The First Son

The Boyer Family with New #5, Todd Marshall 

(click here to read previous story:

Hospitals, Doctors and Surgeries)

It was in July of 1964, a couple of months after Sharon's 5th birthday, that Liz gave birth to their third child, a son they named Todd.

The +5 year gap between Sharon and Todd is notable because it's by far the largest: Diann is just 16 months older than Sharon, and Todd is only two years older than the youngest child, Scott.  Sharon's medical problems probably played a big part in the size of that gap.

"Liz was stressed, to say the least," Dinon said.  "I mean, I was stressed, too.  And there wasn't much I could do."

In that stressful time, Dinon did the best he could to help his family ... and sometimes had a little help, too.

"During Sharon's last kidney surgery, Diann and I had to come back [from Boston] to Ohio early because Diann was starting school," Dinon said.  "So, I'd get her up, and comb and braid her hair, but ... it was not the best."

Diann and her long hair, obviously
braided by her mother

It just so happened that, while walking to school, Diann and her neighbor friend Patty always went right past the house of one of their teachers.  On one of the mornings that Dinon braided her hair, the teacher looked out her front window and could tell that Diann's dad had, well, tried to help.

"So while Liz was gone, she'd watch for Diann to come walking by, and then she'd call them into the house and rebraid Diann's hair," Dinon said, chuckling.  "I didn't know anything about it, I mean, Diann never said anything and of course I didn't realize her hair was being rebraided."

In 1964, the family was finally healthy and resettled, just in time for the birth of Dinon's first son, Todd Marshall (his middle name came from Liz's maiden name).

When Dinon was asked if he was excited to finally have a boy, he smiled and shrugged.

"I think I just, y'know, accepted it, thinking, 'OK, I've got another child to feed'," he said.

However, Dinon's blasé answer was met with quick objection.

"Outstanding" Baby Todd

"That is NOT the story I heard from Mom," Todd broke in from across the table.  "Mom said that Dad was OVERjoyed, that he was THRILLED to finally have a boy, that his face lit up and he could barely contain his joy.  She would say, 'Your father, Todd, he's not really very expressive emotionally, but that was as happy as I've ever seen him.'  And I believe every word of it!"

"That's the mantra, uh-huh," Dinon said, chuckling.

Continuing to argue his infant likability, Todd retold a story from his pre-crawling days:

"At the house in Troy, there was a tree right in the middle of the front yard under which, Nanny [Liz's mother] said, that I used to just lay there under the tree and I would stare up and look at the leaves and just be totally content."

Dinon smiled and shrugged, genuinely assenting, "Yeah, he was an outstanding baby.  He was SO good."

Todd grinned. 

"You hear that?  I was OUTSTANDING."

(Next story: Ice Dancing in Troy)

SIMILAR STORIES

Family
of Four

Hospitals
& Surgeries

Baby
Diann

Hospitals, Doctors and Surgeries

Itty-bitty Sharon helping
with the vacuuming

(click here to read previous story: Family of Four)

In 1962, Dinon's three-year-old daughter Sharon developed a urinary tract infection.  The infection was successfully treated with antibiotics - but then it came back.  And came back again.  And again. 

"You could cure it temporarily with antibiotics, but it wouldn't stay cured," Dinon said.

He and Liz were worried about the persistence of the infection, so they began a long string of hospital visits with Sharon.

"She was not only at the hospital here [in town], we took her to the hospital in Dayton, Columbus, and New York City Presbyterian," Dinon said.  "And, well, we just couldn't seem to find anybody that knew how to cure it."

Finally, Liz ended up in the Boston area and stayed at her mother's house while they consulted a doctor at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Grandma Boyer with her
two granddaughters

"Unbeknownst to us, Sharon had some reflux action between the bladder and the kidney," Dinon said, "and a physician there said that he could reimplant whatever-they-called-that tube so that the reflux action would not be a problem."

They agreed to proceed with the five-hour operation.  It went well, and aside from a restless desire to get out of her hospital crib (which the staff foiled by putting a net over the top to contain her), Sharon handled it well.  She was eventually dismissed and headed back home to Ohio with her mother.

