Code Talker Chapter 20 Summary

Children: Early to Late 1950s

  • In Albuquerque, Chester takes up hunting with a couple of Navajo friends who had also served in the military.
  • On their first hunt in New Mexico, Chester kills a deer and gives thanks with corn pollen. Chester takes most of the deer back home to Ethel, so they can have some yummy deer meat.
  • At this point in the chapter, Chester takes us forward in time. He's in Gallup, New Mexico, at the Catholic hospital there. Ethel is in the delivery room. A doctor arrives and tells Chester that Ethel's given birth to a daughter, but it was a difficult birth. Chester and Ethel's first child lives for only half an hour.
  • The couple is very saddened by the loss of their daughter, but soon Ethel's pregnant again. This time she has a boy, and he survives. They name him Stanley. Michael, their second son, is born in 1955, followed by two more sons, Ray and Albert.
  • Tragedy strikes the family again when Albert, whom the family nicknames "Chubby," dies in an accident at a train station. While he's goofing around (as toddlers tend to do), he falls and hits his head on a step.
  • Chubby's death is a huge blow to Chester and Ethel. But the couple forges ahead.
  • They decide to adopt Tyah, the son of Ethel's niece. Ethel's niece is an unmarried teenage mom, and she doesn't want to keep the baby, so Chester and Ethel step in and give the little guy a home.