Rosemary Romberg
From Peaceful Beginnings
I was born on Feb. 20, 1947 in Omaha, Nebraska. I was the fourth and youngest child of Harland and Mary Jo Romberg. I have 3 older brothers named Thomas Albert (Tom), Theodore Edgar (Ted), and Harland Francis (Pat). I was baptized in the Christian faith as an infant at Pearl Methodist Church in Omaha. My spiritual upbringing was largely, although intermittently through that church and through a small Lutheran church that was near our home.
In the fall of 1948 our family moved from a small house in Omaha to a 20 acre farm just north of the city. I have no memory of our previous home as I was not yet 2 when we moved. When I was little we had a cow and chickens, but later my father was mainly devoted to his numerous apple trees. We sold apples and other fresh produce from our orchards at a small roadside stand along the highway. I grew up climbing up and down the terraced hills of our orchards and playing in the various old buildings on our farm.
My parents chose to have me taken into town to go to school as they were not impressed by the little rural school house in the local area. For Kindergarten and first grade I attended Minne Lusa school (?sp) in Omaha which is where my brothers had attended. For 2nd, 3rd and 4th grades I attended Florence school, also in Omaha, since there was a bus route to that school which went right past our place and getting into town was much easier. Finally for 5th and the beginning of 6th grade they had me go to the local, country school nearby. It was called Ponca school.
My mother became extremely ill with myasthenia gravis around the time I turned 7 and was in the first grade. She had been a school teacher and had gone back to work full time to help pay the expenses of putting my brothers through college. When she became sick she had to quit teaching. She always became much sicker and weaker during the cold, Midwestern winters, but became much better and stronger during the summer.
In the fall of 1958 when I had just started the 6th grade, the doctor told my father that my mother probably would not survive another winter. Therefore, they made a snap decision to move to southern California. The move was initially very exciting for me, but once settled in to our California home (leaving a 20 acre farm and huge turn of the century farm house to a standard California 3 bedroom stucco tract home), I was dreadfully homesick.
My mother had an uncle with an orange and avocado ranch in Yorba Linda, CA. who helped us out. In addition to running his apple farm, my father also worked at the Post Office in Omaha. My great uncle got him a job at the Fullerton Post Office.
I finished the 6th grade at Orangethorpe school in Fullerton, and 7th and the beginning of 8th grade at Nicholas Junior High, also in Fullerton. (I could write volumes about feeling like an awkward, country bumpkin in this new environment, and how suburban California kids were a lot more judgmental and sophisticated than rural Nebraskans!)
In the fall of 1960, when I was in the 8th grade, my Dad decided he didn’t like the smog, so toured other towns further up the California coast and obtained a post office job on Santa Maria. We moved again. I finished the 8th grade at El Camino Junior High and attended Santa Maria High School for the 9th and 10th grades.
My Dad got into dabbling in real estate and we briefly moved to another house in a new tract just outside of a very small town near Nipomo. For the first couple of months of my junior year I attended Arroyo Grande High School. Then my parents happened on a small home that they fell in love with and we moved to a little house with a gorgeous ocean view on the hillside of Ventura. This was in November of 1963. I completed my junior year and then my senior year at Ventura High school and graduated from there in 1965.
I attended the University of California at Santa Barbara for four years, and graduated from there with a B.A. degree with a major in sociology and minor in anthropology in 1969. I then attended an internship program for prospective elementary school teachers through California Lutheran College (based in Thousand Oaks, CA), and taught 4th grade in Bakersfield, CA. during 1969 and 1970. I received my elementary education teaching credential through this program in 1970. I then briefly taught 2nd grade in Littlerock, CA. during 1970 and 1971.
While attending UCSB, I met my future husband, Stephen Wiener. We were married on July 12, 1970 at the Unitarian Church in Santa Barbara. We briefly lived in Van Nuys, and then in Sylmar, California for the first year of our marriage. (Yes, the Sylmar 1971 earthquake had its epicenter right in our living room!) I then quit teaching school. We later moved to Westminster, CA.
Our first son, Eric Paul was born on May 27, 1972, at Chapman General Hospital in Orange, CA. I then became active in teaching Lamaze classes and trained initially through an organization called Preparing Expectant Parents. My husband worked as a lab tech at a hospital in the area.
After miscarrying my second pregnancy in Sept. of 1973, we moved to Thousand Oaks, CA. My husband had found a new job working as health inspector for Ventura County. Our second son, Jason Stephen, was born on Oct. 31, 1974, at the newly built Pleasant Valley Hospital in Camarillo. I then became increasingly interested in home births and birth alternatives and took additional training through The Association for Childbirth at Home, International. Our third son, Ryan William was born at our home in Thousand Oaks on April 25, 1977. This peaceful birth, so dramatically different from our previous hospital experiences, and then this baby’s subsequent traumatic circumcision was the turning point that inspired Rosemary to begin researching and questioning the procedure and start the work on her book, Circumcision: The Painful Dilemma.
In the fall of 1978 Steve was hired by the United States Public Health Service to work at the Lummi Indian Reservation outside of Bellingham, Washington. We moved that November and initially lived in a small, rental house in Bellingham. In June of 1989 we moved to a 10 acre farm in the rural area outside of Everson, WA., which was about 11 miles from Bellingham. On Jan. 9, 1981 our fourth child and first daughter, Lisa Alice was born at our home there.
In the spring of 1983 we found, to our surprise that I was once again pregnant. With our ever growing family, we decided to move back to Bellingham. Sadly, shortly after our move I had another miscarriage. Following yet another traumatic miscarriage in 1984, I underwent some profound life changes, spiritual healing and reconnecting with my original Christian faith which I had largely abandoned during the flurry of growing up in the 60’s. After experiencing much healing I again became pregnant in 1985 and our 5th child and 4th son, Kevin Robert, was born on Oct. 19, 1985. Because of my prior miscarriages, I could not find a local home birth attendant, so he was born at Mount Vernon Community Hospital in Mount Vernon, WA. Unlike his brothers and his father, Kevin was left intact. He has always been content about it and it has never been an issue for the family. 1985 was also the year that Circumcision: The Painful Dilemma was originally published by Bergin & Garvey, S. Hadley, MA.
Three years later, in the fall of 1988, my husband’s job moved us to Anchorage Alaska where he works at Alaska Native Medical Center. Then, surprise, surprise - I again became pregnant at age 42!! Our second daughter, and 6th and last child, Melissa Ann, was born at home, a water birth in our double-wide bathtub, on Dec. 18, 1989.
Rosemary is also an aunt of 11 - 5 nieces and 6 nephews. She had the impressive honor of first becoming an aunt at age 9. She is now also a great aunt 4 grand-nieces and 9 grand-nephews. (One of her grand-nephews has been left intact for certain. One has definitely been circumcised. Of the other 7, I don’t know.)
Rosemary’s oldest son, Eric married Katya Terahova in June of 1997. Rosemary became a grandmother on Dec. 9, 2004 when their daughter, Sonya Marie was born. As of this writing this is our only grandchild.
Rosemary’s daughter Lisa will be marrying Jon Humphrey on July 28 of 2007 this summer.
