MEMORIES OF RAISING FOUR CHILDREN – PART III

Circa 1956 – 1984 – and beyond

By Dr. Robert E. Plucker

And now to John, who can't avoid being special because he became the first boy in a family collection of girls. There was Margaret, sister of Dorothy, only children of Marcel and Margaret Madsen. "Little" Margaret had Holly. Dorothy had Myra and Molly. I have two sisters, Dorothy and Jean, Barbara and I had Virginia and Dorothy Jean. Quite a proliferation of girls, and Dorothy’s. Amid all these females, John had to be a special event. John's first name came from my grandfather, John P. Plucker, and his middle name Marnin came from a list of baby names with meanings, plus the resemblance to Marcel, Margaret's father. I believe that the second meaning attached to "Marnin" was "Singer of Songs". Or something musical at least.

Margaret with baby John in 1984

John's birth story is partly in previous paragraphs, but some details need to be mentioned here. First was all my worries about his being conceived at all, as I had serious doubts about my willingness to take on fatherhood at my "mature" age. Margaret and I had agreed that there were to be no children in our marriage, as she had Holly, and I had Ginny and Dot. That was enough, we thought. But Margaret loves children, and after some seven years, she really wanted another child. I was scared. I was 55, and would be 56 before the required time would be up. I was sure I was far too old to care for another kid. Margaret was so determined, that one morning on the way to work I came close to panic, and upon arriving I asked, no, begged Father Bill Forbes, Episcopal priest, colleague and friend to counsel me. His wise words and the encouragement of a wise old lady, Violet Moen at the Stanwood Lutheran church gave me much comfort and some confidence. I was finally able to anticipate John's arrival with true enthusiasm, not apprehension and outright fear. I suspect the enthusiasm was cranked up some when the amniocentesis test indicated "boy."

It is only fair, however, to point out that daughter Dorothy already had broken the spell, and presented me with a grandson, named Robert. Later people would ask me if I intended to name our baby after me, and I would reply that I couldn't, as my grandson had gotten the name first.

Margaret's father's remarked when he came to visit in the hospital, "If only Paw could have seen this!" Evidently Margaret's grandfather had gotten a bit alarmed too, at the lack of boys.

When John was perhaps two years old, I had taken him with me in the truck to do some errand or other. We came back, stopped the truck in the driveway, set the hand-brake, and I went a few steps away to greet Margaret, Holly or for some other reason. All I remember is that I was close enough to watch with horror, as the truck rolled backward down the driveway, crossed the road, crossed the shallow ditch on the far side of the road, and finally came to a stop in the vacant lot across the street from us, hung up on some stubborn small stumps of alder that I had recently cut down to improve our view. The truck had good speed to have gone that distance over such obstacles; it was too far gone before I noticed what was happening for me to catch it and get it stopped.

We still have this good old Toyota (l985) truck and the hand-brake is still tricky and hard to release even when you know how to do it. I suppose I left the truck in gear (stick-shift) as well, as that was my habit, and it may be that not only did John somehow release the brake but also put the gears in neutral as well. Anyhow, the truck was stuck high and dry on the alder stumps and had to be pulled free with a tow truck. One of the stumps came near to penetrating the fuel tank, but the leak did not start until some years later. I put a temporary NAPA fix on it, and it was only last year that Bob Lowden here in Haines fixed it permanently.

John with Bob in 2012

There was another bicycle wreck that happened when John was older and rode faster. Holly was supposed to be watching him while Margaret and I were at a choir rehearsal, but John came flying down our street on his bicycle and crashed into the side of an innocent Pontiac. The police and fire trucks evidently came in response to neighbor's calls, and there was some excitement. But all this was unknown to Margaret and me until later. No serious injury; even the Pontiac survived with no significant damage.

John became a baseball player, starting with the T-ball league and progressing upward to the Little Leagues. Holly was responsible in part for this, because she had reminded me that real fathers always played ball with their boys. So John and I started playing ball on the driveway, the backstop being the garage door, using a short length of 2X2 for a bat, and a good-sized beach ball. Later I got John a genuine wood bat, and a left-hander's fielding glove.

Two truly outstanding plays that I remember the most vividly happened in Little League play. The first was a grand slam home run. John's face as he ran all the way around the bases was pure delight, probably the equal of Holly's face when she got to hold him as a new-born. The second was later, after he had become a "seasoned" player, and before he got serious about soccer. In this game, the opposing hitter slammed the ball a good bit further than anyone expected, right over centerfielder John's head. He turned and chased the ball down with his great speed, gathered it up and made a heroic left-handed throw to Adam Cook, the catcher, who very coolly caught it, bent down and put out the batter who had been sure he had a home run! Pandemonium from the spectators!

His soccer games were equally exciting because he could outrun everyone he played with, or against. But soccer, being a constantly moving game, did not present so many truly memorable single plays. However, Margaret and I were converted to being soccer fans.

And there was music. Since Margaret and I were both teachers of music, and since he was made to go to many of the concerts that I conducted, it was impossible for him to escape music. The Skagit Community Choir was performing the Handel Messiah when he was eight months old. He was in Margaret’s arms, sitting in the rear of the audience, and he decided to join the choir. I did not notice any sound from him at the time, as I was busy conducting, but Margaret said he was making convincing efforts to sing, not cry. I could hardly believe it, but when we played the tape recording of the concert, sure enough, there was the little voice, singing right through the rest in the score.

