Like his father before him, Richard Dornbusch Eskrigge was born at the Kings Daughters Hospital in Greenville, Mississippi. And, like it says in the opening bar of a rather celebrated hit song of the sixties, ("Dixie") young Richard was born carly on a frosty morning.
For the hour was 3:13 A.M., and the temperature at Municipal Airport must have read something like thirty-one degrees. That was the low in Wilzin Park anyhow, as recorded by this weather observer, on the morning that Katy and Big Richard presented him with his very first grandson.
We stuck around the sun parlor on the fourth floor until the clock was crowding midnight, then called it a day, and caught a ride home with Bert McKee. Dr. Jimmy Newton had already left the scene, temporarily, of course, to handle a bit of contemporaneous stork business at County General Hospital. But the two grandmothers-in-waiting, Ann Wright Dornbusch and Louise Eskrigge Crump, only settled themselves all the more firmly in the sun parlor chairs. And the set to their chins seemed to say, a la General Grant, that they meant "to fight it out on this line if It lakes all summer."
The girls had reinforcement in the presence of Barbara ('Little Darling"') Nicholson, whose husband Bill was furnishing moral support to the expectant papa elsewhere along the corridor. The shift had changed at eleven o'clock, so the nurse on duty was Mrs. Dolly P. Burle (we taught her First Aid), the supervisor was Mrs. Gladys Boyd, and the Nurse's Aide in charge of the nursery was Mrs. Lee.
So there you have the supporting cast for the miracle play in those small hours of last Tuesday. We call it that advisedly because the miracle of birth unfailingly points us to both wonderment and humility.
Louise came home about four o'clock with the big news that the leading man had finally come on stage, and that the play was underway. He was a big guy, too, announced Grandma proudly, seven pounds, nine ounces, with long feet and long fingers just like her Richard had, and with Kathy's nose and mouth, and she hoped, with Katy's red hair though she wasn't sure.
Nobody Is less useful at a time like this than an expectant grandfather. But we did manage to serve some small purpose throughout the preliminary stages by answering the telephone. There had been calls, throughout the earlier part of the evening from interested parties. Had anything happened yet, asked blood-kin, like Marian Shelton and Lucilo Finlay; or friends, like Susan Crosby, Rozelle Meadors, Mary Helen Hollowell, Mollie Schwarz, Kathryn Reed and Eva England; and even a long-distance deal from Katy's brother, Herman Dornbusch Jr., in Vicksburg, who was perspiring through the prologue incident to being an uncle for the very first time in his life.
So, after Louise got home with the big news at 4 a.m., sleep was out of the question for Old Stuff, and we could scarcely wait for daylight and the chance to make some telephone calls ourself. We hope the occasion justified the early-rising which we thus forced upon a heap of mighty good people.
Writing these comments on Thursday evening, March 10th, 1955, when Richard Dornbusch Eskrigge is about two and a half days old, we might add that it is generally agreed that his hair is almost black instead of being red. But no one is quibbling, and everyone is gratefully accepting him at face value.
Furthermore, we have just glimpsed him resting on his little Mother's shoulder, and wonderment and humility are bubbiing anew in our heart. Also thankfulness for the goodness of God.
BC.
