Yes, today is my birthday. January 1st has always been special for me all the way back to the youth days. My parents made it a big deal telling me that everyone in the world is celebrating my birthday. We started on December 31st as that was my dads birthday. So we celebrated that until midnight and then it was for me. They always told me the ball dropping in NYC was to let me know and the world it was Tom Knuppel’s birthday. I bought that until I was somewhere between 8 and 10 years old. But I told that story to my grandchildren to make them think the same thing. It didn’t work.
Let’s do some history diving.
I was a surprise baby by all accounts as my brothers and sister were all born 2 years apart….. until it came to me and it was a five year span. That is a sign, a clue that I wasn’t really a planned child. My parents didn’t know if they were having a boy or a girl. They already had four boys (Richard, William, John and Lyle) and one daughter (Elizabeth Jane). What they did want that they admitted to me much later was to be born BEFORE January 1st in order to get the tax break in 1950 instead of waiting an entire year in 1951. Also, I was told that they promised my sister, Jane, I would be a girl. That didn’t work out. I was born in Peoria, Il at approximately 10:30 AM. That seems to be late but I was rewarded as the FIRST BABY born in Mason County in 1951, even though I was born at Proctor in Peoria. I won all the prizes. Things like diapers and powder and other things were given to me since I was a BORN WINNER! I guess things had no where to go from there except downhill. 🙂
What did I win for my family? Here are the prizes from the news clipping.
The one on here I love….Hurley Funeral Home transportation to and from the hospital (wait, I was already there) or $3 in cash.Â
My mother and I were in the hospital for 10 days before they allowed her to go home. There wasn’t any problem it was just standard procedure to do that. I joke that she kept asking to stay another day so she could avoid the five children at home. My mom showed me, later in life, the copy of the hospital stay and for 10 days in 1951 was about $60.53! (I have the receipt) Oh wouldn’t that be nice today?
Jane was allowed to name me, at least to a certain degree, to help hide her disappointment that I was a boy. Never knew for sure how I became Thomas Lee. I was told that my mom never stayed home with me and if there was somewhere to go, she took me. Things like crowded high school gyms in the winter and loud, noisey stock car races in the summer. Yes, my dad had a stock car that he owned and operated on. But mom wasn’t about to allow him to drive it. After all, he has six kids at home and he had no business getting in any stock car wrecks.
My first recollection was about at the age of 5. A couple of things hit me. One is we had a big farmhouse and all the bedrooms were upstairs where the one and only bathroom was located. I shared a room with John and Lyle and it was the first room at the top of the stair to the right. The room was not big enough for three beds but could handle two beds and a baby bed. I slept in the bed until I was 8 years old and we moved to another house.
Another was my first trip (that I remembered) to Florida. Dad was already in Daytona Beach and mom and I stayed at a motel in Springfield that was owned by Lyle and Marge Drake. They were good friends of my parents. We got up the next morning and rode in a car with them all the way to Florida with me in the back seat playing quiet games. I never asked my self where the other kids were or why dad was already there. That answer will come later.
That’s all for now. I hope you join me in my adventure.
Thanks for reading about me. I will be posted articles from time to time in 2017. They won’t be in any particular order but rather stories that I remember and will share. I am currently raidng the scrapbook my mom diligently kept from my sports days from 6th grade through high school. If you know anybody that can transfer old newspaper clippings into a modern format, please let me know. Lastly, feel free to leave any comments about my stories.Â
