San Antonio, 1955-58
Minnie and I lived in San Antonio for the first three years of our marriage and our first two children were born there in 1957 and 1958. Minnie continued working at Kelly AFB as a top-secret typist for the OSI (Office of Special Investigations for the Air Force). I was attending Trinity University in San Antonio as a history major and also working full-time for San Antonio Savings & Loan Association in one of their branch offices in one of the Handy-Andy grocery stores. I was so busy with those two full-time assignments that our time together was even more special because I was so busy. Minnie filled her extra time with friends and family and cooking and reading and thinking about the future. We lived next door to Richmond Avenue Baptist Church so she often went there whenever they had services in the evening. Our first little apartment was so-o-o tiny that we could sit at the kitchen table eating supper and Minnie could reach things off the stove without getting up and I did the same with the refrigerator. This picture of my sister Darlene and her husband Leo with Minnie in our little kitchen gives an indication of the size.
And during the first year we somehow managed to go to Alum Creek Baptist Church on Sundays with Bob and Bernice and Kenny and sometimes on Wednesdays for prayer meeting. Money was tight in our newlywed status. I remember sometimes we would stop on the way home and buy a 5 cent ice cream cone and share it. Now that’s romantic! ^-*) Our Sunday trips also enabled Minnie to see her mother almost every week-end. It was about 50 miles from where we lived to her Mom’s house in Stockdale. We were always invited to someone's home for Sunday lunch because we all stayed and waited for the evening service every Sunday evening. And sometimes we had family or church picnics. My grandfather who was a Baptist pastor sometimes came. He loved Minnie. The first time he met her as soon as she came in the door, he said, “Min, sit down and tell me how you love Jesus!” So Minnie did and they were friends ever since. Sometimes he would say, “I like to go see Min and Bill. Min sure feeds good!”
We were married so quickly that Minnie’s many friends did not have time to give her a bridal shower so they did that the next month in October, 1955. Here is a picture of her at that shower wearing her beautiful wedding dress. The old snapshot is blurred but you can get some indication of the enormous number of gifts given to her. There were so many that I could not get them all in the car and we needed to take another load home the next time we came to Stockdale. We had enough sheets and towels and kitchenware to last us for many years. That shower showed the kindness and generosity of so many, many people. Minnie was so greatly loved everywhere she lived and Stockdale was her childhood home.
I began teaching school in 1956 while I was still finishing my degree. I taught at Edgewood High School in San Antonio. That first year I taught English, Typing, and Business. I had mostly hispanic students and they were exceptionally polite in those days. They all responded to anything I told them with, “Sir, Mr. Burnside, yes sir.” At the end of that first year of teaching Minnie and I took my English class on the school bus to a park for a picnic with the help of several mothers. It was a special year for them and for me and Minnie, too. The next year I taught history at Sam Houston High School in San Antonio and was the sponsor (with Minnie’s help) of the Youth for Christ student organization.
Both Minnie and I wanted 4 children and we were both very ready to get started on a family but we needed to wait until I finished college, as Minnie explained, “Before we were married we talked about family plans. We were both from families with 5 children and we both felt that we would like to have four children if the Lord allowed–and we prayed for two girls and two boys. The Lord answered our prayers.” (Indeed, yes! The children were born in 1957, 1958, 1959, and 1960! Many years later when Minnie was telling about this rapid sequence of children being born, she added, “And then I got a biology lesson!” And her audience laughed appreciatively. That was typical of her sense of humor. She was very quick with her wit and we laughed a lot together—not just in our early years, but all through her life.)
She wrote, “Since Bill was still in college, we waited until he was in his last year to start our family. Jeannine was born the same week he graduated from Trinity University with a B.A. in history. Family was very important to us. We never considered not having children.” J-91
Six weeks before Jeannine was born Minnie took maternity leave from her job at Kelly AFB because in those days that was the official regulation for pregnant women. She had extra time on her hands so she spent a lot of time reading about nutrition and new things to cook or bake. She decided to learn how to bake bread simply by reading instructions in a couple of old cookbooks we had. She walked to the neighborhood grocery store and bought some flour and yeast. (She had to count her loose change because she just barely had enough money.) And when I came home from work that night, I was greeted with homemade bread! How surprised and delighted I was! And from then for the rest of her life Minnie baked almost all of our bread. She baked such a variety and all of them were excellent. The entire family certainly appreciated that extra work. She got very efficient at it and often tried new recipes. It became almost a tradition for her to bake some kind of sweet bread on Sunday afternoons for the family.
Many years later after we had moved to Arkansas we woke up one Saturday morning and I told her, “Honey, I had a terrible dream last night. I dreamed that you died and you hadn’t taught me how to bake bread!” She laughed and laughed at that and then she said, “Well, Honey, today is Saturday. I’m going to teach you how to bake bread.” And she did! I entertained her all morning, though, because I had trouble learning how to knead bread without getting it to stick all over my hands. But with her help I finally mastered the technique and then quite often helped her knead the bread because we made so much. We would slice and wrap the fresh bread and then freeze it. It was so easy to thaw and toast the slices.
“The birth of each child is very clear in my mind,” she wrote. “Such a miracle from the Lord! Jeannine was born on May 24, 1957 at the Baptist Memorial Hospital [in San Antonio]. They would not let the husband into the delivery room, so I felt very alone being taken there. J-92 Jeannine’s birth was so exciting for us and also for both sides of the family and we had a lot of visitors.
It was only one year to the day before our second baby was born, William Timothy Burnside, born on Jeannine’s 1st birthday, May 24, 1958. Minnie wrote, “ They took me back to the same room [in Baptist Memorial Hospital] I had been in one year before–and the air conditioner was again broken. We were so happy to have a little son join our little daughter.” J-92
No comments:
Post a Comment