Wednesday, May 5, 2010

SHERMAN HISTORIC SITES

PLANNING A TRIP TO THE HILL COUNTRY TO SEE THE WILDFLOWERS?
If you get close to Comfort, here is an opportunity to visit "my roots."


Welcome to Comfort Cloisters
http://www.comfortcloisters.com/propmap.html

Here is the link to the Comfort Cloisters—an historic location for many reasons. Although not yet honored by an historic plaque, a significant event occurred here:
On December 19, 1931, in the front bedroom of the cottage, a baby girl—Dorothy Charlton Sherman—was born under rather unusual circumstances.

Always the drama queen, I made my appearance there in the Methodist parsonage, rather than a doctor's clinic or the nearest hospital, because our family was quarantined. My eight-year-old brother was seriously ill with what was first diagnosed as diphtheria, but later identified as strep throat, both highly contagious in those pre-antibiotic days.

The family doctor, Dr. Charles Clinton Jones, performed an emergency tracheotomy on a card table in the living room, with my father, the minister, assisting, while my mother was laboring to deliver me under the supervision of the dr.'s wife, a nurse, in the bedroom.

In gratitude for the survival of both children, my parents named me Dorothy (for the medical couple's own daughter) and Charlton (a contraction of the Dr.'s two names). How many times have I explained that unusual middle name!?

So the cottage at Comfort Cloisters (then Gaddis Memorial Methodist Church) was my birthplace, as well as the place where I took my first steps, spoke my first words, and in general was the treasured baby sister for my two older brothers.

No wonder there are still wisps of "spoiling" hanging around my head.

I know this is TMI, but I love to tell stories.