In the winter, I caught a cold that wouldn't go away, and I still wore a bandage on my finger, because an injury didn't seem to get better. The cut had healed, but the finger was sore and stiff. By spring the family doctor decided that I should have X-rays with a specialist in New York City. Daddy took me, and it was several days before the report came back to Madison. How well I remember the day . . . that changed my life.

I had become a rather listless little girl, not bounding with energy like most four year-olds. So I was perfectly content to play quietly on the broad steps which led down to the sunken garden. They were slate steps, set in a random pattern, and their gray-green surface felt warm in the late spring sun. I could hear bumble bees humming in the iris beds as I arranged and rearranged a design of pebbles and flower petals. I loved making those designs over and over, as I discovered new and better patterns.

Mother's garden showing the steps where I was playing that day.

There were some young women sitting on the steps above me. Their ankle-length skirts and laced-up shoes surrounded my designs, as I moved the bright petals in ever changing shapes, like a kaleidoscope." Look at this one!" I would call, and they would interrupt their grown up talk to admire my latest creation, and then go back to what ever they liked to talk about, such as the new, shorter skirts, daringly displaying ankles, or the innovation of bobbed hair, but these subjects didn't interest me a bit.

Then I heard an automobile crunching the gravel as it came up the driveway.

"Maybe that's the doctor coming now," one of the ladies remarked. "He said he would get the results today. "

I kept pushing my designs around on the warm slate, and the young women kept on talking.

"I guess he's gone upstairs to talk to her first," one of them said in a hushed voice. "If the verdict is "Yes," how are you going to do it, Glad?"

"Just one day at a time," came the answer.

"But to keep a four year old child in bed for a year ... it would be impossible!"

I went on changing my colorful designs, but they were talking about a four-year-old child, and that's how old I was. What did they mean, "in bed for a year?" I was about to interrupt to ask them, when dark trousers and shiny black shoes appeared, coming down the steps toward us. It was the doctor.

Everyone stopped talking. The doctor cleared his throat.

"Good morning, ladies. I have been upstairs talking to Mrs. Condict. I might as well tell you all that the X-rays were positive. They definitely show TB. There is no question."

Glad stood up, her skirt brushing my flower picture, mixing it all up.

"Then that means . . . Well, Doctor, when should we start?"

"Might as well start right now." He looked sorry, his glasses glinting in the sun.

Glad reached down her hand for mine. "Alright, Virginia, "Let's go!"

"Where?" I asked, putting, my hand in hers.

"To bed, dear." She said it sort of cheerfully, as if bed was a good place to be on a sunny, spring morning.

"To bed? Why?"

"Because the doctor says so."

I have no recollection of rebelling that day. Perhaps my body needed the bed rest, which was the only known cure for tuberculosis in those days. There was a sleeping porch like Mother's, over our play porch, and that became mine during my episode with TB. It must have been a challenging task to keep an almost five year old quiet. (My birthday was in June.) Perhaps I was pretty sick and therefore content to rest. I only know that I don't remember feeling confined or unhappy. Glad spent as much time as she could with me, and read me lots of stories.. But I certainly couldn't be entertained all the time, and that was when I started drawing pictures. They gave me crayons and paper, and everybody praised my three-legged people and tumbledown houses. They said my pictures were "beautiful," and I was sure they were right! I saved every day's outputto show Daddy when he came home from the office.

Poor Dad. The disaster of tuberculosis had struck his family again. No matter that he had built a successful business and a lovely home, sickness was pervading his life. But Dad always acted jolly and enthusiastic around his children. That must have been an act to hide his deep concern.

My "sleeping porch" above our "play porch..

As Yeaman grew more difficult and rebellious, our father lavished his devotion on me. He did everything he could think of to build up my health. He even bought a prize three friends to tea.

One afternoon, Glad came upstairs to tell me that Mother was going to bring some ladies up to visit me, so the bedspread was smoothed, and my curls were brushed for the guests. When they arrived, I was busy drawing a picture of Bybee. One of the ladies was a tall, skinny person with protruding teeth.

"Oh, Virginia, darling," she gushed, "You and I have such a lot in common! We both have buck teeth, and we are both artists!"

One of the others said, "I didn't know that you were an artist."

"Well, I used to be," she explained, "but after I got married, and the children came, I was much too busy to do ant painting."

I decided right then, that nothing was going to keep me from becoming an artist. Not being sick. Not having children. I made up my mind that day, and I never changed it.

The doctor,ceme to call on both Mother and me every week. He would tell me to take big breaths while he thumped my chest. As the weeks grew into months, I began to feel better, and at last he was pleased with my progress. He praised Glad for the care I had been getting, and he decided that it was time for me to go back to New York for new X-rays. This time, both Daddy and Glad went with me to see the specialist.

The X-rays showed a healed scar in my esophagus. (My lungs weren't affected.) Since that time, I have been remarkably healthy for most of my eighty-plus years.