My Birth

A short while before I was born, Grandpa Joseph W. Ward came to visit mother and dad and said he hadn’t been able to sleep for several nights, as someone kept telling him over and over to get mother to a specialist right away. He knew there was something wrong. He insisted they go to Ogden to see his cousin who was an obstetrician there. Dad took mother to Ogden, but they didn’t go to visit the doctor. When they returned home, Grandpa Ward came to visit them the next morning and said, “You didn’t go to the doctor, did you? I know you didn’t, because I had a bad night again. Someone keeps after me, so if you’re not going to take her to that doctor, I am!” He talked to Grandma Nellie about it and she decided to go with them. Dr. Ward said mother would not be able to give birth, and that he would have a hard time saving both of us if she went into labor. So it was decided I would be delivered by cesarean surgery. Grandpa always said to me, “Dolly, if Grandpa Ward hadn’t seen that your parents went to Ogden to that doctor, we’d never had you.”

Karolyn Rose Ward

I was born on July 24, 1937 in Ogden, Utah. All the Mormons were celebrating my birthday that day (Pioneer Day) Ha! Mother recorded some memories of my early years: “When we brought [Karolyn] home, I’d boil bottles and water and prepare several bottles of milk. She only nursed a small amount out of one bottle and that took her all day. Rulon said he knew he’d made a big enough hole in the nipple, so it had to be that something was very wrong with our baby. So off we went 150 miles to see Dr. Ward in Ogden, Utah. He looked her over and really checked everything and looked at us and said, “There’s nothing wrong with this kid.” He tried her bottle and said, “She’s nursing strong, so it has to be the nipple.” He got a large safety pin and heated it hot and put it in the end of the rubber nipple and made the hole larger. Then he sat down and fed her and she really emptied the bottle. He showed us how to burp her also and said, “You kids take this baby home and fix her other nipples like I’ve shown you, and I want to check her in a month.” We felt like crawling out the door, we were so embarrassed. It didn’t take Karolyn long to get fat and sassy when she got a chance to eat. She was a good baby. She only had a little fuzz on her head which was a light blonde color. I thought she’d never get her hair. I put bonnets on her for a long time because people would say, “That’s a fine-looking boy you’ve got there!” even though I had her dressed in frilly girls clothes. When her hair grew in, it was fine and curly, just like her dad’s hair. Rulon started jumping Karolyn up and down on his lap when she was four or five months old and she loved that. She’d about wear everyone out wanting to jump constantly. So we got a jumper and she really got her exercise and developed her muscles and legs, so that is no wonder she started walking at eight or nine months of age.”