January 11, 2015
Born Sunday August 4, 1963 at Bixby Hospital at 6:17 p.m. at 7 lbs 1 oz. and l9 ½ in. long to Ray Orville and Lucy May Poling.
Home at 1497 East Valley Road, Adrian, Michigan.
She joined a family of 2 sisters, Susan almost 7 and Nancy almost 4, and 1 brother, Daniel 2. Now there were 3 siblings to get into mischief while I was feeding the new baby.
Karen didn't have much hair when she was born, but had real blonde curly hair when it did grow. When she was still 2 people were asking if she was a boy or a girl.
Karen followed in her big sister's footsteps in having terrible 2s, only because of the accidents that happened to her:
She was standing in the front doorway of our car and fell out, but her leg was caught under the seat. It twisted her leg and when we took her to the doctor, she had a green stick fracture of her leg. She had trouble walking on it for awhile.
Her sister, Susie was swinging in the tree swing in our backyard. Karen ran behind her and got knocked down. She hit a tree root and it knocked her 2 front teeth loose. We took her to the dentist. One of them was so loose that he just pulled it out and the other one he thought would tighten up again. After that she was climbing on our kitchen step stool that had a chair back on it. She slipped and hit her mouth on the back and it loosened up the other tooth, so it had to come out also. Her mouth was very tender and she was limited in what she could eat. Applesauce worked pretty good. She was without her 2 front teeth until she was around 7 when the new teeth came in. She could still eat apples, biting them off with other teeth that were there.
She may have been a little older than 2, but was little when we were at a church dedication on Bent Oak Highway. When it was over someone found her out walking down the road and brought her back inside to us. She got lost from us and was going to walk home.
Another time we were at the fireworks at the old Tecumseh High School football field. We couldn't find her with us and was looking around for her. She had gone under the tree, because she thought the fireworks were going to fall on her.
In 1968 we took a trip to Uncle Horace's in Virginia to pick up Grandma Comfort. We went into Washington D.C. to see some of the sights. They watched the fireworks at the Washington Monument. She called the Washington Monument “blinker eyes”.
One day she and her neighbor friend, Pam Poe were playing out in our back yard. I heard crying and ran out to find that Karen was hurt. Our lawnmower had a woven wire seat that the wires had broken on the curve of the seat. Karen had been jumping on the seat, fell and was caught in the wires sticking up. Pam ran home to get her mother. We got her off of the seat and Myrtle took us to the emergency room at Bixby Hospital. While we were waiting Karen said “I wish this wasn't me”. She had stitches in both knees. When we got home from the hospital, everyone wanted to see her wounds. She wouldn't let them because she didn't want then to say “owww”. It wasn't a pretty sight. She still has the scars to remind her of that injury.