She always corrected people who thought she meant Hannibal, Missouri.
One other historical item of note; she attended the 1904 Worlds Fair in St. Louis, in her Mother's lap, in a wheelchair.
Enid on the left, sister Hope on the right.
Her father, Fredrick William Heberlein was the minister at the Congregational Church in Hamilton.
He and his wife, Sarah Susanna Peterson Heberlein, grew up in a small central Wisconsin town on Lake Mason, not far from Wisconsin Dells and Portage. At its largest Briggsville numbered less than two hundred souls and served farmers in the area. Sadie, as she was known, was the daughter of Norwegian immigrants and a first generation American. Fred's family emigrated from Germany in the same time frame. They, most unusually for their time and families, both attended Ripon College where Fred starred on the baseball team and Sadie mastered in art and music. Fred went on to receive a Divinity degree from Yale in 1898. They had four children of whom Enid Anne was third. Fred's preaching took them first to Missouri and later to churches throughout Wisconsin.
Enid was Valedictorian of her high school class in Ashland, Wisconsin, and for two years attended Northland College in Ashland, far Northern Wisconsin on Lake Superior.
When her father was named Superintendent of Congregational Churches in the state of Wisconsin (kind of like "Bishop.") his job took him to Madison and they lived in a big house with many bedrooms so that not only Enid and her sister Hope could go to the University of Wisconsin but many of their cousins and almost cousins could live there and attend as well.
Enid was very smart. She received her Masters from UW in Botany. The subject of her thesis had to do with the sexual reproductive systems of some plant.
She signed on to teach Biology and other science classes at Marinette High School. Marinette, Wisconsin is directly across the state line from Menominee, Michigan, (the Upper Peninsula). They were "twin cities" usually referred to as Marinette-Menominee. The countryside is breathtaking, Great Lakes all around. Winters were brutal. Mother made many friends and continued friendships begun in Madison and Ashland.
(An aside: in 1984 Mother, 15 year old daughter Kathy and I drove to Wisconsin and for a week we went to the towns in which Mother had lived and taught. Mother was 80. We stopped and visited with friends she had made in college. Sadly, within a year or so of that trip, many of them were gone.
I don't recommend a long road trip with an 80 year old and a 15 year old but it was special.)
For reasons never made entirely clear to me, she and a fellow teacher decided to take riding lessons. The instructor was a recently discharged veteran of the Cavalry, trainer of the Army's polo ponies, and generally debauched guy, Lyle Stephenson. They broke some of those strict teacher rules, went on picnics and fell in love.
Part II
Within a year, there was child number one, me. Daddy found work driving trucks and we lived in Milwaukee. The war was underway as well and while he was too old to reenlist he found work at an ordinance depot in Baraboo, Wisconsin, and then as an airplane mechanic at Peterson Field in Colorado Springs, where we moved in 1943. Mother taught at the San Luis Ranch School for really rich girls. I have wonderful pictures from there and although many scenic spots were closed because of the war, we did get to visit Estes park. But, when Mother found she was expecting child number two it precipitated a move back to Wisconsin. Daddy once more did ordinance work and sister Mary Louise was born in April of 1945.
Two years later, on April 28, 1947, at the age of 43, she gave birth to her third child, first son, Royce Fredrick Stephenson. He was adorable but not all was right and it took more than a year for a complete diagnosis but Royce suffered from a very serious case of Cerebral Palsy. He would never sit up on his own, talk, feed himself or be able to take care of himself. But he was very bright and cheerful and lived the life he had to the fullest. Enid saw to that. He was schooled at a special class for the handicapped in West Allis, Wisconsin. The family had moved to Milwaukee soon after he was born both for advanced medical care and for great job opportunities. They would remain there, in a variety of homes for many years. Daddy had various trucking jobs which kept him gone for extended periods of time so Enid took care of home, children and took on tutoring and substitute teaching roles. She researched and developed many systems to make his life broader. She used United CP and Easter Seals programs, training and ideas. Royce got to go to day camp and week long camp. He had a "talking board" cleverly designed by Mother and others to allow him to communicate his needs, ideas and humor to anyone willing to learn the system. He graduated from leg braces, to hip/down braces, standup tables and wheel chairs. I have related before how a fellow duplex dweller at one point, the famous baseball player Bobby Thomson knew that "Rocko" (as he was now referred) really wanted a specially made tricycle and saw to it that he got one. I'll look for pictures but this one one very handsome little boy, and charming. His grasp of humor was undeniable. He loved trains and classical music. Mother would walk him a few blocks from our house on Martha Washington Drive down to watch the freight trains headed to the industrial center of Milwaukee ... usually the engineer would wave. One day they stopped the train, stepped down and lifted he and mother up into the engine for a ride to downtown and back. OMG was he thrilled.