"However, the physician in Boston did not provide adequate follow-up instructions," Dinon said.  "So the kidney over-healed, and the scar tissue shut off the tube."

Sharon, now four, was dealing with the same physical problems all over again.  And when the family returned to Massachusetts to confront the physician, he became defensive.

"The doctor in Boston, he blamed Liz for the over-healing, he told her it was her fault!  And she bought it.  It was NOT Liz's fault," Dinon insisted.

Family of five with new baby boy, Todd

But the damage was done: the doctor had shifted his blame and guilt onto Liz, a vulnerable young mother trying so hard to care for her sick young daughter.  And now, as a result of the doctor's mistake, the operation would have to be repeated: a consequence that Liz felt responsible for.

"Then, about a year after the second operation, when Sharon was about five, why, we found out that the over-healing had killed the kidney.  So, at five years old, she had the kidney removed," Dinon said.  "Once again, it was a long operation.  So, one year apart, three and four and five, she had major surgeries in Boston."

And finally, finally, after her kidney was removed in 1964, Sharon was back to full health.

It was a stressful time for the young Boyer family, but it was finally behind them.  And in July of 1964, they became a not-so-small family of five when the first son, Todd Marshall, was born.

(Next story: The First Son)

SIMILAR STORIES

Family
of Four

Nahant
MA

Baby
Diann

Family of Four

Dinon with his two 
small daughters

(click here to read previous story: Baby Diann)

At the beginning of April of 1959, Liz was more than 8 months pregnant with her and Dinon's second child, Sharon.  Shortly before she was due, Dinon made arrangements with his parents to take Diann home with them to Wisconsin for a couple of weeks so he and Liz could focus on bringing the new baby into the world.

When the time came for Liz to give birth, Dinon dropped her off at Akron General Hospital and went back to work ("I didn't think it was necessary for me to stay," he said).  Later that day, either April 14th or 15th, he decided to walk from work over to the hospital to see how it was going.  

Grandpa Ralph Boyer with
his granddaughter, Diann

"It was a very very warm day," Dinon said, describing an unseasonably hot mid-April afternoon, "and because I was so heated after walking, well, I got to the hospital and I fainted."

But he was brought back around pretty easily, and on April 15th Liz gave birth to their second daughter, Sharon Leigh.

Diann stayed with her grandparents for a few days after her sister's birth so that Liz and Dinon could more easily transition back home with the new baby.  After having had Diann for a total of 2-3 weeks, Ralph and Alma traveled back to Ohio to return Diann and to meet their newest granddaughter.

"When my parents brought her back, they came to the front door, ready to hand Diann back to me, and Diann didn't come!  She was not interested in coming to her father because she had bonded with my folks!" Dinon said.  "I mean, I was not ready for that.  I felt badly about it."

Grandpa Ralph Boyer with his
two small granddaughters

For Dinon, who is not an emotionally expressive person, such a sentiment is meaningful.  And to this day, of his four children, Dinon is still closest to his oldest daughter, Diann.

In 1960 or '61, Dinon was transferred, and the young family moved 200 miles from northeast Ohio to the town of Troy, just a little north of Dayton in midwestern Ohio.  The Boyers settled in well, everyone was healthy, Liz found a social circle that she enjoyed, and Dinon found a new hobby competing locally in ice dancing.

But in 1962, three-year-old Sharon developed a urinary tract infection.  And then another one.  And another one.  Antibiotics would temporarily clear up the infections, but they always returned. So they made an appointment at a nearby hospital, the first of many.

(Next story: Hospitals, Doctors and Surgeries) 

SIMILAR STORIES

A Pair of
Fiancees

Nahant
MA

Baby
Diann

Baby Diann

Baby Diann and Daddy Dinon

(Click here to read previous story:

New Wife, New Life)

After two years of marriage, baby Diann Elizabeth arrived as a belated Christmas present to her parents on December 26th of 1957.

Mama Liz and Baby Diann

"I was pretty happy about it," Dinon said.  "She was planned, I was through with grad school, and I was working for Goodrich.  We were living up in Cuyahoga Falls, which is next to Akron on the north side.  We were in a small apartment on the second floor of the house that we later bought, but, at the time, we were renting."

