BIOMYTHOGRAPHY extended March 2014

 <> She belonged to no-one when she was born. 

She came out of a woman, of course, but was never held by her, or cooed to by her, or nursed by her. It is uncertain whether the woman even actually ever looked at her. 

She was weighed and measured and placed into a bassinet, next to the other babies who had mothers - real human mothers - and names.

She remained nameless for quite a while. At first they called her by her father's last name. On her chart it said, "Baby McGee." The father named McGee had not been informed of her arrival but still they used his name. And the woman who birthed her? Nothing of that woman remained with her - at first.

But then, a few days after her birth, the woman gave her two names - Lorraine Renee. The hospital insisted upon using the man's name as her last name however. Renee Lorraine McGee.

She still belonged to no one, but now she had a name. It was a start.

It is unclear how long she remained at the hospital, or where she went upon her release. Some think she was in a foster home run by the Sisters of Mercy, the same order that nursed at the hospital. But another version is that she was placed into a foster home where she stayed for 6 weeks.

Regardless, the woman who birthed her and named her, next signed papers giving her over to the Catholic Charities, and they began the process of placing her. They received an inquiry from a young doctor and his wife and the decision was made. The couple did the necessary paperwork, renaming her and changing her birth certificate and baptismal certificate to the new name. It would look as though Renee Lorraine McGee had never even existed. It was how things were done at the time. So the newly named Mary Lisa Rozgay went home with the couple.

The doctor was a pediatrician and naturally gave her a physical, the same type of physical he would give to any of his newborn patients. While doing so, he noticed she was not moving her left arm and wondered if she had a broken clavicle - a common injury with difficult births. Plus there was a contusion on her neck, and she seemed to have difficulty moving her head side to side.

They decided to take in her in to an experienced pediatrician for a full evaluation who confirmed the findings, and also added she had hip dysplasia, recommending the infant be placed into a cast to hold the femurs of both legs in place in the hip joints, so they would grow correctly. The cast held the baby's legs in a v-shape and made it impossible for her to move her legs at all. She wore this for 6 weeks all the time, and then only at night for the next 6 weeks after that. The arm was pinned to the baby's side to avoid causing pain from moving it until the clavicle healed.

As for the neck, he advised the mother to push the baby's chin to the side several times a day, even though it caused the baby distress each time she did this. The baby cried and cried, and the mother cried and cried but still she carried on as instructed. In later years, the mother told Mary Lisa that "You never liked me," referring to this period of time. 

Despite all these troubles, the baby seemed happy enough. She smiled easily, had chubby cheeks and dark curly hair and bright eyes. The new parents took many pictures of her.

The parents were living in San Diego, where the baby had been born, but were moving back to Seattle. They didn't want anyone to know they had adopted a baby and were hoping people would think they had her while in California. They had been gone for a couple of years so this plan could work.

They sent out Christmas cards when they first arrived in Seattle, with 3 pictures of their new baby. The local parish priest congratulated them on their triplets. The new parents found this most amusing. It was to become a family story, told over and over.

They set up home in the Catholic parish of St. Joseph's in Seattle and the doctor set out to find an office to begin his practice. They bought a house 1/2 block away from the mother's mother and began to meet the neighbours, most of them young married Catholics like themselves. They had a dog, a Great Dane named Hamlet, whom they adored and the young doctor liked to lift him onto his shoulders every day. Hamlet was not concerned with the new arrival and seemed to take it all in stride, even allowing the baby to ride on his back sometimes.

Time went on. and Mary Lisa's bones healed and she seemed to be healthy and full of life. 

The family increased in size in the next few years, adding two adopted boys and another adopted girl to the house. They were each about two years apart and as different as could be. The three eldest had brown hair and eyes, like the parents, but the baby girl was blond and green-eyed. The father built out the basement of the little two-bedroom house so that two children shared one room, and two others each had their own room. Sometimes the parents would would  decide to change which children got to have their own room and who was to share. The father built bunkbeds to accommodate one room, and added a playroom with a train-set, (which the father seemed to play with the most) and a room with  a television,  next to the laundry room. 

Mary Lisa begged for piano lessons and finally got her  wish when she was in second grade. Her piano teacher was Sister Jude Mary,  (a member of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary). Mary Lisa quickly learned the basics and was soon playing Bach's tuneful pieces in the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach, which seemed to make the father very proud.

Sister Jude Mary and Mary Lisa liked each other very much and there was much laughter during the lessons. After several years of lessons, Sr. suggested entering a competition in Spokane, Washington and they began practicing a Haydn concerto to play. Mary Lisa would play the piano part, and Sr would play the orchestral part with her. It was a huge undertaking.

They travelled to Spokane by train, and it was the first time Mary Lisa had been that far away from home. Sr. stayed at a convent nearby and Mary Lisa got to stay in the dorm at Gonzanga University. Some of the students there even thought she was one of them, even though she was only 13 at the time! The competition went well enough, earning her a mark of 88%. Both of them were quite pleased with that result.

Not long after that trip, Sr. Jude Mary was unable to continue giving lessons because she was ill apparently. But the illness went  on and on and Mary Lisa kept asking about her, and not getting a satisfactory response. "Can't I visit her if she is sick?", she asked. But the mother said no - it wasn't possible because she was a nun. But then one day the mother said she had seen Sister going into the house across the street, where a family of six boys lived. The mother went over and  discovered Sister was leaving the order and the Church had told her she was not allowed to stay in the parish or even contact anyone she knew there! There was no satisfactory answer as to why she was still teaching the boys across the street, however, but not Mary Lisa. Mary Lisa was heartbroken. The mother found a new teacher, a concert pianist named Mr Schultz, but Mary Lisa did not feel she belonged in his stable of musicians and asked to quit. The mother was not pleased. The mother had always hoped Mary Lisa would become a concert pianist one day, although Mary Lisa did not share this wish at all. She knew she was not either good enough or even dedicated enough for that. She much preferred singing songs while playing the piano to just playing classical music. She had several books of songs from musicals that she would pull out and play and sing to - after she had done her one hour of regular practice, of course. Sound of Music was her favorite.

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