These were mostly happy times. We had all adjusted to life with a "special needs" kid (that term had not yet been adopted, he was handicapped). The person who struggled most with all of this was Dad. He had really hoped for a baseball playing, fishing fellow, hunter and mechanic. Instead, as he was inclined to say after a few too many of the beer that made Milwaukee Famous, God had punished him with a crippled son. Knowing Royce understood it full well, he sometimes said it in front of him. Nonetheless he made tremendous efforts to have his life include as many opportunities as possible.
But this is about Enid. She worked so hard. Did I mention that she was 4' 11" tall and weighed under 100 pounds except for those three pregnancies. She was the fastest walking woman you ever met ... even in her 80's she could lead me through a park or shopping center at her distinctive clip.
They moved to Houston in the late 60's to escape Wisconsin's snow shoveling winters and to be near Mary's family and mine. They included a six month sojourn to Ajijic Mexico where Mother and Dad rode horses in the hills while Royce attended the weekly English language movies in town. Daddy's health was failing rapidly and Mother's arthritis worsened. And as they were in their 70's it was time to find a place for Royce. Wintering in Douglas AZ at the historic Gadsden Hotel, a lady told them about a nursing home in Lordsburg, NM, where she stayed when arthritis forced her to. Said it was clean, small, well run and good smelling. They toured Sunshine Haven, put Rock on the waiting list and came back to close up their Houston house and head West. Laura helped them drive out ... two cars and a trailer. That was July and by fall Daddy was in the Lordsburg hospital dying of enphysema. He died on Super Bowl Sunday, 1977 at the age of 71.
Mother got a part time job at the Lordsburg Public Library where she remained until she turned 84 ... her patience both with little kids and a new librarian tossing out perfectly good books convinced her it was time to "quit."
During those Lordsburg years she took advantage of travel opportunities, back to Houston for important family events, weddings, graduations and such, and also out to Seattle to visit her sister Lois. She found that driving down to the train tracks in Lordsburg and signalling the Amtrack headed where she wanted to go was the easy way to travel in either direction. At one point Lois' husband Ken had died when they already had tickets for a six week cruise to the South Pacific and Australia. For just the cost of tips and a few new outfits, Mom got the trip of a lifetime. She loved Tahiti, the Sydney zoo and many other adventures. She sent postcards full of her sights and sounds, saved every menu from every dress up meal, and had a wonderful time, except for "all those old people" on the boat.
Sister Mary and her family moved to Lordsburg for part of those years, both of my girls made it a point to spend part of their summers visiting and helping out at the library. As a family we went each year to tour all the great SW sites we had grown to love, especially the Chiricahua Mountains of southern Arizona, the Gila Wilderness, Shakespeare ghost town ... on and on. It wasn't always all of us and we varied the sights and itineraries but we certainly learned to love the desert. Mother, who had been "able to identify every plant in the state of Wisconsin at 50 miles an hour", my Dad's quote, soon learned every bit of desert flora, all of its names, when it bloomed and where the best vistas were. She would get Royce at the home on weekends so they could go on drives. She even had a little CB radio so help could come if need be. She hoped to encounter a flash flood ... who knows why, the experience I guess, but never did.
(Enid with two of the Great Grands, Morgan and Clayton)
At 88 she took a tumble off a chair trying to get something down off a high shelf in the kitchen and hurt her ribs, or so she thought. Thanks be to God, my boss had asked me to take a van and wave runners to meet up with them in Phoenix to get a head start on their summer vacation. Stopping to get Mother and take her along was the plan. She complained of trouble breathing ... broken rib to be the blame, and we went to Phoenix, visited with an old school friend there!, but on the way home her conditioned deteriorated. We headed up the mountains to Silver City Hospital early in the morning, hit a deer with the rental car, and got her admitted. It was advanced pneumonia and not a broken rib. Bob and Mary from Albuquerque and Kathy from Colorado Springs all came down to take turns sitting with her. One evening she took off her wedding ring and gave it to Kathy, took the oxygen tube from her nose and said "I'm awfully tired, would it be all right if I gust go?" Kathy assured her it would. By morning she was gone.
She was such a treasure. She lived such a good life. Sometimes I can still hear her clicking ahead of me on a pretty walk.
