Lee Note 99 Cathy Novosad September 4, 2001

Dear Kay,

Well, at long last I'm getting around to sending you my bio to share with fellow REL classmates. I must admit I was inspired by Minnie Heintschel Baumhoer and Cynthia Boudloche Conklin, two old and dear friends. It's so good to hear their stories as well as those of all my former classmates.

Right now, as many of you already know, my husband and I are into the sixth month of a two-year overseas assignment for Conoco Inc. in Melaka, Malaysia. Needless to say, we are surprised to be spending these last years before retirement in such a faraway, exotic location.

For the past 18 years, we've lived a pretty typical life in a northwest suburb of Houston, Texas. There we raised our two children, John and Jennifer. John met and married a student at St. Mary's University in South Bend, Indiana, while he was a student at neighboring Notre Dame University. John and Carrie have just informed us that we are to become first-time grandparents this coming March!

They now live in Houston just five minutes away from our old home. Jennifer, also a graduate of Notre Dame, lives and works in Virginia just outside of Washington, D.C., where she is employed by Sprint. She has been working on her Master's in Telecommunications at night and will graduate from the U. of Maryland this May. So, by my calculations, we should be racking up lots of frequent flyer miles over the next few months!

Recently I was working on a Christmas present for Jennifer, which involves transcribing several "old and treasured" family recipes onto new cards and arranging them in a colorful ring binder notebook. At the moment I was trying to capture in words the instructions for making my mom's wonderful Czech pastries, "kolaches". Now any of you who were my friends growing up in Baytown already know what kolaches are and you probably were treated to my mom's version.

Just writing down those directions brought back so many memories of growing up in old Baytown on New Jersey Street just a half block away from St. Joseph Church and School and San Jacinto Elementary School. A few blocks the other direction was the Bay. We loved going to see a movie at the Bay Theater and often treated ourselves to banana splits at Scarborough's Drugs. Humble Day was a big event every year and we loved the carnival rides and games and bar-b-que. I remember riding my bike everywhere or loving it when they installed sidewalks and we could roller skate.

I went all seven years to St. Joseph School. In fact, we were first graders the year the school opened. My favorite subjects were Reading and Recess. I made a fatal mistake early on in Math..........I copied the answers from my deskmate, Joan Reilly. I paid in spades the rest of my school career, especially when I hit Mr. Wedgeworth's Plane Geometry class. Junior High found us rooting for the Red Goslins of BJH and then of course, those three wonderful years at Robert E. Lee. I have thoroughly enjoyed reading everyone's recollections of our teachers.

My memories are rather disjointed and quirky. Of course, I remember Mr. Childress and three years of Latin. But I also had Mr. Childress for English during one summer session. I never had any problem with him. I guess I just assumed that all Catholic kids would have an aptitude for Latin.

I do remember many late nights translating Caesar's Gallic Wars. I think Martha Lynne Jones Trautwein and I did more eating than translating. I also remember creating a mosaic of a Roman soldier (it ended up weighing a ton) and my dad, who is one of those Czech craftsmen with "golden hands" couldn't believe that we would buy beautiful, different-colored bath tiles, and then I would want him to help me break them into pieces. But bless his heart, he did it anyway. And of course I remember "Xenoglottaphobia"....the fear of speaking foreign languages!

Another remembrance I have is trying out on your instrument in the Brig to earn a marching position for two games. Some of you were just SO GOOD. I almost despaired of every making it. But finally on one of those occasions, Miss Betty White selected "Legion Drummer" and I was able to play it well and can still remember the thrill of hearing my name called as one who would get to march on the field during the next two games. I want to visit the Baytown Museum when we are stateside because I want to look over some of the Brigadier memorabilia and think back over many more wonderful shared adventures and memories.

Do you remember that it snowed two years in a row on Valentine's Day (I think)? It was such a rare event. I think we all went a little crazy. Right in the middle of one of those snowfalls, someone (I think it was Cynthia Boudloche) had a "Come-as-you-are" birthday breakfast. I remember being pulled out of bed and bundled off into a car, riding thru the snow-covered neighborhoods to the party. What fun! Come to think of it, we used to have some pretty neat parties at my house, too. I don't think it was ME so much as my mom's cooking that attracted my friends.

Anyway, after graduation I attended St. Thomas University for one year while I tried to decide what I wanted to do with my life. Now, this next story is going to teach you how to spell my maiden name. As a freshman, we all wore beanies to identify us and one day I was encircled by a group of upperclassmen who wanted to know my name. I said Cathy Novosad. This immediately inspired one of them to ask, "Why is NOVO sad?" I then had to wear a sign around my neck asking this question and soliciting answers from all I met during the next few weeks. It was fun and I do think a lot of people learned my last name! I also rubbed elbows with Michael Griffin. He was a BMOC upperclassman and doesn't remember me, but I loved his Boston Irish accent and was not surprised to learn later that he had established a popular Houston Sport's Bar named Griff's.

At some point during that year, I decided I wanted to be a nurse, but since St. Thomas did not have a nursing program at that time, I transferred to nearby Sacred Heart Dominican College. After two years there, I went to Incarnate Word College in San Antonio where I completed my B.S. in Nursing. By that time I knew that I wanted to work in the Operating Room and immediately came back to Houston and was employed at St. Joseph Hospital.

