Nancy's Birth in 1942

The Very Beginning

     On the fifteenth of November, 1942, on the night of the first winter’s snow, in the shadow of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, just short of the one year anniversary of Pearl Harbor, I came into the “the biggest little city in the world,” Reno, Nevada.    Despite the fact that my young mother, about to send her husband off to war, would have preferred to hop the train at which their car waited, I emerged at St. Mary’s hospital in the company of the prayerful and practical Dominican nuns who hovered over the healing premises like the Holy Spirit hovering over the waters at the creation of the world.

     For the first three years of my life, destiny placed me in a semblance of paradise, in a garden, a piece of heaven on earth that would anchor my soul and become a spiritual magnet by drawing me toward the mystery of love at the heart of the universe. We lived in the family compound with my mother's home on one corner, my great-grandmother on the second corner, my grandparents on the third corner with the barn making up the fourth.  The garden was in the middle, as all the back doors led to it. 

            My father’s return from the army in World War II brought about my departure from paradise.  We  moved to a little stretch of dwellings called Tietjeville, between the country towns of Gardnerville and Minden just 50 miles south of Reno, Nevada.  With the help of my grandfather, our family bought a retail store called The Minden Dry Goods.  Having very little ready cash, we made our first stand in a remodeled chicken coop.  At the age of 4, here was where I was surprised to learn that certain words, if used, would plunk me down in our dark and dirty woodshed complete with black widow spiders.  My first boyfriend, Larry Taylor, was the culprit who taught me how to swear.  I have no idea what words he taught me.  They have been completely washed from my mind and my mouth with the help of Lifebuoy deodorant soap.  This was the beginning of a variety of disciplinary events, when I’m just being myself, which still continue to take me by surprise. I have no intention of disobeying rules, human or divine, yet somehow I can find myself isolated and punished, feeling completely puzzled by the whole thing.  I suspect this is one of the common experiences of being human.