Since Dinon was the oldest child for his mother, who was herself an only child, this meant that Diann was a highly-celebrated first grandchild.  The abundance of baby photos, and the level of doting around Diann in each, speaks to the same.

Diann took after her father's light hair color and by her first birthday it hung in a thick blonde bowl above her chubby cheeks. For her birthday, Diann happily sat in a high chair at the same table her father had grown up around, and a big round cake, frosted in white, sat on the table with a single lit candle in the center.

Baby Diann with
Grandma Alma 'Babe' Boyer

"We were glad to have her," Dinon said.  "She was a pretty happy child."

Blessed with the financial stability of Dinon's job, the young family of three took a camping vacation to the Gaspé Peninsula in the autumn of 1958.

The Gaspé Peninsula, a piece of Canadian land northeast of the state of Maine, runs along the St. Lawrence River and ultimately overlooks the St. Lawrence Gulf. North of Maine, it is, as one might expect, rather cold in September.  However, this detail did not deter Liz from making sure that Diann remained clean on their camping trip.

"Liz was pregnant with Sharon when we were on vacation, and she didn't realize she was pregnant at the time.  And Liz, on that trip, Liz thought that the baby needed to be bathed every day, every single day," Dinon said, beginning to laugh.  "This is fall in Canada.  Picture Diann, bare as can be, and Liz is bundled up with a jacket and everything trying to stay warm, and then we've got Diann out there in a pan because she had to be bathed.  Liz and I laughed about that later – it’s a wonder Diann survived.  I mean, she didn't get sick or anything.   I mean, it's just [that Liz was a] new mother and she thought that that was the thing you had to do.  Oh golly..."

Baby Diann with
Great-Grandma Henness

Diann was also the only one of Liz's children to meet her father, Joseph Marshall, a handsome English immigrant with a beautiful singing voice.

Liz's parents, Joseph and Ernestine Marshall, had separated in September of 1942 due to infidelity on Joseph's part.  Liz, the youngest of four, was just eleven years old at the time.  The children continued to live with their mother when Joseph moved out; Liz did not maintain a close relationship with her father, even though both parts of the family lived near Boston.

Liz, Diann and Dinon
in front of their home
in Cuyahoga Falls, OH

"We did see her dad after Diann was born, Diann was just a little baby," Dinon recalled. "I think it was the first time I met him.  And he was remarried.  I do remember seeing him, and him holding Diann, but he died shortly thereafter."


In September of 1959, Joseph died at the age of 61.  "We didn't get a chance to go to the funeral because we were in Ohio and it was down in the Boston area," Dinon said.  In addition to the +650 miles and 21-month-old Diann, Dinon and Liz had also recently added a fourth member to their family.  Baby Sharon, born in April of '59, was just 5 months old at the time of Joseph's passing.  "At that stage, it was a big deal to travel that distance, so we just couldn't do it," Dinon said.  


After the news of Joseph's passing, the small Boyer family of four settled back into their routine in Cuyahoga Falls, OH, unaware of the coming medical challenges for their newest daughter.

(Next story: Family of Four)

SIMILAR STORIES

Nahant
MA

A Pair of
Fiancees

Ecumenical
Conference

Wisconsin Rapids

(click here to read previous story: Wausau, WI - Middle School in the Midwest)

In 1946, my 15-year-old grandfather, Dinon, moved with his family from Wausau, Wisconsin to Wisconsin Rapids, just in time to start high school.  In Wisconsin Rapids, he also continued his efforts in the Boy Scouts and even picked up a part-time job as well.

Young Dinon, sitting in a chair that his son,
Todd, still has today in his home office

“I became interested in radio in high school, and I started working part-time for a radio repair place," Dinon said.  "Of course, this was before TV and everything like that.”

As a kid, his only way to get around town was to walk.  And, since there were no school buses, that included his commute to school.

"I don’t remember ever staying home for a teacher’s conference day or something like that, and we never had a snow day," he said.  "Why have a snow day?  You’re walking to school!  You aren't being picked up by the school bus, you walked.  I remember when we lived in Wisconsin Rapids if it was bad enough, why, you just walked in the street because the plows always were out ... If it was bitter cold, ok, you better bundle up!"

