Early Childhood Memories Through Lucretia's Eyes

Until I turned 7-years-old, we lived in Idaho Falls, Idaho. I have several childhood memories from that time. Some memories are cute and fun, some are hurtful (to a child), and they are wrapped up by suddenly moving away (It seemed sudden to me.) There are messages I received from my family and lessons I learned that affected my beliefs about myself and the world and contributed to choices I made in the future.

Those years were my brother’s teenage years. My mother loved a good story and my brother was having exciting times. He would come home and tell her all about it. I remember him describing having been at a party when the police arrived and he and his friend running to get out of there and hiding. I remember his being in a school musical. He was dressed as a cowboy with a hat and he practiced his singing number in our backyard using my rocking horse as a prop and dramatically ended with lifting the hat off of his head and holding it high. My brother made everything seem exciting. One day, he came home with a bottle of bright red nail polish for me. I sat still while my mother carefully painted my nails. She had me place my hand flat on the table with my fingers spread apart. She put a stripe of polish down the center of a nail, then would roll my finger to one side and spread the color from the center over the side of the nail, being careful to not get paint onto my skin. I had to be patient, this process took time.

 

My brother would stay home with me some evenings while my parents went out. We would have most of the lights out and he would play his record albums and we would sing and dance. I also remember him opening my piggy bank and spreading my change out on the floor. He showed me how to count my money. We made stacks of ten dimes and placed them neatly in a row. He would straighten the stacks and they looked nice and perfect. We made stacks of quarters and I remember counting the pennies, separating them out. I learned there was a system, a way to do it.

My dad emphasized always reading the instructions before beginning anything. I remember him holding the paper and saying, “Ok, let’s read this all the way through.” I also remember sitting in the kitchen and bouncing a little ball. My dad walked in and got a piece of paper and showed me how to make slash marks for each bounce of the ball. After the fourth mark, one makes the fifth mark as a slanted line over the other four lines. Then, you add by fives to get the total. Here was another system, and it made the counting easier!

My brother played basketball and football. One season, he got his head shaved as part of initiation for the basketball players. He goofed off with one of my mother’s wigs. He was also the football quarterback. He was amazing! One time, my mother let some cheerleaders in to decorate my brother’s room. There were streamers and balloons everywhere. Streamers covered the doorway and he would need to break through them to get into the room. They left a teddy bear hanging hammock-like in streamers from the center of the ceiling. My own teddy bear had most of the fur worn off from my constant carrying and snuggling. My brother’s bear had long brown fur. When my brother left for college, he asked me to take care of that teddy bear for him.

 

 

My sister came home in the summer from college. I had a stuffed tiger named Tigger. His fur was also worn off such that he had patches of material that were completely bare. He had begun to come apart at the seams. My sister repaired him for me. I watched her measure his stomach and cut out some orange fabric. I then sat next to her as she carefully sewed the fabric on being sure the stitches were small, neat, and even. Tigger was different but perfect again!

 

One day, my brother walked past me as he headed outside. He said something I don’t remember, possibly telling me something to do. I said “no” and he told me not to say that and then gave a little slap to my face. It wasn’t a hard slap, it was more symbolic. A little later, in an unusual moment, my Mom sat in the kitchen and pulled me over to sit on her lap. We were not generally an affectionate family, so this was different. I must have looked sad or something because she began rocking me and sang “Rock-a-by-Baby.” She was being light and playful. We looked out the window to the backyard where my dad was showing my brother how to mow the lawn using the electric lawn mower (taking care to keep the electrical cord off to the side so it couldn’t be run over and cut by the mower.) Mom made the observation that Mike was learning to mow the lawn and I broke down crying, sobbing. With shock and surprise she asked, “What is wrong?!” “Mike slapped me!” I said without explanation because I was crying and barely said the words. In an instant, my mother was in the back yard and I watched her grab my brother and pointing at his face she yelled, “Don’t you EVER slap her!” She continued yelling at him and was quite threatening. My dad stood by with a silent sigh and waited for her to finish. My brother appeased her. I watched and felt terrible. I had had no intention of getting him into trouble. I loved and idolized my brother and was simply deeply wounded by his disapproval. I later learned in psychology classes that the face is connected to our identity and a slap to the face is deeply personal. Though it barely hurt, it had great meaning.

