Birth

Teresa Meyerhoeffer Christensen (1959-) 

I have written this history once before when in my 40’s, but have searched computer memories to no avail, so it is floating around somewhere in cyberspace and I must dig in my departing memory and consult old journals to try to capture the things I do remember before even more is washed away with time…

Birth

I was born in Moscow, Idaho on July 10, 1959, a Friday I believe… “Friday’s child is loving and giving”, to Gerald Robert Meyerhoeffer (January 4, 1938) and Erma Pauline Harding Meyerhoeffer (December 6, 1939). They met attending Moscow High School where my father was a star basketball player and my mother a cheerleader, but both dated other people. They have not shared much of their mysterious courtship. I know it was a bit tumultuous and not really sure how they ended up getting married on December 30, 1958. I do know neither of their parents were very happy about the union. My father’s family had more wealth (his mother Helen Pearl Franklin Meyerhoeffer Crossler having remarried Arthur Elbert Crossler who owned the Idaho Hotel in town where I remember riding the elevator and eating at the smorgasbord) and my mother’s family was more religious in the LDS faith. Her father Benjamin Williams Harding reportedly pulled the phone out of the wall (yes, phones used to be corded into the walls) when he heard. I am not sure how my Grandpa Marvin Lewis Meyerhoeffer took the news. He was a butcher in town who had remarried a sweet spinster Ada May Sailor after his divorce. My father graduated from high school in 1956 and was playing college basketball at the University of Idaho. My mother graduated in 1958 and was attending college there as well. Upon my impending arrival my father due to necessity sought employment as a bar tender and later in a men’s clothing store. I think that ended his basketball career, but he continued to love the game and coached much and watches much to this day.  

I arrived around midday, a darling baby girl with a cap of short dark hair and dark eyes, weighing in at 6 pounds 15 ounces at the Gritman Memorial Hospital in Moscow. My 19 year old mother delivered a healthy, strong baby girl and my father brought me a stuffed animal. I went home to the Hotel following my birth for my mom to recuperate . The Hotel is no longer standing, torn down for a road to go through it’s space, but that was my first domicile. The Hospital is still there however, now called Gritman Medical Center (below).