Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
—Romans 8:35
I was born with club feet.
This first small storm in my tranquil life-valley left no lingering impact, except that I would pass on those faulty genes to my firstborn son, Charlie. What other faults lying unseen and dormant within him could I attribute to my own genetic makeup?
For my parents, this must have been a frightening and stressful period, since in 1951 corrective measures for such a disability were less developed than Chuck and I would find as parents more than two decades later. But I remember none of this. My memories begin when I was running around healthy and straight-legged in an idyllic setting for childhood, surrounded by a large extended family of adults and children who filled my life with laughter, fun, and love. Even looking back over the decades, I can see no storm clouds, hardly even the slightest drizzle to mar those childhood memories.
My birth certificate says that I was born in Columbia, Pennsylvania. But I was still a toddler in 1953 when we moved to nearby Holtwood, so it is that beautiful region that colors my memories. Holtwood is a small town near the banks of the Susquehanna River in southern Lancaster County. Its greatest claim to fame is the Holtwood Dam, oldest of three dams spanning that section of the Susquehanna River, built and maintained by the Holtwood Hydroelectric Plant, one of the area’s main employers. None of which mattered to me as a child, except that the building of Holtwood Dam had also created Lake Aldred. This man-made reservoir was popular for fishing, boating, water-skiing, even white-water rafting where runoff spilling over the dam created turbulent currents.
One reason for our move to Holtwood was that my paternal grandparents lived there. My mother came from a large Swiss-Irish family, the youngest of six siblings. The Haldemans were a jolly, boisterous clan, always enjoying a good party. My maternal grandfather owned a grocery store in Columbia (where I was born) on the corner of Sixth and Walnut Streets. It was a bustling place, and when we’d travel back to Columbia, I loved to go visit Pappy, as I called him. When he had a free moment, Pappy would tell stories about his heritage and living through World War II, or sing in his powerful, rollicking voice. He was a member of a barbershop quartet and sang as well with the Knights of Columbus.
In contrast, my father’s heritage was German, and I remember my Neustadter relations as much more structured and focused on work, although they loved fun as well. My paternal grandparents had a farm with lots of fruit trees, cows, pigs—a wonderland for a small girl. My parents were given a piece of that land and built a home over the hill from them next to the woods. Building a home next to family was a tradition we would eventually carry on, Charlie and Marie in their turn.
For me it was the best of both worlds. From our home, I hiked up into the woods, exploring and dreaming up my own make-believe adventures. And I loved visiting my dad’s parents on the farm, picking cherries, helping feed the animals. One of Grandma Neustadter’s pastimes was making artificial flowers. Making them together became a special bond between us. Grandma Neustadter would pour molten plastic into the molds. I would carefully place the wires that would become branches and stems. Then we’d bake the molds in the oven. Out would come beautiful flower arrangements.
Once every year, when Philadelphia hosted its annual flower show, Grandma Neustadter would take me out of school. Together we explored the flower show, marveling at the variety and colors. Before heading home, we’d stop at a glassblower’s booth, and Grandma would let me choose one of the delicately handcrafted creations to add to my collection.
About the time we moved to Holtwood, my younger brother, Joe, was born, then my younger sister, Jean, five years later. With them and countless cousins and neighborhood friends, I played softball in the meadow, swam in the creek, or hiked up to a nearby Christian retreat, Camp Andrews, whose staff permitted us to swim in the pool when campers were not in residence. Every Easter weekend, when spring had begun restoring green to the woods, we’d gather with neighborhood friends for what we called our Easter picnic. Traveling through the woods, we’d pick out a nice, flat rock to sit on and share all the goodies we’d brought along.
In all these years, I was aware that we shared the beautiful countryside with another significant people group—the Amish. Their horse-drawn buggies, seventeenth-century clothing, and neat farms were part of the landscape, not to mention a major tourist attraction that drew thousands of visitors to congest our country roads every summer. But growing up my only personal contact with this subculture was responding to the occasional wave from an Amish child as our car passed a buggy or scooter.
If our own country lifestyle held more modern conveniences than that of the Amish, it was not without challenges. My father worked at the time—in fact for his entire career—for Armstrong World Industries, an international corporation that specialized in floors, ceilings, and other products related to housing construction. Armstrong was—and is—based out of Lancaster and one of the county’s largest employers. My father drove each day into Lancaster for work. In the winter, snow and icy roads often stranded him there.
I remember especially a big snowstorm in 1957. So much snow fell that the drifts were higher than my head. Though the hydroelectric plant was only a few miles away, its services had been disrupted by the storm, leaving the area without light or heat. My mother dug through the snowbanks to the neighbors so that we could walk over and share the warmth of their gas stove. I can still remember my uncle skiing down the hill to bring us milk, since the roads were impassible. Dad didn’t make it home that time for an entire week.
And even in my own happy haze of childhood, I recognized vaguely that life was not always so idyllic for others. I had one uncle who suffered from mental illness. He had six children, and I remember one of his daughters near my own age inviting me home with her during my early elementary years. As we approached the house, we heard horrendous screaming and yelling.
“Oh, that’s my sister practicing for her play,” my cousin quickly informed me. Then as the screaming grew louder and more obvious, she admitted, “No, that’s my dad.”
I was far from always being an angel. When I was in second grade, I recall being jealous of two of the more popular girls in school. They both wore glasses, so I decided I needed a pair. I convinced my mother I couldn’t see to read the blackboard at school. My mother took me to several optometrists. Their diagnosis was that my eyes were fine. But I insisted, and my mother finally found an optometrist who agreed that I needed glasses.
It was a huge lie, of course. Guilt began eating away at me, especially when I saw how worried my mother was. Even at that young age, I recognized that it was a great financial hardship for my parents to purchase the eyeglasses. Finally one day I could keep it in no longer. My mother was down in the basement doing laundry. Sitting on the top basement step, I began to cry.
“Mommy, I have something I have to tell you!” I sobbed.
She came up to put her arm around me, and with tears I confessed how I’d lied. I just wanted to wear glasses. I didn’t need them. She forgave me, but I was very remorseful and vowed never to lie again.
It was not just to my mother I made that pledge, but to God. My love for God at this time and my faith in God’s love for me were as trusting and unquestioning as my love for my family and the certainty of their love for me. My mother’s family was Catholic, an integral part of their Irish heritage. My father came from a Mennonite background, but he was not particularly religious and willingly converted to Catholicism so they could raise their children in the church. I enjoyed going to church on Sundays, vacation Bible school in the summers, and being involved in myriad church activities.
For three weeks each summer, I stayed with my Haldeman grandparents, sleeping on a sofa in the living room. Pappy suffered from muscular dystrophy and by this time was unable to climb stairs, so his bed was placed in the living room for easier care and to allow him to participate in the family’s daily routine. At night, tucked into my makeshift bed on the sofa, I would listen to him pray aloud the litany of traditional prayers that were his bedtime routine, including the Lord’s Prayer and others I’d memorized in church. Listening to his soft whispers to God, I’d drift off to sleep feeling wrapped securely within the love of God and family.
Of course, if my faith was trusting and unquestioning, it was also unchallenged. I believed because I chose to believe. But also because I’d never been given reason to doubt a loving heavenly Father and Creator of all.