Nancy Dowdle:
CLASS OF 1973
Eisenhower High School Class of 1973
Blue island, IL
Eisenhower High School Class of 1974
Blue island, IL
Nancy's Story
Here’s a very easy way to divide my adult life up-by my marriage statuses!
SINGLE, from 1973 to 1977
In 1976 grad from MVCC with my degree in Med Lab Tech. In Sept of that year I moved to Hawaii with my boyfriend and his family. Our relationship didn’t last but I could then move out on my own. I had my own apartment real close to downtown Honolulu. By day I was a microbiology MLT in a reference lab and by night I was dancing in the discos.
Husband #1 Darrel, from 1977 to 1980. Darrel grew up in Ewa Beach, HI. He was a trumpet player in a disco band when we got married and decided to come back to the mainland and go on tour with a traveling band. It was interesting to say the least. I got to know the Hershey Resort in Pennsylvania real well. Neither one of us liked this life, especially me because I didn’t want to waste my degree. He left that group and we returned to IL and moved in with my parents. It was Nov 1977 and I got a job at a hosp just getting ready to open, Olympia Fields Osteopathic Medical Center. Sadly, now it was my turn to work and for Darrel to be bored. Darrel picked up short gigs here and there and also gave trumpet lessons at a conservatory in Park Forest. I was the midnight tech in the lab at OFOMC. Every dept had at least one person on duty. When there was no work to do we would all congregate in the switchboard operator’s room. Good times. We all smoked and one guy even smoked cigars. That was disgusting but he was a crabass so we didn’t attempt asking him to stop. In Aug of 1978 I found out I was pregnant! In April of ‘79 I had a son, Nicholas. My parents were so excited. I am an only child and quite the free spirit so I wouldn’t be surprised if they never thought I’d ever have kids. We had our own apartment in Matteson and for a very short period life was good. Darrel had the heart and passion of a musician and that came first before a wife and baby. No surprise that we split up. In late Sept of 1979 Darrel went his own way and I stayed in the apartment for only a couple months before I moved back in with my parents in Glenwood. Remember the cigar smoker from the switchboard operator’s room? Slowly we became friends and he offered to help me ...Expand for more
move back to my parents’ house. Through all the talking we did, we learned that we had a startling amount in common.
Husband #2, Kevin, from 1980 to his death in 2011. He was raised in the South Chicago area of Chicago. One of the unusual things we had in common were the ages of our 4 parents. All 4 were old enough to be our grandparents. As an example of how this can shape a person, many of our friends had parents who were in to the likes of Frank Sinatra All of our parents went thru WW2 as adults and were into Big Band music. Besides having so many strange things in common we were also soulmates. We were inseparable and totally devoted to each other. In 1982 Kevin and I had our first child together, a daughter we named Megan. Kevin officially adopted my son Nick in 1984. Ashley came along in 1986, exactly 4 years after Megan so they get to share the date. Lastly,16 months later, in 1988 our last child was born, a son who we named Patrick. And with that I had my tubes tied the next day and we were DONE! We were a family of 6! In 1989 we bought a house in Hobart, IN. Hobart was a great place to raise the kids. There was a lot about it that reminded me of Blue Island. When we moved there little Nicky had just turned 10 and would be going in 5th grade in the fall. Life was good. It really was good. Next year when Nick was entering middle school he chose to be in band. He wanted to play the trumpet just like his biological dear old dad. Four later it was his sister Megan’s turn to choose band and she picked the clarinet. I am telling you this about band because the Hobart School Bands became a very large part of all of our lives for the next 16 years. I was a choir geek in high school so I was delighted that my kids wanted to be in any kind of music. During Nick’s sophomore year I went to watch one of their Marching Band field rehearsals. It was there that one of the other moms talked me into attending a band boosters meeting. I came home and told Kevin all about it and about all the kids’ parents I met. Pretty soon he attended with me. Long story short, for the next decade or so he was the President and I was the Secretary of the Hobart Schools’ Band Boosters.
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