I married during this time and 18 months later was divorced and in time, received a church annulment of this marriage. In the midst of all this, I transferred to Shrine Hospital for Crippled Children in the Medical Center where I rotated between surgery and outpatient clinic work. This experience really made me appreciate the wonderful help and medical care that the Shriner's organization affords for children with orthopedic problems and also burn victims (in their Galveston facility). About this time, I was living with my niece who was a Delta Airlines stewardess, and through her fiancé, I was introduced to a young, redheaded, West Texan (from Winters) who worked for Conoco. His name was John Gardner. He introduced himself as "John", but later I learned that his family called him "Gray" (short for Graham, his middle name).

I just mention this, because over the years this has proven to be a source of confusion. Anyway, we met in the spring of 1969 and were engaged that fall and married on August 22, 1970. We immediately moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where Gray worked as an auditor for Consolidation Coal, a subsidiary of Conoco Inc. I found a job at Mercy Hospital teaching 6-month classes for Operating Room Technicians. I graduated five classes before retiring to give birth to our son, John. We moved to Ponca City, Oklahoma, where we built our first home and Jennifer was born (19 months after John). I loved these early years with our young children growing up in this small town in north central Oklahoma and still remain in contact with many friends from that time in our lives.

When we moved to Houston in 1983, I felt a need to work but wanted to have a job that would allow me to be home by 3 PM every day and be off when the kids were on holiday. God blessed me with a wonderful, generous neighbor, named Marge Creeger, who had a thriving wallpaper business. She taught me to hang paper and for the next 7 years I joined her and we helped create some beautiful rooms in homes throughout the northwest Houston area.

When the kids approached college age, I decided it was time to go back to my first love......nursing. I joined a special intern class at Southwest Memorial Hospital. It was a one-of-a-kind group that allowed me to work alongside another trained professional nurse for a whole year. It was the perfect way to get back into the swing of Operating Room nursing and adjust to the many changes that had occurred since my last employment.

I look back on that particular job assignment and realize that God led me to that position. It was the only one available for someone like me who had been out of nursing for such an extended period of time. I could get there in 40 minutes thanks to the recent completion of Beltway 8, which linked our part of town with Southwest Houston. And my work introduced me to a specialist in treatment of breast diseases. I worked side by side with Dr. Neff and learned to respect and trust him even before I myself was diagnosed with breast cancer.

I am happy to report to you that this November will mark my ninth year as a breast cancer survivor. I've experienced radical surgery, chemo and radiation. The only problem I still deal with is a chronic swelling of my right arm, called lympedema. But there again, God has led me to wonderful therapy that is now available to those of us with such a condition. I only mention all of this because I know there are others of you out there with family or friends who are facing this same situation. If I can ever be of help in any way, I hope you will feel free to contact me. I'm a good listener and have access to lots of practical information that I am happy to share.

I retired from nursing after this final five-year stint at SW Memorial and went with my husband for a 6-month assignment in Prague, capital of the Czech Republic. I loved being back in the land of my ancestors and anyone who has seen Prague knows what a beautiful city it is. Six months was a wonderful length of time to live and really experience the city and get to know many of its residents.

All of this brings us back to the present time. We are here in Melaka, Malaysia. I've already shared our initial impressions of this part of the world in "Lee Note 53". By now we have lived here for almost six months and are feeling much more comfortable and at home than initially. I've even begun to tease my friends and that is always the first sign that I am beginning to relax and be myself.

One of our expats is a girl from New Zealand, named Diana King, who is a wonderful aerobics instructor. Thanks to her, we can avail ourselves of water aerobics twice a week, low impact aerobics twice a week, and one session of a stretch/yoga-type class. All of this exercise has really had a good effect on my bum arm, plus it has been a fun and easy way to meet so many of the members of our expat community.

The one thing that Gray and I do not do here in Malaysia is drive a car. We have hired a fine young Malay man, named Azam, who drives us wherever we need to go. I guess you just have to be here to understand how very hectic and unpredictable the traffic is. It's not just the left-hand side driving, but also all the many speeding motorscooters and trishaws. I'm sure we would just end up killing someone. So instead we are playing it safe and helping out the local economy at the same time.

We've purchased season tickets for the Malaysian Symphony Orchestra and are looking forward to attending their opening performance in Kuala Lumpur in a couple of weeks. Later, in October we are planning a week's excursion to Thailand to visit Bangkok and Chang Mai. We've been told these are beautiful, must-see cities. Will let you know later.

We will be back in Houston for a Thanksgiving visit Nov. 10th-Dec. 7th. We will be staying with John and Carrie (can't wait to shop for baby furniture and clothes, etc.) Our daughter, Jennifer, will join us for the week around Thanksgiving. I hope to connect with some of you during that time.

Thank you for listening to my story. I've enjoyed sharing with you as well as getting reacquainted with so many of you through this wonderful email network that Kay and others have set up for us. Take care and I hope to hear from some of you in the future.

Love,

Cathy Novosad Gardner