Our Second Child

When Ruth and I started our family we agreed that names were important.   We wanted each of our children to have  a strong name.   Names that would be remembered and impactful.  As teachers we were well aware that some names were designed to encourage nick names.  Some names encouraged rhyming.   We didn’t want T names like Tommy or Tonya.  Some names reminded us of former students who we preferred not to pay homage.

We didn’t want foo foo names like Sunshine, Rainbow, or Sky.  If one of our children grew up to be president we couldn’t see them being called President Sky Tebo.   Supreme Court Justice Rainbow Tebo didn’t ring well either.

Our children were born in the “box of chocolates” age.  We never knew what we were going to get so we had to be prepared with a name for a boy and a name for a girl.  We did want to honor our family heritage but Ruth’s family all came from the Netherlands so Willaminia, Cornelia, or Ruth’s father’s name – Roelof – wouldn’t fit the bill.  Ruth didn’t even want Ruth to be a choice.   My side of the family had more traditional names:  Margaret, Carter, Mary, and Anthony were all good strong names.

Most of all, we planned to call each of our children by their given name so we had to enjoy saying the name.  David Anthony (March 30, 1975) was our first child, Elizabeth Kathryn (March 10, 1977) our second, and Michael Robert (July 10, 1978) was third.   All good names.  David Anthony honored my father as well as being a first name that we both liked. Katherine and Kathryn were our mother’s names so Elizabeth Kathryn was a good fit.   By the time Michael Robert was born I had moved on from the fact that Ruth’s last fiancé was Michael and the Robert part pleased me.

Ruth and I moved to Addison, Michigan in the summer of 1977 where I was assuming the elementary school principal’s position.  Although I was unofficially on site and already working, I was formally hired on August 16 – the day Elvis Presley died. David was two and half and Elizabeth was six months.  Michael was still just a twinkle in his father’s eye. Initially,  I came alone and lived in three different places for each of my first three weeks:  Carolyn and Roger Dixon’s home (Roger was superintendent), Mary Lou and Don Dieck’s home (Don was high school principal) and the Clearwater Motel (since torn down and now the site of the new home for the Adrian College rowing team).  The month of September was spent in a cottage on Round Lake.

One of the highlights of our new family, and our new home, was Friday Night Football.   Football in Addison was a BIG deal.  That made homecoming and the homecoming parade even bigger.  People like parades.  My family was no different.  Ruth brought David and Elizabeth to the homecoming parade.  It was their first, big, public outing.  This was the first time that the wife and family of the new elementary school principal were in such a large gathering and on display.  Everyone had been welcoming, but this day was just a bit different.  Many staff members from the various school buildings introduced themselves to Ruth.  Ruth, in turn, introduced David and Elizabeth.  When Kathy Bergman, a middle school teacher, was introduced to Elizabeth she said, “Oh, a little BZ.”  We’d never heard anyone called that before.  “BZ”

Later that same week-end, Ruth and I were recounting the incident.   Every time David tried to say Elizabeth, it came out Isbet.  As opposed to nicknames as we were, we liked the sound of “BZ”.  It was unique.  We thought that David would do a better job pronouncing  “BZ” too.   The informal name dropping by Kathy, became the new official name of our very unique daughter.  BZ was born.  We discussed the various ways that we would spell “BZ”.  We were educators and spelling was important.  Beezee  and BeZee were options that we discussed.  But “BZ” felt, looked and sounded just right.

I don’t believe that Ruth or I thought that the name would be heard outside of our immediate family.   As we started using the name on a regular basis, we never imagined that all of her school friends or teachers would join us.  Certainly college would be a change.  After all, even though Ruth was always Ruth, Robbie became Bob or Rob with the passing of time.

But it stuck.   It stuck and it has served her well.  She, like her name, is unique.  She’s smart, pretty, talented, a world traveler; and though she can’t leap tall buildings in a single bound, she can make my heart leap that high.  While I expect that most fathers believe that their daughters are the most wonderful daughters in the world, they are wrong.

See for yourself.