January Bead Journal 2010

For 2010, I've decided to call my year journey "Secret Treasure". I was going through my old music box that I got for Christmas way back in 1964 and found small little treasures that I'd put there for safe keeping. Many of the items were things from my childhood, or things that my Mother had given me once she moved into a retirement home. I found rings, bracelets, brooches, teeth (dog!), tuffs of fur, rocks, shells, and other sundry items. Each of them brought back a memory. Each of them tugged at my heart. I also have been saving these lovely blue glass jars which original held facial creme. I could not throw them away and had been keeping them knowing that someday I'd find a use for them. Then I looked at both treasures and the blue jars and realized I could use both in this year's project. Each month, I will place one "Secret Treasure" into a jar which has had the top embroidered. The jars will be labeled with the month. I will also construct a fiber box which has twelve individual pieces for the box lid corresponding to the nature of the treasure in the jar. I have not started the pieces for the box lid yet but will be working on that later in the month. I need to decided how these jars when completed will be placed in the box before I decide on the dimensions. That is my challenge for 2010. Now let me share with you my first "Secret Treasure".

My "Secret Treasure" for January has to do with my birthday. I was born on January 4th in Portsmouth Ohio. This is a picture of me that I've altered to show you how sweet I was! In this jar, I have placed the bracelet placed around my wrist when I was first shown to my Mother and Father. It does indeed say NOEL as that is my maiden name. My Mother gave this to me several years ago when I first started to bead. She thought it was appropriate as here I started life with a beaded bracelet and now my life's passion is beads.

Let me tell you the story as told to me by my Father of the day I was born. I was not suppose to be born until the 17th of January so that my birthday would be the same as my maternal Grandmother. My Mother is a very small woman. Many people didn't even believe she was pregnant with me as she told me at 9 months she had to wear a size 7 dress. Imagine that! So on the morning of January 4th, my Mother woke up with a terrible pain in her abdomen. She called her Grandmother asking what it could be. My Great Grandmother told her it must be appendicitis as I wasn't due for another 3 weeks. Back then to see our family physician you had to show up during office hours and wait as it was first come, first serve. My Father was working at Williams Shoe Factory at the time, and my Mother was able to get a hold of him to take her to the Doctor's office. She was in pain all the time sitting in the waiting room with people starring at each other wondering when their turn would come. Finally, it was her turn. She went into the office and told Dr. Rogowski that she was having an appendicitis attack. Dr. Rogowski took one look at her, laughed and said "honey, you are having a BABY!" He told my Dad to get her to the hospital as fast as he could. So Dad got her into the car and took off from downtown Portsmouth to the hospital which was on the north end of town over the railroad viaduct on Route 23. BUT, someone didn't think about getting gas for the car. Yes, two blocks from the hospital, the car ran out of gas. My Dad was frantic. He did the only thing he could think of at the time. He picked my Mother up, and ran with her the two blocks to the hospital. All three of us barely made it as there was at least 4 inches of snow on the ground, but we all made it. I was born minutes after they got to the hospital. Now, some of these facts might be a little far fetched, but my Dad swore it was the truth and I never got tired of hearing him tell me this story. So, the white on the jar lid is for that snow that my Dad had to run through to get me and my Mother to safety.

My story doesn't end there. Twenty one years later, I was working at another hospital in Portsmouth as a Pharmacy Technician. Dr. Rogowski was still our family physician and still was on the board at the main hospital in Portsmouth. I was making pharmacy rounds one morning when out he comes from a board meeting with all the higher ups in the hospital. He saw me and beckoned me to come over. He then threw his arms around me and told everyone there "gentleman, this is my little appendix!". He roared with laughter as my ears turned bright red. He truly enjoyed telling the story too.