Since there was no cafeteria at the high school, all the kids walked home for lunch.

In case you wondered what a
lettuce worm looks like...

"Dad came home for lunch also, from work," Dinon said.  "So we ate breakfast in the breakfast nook, and then lunch and supper were at the dining room table."

Dinon's mother was a stellar cook and, with the exception of that one time a lettuce worm hid in his brother Daryll's salad, their meals were always excellent and almost always included a homemade dessert.  After eating lunch, his father Ralph went back to work and the kids walked back to school.

After school, Dinon participated in Boy Scouts and learned everything from hiking to first aid.  And it's a good thing he did, too.

“I can say that I broke Daryll’s arm," he said with a smile.  "It was summertime, I was in high school, and we’re out in the yard, and we’re playing Catapult.  So I’m on my back, and holding up my legs, and catapulting him off my legs.  And it’s fun! ... until you come down wrong."

Daryll landed badly on his right arm and, from his Boy Scout training, Dinon could tell that it was broken.  And he couldn't just run in and tell his parents - they were out shopping and had left the kids home alone.

A young picture of handsome Dinon

"Being the boy scout I was, I knew to go ahead and immobilize it, and had him hold it as we went into the house, against himself so it wouldn't move, so he was good about doing that," Dinon said.   "So I put him in the house in the den on his back, I put his arm across his stomach and waited for my parents to come home.  When my folks got home I told them what had happened, and I don’t know if they took him to the doctor or to a hospital or what ... I don’t remember getting in trouble particularly, it was just one of those accidental things that happened, we weren't doing anything we hadn't done before.  That was unfortunate, but that’s what happened.  That’s the way it goes!  Things happen!"

Dinon continued to be active in the scouts right up until the point of becoming an Eagle Scout.  However, due to allergy problems, he could never swim well enough to earn a Swimming badge ... and without a Swimming badge, he was not eligible to pursue Eagle Scout status.

"They have alternatives now for Swimming, but back then they didn't," he said.

1958: Grandma Henness holding her first great-
grand-child, Diann; Dinon's wife, Liz, is
standing behind the chair

Breaking their previous pattern of frequent moves, the Boyer family stayed in Wisconsin Rapids for many years to come and Dinon's parents, Ralph and Alma, ultimately retired here.  Several years after Dinon moved out on his own, his maternal grandmother, Grandma Henness, who had lived with the family since their home in Nahant, finally passed away.

"I can't remember when Grandma died, but she lived with us for a long long time," Dinon said.  "She died when we lived in Wisconsin Rapids ... but I don't recall exactly when she passed."

As his high school days drew to a close, Dinon prepared for the next stage of his life: college.  With a father that earned a master's degree in chemical engineering in 1930, and parents who planned their children five years apart so they could pay one college tuition at a time, there was no doubt about where he was going after his high school graduation.

So, in the autumn of 1949, Dinon packed up and moved to his father's alma mater, The University of Wisconsin, to study chemical engineering.

(Next story: Dorms, Food and Studies)

SIMILAR STORIES

Special
K Loaf

Extra
Protein

Nahant
MA

Wausau, WI - Middle School in the Midwest

727 McIndoe Street: Dinon's Wausau home
(Present day: Google Maps Street View)

(click here to read previous story:

Wausau, WI - The McIndoe House)

It was the Spring of 1942 when the Boyer family moved 1,200 miles from Nahant, MA to Wausau, WI.  My grandfather, Dinon, was 10 years old at the time, and lived with his family in a huge white house on McIndoe Street.  He shared a bedroom with his 5-year-old brother, Daryll, and was down the hall from his parents and baby sister, Glenda; and up on the third floor was his bread-baking and arthritic Grandma Henness.

My grandfather lived in Wausau until 1946, and in those Wausau years he started Boy Scouts, got Scarlet Fever, attended middle school, and worked his first job.

The Wausau Junior Hi building was in the heart of the city and Dinon had to walk from his outlying house to the school, and it was on the way that he met his first job. 

