Jon was a beautiful blond baby with my eyes (hazel). It seemed funny to me that only the boys got my eyes. Except for Jeanie's blue ones, all the rest had their dad's brown. Some people had trouble seeing the beauty in that little one because of those eyes. They were both crossed. At first we thought that since a lot of new babies have trouble controlling eye movement that in time his would also become normal in time. But not so. They remained crossed. That far-sighted cross was prevalent trait in my family. My sister, Georgia, had eye surgery for this same problem when she was young, and Jeanie's one eye began to cross when she was about six and beginning to read a lot. Glasses solved her problem. We didn't worry too much about this problem with Jon, because we knew it could be corrected. And my mother love for that little guy soon erased the very presence of any defect. He was perfect in my mind.
Although the following experiences occurred before Jon's birth, I just remembered several more experiences while we lived in Novato that I would like to mention before I continue on because it would be just a few short months before we leave our home for our next adventure. It was probably after only a few months of living in Novato that my large upper molars began to crack and crumble in my mouth. This was a hereditary defect in my family. Both of my parents lost all their teeth in their thirties because of this problem. For them there was nothing else they could do but have them pulled. Although there was new technology that could have saved my teeth, at least for a while, it was very expensive. It required capping each cracked tooth before it crumbled. It would have cost about $500 a tooth, and we just didn't have that kind of money. It was much cheaper to just have them all pulled. And besides, I remembered my dad always saying that his dentures were a lot better than is original teeth, so I felt, "What the heck". Just pull them and that will end the problem. It wasn't hard for the dentist to pull the back teeth, but it just killed him to pull my still good front ones. That was hard for me, too. But going without teeth for a couple of weeks while new ones were being made was even harder. In some ways I have regretted that somehow we didn't find a way to come up with the money to save my teeth. Dentures are NOT better than your own. My dad lied. I never looked the same again.
Some of the older children may remember this next experience. It was announced in church one Sunday that a new temple was to be built in Oakland. Back then it was up to the members of the church in the surrounding area to raise half the funds to build a new temple. Each family was asked to pledge what they could towards the temple building fund. We were asked to not just give what we thought we could afford, but to receive even greater blessings by sacrificing to contribute. We looked at our budget to see where we could cut. The only flexible area where we felt we could make cuts was the food. We ate a lot of beans and rice the next year, but were able to meet our commitment. The children were very good not to complain when we reminded them that we were making Heavenly Father very happy by helping to build a temple where He could come. Were we blessed? Absolutely! Can I tell you of some miracle money that dropped in our laps, or that somehow we had enough money to eat the way we had in the past? No. But we were able to meet all of our financial responsibilities without going into debt and we never went hungry. But it wasn't until much later that we realized that years of making financial sacrifice for the Lord and paying an honest tithing resulted in a blessing that we would never have thought of or imagined.
