hospital.” I felt weak and was shivering. I was continuing to lose blood, and I had no idea how big was this rip that needed to be sewn.
The brother suggested we try another hospital, which was farther away.
By the time we arrived, I was holding on to both of them for support.
Cal went to talk to the nurse again, but no one would believe that I had just had a baby until they came and saw me.
“Bring her in here,” they said. Within an hour I had been sewn by a kind young intern who later advised us to go to an obstetrician, but I never went to one.
I went back to the Troy home and spent the rest of the night admiring my sleeping baby who lay snuggled in my arms. Early the next morning, I had a message to see Sheriah. She was the colony leader’s wife in addition to being midwife.
“My husband has already talked to Cal,” she said sharply. “We have prayed about this, and we believe that you two must seek the Lord for an answer.”
“An answer to what?” I asked.
“Well, as to why the delivery went so badly,” she retorted, looking surprised that I would not know. “I want you to pray about this and write me a report today.” I was left speechless. The absolutely most beautiful memory that a woman can have in her lifetime, that of giving birth to her firstborn, had been splattered with this acid of someone else’s cruel reality. Now every time I recalled that wonderful experience, I would remember that I had somehow failed.
Returning to Boston in a week, I was grateful to be back. The Family life in a “regular” home was so disciplined, and the leaders seemed to be very harsh. After my experience in Troy, I appreciated the colony in Boston where musicians could still joke and laugh about the idiosyncrasies of life. Jeremy was always a great one for seeing humor in everything, and he was an inspiration to me because he had given up fame and riches to follow the Lord. Although he was respected by most leaders with a kind of man-worship attitude, which placed the “great Jeremy Spencer from Fleetwood Mac” slightly above others, he still lived pretty much like the rest of us, with one memorable exception.
One day, some FBI agents showed up at our apartment looking for the English rock musician who probably had visa problems and found Jeremy in the backyard on “kitchen duty” splitting beans for dinner. Every one acted completely calm, and the FBI seemed perturbed by our lack of anxiety. Little did they realize that we “knew” everything was in God’s hands, so we had nothing to fear from man’s laws and activities.
I was not aware of the details of this incident. In fact, it was only years later that my husband told me it was the FBI who had come to our home. However, my husband said that this visit from the FBI was why Jeremy and his family left our home to go to a COG colony in Europe.
Jeremy, behaving in his typical ingenuous manner toward these men who seemed to be important in the world, made me laugh, and I realized after my first day back that I had not laughed during my entire four-week stay in Troy. I decided to work harder and never complain again about being in the band home.
However, life in the Boston home had changed since I had been gone.
There had been some trouble at Columbia Records involving scandals in their business, which had nothing to do with us, but for some reason, the band took all of the money that was owed them and left Columbia Records. In any case, the album did not become the big hit we expected it to be. We heard that Mo was not happy with the hard rock album that Jeremy and the band recorded. In a letter titled “Conferences, Colonies, Bands, and Buses,” dated July 15, 1973, after the album Jeremy and the Children had been released, Mo wrote, Those poor band groups have been in pretty bad shape for a long time ever since they got this big-band spirit when the system took them over! But they disobeyed and didn’t do what we told them to do…I think
K.L. Armstrong, M.A. Marr
Joyce Robles
Robin Bielman
Jennifer Lewis
Kristan Belle
Shannon Richard
J.L. Doty
J. D'Urso, E. Bryan
Coe Booth
Shelley Wall