I was going through my computer erasing duplicate files and found about 12 copies of this  letter my four year old sister Patti sent to my mother when she was in the hospital after having me. She dictated the letter to my 11 year old sister. A bit of a puzzle because she says she celebrated her birthday the day before so it must have been July 10 when she wrote it and I was born on July 3. Did they keep new mothers in the hospital for a week after delivery back then? At any rate, I love these lines, especially “I am glad I have a baby brother. I want to name it Bobby Jerry. Not Hazel! I don’t like that! (She had heard my dad say jokingly that if they had a girl, he wanted to name her Hazel.  Patti insisted I was a boy right up to the day they brought me home.

I also like the lines, “Oh, bumble bees is on flower to flower today,” and “a rose is getting purty good today.I am getting purty good today!”

I’m just surprised at the handwriting as Betty Jo, who wrote it for her, had immaculate handwriting by the time she was in high school.  I wonder if she wrote it in the car on the way to the hospital to pick my mom and me up. The nearest hospital was 60 miles from where we lived.

I can’t find a photo of Patti when she was four, but here we are when I was five or six and she was nine or ten. 

And, the plot thickens, for  70 year later, when I flew to St. Louis to visit Forgottenman, he met me at the airport with this sign!