Another day, I was like a lost child. I approached my mother as she loaded the dishwasher. I tried to talk to her but she was irritated and sent me away. Next, I was around my brother who was watching TV and he grouched at me to be quiet so he could hear the show. Then, I approached my dad who was working on something and before I could say anything to him, he swore in anger at whatever he was trying to do. I left him alone. That night, we did my bedtime ritual. Mom tucked me into bed. Dad came in and hugged me, kissed me, and told me goodnight. Mom came around to do the same. Then she asked me if I had had a good day. I broke down crying and said “no, everyone was mean to me and didn’t want me around!” As Mom got the information on what had happened and I continued to cry with tears running down my cheeks, my dad returned and so did my kitten, Smokey. He jumped up and laid on my pillow right next to my face and then reached out his paw and placed it on my cheek. Mom said, “Look at that! Smokey loves you and he wants you to not cry. He wants you to feel better.” It worked.

 

So my dad had been getting those migraines I talked about in my last post. He worked for National Cash Register and often would be called out in the evenings to repair machines while businesses were closed. I remember going with him to a bank and a pretty, nice young lady let us into the bank and into a large room. Dad took the panel off of a machine and began to make repairs. I ran around the room, colored on some copy paper, and watched him work some of the time. He had his shirt sleeves rolled back and his hands and arms in the machine. Over the years, this is often how I saw my dad with tools such as screw drivers, wrenches, and pliers, loosening wing nuts, bolts, and screws and removing them by turning them with his fingers. He would set these objects aside in a certain spot for safekeeping and in order of use.

Dad was also in a supervisory position at work. Evidently management had changed or company policies had. Employees were under pressure to meet quotas. My dad was under pressure to fire employees who were not meeting the quotas. He was getting migraines from it. As a child, I didn’t know this. I guess he took a vacation and didn’t meet his own quotas and then quit his job. I remember him coming to my school one morning. I was in the second grade. They were selling cupcakes that morning, pushing around a cart from room to room. Dad bought me a cupcake and we went home to leave. We were moving to Mom’s hometown, Hailey, Idaho.

On the Day I was Born

A few famous events took place on my birthdate, July 7th, 1967

The Beatles released, "All You Need is Love"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLEtGRUrtJo

The Doors' "Light My Fire" became the #1 Hit Song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbFxzb-YIxE

The actress, Vivian Leigh, who played Scarlett in "Gone with the Wind," died at age 53
Here is the clip, "You Need Kissing Badly"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nACj50uq6_s

Here is the Time magazine published on this day
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/0,9263,7601670707,00.html

July Baby: Lucretia Reed is Born

I was born on July 7th. My parents had considered themselves to be done having children. But my mother identified herself as Catholic and Catholics don't use birth control. Mom always said that I was proof that the rhythm method doesn't work. After I was born, Dad got a vasectomy. There were things said and done that could have left me feeling that I was unwanted, but I never felt that. Undoubtedly, both of my parents loved me. But my mother didn't stop smoking while she was pregnant, didn't cut down at all. I was born weighing 5 lbs 5 oz and my skin was blue. This was from lack of oxygen due to a placenta that was shriveled and half gone, the effects of smoking. My mother said I was the "ugliest baby [she] had ever seen." Well, that was her fault, not mine. She also said that because I was so little, my stomach was very small, so I would eat and be hungry again right away. She said I cried all of the time. But when I interviewed her in later years, she said the day came for me to be born and she called my father at work. Her voice cracked with emotion as she recalled saying to him, "Are you ready to have a baby?" They brought me home to join my siblings. My brother was eleven and my sister was fifteen. Everyone adored me. I was named after my grandma.

I did put a bit of a strain on the family. My brother and sister were expected to babysit much of the time. When my sister was sixteen, she stopped taking me out in public with her. This came after an incident in which she took me to a store and was pushing me around in the shopping cart. She felt several people's disapproving glances as they assumed she was an unwed teen mother. She couldn't stand the judgemental looks.

My brother complained about fighting me for the TV. He came home from school and wanted to watch shows of his choosing. I would be watching 'Sesame Street' or 'Mr Rogers' and would scream and cry when he changed the channel. He thought it was about time that I let it go because I would have already watched those shows four or five times throughout the day. I knew the alphabet and my numbers before I ever entered Kindergarten.

