#52 Ancestors 2021 Week 19 Mother's Day: How I Became the Mother of Twins

 I am the mother of twins, my handsome sons, Matthew and James. 

When Bob and I married in September 1971, I was just starting my first full-time job, teaching at Anne Arundel Community College.  So we decided to postpone our honeymoon until after the school year ended.  We had some contacts in Europe, Christine, a former au-pere in France and Sandra, a friend working for the State Department and living in Germany, so we decided we would splurge and spend a month in Europe.  

As soon as I had finished grading final exams in May, we packed up our Eurail passes and headed across the Atlantic.  First stop, Paris, where we met up with Sandra, who came from Germany to meet us.  While we were in France, we attended a wedding in Christine's family at a lovely church out in the countryside.  We also visited some of the major sites like Versailles, Notre Dame, the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower. Here I am with Sandy at the Eiffel Tower.  We spent a lot of time looking at prints in some of the small shops near the Louvre and eventually bought a couple, even though they seemed wildly expensive at the time, given our small budget.  

After France, we took the train to Bad Aibling, a lovely town south of Munich where Sandra lived. In Germany, of course we spent some time at beer fests and toured some of the countryside.  However, about this time, I started feeling unwell, throwing up all the time. This put somewhat of a damper on our travel plans. I managed a train trip to Florence, but when Bob and Sandy took the train to Rome, I stayed behind.  I didn't make it to Rome until 40 years later, but that is another story. 

Neuschwanstein

My memories of this trip include throwing up in some very nice restaurants and fainting dead away at Neuschwanstein castle. I think it was the fainting incident that finally decided me that I should see a doctor.  The doctor spoke little English and I spoke little German, but he managed to convey to me that I was pregnant.  I was stunned.  Now, you may wonder why I didn't draw the obvious conclusion much sooner.  What can I say?  I had a sheltered childhood, attended Catholic schools and studied to be a nun during my teenage years.  Sex education was not high on the agenda of the good sisters. 

In any case, we saw a little more of Germany and stopped in England on our way back to the States, and carried on with getting ready for a new baby.

Everything went well until about October or November when my obstetrician said I was gaining too much weight.  You might not remember, but at the time, obstetricians were all over watching that you didn't put on too much weight.  I was starving.  I mean I cried at night I was so hungry.  And poor Bob would do his best to remind me that I was not supposed to gain so much weight.  I have to say I didn't take his reminders very well. 

Finally, around Thanksgiving, the obstetrician detected two heartbeats and informed me that I was going to have twins.  Remember that sonograms were not a routine thing at the time, so you just had to depend on physical observation.  Well, to my relief, he then said that since it was twins, I could eat as much as I wanted.  By December when the semester was over, I was too big to fit behind the steering wheel of my car and I mostly just stayed at home in our apartment.  

The twins were due around Valentine's Day, but they arrived a few weeks early on January 28. Although I did go into labor, I was so big that the contractions did just about nothing and so the twins were delivered by C-section.  They weighed in at just under eight pounds each.  No wonder I gained so much weight.  Fortunately for me, it was mostly all baby and I looked pretty skinny after the birth.  (That may be the last time I ever looked skinny. Thank you, boys.) 

Bob and I debated and debated over names for the twins.  In fact, we debated so long that the hospital nurses threatened to name the babies themselves.  We wanted family names and finally decided on Matthew Scrivener (a very early colonial settler) and James Gibbons (a name that happened to occur in both our families) Agee.  The boys were fraternal rather than identical twins, one with dark hair and dark eyes taking after the Agee side and one with blond hair and blue eyes, taking after the Scrivener side.  What great planning on our part. Everyone was happy!

Meanwhile, as we dithered over the names, my sisters were most anxious to see their new nephews.  Unfortunately for them, and unlike the more open policies of today, the hospital at the time did not allow visitors to the nursery.  However, Louise and Maripat did not let that stop them.  They snuck into the hospital and by a circuitous route of back stairs and side hallways managed to make it to the nursery before being caught and thrown out.  

