The Beginning Years, part 1 (by Dick Votaw)

It was a cold, wintry day, that Saturday, March 10, 1928, when I made my entry into this world. It was about 4 o’clock in the afternoon and the finals were being played that day in the all state Indiana boy’s basketball tournament at the Butler field house on the campus of Butler University in the northern part of Indianapolis. This high school tournament was the highlight of the year in Indiana and my parents would never miss it for anything. You see, every high school in the state was in the tournament at the beginning and it had a single elimination format. There were sectionals, then regionals, then semi-finals and finally the finals.  My parents always seemed to get tickets for the finals. Anyway, on this particular day there was a big change of plans and my mother joked to me many times about it. You see I was supposed to have been born on February 29.

March 10 was also my Aunt Tirzah’s birthday. Frank & Tirzah Jessup were my only Aunt & Uncle living in Indiana so they are always referred to as Aunt & Unc and will be designated this way in this document. Aunt & Unc were making their normal Saturday rounds in Indianapolis peddling their dressed chickens and eggs; probably only eggs at this time because it was too early in the year for fryers. Mother & Dad were at the hospital expecting their new arrival at any time and no one even thought of Aunt’s birthday.  I was born at St. Vincent’s Hospital on Fall Creek Blvd. because my mother’s doctor thought this was a better hospital than the Methodist Hospital.  Today Methodist Hospital is THE  hospital in Indianapolis.  The way I recall the story being told was that no one thought of Aunt’s birthday until the next day.  Aunt & Unc rushed right over to the hospital when they got the word that I had arrived.  You see, they never were able to have children and right from the beginning I was part theirs.

Everyone got in the act of naming the new baby; my maternal grandfather was the only grandparent living at the time of my birth. I seemed to be very special to him as I was his only grandchild.  His name was Lewis E. Stout, a much loved and respected Quaker minister and former Superintendent of Western Yearly Meeting. He wanted to be sure that I had part of his name in mine, therefore my first name became Lewis and the rest of my family chose Richard as my middle name and Granddaddy said we will call him ‘Dickey.’ So that was settled right there and then.

Nineteen Twenty Eight was a notable year. This was the first time NBC linked up all 48 states for a national broadcast; the first ones being Wil Rogers and Al Jolson.  Chrysler Motor Co. and Dodge became one company.  Amelia Earhart became the first female to solo cross the Atlantic ocean by plane, and I share a birth year with Shirley Temple and Mickey Mouse.  Color motion pictures were first demonstrated by George Eastman.  The Yankees swept the Cardinals in the World Series and of course this made Mother very happy as she was always a Yankee fan.

In politics, Calvin Coolidge was President, but Herbert Hoover was elected over Democrat Al Smith by 444 to 87 electoral votes in November.  The Olympic games were held in Amsterdam with 22 sports. Women were allowed to participate for the first time and Sonja Henie of Norway became the first female ice skating champion and won the Gold for 3 consecutive Olympics.