I didn't talk fully as soon as other children. For the longest time, I would only say phrases of a few words. It took my brother tormenting me to make a breakthrough occur. We were sitting at the table across from each other for breakfast and he was teasing me about how I held my spoon. He was making faces and copying me. Then, I tried to look at the cereal box with it between us. He kept moving it aside and making faces at me. He wouldn't stop. I became so angry that I stood, stomped my foot, and screamed at him. I clearly recall looking around the kitchen and getting ideas/images of what I was yelling at him. I shouted, "I am going to rip your head off, get blood all over the floor, and throw it in the garbage can!" My brother was in shock, and my mother had heard this from the other room. She couldn't believe it! This story was told over and over as the first full sentence that Cretia ever said, spurred by her brother tormenting her. My family did have a twisted sense of humor.

I was a serious child. I can remember being about age five and feeling that seriousness, a feeling that something wasn't quite right with the world. I can't recall anything wrong in the family, I don't recall any arguing or outward signs of trouble. My Dad did get migraines. I remember crawling over my Dad's lap and questioning him as he sat on our couch holding his head. Mom told me to stop talking and be quiet around him because his head hurt. His face was tightened and twisted from the pain. I felt very sorry for him.

I went to daycare at Mrs Brown's. She was a very nice woman and I preferred to be with her rather than playing with the kids. I remember her slicing a dill pickle and introducing me to that wonderful taste. I was uncomfortable around the other kids. Some were older than me and tended to direct the playing. I was quiet and shy. One boy decided I was his girlfriend and I was in his rock band. We set up our stage in Mrs Brown's yard and sang Credence Clearwater's "Proud Mary - Rollin' on a River."
http://youtu.be/L-2Of9aznxg

When I was turning seven, my mother took me to a pet store and we looked at some kittens. On my birthday, my brother came driving up in his beater car and brought me a little gray kitten for my present. I named him Smokey, I think because he was gray and my Dad was brainstorming and said it was the color of smoke. I associated that with Smokey the Bear. So Smokey became the name. I loved that kitten. He grew into a Tom cat who I am certain helped to form my views of what a man should be. That cat along with the Disney movie, "Lady and the Tramp," were strong influences on me!

My family also came up against the world a few times in my early years which instilled a fight in me that I didn't realize I had. I will describe those experiences in my next installment.

As I go along with my writing, please post comments, questions, observations. I welcome anything that will help bring out the telling of my stories.

Marriage Anyone?

During my master’s degree program in Clinical Psychology, I took a course in family therapy. One of our assignments was to interview an older couple who had been through various stages of their marriage. I interviewed my parents. My dad would have been about 60-years-old at the time of the interview. My dad said that he wanted to marry my mom, in part, because she was intelligent and had a good head on her shoulders. “She seemed to know what she was doing.” My mother reacted with some surprise to his comments. They both told me a nice account of their early days together.

 

My dad said that he thought he had made one major mistake when they first got married, and if he could do it over, he wouldn’t make the same choice. He said that as a newly married couple, they rented an apartment along with another couple. The two couples lived together in the one apartment. The other couple had a young child and the father disciplined by spanking with a belt. Neither of my parents approved of this approach. After seeing this happen repeatedly, on one occasion, my father confronted the man. My mother proudly reported, “Your Dad told him to stop hitting that boy with a belt and if he saw it happen again, he would pound the guy!” There was tension between the two couples until they were able to separate. Looking back, my dad assessed that their bonding as a couple was hindered by the presence of other people.

 

