ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, December 28, 1996 TAG: 9612300029
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
A SALEM WOMAN RUSHED to a hospital wondering whether her daughter or granddaughter was giving birth. The answer: Both.
Margaret Eubank might be singing this carol today:
On the third day of Christmas,
My family gave to me:
Three holiday birthdays,
Two new babies
And a need to start a Christmas Club account.
The Salem private-duty nurse had a granddaughter and a great-grandson born within 74 minutes of each other Friday morning at Columbia Lewis-Gale Medical Center.
Eubank expected the babies to arrive six days apart nextmonth. Granddaughter Christan Eubank's baby was due Jan. 6. Margaret's daughter and Christan's aunt, Donna Hickson, was expecting her child Jan.12.
Then came the call to Margaret Eubank in the middle of the night: Come to the hospital.
But which baby was being born?
She didn't know for a while that both had been delivered - the granddaughter at 5:53 and her first great-grandson at 7:07.
Friday afternoon, Christan Eubank's maternity ward room was abuzz with kin coming to see her baby, James Anthony Simmons: One great-grandmother, four mothers, two grandmothers, two sisters, two aunts, two nieces, one nephew, two first cousins and two second cousins.
And that's just counting the relationships among the babies and four Eubank women closest in kinship to them. Scads of dads, uncles and cousins also crowded into the room.
"I'm a mom and a great-aunt!" - and on the same morning, marveled Donna Hickson, 24. She has two children besides newborn Savannah Marie Hickson.
Christan's mother, Melody Boles, became a grandmother and an aunt Friday morning. She was up late watching television when Christan, who turned 16 on Thursday and still lives at home, said they'd better get to the emergency room.
Grandma/Great-Grandma Margaret Eubank has had a lot on her mind lately, what with the holidays and the babies on the way.
Friday, she was thinking about setting up a special savings account to pay for all her December expenses to come. She had six grandchildren already. Now she'll be buying Christmas gifts for all of them, plus the new babies, as well as holiday birthday gifts for Christan, James Anthony and Savannah Marie.
"Christmas is over with, and the babies are over with, except," Eubank added, in the understatement to end all understatements, "for the crying and the changing of diapers."
LENGTH: Medium: 59 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ROGER HART Staff. At Columbia Lewis-Gale Medical Center,by CNBMargaret Eubank poses Friday with grand- daughter Savannah Marie
Hickson (left), andher first great-grandson, James Anthony Simmons.
color.