MEMORIES OF SNYDER COUSINS

Cousin Barbara shares some memories of Grandma and Grandpa's babies who passed away.  We should remember them, as they are part of our family web too.  I am thankful that Barbara has such a good memory of her talks with grandma.

BARBARA SNYDER MAIORCAS REMEMBERS

One summer when I was probably 17 or 18, my parents and I were visiting Grandma at her home.  One morning my mother and I sat at the table in the kitchen talking to her for about three hours.  She shared stories about all of her babies that died.  She also shared stories about some of her regrets in life.

I had long ago put those stories away somewhere in my mind and had forgotten them.  The first story came back to me about 15 years ago when I expecting my son.  I was reading a book about pregnancy and I happened on a passage about Twin-Twin Transfusion Syndrome. The article said that this syndrome occurred only in identical twins.  In this syndrome vessels in the placenta connect the circulatory systems of both babies.  If they share it unequally, one grows large and develops an overload of blood in the system.  The other twin lacking sufficient blood grows slowly and becomes anemic.  I realized when I read this that this was the syndrome that Big Boy and Little Boy had.   Grandma told us that day that Big Boy was a very demanding baby.  He cried all the time and was very hard to please.  Little Boy was very quiet and seldom cried.  Because of this, Big Boy always got all the attention.  She said that when they died Grandpa got an adult size casket for them and had them placed in it together.  She said that even in death Big Boy was placed first--his body was placed at the top and Little Boy at the bottom.  It was quite accidental that this happened, but Grandma thought it ironic. So much for "he who is last shall be first."  By the way, she never referred to them by any other name, so I bet they did get their names when they were baptized.

     My memory of what said about George relates mostly to his baptism.  He was sick and somehow there was both a doctor and nurse involved in has care. (I can't imagine he was in a hospital, so I don't quite know how this happened.)  Grandma wanted to baptize him and, I guess, felt there wasn't time for a priest.  She put some holy water into a salt shaker and told the nurse she wanted to baptize him.  The nurse said, "Oh, you don't want to do that."  I'm not sure why she felt that way, but Grandma took her to mean that putting water on the baby might make him sicker.  Never one to be denied in these matters, she went to the doctor and told him what she wanted to do and ask him if it was o.k.  He told her to go ahead and do it.  So with salt shaker filled with holy water in hand, she baptized George.

My memory of what she said about her little girl is pretty sketchy.  I know she got whooping cough from my father.  I think my Dad was in about the second grade.  He came down with whooping cough and missed a lot of school that year.  He missed so much that Grandma thought he would probably not pass to the next grade.  When he brought his report card home and it said he had passed, Grandma told him she was surprised and asked him if he was surprised.  He told her he was.  I know from information I�ve been given, that she only lived a month.  They took her to the coast and she died there.  I know she is buried in the same cemetery as Grandma and Grandpa are buried.  I believe her grave is either unmarked or has no writing on it.  Grandma told us she hoped someday to buy a headstone for her grave.  I don't know if she ever did.