There was a lot of tension in my parents’ marriage by the time I was growing up. This had developed over years. There is a psychological diagnosis, Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD), which comes about when an event in a person’s early childhood years seriously disrupts the normal development of bonding between parent and child. This event could be an illness, separation from the parent, abuse, or anything that could be experienced as traumatic. For my mother, it was the death of her father when she was age five. RAD manifests as a difficulty to form stable relationships and to bond with another. The normal, age appropriate stages of development are disrupted. It can severely impair a person’s functioning from family to employment to community. I don’t believe my mother would meet the clinical diagnosis. She certainly bonded with each of her three children and she did remain in a stable marriage for almost 40 years and was stable in her employment. I could only say that she had traits of RAD. My mother painfully doubted my father’s love for her and frequently lamented to me that he didn’t with various examples of less than sufficient care for her. I would try to reassure her that he did (Of course he did, right?!) The insecurity wasn’t just in my mother. My dad admitted during a confrontation by her that he indeed didn’t say the words, “I love you.” He said to her, “You know I have trouble with that.” She was not happy to just accept that as good enough. My dad restricted his emotion, possibly lost touch with the true experience of a full range of emotion. For example, when given a gift at Christmas, he would put on an act of a happy reaction. He would say something like, “Wow!” or “Whee! Great!” but it seemed put-on over a basically flat response.

 

Attachment theory describes secure and insecure attachment. One form of insecure attachment is ambivalent attachment. In observational studies of young children, this type of insecurely attached child would panic when the parent went away and would cry for their return. But when the parent returned, the child would be angry and would reject the parent, would even hit or kick at the mother. Regardless of my father’s restricted expression of fondness, my mother generally carried with her a guardedness, a distrust, which didn’t allow her to relax into the marital relationship. Like the insecurely attached child, she desperately wanted my father’s love but she frequently pushed him away with anger. When she was wounded, she would enter into yelling rampages. My brother said when he and my sister were growing up, my father would argue with my mother; he would engage. I am eleven years younger than my brother, 15 years younger than my sister. During my growing up years, he no longer argued with her. He stayed quiet, clenched his jaw with the muscle in his cheek bulging from tension, and he would walk away. Evidently, by then, he had determined it wasn’t worth it.

 

My mother held onto hurts and slights. There was a story which when brought up, even many years later, would still rouse her anger. Early in their marriage, my mother met my father at the door upon his return home from work. She tried to do the typical 50’s era wife thing of greeting him with a kiss. His response, “Get away! You’re just like a sticky fly!” Mom’s response, she never initiated such affection again.

 

When my brother and sister were little, Mom became angry at Dad while he was across the street talking with the neighbor. She left the kids in the house, backed the car out, and yelled at him, “You take care of the kids!” as she angrily drove off. Dad calmly said to the neighbor, “Guess I’d better go take care of things.” Another time, she was so angry with him she packed a couple of suitcases and was going to leave him. I don’t know how he calmed her in that instance. Though he no longer argued with her directly during my years, he did act as a buffer for me. Mom was intense. She loved me. I knew she loved me. I loved her. But at times my Dad would need to step in. For example, when I was about age 14, Mom’s friend, Phyllis Barth, came to visit along with her high-school-age daughter. Phyllis dramatically told of her daughter’s recent illness with high fever and severe dehydration. It almost killed her. It just happened that I was sick. I tried to go to bed, but became nauseous and vomited. Mom became adamant that I needed to keep fluids in me so that I wouldn’t become dehydrated. I drank a little water and threw up. She had me drink water again and I threw up. Again, despite my protest, she insisted that I drink some water and I threw up. Somehow, she and Phyllis got the idea that I should have orange juice. I had some sips of orange juice and threw up. They were still pushing the drink upon me. We were all in the kitchen with me weakly sitting and my dad across the room leaning against the counter. As I was being pressured to drink some more, I looked at my dad miserably. He then arose to my defense and said, “Leave her alone now. Let her go to bed.” And my mother followed his direction. This was an interaction that would happen over the years, my dad stepping in when my mom was going too far. When he passed away, that was one of the first losses I recognized: I no longer had a buffer.

 

Also, in my self-awareness, I realize that I learned from my mother to be guarded and distrustful in relationships. I can be overly trusting in the goodness of other people, but in regards to being vulnerable with my emotions, I keep much hidden and maintain a degree of distance. This was reinforced by watching the course of my parents’ marriage and by the dissolution of my own marriage. I also restrict my emotions like my dad, generally and automatically keeping a stoic control over my reactions. Then, in close, personal relationships, if I feel hurt (and those closest to us can inflict the most hurt) I react like my mother. I find it interesting that I have developed defenses by taking on the defenses of my parents in reaction to the hurts they experienced in childhood. The influence of those hurts extends to the next generation that didn’t directly experience them. What was my Dad’s early childhood wound? He was born in 1930. This was the Great Depression and my grandparents lost their farm that year. They moved into town when my dad was one-year-old. Possibly my dad took on a style of depression he picked up from his own parents produced from their substantial loss and combined with a German stoicism.

