Alvino Rey & The King Sisters (to enlarge click on the image)	Al joined the Alvino Rey Orchestra in 1949; I went home to Pontiac to await our first child. It was then that Al and I decided to ask Wihla Hutson to put our ideas into poetry for the family card. Wihla and I had dinner one evening after Al had left for California. Sitting in the car outside my family's home, I babbled about the new life inside me. When Wihla asked about the text for the new carol, I naturally replied, "A lullaby!" She took these thoughts home and in the lines of "Sleep, Baby Mine" captured the feelings of motherhood we had shared. Wihla Hutson (to enlarge click on the image) On March 8, 1950, we used the first eight bars of this carol to announce the arrival of Diane Bates Burt. Six weeks later, we joined Al in Los Angeles. At the airport he met for the first time the one person who would rival his devotion to music.
"Our Christmas card list..."	The carols now reflected the life-style of our young family. Working with the Alvino Rey group in the Oakland / San Francisco area, Al and I established a pattern of a secular then sacred setting for the family card. In 1950, Wihla mailed the words to "This Is Christmas", which expresses the secular joys of the season. Back in Los Angeles for Christmas 1951, we introduced the now popular "Some Children See Him", written at the same time that Wihla penned the lullaby. Our Christmas card list had grown as we traveled from place to place from 50 to 450 names. We would drop people from the list in order to save postage only to have them write that their carol had been lost in the mail. I now understood what Father Burt had gone through to produce an original card each year.
Diane Bates Burt (to enlarge click on the image)	After many years on the road, we were happy finally to be establishing roots in one place. We bought our first real home in the San Fernando Valley. I planted a trumpet vine around the front porch; Al set up a swing set for Diane; we joined a church; and Al became active in all phases of the Hollywood music world. He became assistant choir director at St. Michael and All Angels' Episcopal Church in Studio City. Then came the greatest news of all: We were expecting another baby! My world was complete! The 1952 carol "Come, Dear Children", was finished at the rehearsal of the Blue Reys, the singing group with Alvino Rey's Orchestra. Al asked them to sing it so that he could check the harmonies. They liked it so much that they asked Al if they could add it to their performance at the annual King Family Christmas party. Al was hesitant for he didn't wish to appear pushy with his own composition. But they insisted, adding it to the familiar carols. It was the hit of the party! This was the introduction of the carols to the Hollywood musical crowd.
	In 1953 our whole life would change. Al came down with a virus flu that left a lingering cough. He had been working long hours on a television show that Alvino Rey and the King Sisters were doing. Now he wished to leave town to set up the Horace Heidt Orchestra for a road tour. It was the first time I ever made a scene over his decision. He promised to return as soon as the band was polished for the show. Al was a very conscientious, dependable musical director. I recall how tired he looked when Diane and I met him at the airport. He did not fight my call to our family internist. Entering the hospital for tests, he was still optimistic that it was a simple problem. Neither of us was prepared for the results. He had lung cancer! On the heels of this crushing news, I lost the baby. Together, we had foreseen a struggle to establish him in the musical world, but this we had never imagined. Now our unfulfilled dreams rose to meet us. Without our deep spiritual reserve and the charm of the little girl we both loved so deeply, we could not have faced the year.
Back to home	Our family and friends rallied around us. A trip to Memorial Hospital in New York City for a consultation was arranged by the Reverend Edward Miller Jr., rector of St. George's Episcopal Church and brother of Martha Miller Burt, John's wife. The hospitality offered us softened the prognosis - Al had six months to a year to live!