"This widow lady, her husband had collected stamps, and sometimes she would give me some from his collection," Dinon said.  "But normally, for instance, in the winter, I would shovel her sidewalk, and then on the way home I’d shovel her drive if it needed it ... I only remember just having the one place to do it.  This woman was about half-way to school, and so I’d get up early enough to shovel it if needed."

And once he got to school, Dinon, fresh from Massachusetts, became a kind of celebrity to his classmates.

"At that time, the kids wanted me to talk, about anything, because I had a Boston accent and they’d never heard that," Dinon said.  "You stop and think of that time, and there wasn't a lot of movement of people, so accents were very very real and very interesting to people.  So, my classmates would engage me in conversation as much as possible just to hear the accent."

My grandfather never ran short of conversation partners, especially when this interest was combined with his deaf classmates.

"They would want to practice speaking or reading lips," Dinon said.  "Some of them had lost their hearing after they had learned to talk, and so, therefore, they could read lips or would speak, because they were learning to how to read lips and use sign language. I never did learn how to do it, myself."

Young studious Dinon

He did have classes between conversations - classes that no present-day middle school student will take.

“The Junior Hi had, really, a very good Industrial Arts department," he said.  "For instance, they had one session where we took tin cans and learned to solder and cut it.  So, we made a cookie cutter and a scoop, and my mother had them for years."

Depending on the semester, my grandfather - between the ages of 10 and 15! - learned the basics of electricity, woodworking, reading blueprints, and welding.  WELDING.

"I remember I was able to get the hang of the oxyacetelyn welding," he said, "but I had an awful time with arc welding, because you had this stick and I would start using it and it would get stuck, so ... I really had a tough time with arc welding, but I had a really good bead on oxyacetelyn welding, because I could really control that, and I enjoyed that."

There are still items in our family from his Industrial Arts education, including a magazine rack that was given to my father, Todd, and the beloved family Chinese Checkers board that I grew up playing on (and losing miserably to my grandfather).

However, one of the bummers of his Wausau days was getting Scarlet Fever, not once, but twice.

“You’re only supposed to get it once and then be immune, but I had it in the 7^th grade and the 9^th grade," he said.  "The first time, the quarantine ran so that I didn't have to go back to school.  The second time, there were two weeks of school left, and I had to make up all the work I missed."

The quarantine, especially in a house with two other young children, was no small thing.  For six weeks he was confined to his bedroom and only his mother came in and out.

"Mother had a metal pan about ten inches in diameter, and it had a disinfectant in it, and every time she left the room she had to get down there and wash her hands in it," he said.  "And she was the only one allowed in the room, so if I saw anybody it was out through the window.  So, it was a very boring time."

Young Dinon posing with his favorite toys

It didn't help that he couldn't even have the comfort of his favorite toys, for fear of contagion.

"You had to burn everything that you might've used: if you were reading, the books had to be destroyed.  I made some model airplanes at that time, and they all had to be destroyed," Dinon said.  "I think those were probably the only two things I had, the books to read and making model airplanes, and it just had to go, that’s all there is to it.  I mean, that was pretty disappointing, to say the least, but I had a lot of time – what else was I gonna do?  I didn't want anything to do with my stamp collection, because I knew it’d have to be destroyed."

It was even harder when he got it in the 9th grade (his last year in Junior Hi, according to Dinon), since he knew exactly what he was in for.

"I don’t know how I got it a second time, but I did," he said.  "When the doc said I had it the second time, well, I knew I was going to have to burn everything.  Very disappointing."

As he  scrambled to make up his school work, he looked forward to high school.

"We only lived a block-and-a-half away from the Senior Hi building ... and then we moved.  Ha – I remember that so well," my grandfather chuckled, staring at the living room wallpaper and through the years.

It was 1946.  My grandfather was 15 years old, and his family was moving one last time, this time an hour's drive south to Wisconsin Rapids.

(Next story: Wisconsin Rapids)

SIMILAR STORIES

Nahant to
Wausau

Nahant
MA

McIndoe
House

Wausau, WI - The McIndoe House

(click here to read previous story: From Nahant to Wausau)

In the Spring of 1942, just a few short months after Pearl Harbor, my 10-year-old grandfather and his family moved 1,200 miles from Nahant, MA to Wausau, WI.