I was lucky enough to be able to go from the hospital straight to my parents' home where I had two adoring aunts and three adoring uncles to help take care of the twins, who were the first grandchildren on both sides of the family.  They weren't spoiled at all, not to worry. 

Of course, Matt and James were also the first grandchildren in the family.  I think this picture of my Dad with his grandsons says it all about how he felt.  

Only the beginning of many adventures as the mother of twins. 

 

#52 Ancestors 2021 Week 35 School: Marlboro High School

 

My mother, Anne Theresa Summers, was a very good student.  Her report card shows that her teachers considered her superior in almost every way (but only above average in cooperation!)  

She graduated from Marlboro High School in 1942, one of thirty-seven seniors in the 35th graduating class, a member of the debate team and of the National Honor Society.  Her favorite subject, according to her yearbook, was Problems of Democracy.  She was the president of the Home Ec Club and was also in the Glee Club and the School Orchestra. She went on to college at George Washington University. 

As shown in the program, the graduation ceremony was quite elaborate, filled with music and speeches. Note that Mom was the winner of the Girl's Declamation Contest.  No surprise at all to anyone who tried to argue with her later in life. 

And of course, the senior class had a will.  Mom willed her "studious ability and a few of her grades" to Ambrose Baden and Ralph Weaver, apparently young men who were not at the top of the class. 

Here is the student body in front of the school in 1942. Mom is in the front row, third from the right, in the very sharp looking vest, which she probably made herself. 

What my mother may not have realized when she was a student was that she attended a very historic high school. 

Marlboro High School was located on the site of  Dr. William Beanes' home.  Beanes, as history fans may remember was the prisoner whom Francis Scott went to rescue when he witnessed the shelling of Fort McHenry in the Baltimore harbor.  Dr. Beane's home was said to be the finest in Upper Marlboro.

 After Dr. Beane's death in 1828, the house was altered to become the Marlborough Academy, established by the legislature in 1835. The subjects taught included Dictionary, Geography, Latin, algebra, Geometry, and Cyphering; Greek and French studies were soon added. Hours were 8:00 a.m.to 5:30 p.m., and September was vacation month. At first only boys were admitted, but by 1840 there were female students as well; a report for 1844 indicates the attendance of 42 boys and 18 girls. 

In 1855, the Academy building burned to the ground, but by 1860, the site was known as Academy Hill and housed a new one-and-a-half story school building with a central bell tower. In 1867, after the establishment of the Board of County School Commissioners, a separate public school for girls was established immediately east of the academy building, and the two buildings were separated by a “good and substantial fence.”

Frederick Sasscer (a cousin of mine and later the County's Superintendent of Schools) described the education he received at the Academy after the Civil War:

The Academy building then consisted of two rooms, one of which was the school room and the other the bed room of the professor. . . . His classes, wonderful to tell, ranged from boys learning the alphabet, the first step in education, then to classes in Cicero and Xenophon. . . . The furniture was of the rudest kind. Desks with sloping lids in sets of three, in all about 30, were arranged against the walls. . . . The very small boys, who had no writing to do, found resting places on two long benches with backs. There were no blackboards, no free books and few physical comforts. The old professor sat at a small table in an arm chair, and was always supplied with a goodly number of supple rods, for the rod was not spared in those primitive days.

In 1921, the Academy was replaced by Marlboro High School, built at a cost of $38,000 by Thomas Marsden.  It was of masonry construction, coated with white-painted cement, and distinguished by a handsome shaped parapet on its south entrance façade. It had eight classrooms, offices and a library, as well as rooms for manual training and home economics.

In 1934, a Classical-Revival style façade was added to the building, significantly enlarging it. A large red-brick addition including eight more classrooms and an auditorium was built, wrapping around and hiding the south entrance façade of the original 1921 structure. 

Marlboro High School operated until 1948, when classes were moved to the Frederick Sasscer High School to address overcrowding.  The building continued to house primary and middle school classes until 1974.  After that it functioned as office space for various county agencies.