Many years ago... [View all]

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.