A warm footnote to year without dad

By Mike Gordon
Advertiser Staff Writer

Kathy Baxter, right, a part-time resident of Makaha, knitted booties for babies whose fathers have been deployed from Schofield Barracks to Iraq with the 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry regiment. Among eight new mothers making their selections from the donated booties: Betty Bixler, left, and Jamie Overson with babies Collin and Rhylee. Deborah Booker • The Honolulu Advertiser

fee table yesterday, folded her hands in her lap — the same hands that knitted each bootie — and creased her sun-bronzed face with a smile.

All around her, eight new mothers, each one the wife of a Schofield Barracks soldier deployed to Iraq for a year, sat in pleasant disbelief. Even with each other for support, giving birth and raising new babies while their men are far from home is a lonely, daunting task.

But Baxter's booties were a little slice of sunshine.

"I think their husbands are doing a service for us," Baxter said. "I think this is important. I wanted to do something."

Baxter, who will turn 75 in November, has been knitting since she was 5. She and her husband, Jere, live half the year in Napa, Calif., and the other half in Makaha, where Baxter likes to knit to reruns of "Hawaii Five-0."

Most of the time she donates the booties to the county hospital back in Napa.

But a few weeks ago, Baxter read about the Schofield women, whose husbands belong to the 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment. That's when the needles started really clicking in her high-rise condo.

"She can knit in her sleep," Jere Baxter said. "Like a machine. She's been so excited doing this."

Baxter knitted 25 pair this past winter, most of them for this project. She delivered them yesterday at the home of Lynn Leith, whose husband is the battalion commander.

"It's nice to see someone in the community reach out to us and to keep our babies' feet warm," Leith said.

Leith called the gathering yesterday "a bootie-fest."

Ivie Williamson cradled her 3-week-old son, James, who slept as she pondered which booties to pick.

"She's so sweet to do this for babies she doesn't even know," Williamson said. "It's touching. To know there are people out there that care is nice."

Reach Mike Gordon at mgordon@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8012.