There Will Be Cornbread

The Camp Fire Girls had their meetings in our den in those days, and on one February day the two leaders were with the girls and it wasn't my term to be helping.
About 4:30 in the afternoon I was in the kitchen preparing dinner. John had called about noon as he always did to check on us, and I asked him to stop by the grocery store for something or other.
I had just begun making cornbread, when suddenly the "water broke."
Carolyn had been checking in and out of the kitchen. I was not in pain, but I knew that when that happened, the birth could happen at any time.
The Camp Fire meeting was nearly over, and Carolyn shooed everybody out. I called John and told him not to go by the store, but to come on home. But not to hurry.
He hurried!
I couldn't get that cornbread finished. I kept on working on it, with Carolyn trying to get me out of the kitchen. She was afraid that the baby would come with the two of us in the kitchen.
I don't know where Jim was. Maybe at the Tomlin’s or up in his room.
John got home and I finally got that cornbread in the oven.
We called Agnes and she said she'd be right over. As we were getting in the car, Agnes, Elizabeth Ann, and Thomas drove up. They followed us to the hospital, waving all the way, but went on somewhere because the children couldn't be on the floor where we were going.
Don't remember what happened to that cornbread!

Mary Ann was born about 9:30 that night, February 22, 1956. An easy birth and a short labor.
Of course they knocked me out completely, but evidently not as much as with Jim, for I waked up that night.
Agnes was with the older children when John was at work. They were very excited when the beautiful baby sister came home a few days later.
I didn't try to breast feed Mary Ann. The doctor told me that with our busy family, Carolyn 13 and Jim 7, it wouldn't work. So she was on a bottle from birth.