You are currently browsing the category archive for the 'Anne's Children' category.
Anne’s youngest son, Paul, has always been very interested in wildlife – especially birds. Even today, he spends hours every week hiking around taking pictures of wild birds. When he was young, Paul was always bringing home injured animals to try and fix up and re-release into the wild. Their house was practically a zoo…without the five children.
One afternoon, Paul found a bald eagle with an injured wing. Bald eagles aren’t native to the area, so this bird not only was wounded, but very, very lost. He somehow managed to get the bird down in the basement to his work table so he could try and splint the wing, but the bird was so large, he couldn’t hold it still and work on the wing at the same time. So, shutting the basement door, he ran upstairs and asked his mother for help with the bird. Anne, used to this by now, stopped what she was doing and followed her son downstairs. Stunned, she looked at the enormous (and angry) animal. Paul had failed mention what kind of bird it was. But, not to be daunted, Anne grabbed the two legs so Paul could work on pinioning the wing.
When the bird realized he was trapped, he immediately redoubled his efforts to break free. He managed to work one foot loose and promptly grabbed onto the nearest object for leverage. Which happened to be Anne’s right hand. The bird’s talons went straight through the fatty part of her hand between her thumb and pointer finger. Between Anne’s screaming and Paul’s yelling and the bird’s screeching, they managed to garner the attention of Anne’s middle son, John. When he saw what was going on, he had the presence of mind to grab a coat hanger and fashion it into a set of two hooks, which he then used to pry the bird’s talons apart enough for Anne to remove her hand. As she realized she was going to need to go to the hospital to take care of her wound, Anne promptly decided she was going to drive the extra miles to the hospital further away than the town’s local hospital…just because she was so well known at the local hospital again. She didn’t want to get the people talking about what “crazy Anne” had done to get herself hurt once again.
When Anne’s daughter, Kate, was very young she loved monkeys. She would beg her mom and dad for a baby monkey for a pet. While getting odd pets wasn’t unheard of at this time, Anne couldn’t see ever letting a monkey into their house. So for Kate’s birthday, Tom and Anne bought her a stuffed plush monkey. They carried it out of the house and across the street to a small pine tree that sat in the lot facing their home which would later become the site of Chief Joseph Middle School. They put the monkey in one of the lower branches of the tree.
When Kate came out later that morning, her parents looked out the big picture window facing the street. One of them asked, “Why, Kate! What is that funny looking thing sitting in the tree over there?” Kate looked out the window and started jumping up and down yelling, “Monkey! Monkey! Baby monkey!” Then her dad carried her across the street to capture the monkey for her very own pet.
