What Happened on the Day I Was Born?

Originally Published Dec. 2012        

I was born on Saturday, June 10, 1944 at two minutes past noon – weighing 3 pounds, 3 ounces and 17 inches in length.  You see, I was two months’ early.  My mom thought her water had broken – but, instead of water running down her legs, blood was pooling around her feet.  My dad placed her on the back seat of the car, grabbed my almost 3-year old brother, Steve, and dropped him off at my grandparents’ home a few blocks away, and broke all sorts of speed limits on his way from Forest Lake to St. Joseph’s Hospital in St. Paul.  My mom told me years later that she estimated that dad must have been driving close to 95 miles an hour on old two-lane Highway 61 because all she could see while lying down on the back seat were the telephone poles quickly flying by.  And they made it to the hospital in about 15 minutes! 

Dr. Lilleberg, mom’s OB, was waiting for her in the operating room where he subsequently delivered me by Caesarian section.  I was considered a “placenta privia” baby – where the placenta is delivered before the baby; hence all the blood on the floor in mom’s kitchen. 

Dad told me that I was quickly baptized (we were in a Catholic hospital afterall – and Catholic) and placed in an incubator.  You see, back in those days – now 68 years’ ago – the incubator was the only help a preemie was given.  I was in the incubator for five weeks.  Mom and dad were not allowed to hold me.  I was named Mary Barbara because mom wanted two girls; one named “Mary” and the other named “Barbara” and since they weren’t sure they’d ever have any more children, I was given both names.

So, what else was happening in the world on June 10^th, 1944?  Well, I have to admit that I was given this topic in an English class in college a few years’ back.  Now this was before the internet and Google and Wikipedia.  I went to the Anoka County Library and asked the librarian where I would find information on what happened in the world on June 10, 1944.  She exclaimed in her loudest voice possible:  “Oh, my dear, I’m afraid our records don’t go back that far!  You’ll have to search the microfiche files to find anything that old.”  You can be sure I never asked a librarian another question ever again!

It seems my “claim to fame” was that I was born four days after D-Day – the day of the Allied invasion of Normandy, France.  This was the largest amphibious invasion in world history and was executed by land, sea, and air with over 160,000 American, British and Canadian troops and almost 196,000 Allied naval and merchant navy personnel in over 5,000 ships.  And, four days after the initial invasion, the headlines in all the newspapers were still talking about D-Day.  

But, three things did happen that day that made the headlines – on the second page, anyway.  Two involved battles in the war.  The other noteworthy happening?  On June 10, 1944, Joe Nuxhall of the Cincinnati Reds became the youngest player ever to play in a major-league game.  He was 15 years’ old.

One of the two battles occurred in Distomo, Greece where 218 children, women and men were massacred by German troops.

And, in the village of Oradour-sur-Glane in France, a Nazi SS Division ordered everyone in the town to assemble in the town square.  Once there, they were told by the Nazi commandant that they were suspected of hiding explosives and as a result, there would be a search and a check of identity papers.  The entire population was then locked up, the men in barns, and the women and children in the church.

The Nazis then set fire to the entire village and began shooting the villagers with machine guns.  They then set the barns and the church on fire, burning the men, women and children alive and shooting anyone who survived.  A total of 642 townspeople (245 women, 207 children, and 190 men) were massacred.

Three days after the massacre, a Catholic Bishop found the charred bodies of fifteen children in a heap behind the burned-out altar inside the church.  The village of Oradour-sur-Glane was never rebuilt – forever standing as a silent monument to Nazi atrocities.

I do share the June 10^th birth date with some well-known people such as Judy Garland and Prince Philip of England (although, obviously not the same year).  I’m not too pleased to share my birthday, however, with Eliot Spitzer or John Edwards – both philandering adulterers who, I believe, don’t live up to the standards of someone born on June 10.

Did you know that on June 10, 1935, Alcoholics Anonymous was founded by a broker from New York (Bill W.), and a physician from Ohio, (Dr. Robert Smith)?  And I discovered a fun fact about Benjamin Franklin.  On June 10, 1752, he flew his famous kite during a thunderstorm and it was struck by lightening.

After searching for highlights of June 10, 1944, I got to thinking about what happened on the day I should have been born – August 10.  Well – two things of importance:  #1:  U.S. troops recaptured Guam and #2:  The Boston Braves (today they are called the Atlanta Braves) starting pitcher, Red Barrett, set two significant records.  First, he shut out the Cincinnati Reds in just one hour and fifteen minutes.  Not surprisingly, he needed just 58 pitches to do it.  It remains the shortest night game ever played, and the fewest pitches in a complete game win day or night.

One last fact regarding June 10^th:  When I went to work at Fairview Health Services, I discovered that two of my colleagues in my unit shared the same birthday!  I wonder what the odds are of that happening?  Anyway, the three of us celebrated together for ten years.  We are all retired now – but, you can be sure that on every June 10^th, each checks in with the others via email – birthday buddies never forget each other!