Many years ago...

[frogmarch]

This 1944 photo is of baby me, my sister Veronica, our father U.S. Army sergeant James Austen, and our first meeting with American Red Cross volunteer Mary McGeoch.   We were in Karachi, India (now Pakistan) on our way to board a Coast Guard troop transport ship that would take us on a 2-month-long journey to America.  Veronica and I were born in India.  Our Anglo Indian mother had died of illness there when I was 3 weeks old, and Dad, who was scheduled to return to America, arranged for Veronica and me to accompany him on the ship.  He would be on active duty, so Mary, who was planning to return home to New York on leave, volunteered to care for my sister and me on the trip.  Soon after our arrival in America, she and Dad married, and Mary became our new mother - and what a wonderful mom she was.   

[paleotn]

1. Priceless! Thanks for sharing!

[yellow dahlia]

2. Thank you for sharing your story.

Lovely picture. I feel your history.

[Irish_Dem]

3. Wow what a fabulous story and picture.

Thank you so much for sharing.

[3catwoman3]

4. How sad that your bio mom died and how fortunate that Mary...

...was able to step into that void. Thank you for your story.

[frogmarch]

5. Thank you for your responses

I appreciate your reading my post.

A few years ago I saw this photo online of Coast Guardsman Joseph Hegener making me my first pair of shoes aboard the ship. I bought the photo. The "vintage image photos" stamp isn't on the actual photo.

The photo appeared in human interest sections of a few newpapers at the time, but now I have the actual photo.


On the back:

[OGBuzz]

8. What a beautiful and happy baby.❤

Your story is incredible, worthy of a novel. Thanks for sharing.

[Figarosmom]

14. Wow you're a part of history.😊

[Just Jerome]

6. Black & white gold

Thank you!

[niyad]

7. What a lovely image. Thank you so much for sharing a piece of your

family story with us.

It is good to "see" you again. How are you doing?

[FakeNoose]

9. It's awesome that you still have these great photos and you know the stories behind them

So many of us inherited our parents' old photo albums and scrapbooks, but we never thought to ask about them while our parents were still living.

[Omaha Steve]

10. Thanks for sharing

K&R!

[yonder]

11. Thanks for the great story and the resulting smile

which remains plastered to my grizzled old mug as I type.

It is really a beautiful account - thanks again for the needed boost.

[Bayard]

12. Great photos and story!

Thanks for sharing, and making us smile.

[Figarosmom]

13. What a wonderful family story😊

[3Hotdogs]

15. Great story., Do you have any memories of the boat ride? You were probably too young.

[frogmarch]

19. When I was around 10 years old

and living with my family in Alliance, Nebraska, I was sitting in the living room one Saturday with my sister Veronica, who was 12 or so, and she asked me what my earliest memory was.
 
I told Veronica that I remembered, as a baby or a toddler, waking up in a bed to a loud siren.  I remembered crying, and many of the other little children in the room were crying in their beds too.  Soon, Mom came to my bedside with little Veronica, and picked me up.  Then, putting a lifejacket on me, like the one Veronica was wearing, Mom carried me up some stairs, to the deck of the ship.

We three stood at the railing with other women and children, hearing the siren blow and watching lifeboats being lowered into the dark, churning water.  Mom said in these exact words, "We might have to go swimming."  Looking out at the dark ocean, I thought, in these exact words: *I don't want to.* The ship was rocking and men were shouting as they ran back and forth on the deck.

That was the end of the memory except for a flash of being carried by Mom back down the stairs.

Veronica said all she remembered that may have been from that time was that when we were little, we once got lifejackets put on us, and Mom tied ours to hers.
 
Mom had come around the corner from the kitchen and had stood listening as I was telling Veronica about my memory.  "Who told you about that?" Mom asked me when I was through.
 
"No one. I remember it," I replied.  

"You were a baby!" she said.  

"Well," I said, "Dad wasn't with us, Veronica doesn't remember anything about it but maybe the lifejackets, and I don't know who the other people were, so who could have told me?  Anyway, Mom, I REMEMBER it."

She gave me a long look and then said quietly,  "I did say we might have to go swimming."

She told Veronica and me that it had happened in late 1944 on our journey from India to America aboard a U.S. troop transport ship.  Just before dawn one morning, an enemy submarine torpedoed our ship.  It missed and was destroyed by a patrolling American submarine.

[Ilsa]

16. Beautiful story! What a lovely family your parents made. nt

[Skittles]

17. WOW

what a lovely family, and such an iconic photo!

[NBachers]

18. Like they say, every picture tells a story!

[Fla Dem]

20. What a wonderful story. It is amazing how sometimes the worst situation,

your natural Mom dying in India, evolved into a lifetime of love.

[AllaN01Bear]

21. sez awww.

melt