Reaching Back

The story is that when Gene asked Ida to marry him that she just giggled. He did not know that she meant yes until she started telling friends that they were getting married. I don't remember if they ever told me how they met. I assume it was because they both worked in jobs that would have brought them together. He was a chauffeur and she was a maid. They were always hard workers.

They had a simple wedding in the parsonage of the Methodist Church. I don't even know who stood up with them as witnesses. The date was August 15, 1935. Fifteen and a half months later I was born. I was named Caroline after the lady my dad worked for. My middle name is Jean in recognition of Dad's name, Gene. He was given the name Rudolf Eugene McDonaugh, but he always went by Gene. Mom's maiden name was Ida Frances Davenport. Her family called her Ida Frances but most people called her Ida.

They met and got married in Coronado, California, but they were in Bellingham, Washington when I was born. I'm sure it was a good idea that she was with her family when she had her first baby. It was not an easy delivery for her to go through. They were so unhappy with the doctor that I was not paid for. They probably did not have the money. I don't know how long we were with our Washington family before we came to Coronado to be near Dad's friends and family. I know we were in Coronado when my sisters were born in 1938 and 1940.

Most of our childhood was in Coronado and we consider that to be our hometown. We did spend a few years with our grandparents on the farm in Washington during World War II. Mom and Dad worked in Portland, Oregon much of that time while Donna, Betty and I had a "little house on the prairie" life with our grandparents. Mom and Dad always did what they could to earn a living so they worked in the shipyard during the war. Dad was not healthy enough to be drafted into the Army so we did not have any long goodbyes. I remember visiting my parents in Portland at least once. Of course they visited us on the farm when possible.

Before I was born my parents made friends with a gentleman we always called Rogers. That was really his last name. His wife was Fidelia. As I grew up I remember Rogers mentioning seeing me as a baby. I think he had worked for Caroline Keck, the same lady that my dad chauffeured for. I also remember Rogers talking about the White House and some of the people he had met there, including Presidents. I wish I remembered his stories. It did not register to me as a young person that these were very important stories that I should remember.

When Paul and I got married on Mom and Dad's nineteenth wedding anniversary at the Methodist Church, we had about one hundred guests and we have a record of this in our guest book. The first names that were signed in my book are Mr. and Mrs. Emmett Rogers and Mrs. Lillian R. Parks. Lillian was the sister of our friends Fidelia and Rogers.

Lillian Rogers Parks with FDR's 1942
 Holy Bible

In later years Lillian wrote the book "My Thirty Years Backstairs at the White House." When the book was first published, and then became the basis for a TV miniseries in 1979, I had not realized that it was documenting stories that I should have remembered from childhood. Our friend and his family had a real history in the White House. Our friend's mother, Maggie Rogers, had been part of the White House staff since the Taft administration. I'll put a link to one of the obituaries about Mrs. Parks from November of 1997. She was 100 years old when she died. Read more about Lillian Rogers Parks at the Houston Chronicles Archives.

The only time I remember seeing Mrs. Parks is at our wedding and then again at our friend Rogers' funeral.