When I was four years old, I went to Methodist Hospital in Indianapolis for major surgery. I was admitted on my birthday, and the Ruth Lyons Christmas Fund provided a birthday party for me to which other patients in the children’s ward got to attend. I still have the photograph of me wearing the crown and sitting at the head of the decorated table to receive cake and ice cream.

When my sister, Dena, was little, she watched the Bob Braun Show all the time. She collected pennies in one of those handled cups that butter came in. Mother, Grandma Donna, and my aunt Betty’s mother, Miriam, accompanied my sister down to the Bob Braun Show in Cincinnati. Dena got on television and presented him with the cup, overflowing with pennies. My grandmother won a prize, which was three volumes in the set of Lincoln Library. I still have those books.