They spent the following months stationed at Port Huenme until October when Dad shipped out to Okinawa where he was stationed until the following June, 1958. Mom expected the arrival of their first baby in May and she moved home to South Bend and lived with her parents. As a special arrangement Dad was allowed to come home for the birth for two weeks on an emergency pass. Michael Joseph was born May 6, 1958 in South Bend. One of the nuns from the convent in Nerinx, Kentucky visited Mom in the hospital and Dad remembers how fond they were of her. Dad's tour in Okinawa was nearly done, and he returned to serve the remaining three weeks before returning home for good. Once back in the States, Mom and Dad and their new baby drove to Melrose, Massachusetts to live with Dad's parents for the summer. Dad was enrolled at Boston University, taking classes that would meet teacher certification requirements. That summer Mom and Dad stayed in Grandmother and Grandfather's room, and they stayed in Margaret's room and Margaret, who was still in high school, stayed on a cot. Mom remembers that Dad's parents bent over backward for them that summer. At the end of the summer of 1958, Mom and Dad moved to Whitefield, New Hampshire for a teaching job at Whitefield High School. That year in Whitefield they were fairly strapped for money. Dad made $3500 a year, and needing to pay Dad's parents back for Notre Dame, they lived on $100 a month. Mom remembers saying with the other teachers that they could make it on $6000 a year, but as it was things were very difficult. They expected their second child the next summer, and Gabriel was born in Whitefield on July 17, 1959. Three days after Gabe was born, Mom came home from the hospital and scrubbed the Whitefield apartment with Dad, and they moved to New Orleans. Dad had a job with the Army Corps of Engineers working in personnel. Previous Table of Contents Next