January 11, 2015
Born Tuesday, July 11, 1961 at Bixby Hospital at 8:45 a.m. at 8 lbs ½ oz. and 19 in. long to Ray Orville and Lucy May Poling.
Home was at 1497 East Valley Road, Adrian, Michigan.
He joined a family of 2 sisters, Susan 5 and Nancy almost 2. We were pleased to add a baby boy to our family of girls. It made a change from pink, dresses and dolls. Now there were 2 little ones to get into mischief, while I was feeding the baby.
Danny scared us one day when he was around 2 years old, when he choked on a lemon drop. It was in the morning and we weren't dressed yet, but thought that we would have to take him to the emergency room. His dad turned him upside down and hit him in the back and the lemon drop came out. What a relief. After that incident, we were careful about having hard candies in the house.
Orville liked taking Danny with him, when he went places. Danny would follow his dad around the house and yard to be with him.
When he was little he would take a nap on the davenport. When he woke up, he couldn't walk. He would get on the floor and crawl until he would finally be able to get up and walk. He did this a few times and we took him to the doctor and he said that it must be growing pains. It did go away after a short time.
When Danny was little he found some scissors and cut a chunk of hair off in the front. Another time I tried to give him a haircut on a Saturday and it looked bad. He went to church that way. I don't know how he felt, but I felt bad for him. We had to wait until Monday to take him to a barber to fix it. I never did try that again.
When Dan was in 2nd grade the teacher sent a note home to have his eyes checked. He did need glasses. I never had to tell him to put his glasses on. He would put them on when he got up in the morning. It made me feel bad that I hadn't noticed that he needed glasses.
He used to sit with Waldo Johnson during church. Waldo always paid special attention to him.
One day he was balancing the scales on his head with no hands and they fell off and hit his feet. We had his feet x-rayed, but there were no broken bones.
Another time he was playing on a swing set in the neighbor's yard. He flipped over on the side bar across the frame and fell to the ground. We took him to the doctor and he asked him to raise his hands in the air. One went up and the other one only went up a little. The collar bone was broken. They put him in a brace to hold the bones in place.
Dan started taking piano lessons from Arloa Speller. He would play the song and didn't see the need to play it over and over to practice, since he already knew how to play it. So the lessons didn't last long.
In 5th grade, Dan told me that he didn't need someone to stay with him anymore if he was sick.