On the Potter's Wheel

Every mother thinks hard and long about what name to give her precious baby. She gets all kinds of advice from relatives, from books and magazines, even from other expectant mothers while sitting in the doctor’s waiting room! These sweet mothers never consider the total amount of names we get as we grow older, names not under their control. Let me give you an example --

My name is Catherine Ann Swineford Pirro DeVault, aka Kate DeVault, “Caroline Morgan”, “Puddy, “Pudd”, “Pudinski,” “Sis”, “Mom”, “Marme”, ─ or more meaningfully, “Oh, Mother!” There are other names I have been given over the years ─ “Ol’ Baldy”, “Spooky”, “Pe-U-Kee”, and “Princess”, but they never stuck. I was born Catherine Ann Swineford to a Guy from Springfield, Missouri, and a Dorothy-lady from Morgantown, West Virginia, via Henrietta, Oklahoma. "Catherine" means "pure" and "Ann" means "grace," according to books listing names to give a baby, but I was told "Swineford" was a German name meaning "a swine or hog" and a "fjord, or walkway over a stream." Kids in school used to up-date it to be "pig-puddle," or a "Ford (car) for pigs!" I guess that made me "Puddy Pig-puddle"!

There were not a whole lot of babies in the newborn section of the hospital the day I was born in July of 1943. But because those present had either a full head of hair or one tooth in their little mouths, and I didn’t have either, the doctors thought it was funny, and they nicknamed me “Ol’ Baldy.” My mother was insulted. After all, I was her first daughter, born nine whole years after her son, the first child of the family. So when her sister came to visit her in the hospital before they brought me home, she asked – “Do you think she looks like 'Ol’ Baldy?'” My aunt took her time before her answer. “No,” she said, staring at me. “I think she looks “Spooky.” A little boy from up the street evidently heard about that nickname. He came and knocked on our door, asking if he could see little baby, “Pe-U-Kee!” I guess he just couldn't say "Spooky."

My dad thought he’d help mom’s hurt feelings. He took her to the movies a short while after they brought me home. A cartoon made them laugh – “I Tawt I Thaw a Puddy Tat” – and they decided to call me “Puddy Tat.” I never understood why they didn’t choose “Tweety Pie.” “Puddy Tat” was shortened to “Puddy” over the years, and it has stuck with my family even until now.

Mother was the youngest of twelve children born to Harry Ellsworth DeVaughn and his wife, Lucy Anna Mae Deem. They had twelve children! I cannot even imagine what that would have been like--especially for the mother! I never even met all of them or knew their names! Mother's dad was manager of the Pittsburgh Plate Glass Company in Morgantown, West Virginia. He had a lot of immigrants - Italian and Polish, guys who knew glass - working for him. Grandfather was a teetotaler. However, Grandmother, I was told, always had her "medicinal" wine! Grandmother's mother's name was Caroline Morgan, and through her we're related to Zackwell Morgan who founded Morgantown, West Virginia, and went "barefoot with George Washington at the Battle of Valley Forge." We used to tease my sister, Dee, saying she had a nose just like old Zack. She didn't like the teasing, but I think she agreed. I really still don't see it, but she always seems like she does. The family lived in Morgantown, West Virginia. Mother was the only child who was born out of state. Mom was given the name "Dorothy Isabelle DeVaughn," so much better than mine, don't you think, dear reader? Of course, her brothers and sisters would say "Dorothy is a bell, ding, dong, ding, dong! She began life in Jeanette, Pennsylvania (only for a weekend), while her parents were visiting friends, but was brought home to grow up in Morgantown. Mom would talk about how she would hide under or behind furniture to watch her siblings. She moved with her older sister (my “Aunt Kat” - yup, short for "Kathryn!") to Oklahoma during the depression and graduated from high school in Henrietta. Boy, the stories that came from my mother’s side of the family just wowed us when we were young ─ after all, twelve children can do a lot of mischief!