Generation Bubelah: Part V: Children and parents

This entry is the fifth in a series of an oral history I did with my grandmother before her passing. In her stories, she speaks of  her parents' immigration to America from Russia, growing up Jewish in a German neighborhood and simply being a Jewish girl in the Midwest. Here are the entries in the order they were written and the continuation of her story below

• Part I: Midwest Judaism in the 1920s
• Part II: Jewish in the Midwest during WWII
• Part III: Adjusting to Jewish life in the 1930s
• Part IV: WWII and the rise of anti-Semitism  

The first time my water broke, I was staying at my mother's house. I put a towel between my legs and off we went. When I was having Barry, Mama and Harold's mother took me to Grant hospital. But when Debby and Danny showed up, Harold was right there waiting with the suitcases in hand. The doctors gave me something to ease the pain but I don't know what it was. All I know is that it worked and I had normal deliveries. After I had Barry, I had to stay in the hospital for a week, and when I got home, my mother had hired a woman named Bea to take care of him and me. It seemed that once we had one child we kept having more. Debby came next. She was the first of the babies to be in the new house, and then we had Danny.
    
I didn't know childbirth was going to be as painful as it was. I hurt in places that I never knew existed. The cramps were unbearable and, oh, the pains. Even talking about it makes my stomach hurt. I loved being a mother; I quit working at the Children's Hospital to be with my kids. I wasn't going to pay someone who wasn't educated to raise my kids and teach them English.
   
My children were good kids. Harold was the one who set down the rules and I was the one who made sure they followed them. They had strict rules and, for the most part, they abided by them. I mean, they weren't angels all the time, but they didn't do anything horrible. Drugs were not in during the time when Barry and Debby were growing up, but they started becoming stylish when Danny was in school. There were a lot of drugs at that time at the University of Pennsylvania, but Danny was on the diving team; he knew they were bad news. We tried to tell them about sex but Cousin Lou was the one for the job. He lectured to them all. He said, "You don't want to do that." Like I said, up until my kids left for college, they didn't really have time to get into trouble. I kept them too busy. I had normal children. They were gorgeous and good. I had a boy, then a girl and then another boy. What else could I have asked for?
   
All my children left home when they went off to college. Once Danny was out of the house, I turned to Harold and said, "The kids are all gone and I want to travel a little bit and go back to work." I worked at the Rickenbocker air force base in Columbus. I gave shots to the soldiers going over to Vietnam. Then I started to run Dr. Sivon's allergy lab. Finally, it was time to travel. I had never been overseas and I was ready. I was an old lady by this time, which means I must be ancient now. After we traveled, I sat at home and waited for my kids to graduate. During Debby's senior year at Purdue, she was very much in love with a young boy. He was a nice Jewish boy and his parents were lovely. I didn't delve into all the ramifications. They married in 1969.
   
Debby didn't stay married for very long. Once the divorce was final she moved back into our Elm Avenue house.
   
I felt terrible but I could understand why it didn't work out. He just had no get-up-and-go. Divorce was a stigma in those days. My mother and mother-in-law were most unhappy about the whole thing. He was handsome, tall, and going to be a doctor. My mother kept asking why. It was very hard for her to accept. I told her that Debby wants to be happy and she wasn't with him. My mother would say 'happy, what do you mean happy?' Debby liked to go and do and he was happy to sit home and watch the fish.
   
Mama was diagnosed with colon cancer. Although she was sick, my mom still liked to have a good time so she still went and did as she used to. A short time after her diagnosis, she had a stroke and was never the same. She was in the hospital for a very short time. I was looking at a woman who never sat still in her life and there she was, lying there, unable to speak. After the stroke, she didn't last long. At the age of 74, a few weeks before Debby's second wedding, my mother passed away. I was devastated. But if she wasn't going to be 'normal,' that was the best thing that could have happened.
   
My father was a mess. He stayed in their house for a while but he couldn't be alone. I didn't want him to be alone either so he came and lived with Harold and I for five years. He was lost without my mother. Before my mother's death, he had been diagnosed with diabetes and was on a strict diet, so I made him his meals and gave him his insulin shots. Every winter, we would take him down to Florida because he had a lot of friends there to keep him company. When he was in Columbus, I would take him to his friends' places to play cards. I was a very good daughter. He never could accept my mother's death. It was hard for all of us.
   
My father was eighty-two when he passed away of a heart attack. Harold and I were in the hospital with him when he died. He was getting old, and he just stopped breathing. And that was it.