang them on the line. Not really liking to cook, she had no problem with me experimenting in her kitchen. Living from 1886 to 1979, she had a long life, though her mind became shaky toward the end. She was born Stella Mae Henry in Galesburg, Illinois, the oldest of eight children.

I’m an only child. In spite of great-grandfather Whittemore’s advice to get a better doctor next time, my parents probably preferred not to take that risk again; also, the war undoubtedly intervened.

*The day after I was born, Germany occupied Denmark and Norway.

Teeny Karin

A new blog direction, which will mean lots of installments I think. Echo and I are taking a class about writing our life stories, and ideas are just pouring out of me. So many that I can't imagine anyone reading them all, but there's a prayer if they're in short bits, illustrated. That latter takes some time, but we all need pictures. So I'm still, in fact, becoming my grandmother, and besides it's too complicated to change the name! Of course, I had to start at the start.

Besides my hospital certificate, with my footprint and handprint, the documentation of my birth includes a note from Uncle John, my mother’s youngest brother and my father’s best friend, informing his girlfriend and starting, “Whoopee, I’m an aunt!”

Actually, it wasn’t quite so easy. The fun part of my birth was that it took place in Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital, April 8, 1940. Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.’s daughter Daphne was born that same day, in the same hospital, and it no doubt created more press. I caused havoc, apparently, by emerging with the cord around my neck and who knows what other unseemly tricks, because while I, once unwrapped, was fine, with my mother it was touch and go. Luckily Daddy had some money on him, because my mother needed blood, and they wouldn’t do a blood transfusion without cash on the line. We were far from our home in Glendale, especially in those days without freeways, so there was no one else to pitch in.

I went home, with my dad and Grandma Guest, my mom’s mother, to take care of me. From what I’ve gleaned of child raising practices, my grandmother was an old pro and more flexible than my mother, who tried to raise me from the book, so unless I had separation trauma for that week or two without my mother, I was in good hands. Grandma Guest had raised four kids.

I don’t know what book my mother (whom I always called Mommy, which is hard to use now) consulted, but apparently it called for set feeding times, every four hours. I was bottle-fed. Finally Grandma Guest got fed up with hearing me scream, and said, “Feed that child now!” I’d say from early pictures of my plump self that I was not underfed, but I’m glad for Grandma’s intervention.