Early Days As Dad

When Rollin Mast of Kinross (the subject of today's Ramblin' column in The Gazette) became a father to twins on Nov. 27, 1992, his challenges were just beginning. First, he was waiting in line to deliver a truckload of grain in Muscatine when Maleah and Courtney, now 16, were born two months early. They were so tiny that nurses at Mercy Hospital in Iowa City posed them in Christmas stockings.

"I remember mom saying dad was afraid to hold us," said Courtney. "He thought he'd break us."

"We walked around like zombies for a year," Rollin says of he and his wife, Tammy. They also spent something like $400 a month for special formula and the diapers for the twins. And he added onto the house to make room for them along with their older brother, Ben, and older sister, Chelsy.

As the girls grew up, the family learned the Chelsy, now 18, was diabetic. She gives herself shots four times a day. But, having been around doctors and nurses all of her life, she's going to Kirkwood Community College this fall to become a nurse.

When the family's home was severely damaged by smoke from a fire in the basement laundry room three years ago, everyone pitched in to help. While the girls helped dad hang drywall, mom finished the woodwork and cleaned the dining room chandelier  so it could remain.

Tammy's death from a heart attack came as quit a shock to the family in May, 2008, but now they've pulled together as a family with Rollin as a single parent.

"I'm very glad my girls are as old as they are," dad says. "I wouldn't know what I'd do if they were younger."