Head on!

I was a young girl but I do remember that my father worked for Smith, Corona, Marchant or SCM; it was a typewriter and adding machine company which was very popular at the time.  Dad often had to go aboard ships docked at the naval bases in Norfolk, Virginia in order to do repairs on their typewriters while in port.  The above photograph shows my bather aboard ship repairing an adding machine. 

The particular day I remember my father had been aboard ship doing repairs while my sister Vickie and I had remained in the back seat of our car waiting for him to finish.  Vickie and I were drawing, writing in notebooks and talking as we waited.  When my father returned to the car and stowed his tools we started to return home.

We were on Little Creek road just outside the naval gate when a man heading in the opposice direction apparently fell asleep at the wheel he crossed the median and hit our car head on.  My father tried to dodge the car coming at him but it all happened too quickly.  My sister was writing something when the car struck us and the pencil she was using ended up jabbed into her knee.  I was thrown forward into the back of the seat in front of me and sll my front teeth, top and bottom, were knocked loose. 

My father slammed into the steering wheel and was knocked unconscious.  When my father woke up he checked my sister and me before he checked on the person in the car that had run into us.  The man in the other car was in bad shape. Somehow I mostly remember crying and being very afraid.

Bickie had to have the pencil removed and stitches put into her knee, I had to wear some thing they put in my mouth to keep my teeth from falling out and my gums were bruised.  Dad suffered seizures for years after that from the head trauma he received.

This was the first accident I was in ad for me it was a very traumatic experience.