His parents, my great-grandparents Ralph and Babe, had taken on a lot more responsibility in the 12 years since their 1930 marriage.  Not only did they now have three young children, they had also recently taken in Babe's elderly widowed mother.

“My grandfather [Earl] fell from the corn crib and broke several ribs (I can’t remember if anything else was broken), and he lingered for quite a while and then finally died," said my grandfather Dinon.  "I was probably seven or eight years old when he died ... And after  that we had the funeral, and they had an auction and they sold everything in the farm [in Illinois] and the farm itself ... Then Grandma Henness came to live with us after that."

In her old age, Grandma Henness had developed rheumatoid arthritis and the knuckles of her hands were swollen and painful.  But she did what she could to help out around the house, especially in the kitchen.

“She was the one who would bake the bread, almost every day.  And I took it on myself to get her to forget to take the bread out of the oven because I liked the crust nice and dark brown (and she liked it light brown)," Dinon said, chuckling.  "So I would try and do everything I could to get her attention away from the bread for a while so that it would get darker.  I don’t think we ever burned it, but sometimes I’d get my way and it would be cooked a little longer.  I enjoyed that, let me tell you."

727 McIndoe Street, Wausau, WI
(Present day: Google Maps Street View)

Initially, the Boyer family rented a home in Wausau, just east of the Wisconsin River and near the train station.  Shortly after their arrival, Ralph purchased a house for the family just a block-and-a-half away.

"Now that was some house in Wausau," my grandfather said.

The house, 727 McIndoe (MACK-in-doe), was a big white house three stories tall.  Its face was ornamented by two big bushes and four huge pillars, and it came with a four-car garage.  It even had a back stairway and a perfect patch of dirt for my grandfather to play war games with his toy planes and a few firecrackers.

Babe and Ralph (and infant Glenda) stayed in the second-story bedroom at the front of the house, which included a small balcony over the porch; Dinon and his brother Darryl shared a second-story room at the east corner of the back of the house; and Grandma Henness had the third floor (minus the storage space) all to herself, including a bathroom.

“She liked being up on the third floor," Dinon said.  “I can’t remember when Grandma died, but she lived with us for a long long time.”

The house was so big that it even had a room just for the kids and their toys.

"I remember there was one room designated as the playroom, and I had a Lionel train set that I played with," Dinon said.  "It had a big loop, two switches, and a smaller loop inside.  And I would play with the blocks, and make tunnels and different things."

A photo of my young grandfather and his toys,
including the blocks his Grandpa Henness made

The blocks he played with had been handmade years ago by his Grandpa Earl Henness for Babe (Dinon's mother), the only child in her family.  Earl also made a large toy box for Babe, and both the box and the blocks were passed down to her firstborn, my grandfather.  Today, that box is sitting against the wall of his family room, and inside are the same wooden blocks from this photo.  Though still sturdy, they are chipped, dented and stained by four generations of children's play.

Since there was a playroom for the boys, Dinon and Darryl's bedroom was small and practical.

"We had a bed on each wall and an aisle in between," Dinon said.  "We did have a bureau, which we had to share, so each of us had a small drawer at the top on each side, and one big drawer, so we didn't have a lot of clothes.  In the summertime, that wasn't so bad.”

And the boys were responsible for keeping their room tidy.

“When I was a kid, I always made my bed before I went down for breakfast, it was just part of the routine.  And you didn't waste any time, particularly in the winter, getting dressed," said Dinon.  "My parents believed that you needed fresh air when you slept, therefore the storm window was always raised four to six inches.  And if it snowed, you might have a little skiff of snow right on the window ledge.  So, I’ll tell ya, when you got up in the morning, you wasted no time, you got dressed and got your bed made and got of your room and into something warm.”

The Boyer family lived in the McIndoe house until 1946, and my grandfather's middle school years played out in Wausau, including his first job, deaf classmates, and two rounds of scarlet fever.

(Next story: Wausau, WI - Middle School in the Midwest)

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Nahant to
Wausau

Nahant
 MA

Pittsfield
MA