 

My parents did enjoy each other. They were best when they could go out dancing. My dad was entertained by my mother’s spunk and rowdiness. They both liked to share interactions or observations from their days that they could laugh about. Humor was something they had in common. And they were a team when it came to parenting. They agreed with each other; there was no playing one against the other. They could set a firm limit. Both were intelligent and valued education. They had the same values of honesty, loyalty, perseverance, striving to do one’s best, and being responsible. They were good parents. They were a good pair.

Joe Anne meets James Reed

Joe Anne returned to live near her mother. At that time, my grandmother was living in Lava Hot Springs, Idaho. She always kept the house in Hailey, Idaho but would go to other places to teach during the school year. My grandfather’s parents had moved from Mackay, Idaho to Pocatello, Idaho where they were living at the time my grandparents married. My grandparents were married in Pocatello and returned to live in Mackay. My grandmother was now living in Lava Hot Springs, which is quite close to Pocatello. Pocatello was the family stomping grounds for a few generations.

My mother was a young woman. She liked to have fun! She liked groups of people and dancing. One weekend evening, she was with her friend, Edie, and the girls were looking to have fun. Edie knew some guys and called them up. Three young men arrived and they had already been drinking. The good times were on! They all headed to Pocatello to go dancing. At some point in the evening, they needed more alcohol or cigarettes or something. My mother joined the guys on the drive. The man who would one day be my father, James Reed, was in the front seat with her in the middle. He rested his arm on the back of the bench seat behind her shoulders. She told me she knew he was a nice guy because he didn’t try to touch her or make any moves. She felt comfortable with his arm just behind her.

They returned to the dance scene. My mother was dancing to nearly every song played. In those days, everyone danced with everyone even if they were part of a couple. (That doesn’t seem so easy to do these days, maybe because there isn’t a formal dance step for people to follow which could make dance partners easily interchangeable.) According to my mother, James Reed had imbibed so much alcohol later in the evening that he was barely conscious. Sitting in a booth, he slouched sideways and rested his head on her shoulder. She would lift his head and push him aside to rest against the wall when she got up to dance. When she would return to her seat, he would resume resting his head on her shoulder. She would push him aside again when she wanted to dance. According to my dad, the next day he had been so drunk that he couldn’t remember what she looked like or what her name was. He just knew he wanted to see “the red-headed girl in the pink dress” again. He went asking around about her.

 

James Reed was just out of the navy. He had been in the navy during the Korean War. He had a tattoo on the back of his right forearm of an eagle and an anchor from a night of drinking with his sailor buddies. He was from American Falls, Idaho of the “crazy German family that lived on the hill and made dandelion wine.” When he contacted my mother after the night of drinking and dancing, they met in a park. My mother brought my sister, Christine, who was a year old. My mother said she determined he was a good person to date because he played with my sister and my sister liked him. They dated, many weekends of dancing and socializing while my grandmother babysat, and were married after six months (My sister was age two then). My dad’s employer at the time said it was a good thing he was getting married and would settle down a bit because he was going to kill himself with all of the drinking he was doing. He did settle down. He didn’t like going to the bar after work to drink with the men. He wanted to go home. He got harassed because he helped around the house, for instance, he helped my mother to wash all of the windows. His new job with National Cash Register took them to live in Ogden, Utah, where my brother, Michael, was born. My sister was four-years-old.

 

 

A Mind Destroyed

Jim and Paul Donahue both graduated as valedictorians of their high school senior classes. They also both went to Albion to continue their schooling at the same place my grandmother received her teaching certificate. The brothers shared a room together. They also both were called to serve in the Korean War. Though my Uncle Jim wasn’t in the middle of the fighting, he didn’t fare so well.

He didn’t ever talk about the war itself. He did tell me about the Korean children who had very little and were hungry for food. He said the American soldiers would throw a single candy bar on the ground in front of the children and watch them scramble, scratch, and fight each other to get that candy bar. He didn’t make it clear what point he was trying to make by passing that image on to me. We didn’t really talk about anything. He would throw out odd comments, statements, observations and I just received them. When he told me about the children, he didn’t really express an opinion as one might expect such as the tragedy of war, the baseness of humanity, or our animalistic natures. He just presented it with an odd half smile, maybe of amazement. I wondered why he told me that.

