In
the early morning on Friday, April 24, they brought the baby to her for
the first time. Such a tiny thing, all wrapped in pink, so innocent,
so still. looking down at her daughter, at Joanie Lynne, Jo Ann
Castle felt her throat tighten and tears welled in her eyes until she
could barely see. She drew the baby close to her, needing to feel
the pressure of the tiny body against her breast.
Fighting to hold back her tears, Jo Ann whispered, "I can't break down. I mustn't, for Bill's sake." But the pain of yesterday mingled with the heartrending joy of the moment was more than she could bear. Lowering her head, touching her cheek against the baby's softness, Jo Ann wept.
Later, she would describe, as best she could, her feeling at that particular moment.
"I thought about my other little girl, Deana," Jo Ann confided, her voice husky with emotion. "I didn't know until she was six months old that she was retarded and that realization came to me again as I looked at Joanie. I held her to me and I thought, How does the doctor know she's fine, She looks fine, but are they sure? But, then I put it out of my mind. There's nothing to be done now. What is to be will be..."
Miles away from the Valley Presbyterian Hospital, in a large rambling house in Pacific Palisades, the telephone rings. A business associate is calling Lawrence Welk and among other things he mentions that Jo Ann's baby has arrived. Listening solemnly to the news, Welk thanked his caller and hung up. An in that moment of knowing, the bond between the 67-year-old maestro and his one-time favorite accordionist-singer was renewed.
It
had been seven months since Jo Ann left the Welk organization to try her
luck as a free lance artist. It was an amiable parting, and Welk had
in fact implored Jo Ann to reconsider. He was concerned because she
was pregnant and he didn't feel it was a good time to endure the rigors of
club work, tours, guest appearances and the like. "You only
have to work once a week here," he pointed out. But Jo Ann had
made her decision and even though she felt a genuine gratitude for what
Welk had done for her, she stuck to her guns.
Strangely enough, in the months that followed, it was as if a door had been closed which might never be re-opened. There was no apparent breach of friendship between Welk and Jo Ann, but their paths didn't cross. Busy with his myriad business activities, Welk barely had time enough for his own family, and Jo Ann was involved with her husband and son, and launching phase two of her career. But the miracle of life, the birth of Joanie Lynne changed all this and brought Welk and Jo Ann very much together again.
Welk had been such a good friend to her through the long years of their association. A compassionate, generous man, he did all that he could to help Jo Ann through the difficult time after her divorce from Deana's father, Dean Hall. Welk's door was always open if she needed his advice, and without question Jo Ann looked to him as a father figure. The epitome of the family man, a devoted father and grandfather, Welk shared her deep sorrow over Deana. An now to be told that she had given birth to a healthy, beautiful baby girl-his heart, his prayers, his thoughts went out to Jo Ann.
Many times in her troubled past, Jo Ann has cried tears of sorrow. A lonely childhood led to an eventual estrangement from her mother and an early marriage entered into more out of desperation than anything else. To fill the long hours and to take her mind off the despair she felt because of Deana, Jo Ann plunged with fervor into her work, and she fast became a favorite of all the Welk gang and their thousands of fans. her bachelor-girl days were numbered the first time she laid eyes on ex-Marine, Bill Roeschlein. They wed on Christmas Eve, 1967 and William Jr. was born on April 24, 1969, a year to the day prior to Joanie Lynne's birth.
Naturally, because of Deana, there was that concern when she was carrying little Billy, and it was a nagging unrest that plagued her through the long months she waited for Joanie.
"I suppose I worried much more with Billy," Jo Ann rambled on in that free-wheeling, don't-stop-me-now style of hers. "But there were so many times, too, while carrying Joanie when I'd stop and think, Oh God, please don't let it happen again. I hated most of all to think that Bill would have to suffer. I'd had heartbreak already and when I thought of another, I didn't think I could stand it, but knew I somehow would. Not Bill, I knew it would just kill him."
The saga that led to Joanie Lynne's arrival at 2:41 a.m. on the 24th began officially at 6 p.m. Thursday, the night before. That's when she and Bill left their San Fernando home for the hospital. Jo Ann had convinced the doctor to induce labor. her reasoning seems rather frivolous and one can't help but wonder if the pressure of concern wasn't the real underlying motivation.
"She was due in 10 days anyway," Jo Ann reasoned, "and this way she could be born on Billy's birthday. It wouldn't be confusing for either of them when it came time for parties, presents and such."
"Bill stayed with me to the end. he was a wreck. So nervous, I can't tell you. They gave me a shot about 9:30 or 10 to induce and the doctor told me that in a few minutes I would start feeling a little rumble. With that he left, saying he would be in the coffee shop. How about that for being casual?"
"So then it started," Jo Ann continued, detailing the chain of events as best she remembered them. "Bill had brought a stopwatch to time the contractions. He never left me except when the nurse came to examine me. The rest of the time he was there holding my hand assuring me that everything was going to be all right. Something told me it was going to be a girl, but I didn't say anything. I was afraid to think it.
"Bill and I had discussed it, of course. We were afraid if we had another boy there would be great competition between him and Billy being that they would be so close in age. But a girl would be different."
Around 1 a.m., Jo Ann's doctor arrived and stayed with her. Bill ambled into the waiting room where close friends Lynne and Hack Hirsch were keeping a silent vigil.
At roughly 2:25 a.m., Jo Ann was given a shot to relieve the pain which had become intense. "I remember looking at the clock," Jo Ann says, "but everything was hazy."
Once in the delivery room, the doctor and his attendants worked with patterned efficiency. Jo Ann was given a shot which number her from the waist down. She wanted desperately to be awake during the delivery and she was when a few minutes later she heard the words that sent her heart soaring with happiness. "Jo Ann," the doctor announced, "you've got yourself a girl-7 pounds, 7 ounces."
"I started screaming, It's a girl! It's a girl!" Jo Ann recalls. "Bill told me later I was so loud they must have heard me a county away.
"The phone started ringing," Jo Ann said, "as I was being wheeled into my room after delivery. The Brolins called, Sandi Jensen, Barbara, who used to be a dancer, my father. Finally Bill took the easy way our," she laughed. "He called Mahlon Clark and asked that he pass the news around to everyone. Poor Bill, he was more exhausted than I was.
"I'm going up to see Deana before I go back on the road," Jo Ann said all of a sudden and you felt it was something she'd been thinking about for a while. "It's very difficult," her voice trailed away for a moment, "but I want to..."
"A nurse came in yesterday," Jo Ann confided. "She saw a picture of Billy at my bedside and she knew I'd just had a little girl. She said, 'you're the luckiest girl in the world, you have everything you want.' She kept saying this over and over to me. "You're the luckiest girl in the world. You have everything.' She didn't know about Deana. She couldn't have, because the way she talked I'd never had a bad break. That really got to me. She kept repeating herself and I wanted to turn her off. She was talking like I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth and had never known anything but beautiful things. I wanted to tell her it isn't quite like that. I haven't always had everything I wanted. I've had my share of bad breaks like everybody else. But I didn't want to go into that with her. It would only sound like I'm not grateful for what I have now. An I know a person has to live from right now, from this very moment and not in the past. Believe me, I am grateful. I thank God for my good fortune, that's all I can say. I thank God for my family, and friends, and for people who are so thoughtful and kind."
And, Lawrence Welk's heart, his thoughts, his prayers went out to her and they were united in a spirit of mutual concern and happiness. An Jo Ann knew it as well as if he was standing beside her, offering a kind word as he has so often before.
-By Lane Edgerton