CHAPTER 1

The Day I Was Born...

The day I was born, I was given a nickname that stayed with me for the rest of my life. Even today, after fifty plus years, my mother will still occasionally introduce me to people as her “little angel – her God-given miracle.” No pressure, right!

Our family dynamic was not unusual for today, but in the mid-fifties, it was a new concept. My father fell in love with and married my mother and adopted my older sister (from my mother’s first marriage) without hesitation. In 1954, my mother and father brought a new member into the family. Unfortunately, my brother died at twenty-three months of age to a congenital heart failure.

In the mid-1950s, a woman having a baby later in life was not encouraged. So after losing my brother, my older parents were encouraged not to have another baby. But alas, fate intervened, and two years later, exactly twenty-four hours after the birthdate of my deceased brother, I screamed my way into this world and was immediately given the nickname.

As a result of this nickname (and the constant reminder of it), I often felt like I was a replacement child and that I was expected to do great things. In another decade that probably would have been easier. But as a baby-boomer who was raised by older “veteran” parents, I became the victim of a changing world and was being guided by older parents who did not understand the changing opportunities and requirements for women.

Neither of my parents completed high school. In fact, both of them took their GEDs later in life. Nevertheless, even without a high school diploma, my father became a supervisor for a pipeline company. That was entirely possible in that decade. As a result, my parents did not understand the importance of my having a college education as we entered a new decade, and therefore they did not r