Uncle Jim had a wife, Kitty, and a daughter, Anne Jeanette. The family didn’t last long. As I was growing up, my Uncle Jim lived with my grandmother. He had about six different medication bottles that the VA sent him every month. They stacked up in the pantry. My grandmother told me he didn’t like to take them because they made him feel loopy. He became an alcoholic.

Pretty much every Friday night until I was about fourteen, I stayed the night at my grandmother’s. In the middle of the night, Uncle Jim would come home, walk across the living room past our bedroom door, and sit in his leather chair. He would chain smoke Pall Malls or Camels. Sometimes, he would mumble and grumble. Sometimes he would tell a joke to no one present and he would share a laugh with them. Sometimes he would carry on an argument. He might sleep for a while in the chair, but most times, he would make his way up the narrow, steep stairs to his bedroom.

In the mornings, I would awaken to hear he and my grandmother arguing in the kitchen, both loud and harsh, criticizing the other. I would walk out to the kitchen and they both would smile at me and tell me good morning. Uncle Jim liked to tease me. He prided himself on finding a person’s sore spot and taunting them. I would smile and shake my head like he was getting to me. However, I never let him know what would truly bother me. That is where I learned to smile, keep my mouth shut, accommodate, and put on a poker face. He would smoke a cigarette or more, tons of ashes in the ash tray, and the tips of his fingers were stained yellow from the nicotine of unfiltered smokes. He would drink some coffee. The cup could only be half full; his hand shook so that the coffee would slosh and spill. It would shake as he lifted the cup to his lips. I learned what the DTs were. He would leave at 8:30 or 9:00 in the morning to walk downtown to find an open bar. He had a car for a while, but it went away along with his driver’s license.

Sometimes, he would come home so drunk he couldn’t make it to his chair. At least once, he fell on the porch trying to come through the door. My grandmother dragged him into the house just to the point she could close the door. She left him passed out on the floor. Many times, he vomited in the bathroom, missing the toilet, and my grandmother would rant about cleaning up his mess.

They would argue because he lost the mail during his wanderings downtown. He would blow up at my grandmother, accusing her of opening his mail or of stealing it. Once, when no one was there, he picked up a chair over his head and threatened to hit my grandmother. She yelled at him that he better not because if she couldn’t do it herself then “Joe Anne will make sure you go to jail. You know she will!” He put down the chair. I was witness to a time my mother got between him and my grandmother and shouted him down. Many years before, when my dad was first with my mom, Uncle Jim threatened to beat him up. My mother pulled a kitchen knife on him and told him she would kill him. I tried to never upset anyone in my family.

Only one time, as I was trying to understand what had happened to make Uncle Jim this way, my grandmother told me something that seemed unreal. She said that during the Korean War, Uncle Jim had a mental/emotional breakdown. The military saw this as a danger because Uncle Jim had a high security clearance and knowledge of sensitive information. She said they put him through electric shock to his brain with the purpose of erasing his memory! She said it made him infantile. He needed to learn how to talk again and how to do basic motor skills. She had to feed him with a spoon like one feeds a baby! That’s the way to hammer the nail into the coffin.

My mother thought he had been diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic. I didn’t know if that could truly be the diagnosis with his alcoholism and this supposed purposeful trauma to his brain. He definitely was paranoid. Years later, my mother called me and told me that Uncle Jim’s grandson had been diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic. So there was evidence that it truly was and it had been passed down genetically.

I don’t know how it logically falls into place. Uncle Jim and Uncle Paul both returned from Korea and graduated from Idaho State University. Uncle Jim did work for some time with the technological cutting edge computers that were so big they filled entire rooms. But, he could never keep a job longer than about a year. My grandmother’s firstborn son who was supposed to be the hero, the champion of the family, dissolved into belligerent illness. In the end, his brain deteriorated. One Christmas, my sister gave him the book, “All I Ever Need to Know, I Learned in Kindergarten.” He stared at the cover vacantly. Half an hour later he chuckled at the title.