Young John with his horn.

When he was in school, he liked listening to Benjamin Britten's "Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra. He heard it many, many times and especially liked the trumpet parts. The big ending was a favorite and he could sing and pretend to play the trumpet along with the orchestra. The percussion parts were also a favorite. When he got the chance, he took up the trumpet in school. The next step was to borrow the school's (LaConner Public Schools) French horn, a single horn in F. He played it almost immediately, apparently because nobody had ever told him what a difficult and cranky instrument a horn is. When we moved to Alaska it appeared that there would be no school instruments to borrow, so we bought a new double horn for him. It has made world travels with him, and has played hundreds (probably) of concerts.

The first challenge with the new horn was when the LaConner school decided to perform "Bye Bye Birdie". John was recruited to play in the small orchestra, the only horn, and the only seventh grader amongst adult players. He said he had been scared at the performances, but of course Margaret and I thought he was perfect.
 

When John was in sixth grade, he began to complain of a pain and a swelling in his right ankle. He tried valiantly to ignore it and kept up his usual very active life until one night he was to stay overnight with his friend Jonathan Windle. When Jonathan's mother saw the hurting ankle and the large knob that appeared to have grown significantly since we last saw it, she said we had jolly well better come and pick up John and bring him directly to the emergency room at Skagit Valley Hospital. We did so, and the emergency crew started taking care of him immediately.

He had a bone scan plus all the other kinds of tests that they give. The frightening news was that they would have to operate on this ankle to remove the growth, or this "thing" would grow and cause the ankle bone itself to stop growing. John had by no means attained his full growth, and an athletic fellow like him should not have to deal with a lame leg for the rest of his life.

Dr. West did the operation/procedure on John, and that went well, but managing the dressing on the wound was another sickening affair. For a change, I was able to watch without feeling faint while Dr. West examined the result of his work, and changed the dressing over the next couple of days. Then came what seemed like quarts of antibiotics that we were to administer at home. Home, at that time, was sailboat Greta, I-dock at LaConner Marina. This went on for several weeks, and ultimately, John was as good as new, playing baseball, soccer, running very fast, and enjoying playing catch with me. It was not very long before he could throw much harder than I could.



John

His horn playing somehow seemed to keep on improving in spite of having virtually no formal lessons. He "turned pro" not long before we left LaConner for Haines. St. Paul's Episcopal Church choir was working on an anthem that had an optional cello or horn obbligato. I volunteered John to play, and he played it to everyone's enthusiastic approval. If memory serves, I think they gave him some money for that, so I could claim that at that point he turned professional.

Holly

Present-day thinking has it that children today have difficulty in school partly because their parents move around so much that they rarely spend much time in one school. The four kids of this essay either are exceptions to this thinking, or perhaps they did stay long enough to establish themselves. Ginny started at Alllouez kindergarten, first grade at Jackson School, Green Bay, Dot joined her there, and together they progressed to Ft. Howard school, Sandpoint School in Seattle, then junior high and high school in Everett. Neither graduated in the usual standard way.

Ginny and Dottie with Bob's mother, Dena

        Holly was more conventional, going through kindergarten to high school graduation in Stanwood, Washington. As it turned out, she was the only one of the four to spend four full years in high school. John also went to kindergarten and the first three grades in Stanwood, then to LaConner, and then to Haines where he graduated but took only three years to do it.

Colleges? Oh yes indeed.

Ginny: Seattle U., Everett Community, Edmonds Community, U. of Washington, Seattle Pacific U.

Dot: ITT technical school, U. of Washington over a long period of time.

Holly: Bryn Mawr College and U. of Alaska Southeast.

John: U. of Alaska Fairbanks, Victoria U. at Wellington NZ, and Norway Academy of Music in Oslo Norway.

A regret of my later life is that these four children, now grown up, live so far apart from each other. The first two hardly know the second two. Virginia is in Charleston, South Carolina; Dorothy is in Bothell, Washington; Holly is in Haines, Alaska; John is in Oslo, Norway. How scattered can you get?
 

What are the influences that largely shaped the lives of these four? There is no way of knowing, of course, but these are a few of the people that I respected most, and whose teaching, I suppose, had at least some effect on the lives of my children.

My mother's mother, Grandma Thaden: she had raised eleven children, she knew how to keep order, and had various rules for living in her house that could not be flouted.

My Grandfather, John Plucker: a kind, patient, caring person.

Both my mother and father, Dena and M E J Plucker, who forgave me for entirely too many "episodes" when I was in high school. My dad imparted invaluable wisdom to me, mostly when we were in the cow barn milking the cows by hand.

The music streak that runs through our extended family goes back a considerable distance as well. One of my mother's great-uncles was said to have been a cathedral organist in southern Germany. All the Thadens were singers of a sort, and some were very good. I have already written about Dad's influence as a member of the Johnson quartet. He was also a music director at Germantown Presbyterian Church for many years, founding a Men's Chorus that would continue for many years past his death. Mom was church pianist for a while, and there was a time when Dad was directing the choir, Mom was accompanying, and my sister Dorothy and I were singing in the choir. Jeanie was still too young, or she would have been there too, I am sure.

 

John, Virginia, Dorothy, Bob, Holly

 

 

Photos by Jean E. Straatmeyer and Matt Davis

Also, some scanned photos from Jean's collection.