1) The Very Beginning

When I tell friends I was born on Independence Day, they usually laugh and say, “You must have come out with a BANG!” A picture comes to my mind of this poor, slimy, pathetic-looking baby shooting across the delivery room - past the doctor, landing on its head somewhere on the opposite side of the room. Maybe that’s why I’ve always been a little kooky…it just might have happened that way. Nonetheless, at 4:10 a.m. on July 4, 1947, Dr. Harold A. Hinckley, M.D. and my Mom both said a silent prayer that it was all over and a tiny baby girl had survived the ordeal of becoming a brand new person.
Mom knew nothing about childbirth at age 17 and thought that when the placenta was delivered, it was my head. Mom was relieved when the nurse told her I was in one piece after all and Dr. Hinckley was probably relieved that now he could go back to bed at that unearthly hour of the morning.
I celebrated my first Independence Day at Long Beach Community Hospital sleeping the day away, while Blaine Reuben Kemsley and Bernice Evelyn Goodwin Kemsley filled out all those forms that would make me theirs. (In 1979, as I read President Spencer W. Kimball’s biography, I found mention that he spent that same July 4th right there in Long Beach on the Pike, eating ice cream. If we’d have known, we could have invited him in to watch me make cute little faces or something. I feel very honored to know that a future Prophet of God was quite near when it was my time to come to earth. It was also a Dr. Hinckley that had helped President Kimball in one of his times of difficulty. A special coincidence.)

Mom tells me that at the time of my birth, she left this world:

“Dr. Hinckley gave me a spinal and then I left this world. I found myself facing a white light, or a white veil, with a light around or behind it. There was warmth coming from the light and I thought, “So this is what it’s like to die”. Then I heard a voice from the veil say, in a very reassuring voice, “Your religion is true, your religion is true, your religion is true.” I wondered whose voice that was and said a prayer that I might not lie about it when I told Blaine. I felt assured that it was the voice of God.

“Then I was floating into a long hall of polished paneling. Other people were around me and they were floating, too. I noticed a man standing at a door at the end of the hall and I was surprised to see him in a suit, with his hair short: I expected to see him in a white robe with long hair. He was pleasant and I don’t know if we talked spirit to spirit, or if he transferred thoughts to me; I don’t think he talked to me. He did smile, and told me I couldn’t go through the door yet. I wanted to go through in the worst way. My eyes filled with tears and I felt I was mourning because I couldn’t go through. I also felt I wasn’t worthy to go through. The man was amused at my anguish as I realized there was something I had to do or say. I then found myself above my body, watching you come into the world. I saw you and knew you were a girl and I knew you weighed 7 lbs 14 oz.

“When I awoke, I told your father about the voice and I asked Dr. Hinckley if he had been married in the temple. He had on a white surgeon’s apron, but I could see his garment sleeve. I asked him if he knew anything of my experience and he said I had had a bad time of it, but he didn’t know what happened. I asked him if you weighed 7 lbs 14 oz and he said he hadn’t weighed you yet. He was amazed when he did and wanted to know how I knew you were a girl.

“I think how strange that as I was trying to get back into the spirit world, you were trying to get out. I wonder if we passed as spirits in that hall.”

The most important thing to me was that she was supposed to return to life and be my mommy. I guess she knew right off that motherhood was going to be no bed of roses, but she did all right. Dr. Hinckley was amazed that she knew all about my birth, and was accurate about my weight, but since he was also of the Mormon faith, he didn’t question her knowledge: he’d seen miracles. She had great faith in him.

The night before my birth, Mom and Dad bought a lug of apricots so Mom could can them. Guess what Dad did while Mom and I stayed comfy and cozy in the hospital? He got 20 quarts of jam out of those apricots.

Dad wrote in his life story:

“When we brought the baby home, we found that she had a rupture above the navel. and we kept it taped for the first year of her life. (*picture: Notice the tape on my tummy)

“Bernice and I always went to a lot of shows. Well Connie started young too. We took her to the show at the ripe old age of 8 days. (*picture: We stopped by the pony track on the way to the movie)

She even had a pony ride the day she was three weeks old." (*picture: Mom looks so happy to have me riding a pony so young and I was just "thrilled!")