I was never afraid of my Uncle Jim. He always was happy to see me and his teasing was his way of being friendly. He never turned his anger in my direction. Once, he ran into me downtown and he bought me a hamburger. He wasn’t drunk and he must have just received his check. After a stay in the VA hospital, he brought me a hand crafted marshmallow roasting stick his roommate had made out of a golf club handle. Once, he sent me a card while I was at college. He was up in the night unable to sleep. Then he heard my grandmother and he said he had better close and turn out the light before she knew he was up. Paranoia? One time, my grandmother wasn’t home and I was there to mow her lawn. Uncle Jim came out to tease me about my skinny “chicken legs.” He said, “I know I give your grandma a hard time, but she truly is a good woman. But don’t you ever tell her I said that!”

Joe Anne Lucretia

When my mother, Joe Anne Lucretia Donahue, was a little girl, her parents called her Jodi. She couldn't pronounce that, so it came out "Dodi." Her brothers thought that was funny and started calling her "Dodo," referring to the dumb Dodo bird.

Her brothers tormented her. They threw her doll down the outhouse hole! But they also protected her. No one else could be mean to her. She recalled a time that a boy was trying to lure her back behind a building. Her brother, Paul, spotted this and came telling her that "Mom is calling you! Don't you hear?" She ran home to her mom who looked quizzical when asked why she had been calling Joe Anne home. When she heard that Paul had said so, she replied that she needed Joe Anne's help with some chores. As an adult remembering this, my mother realized Paul had been protecting her.

They also had an old dog named Scottie. He always walked on the street side of the sidewalk, keeping young Joe Anne herded to the inside. He would stop in front of her at the street corners.

In elementary school, she wore her long, red hair in pig tails. A mischievous boy named Billy House sat in the desk behind her. He would dip the tips of her pig tails into the ink well on his desk! He remained her very good friend their entire lives.

By about the fifth grade, she stood taller than her classmates and she developed sooner than the other girls. She felt embarrassed and awkward. She began to hunch her shoulders forward in an attempt to shrink herself. Noticing this, my grandmother told her, "You have beautiful red hair. No one has hair like yours. Hold your head high and show everyone that red hair!" Now there was something of her she could feel good about, and she stood up straight from then on.

Despite the hurts and negative interactions in their relationship that my mother held onto, she said there were two things her mother did right. One was telling her to hold her red head high. The other was that she did her best to speak openly and to the best of her knowledge about female development and body changes. She would try to answer any question posed even as she blushed at times. Many girls didn't have moms with the courage to do so. Joe Anne was present when one of her friends screamed in terror thinking she was bleeding to death. No one had given her any education. Joe Anne looked through the cupboards, found menstrual supplies, showed the girl how to use the belt and to hook the ends of the pads. Having witnessed this girl's fear, she was so glad her mother had educated her before hand.

Her mother had a strange hang-up about bathing, however. She seemed to think Joe Anne wanted baths too often. The house had a side porch that was loosely enclosed. Joe Anne would put the tub full of bath water on that porch, close off the entry to the house, and she would bathe and brush her hair and care for herself as if she were in the middle of luxury. Her mother viewed this with disdain. (As an adult who designed her own house plan, she created a beautiful master bath!)

She was the daughter of a teacher. This was similar to being the daughter of a preacher. She felt the need to be somewhat wild. She started smoking cigarettes at age 14. She skipped school! A boy with a bright red car caught her attention and she saw him as the source of fun and happiness. They eloped during her senior year of high school. When they came back around home, her mother told him, "Jerry, she needs to finish high school. You need to ensure she does. If not, I will have this marriage annulled." He responded, "Oh, yes, Mrs Donahue, Joe Anne will finish high school." And she did. They took off to live in California.

She had her baby girl when she was 18. She wasn't happy. Jerry quit his job "because he just wanted to go fishing." She described not having enough money for food. "There was a can of tomato soup in the cupboard." The marriage lasted about a year. Knowing my mother, she probably left after a screaming argument, likely with a door slamming behind her. She didn't tell me this. She said they had an amicable divorce due to "irreconcilable differences." My grandmother told me that after she was home a few days she began crying, saying, "I want my baby!" They went to Jerry's sister who was caring for Christine and retrieved her. She became a divorced woman with a child.