Turning Back the Hands of Time:
Puppy love blended w/ Canine rage, the 1940’s
The beginning of this chaos, the spark that ignited the flame, the match that light the fire was triggered by teenage passion, desperation, motherhood, and love, but was it? There was more to the story, much more to the secrets my Mother had hidden, the disgust, the desperate need to get away from her childhood home. The reasons were not revealed until much later in my life but it would not be through her; it was forty years later that my Aunt disclosed the wretched secrets. It was then, with a notebook & pencil in my hand, I traveled to where I began, where I had been, asking questions, receiving answers until finally the story was told:
Marge was a petite, energetic young girl, just stepping into puberty, the year 1941, when she, along with her sisters, was exposed to her Mom’s new husband Red, who had taken the role as her step-father. He was not hesitant to reach out to grab her, touch her and her two sisters, in forbidden, private areas of their bodies. Due to this abuse the three sisters had embe dded a hate for their Mother, who had ignored their acclimations‘, a hatred that had remained with them, I would later learn, throughout their adult lives. Marge wanted to get away from him, anything to free herself of the disgusting hands that continued to reach for her. At that time there was nowhere to run, no one to turn to, so with this they had to contend. Within two years there were two more children, a son and a daughter, added to the household, Mom‘s new step brother and step sister.
Her future husband, E.W, was the best looking’, the most popular boy in high school, actually the most handsome young bachelor in the area. But following his graduation in 1943, he joined the army and by December 1st of that year he was out of state, all the way over in CT., preparing to go to war, preparing to fight for his Nation, and he was proud.
His side of the story;
E.W. had been drafted into the service and immediately assigned to be a Paramedic. Fighting against the enemy was the primary focus by the media but he held a position that is one of the most difficult, the most grueling, most unforgettable. What he would face, the agony, the blood, the daily exposure to boys his own age dying right before him as he attempted to help with bandaging and IVs. The post-war trauma, the shock of terror, pain and death would forever remain in his memory, and there it lingered, yet never to be exposed. His military record he had hidden and the papers would remain hidden, somewhere, until much later in his life. Years, many years later, it would be due to the early onset of brain fade, then Alzheimer’s when he decided to slip the papers to me, ‘his Sissy‘. I was his favorite, I had been the one who held his hands years earlier when his first marriage collapsed, never to be mended, when his family disappeared, never to be recovered.
He had returned from the war in the latter part of 1946, he was now considered a man at the age of 21. He looked happy on the outside but it was a mask, a mask used to hide the horrid secrets now locked deep inside his heart and mind, never to be exposed. Marge was only 16 when she blindly, but with passion, threw herself into his arms. Then, only a few weeks into the summer break, just one month before her 17 birthday, she realized that she was pregnant, was this accepted with regret or celebration? Suddenly the 16 year old girl was a married woman and would have an infant in her arms in a few months, her entire world had changed and there was no turning back.
Finally the birth of their first child, Jeanie, took place in May of 1948. The frail seventeen year old Mother held her daughter as best she could. She was weak but she was smiling, perhaps pleased with her daughters health and blond hair, but it was later disclosed that E.W. was disappointed. Why? He wanted a boy, a son, a little man, someone who’ll go hunting’ with him, ‘go fishing‘, plays baseball, just like every Dad in those mountains. But, he consoled himself with the promise that she’ll have another baby, and soon, right! Sure enough she became pregnant with the second child, just three months following the birth of Jeanie, her first. She had barely healed, but motherhood was once again inflicted, but was this due to passion or force?
It would be my birth the following year, June of 1949 that would be the most difficult. On June 27th her Mother passed away after years of battle with cancer.She could not say goodbye, she hated her mother but yearned for her love, she was in agony as she awaited the birth of her second child. The labor was long, the contractions was almost unbearable but finally I was placed into her arms but there was friction in the air. My father disclosed the secret, many years later, that the announcement of my gender, “ a girl”, brought about anger, cussing, and a menagerie of demeaning words to his wife, "Why!".
His disappointment he bellowed very loudly, I was not a boy! ‘Dam it Marge, we already have a girl, I wanted a boy!“ He had lived with that guilt of his actions throughout his remaining life. He had confessed his sin to me, how he had gotten so angry that he had stormed away from the house for two days! He finally returned, gazed at me lying in the crib and that is when he lifted me for the first time. He has relived that moment as he held me in his arms and due to my black hair and pink cheeks he nicknamed me “Papoose’, I became his favorite. It was obvious that I had the native Cherokee traits, traits that lingered on both sides of the family. Both of my Grandmothers had the Cherokee blood and it was from Mothers side that I was crowned with a strip of blond hair, ‘moonlight on the river as a ray of gold’, the native explanation.
A few days following my birth I almost died, but why, what had happened? I had been told that perhaps I had gotten sick due to the milk from my mother’s breast; it had been poisoning me, but was it? Today I try to imagine my Mom’s situation; a young teenager, pregnant at 16, her first child at the age of 17, then, just three months later, she was 18 and pregnant once again. The second child’s birth, mine, was very difficult, and I torn myself out, over 9 pounds in weight. Her husband, my Dad’s, disappointment, her duties as a wife and mother was building and the demands from him continued to increase. Then the third pregnancy ignited the wick that would lead to an explosion ten years later. He wanted a boy, all she had given him was two girls; ‘I’d better get a son this time!’ were the words he delivered, the demand he had shouted to her, but, as before, that demand was never fulfilled.
She was now even more frail, a tiny young woman, trying to feed and diaper two babies, a three month old infant and a one year old toddler. She was still very weak from the difficult labor of the second one, yet more was being demanded by her husband. She began to feel a hate for all of this, was it due to the crying, the demands of feeding and diapering, or was this triggered by the ever changing personality and mood swings of her husband? Who was this man, E.W.? He was not the same person he was before he had gone into the service, what was wrong with him, why was he so bitter? At that time period the horrid mental problems titled ’post-war trauma’ had not been recognized, nor identified.
Finally the labor of her third child ended, once again an infant was laid in her arms, the date Sept. 7th, just 12 days before her 19th birthday. The announcement of another daughter brought about a single word from her husband, my Daddy, “Shit!” That closed the door that ended the passion they had shared for each other. It also triggered a hatred yet within that hatred there still lingered a tiny spark, the spark that had ignited the flame three years prior, puppy love, but now it felt from only one side, his. My Dad was hypnotized by her, very over possessive and demanding; she was his and his only and it would remain that way!
It had not been long after his return from war when Dad began drinking; he had also become addicted to ‘Pinnacle’, a card game. In my mind it is very difficult to imagine my Daddy as a young man, in his late twenty’s, but mentally I placed myself there and watched. He laughed a lot, he was even a singer in his brothers Quartet, but something was wrong. He was employed by an Attorney, in the ’big’ city of Logan, but his position was meek, he delivered notices to people for court appearances, or something, his pay was $50 a week. He never talked of his job, he drove away every morning at 8am, returned every evening at 5 pm, then disappeared.
Marge was a child locked in woman’s body, trapped in a position she detested, hated, this was not what she wanted in life. Now burdened with three children, children she did not’t want to begin with, and there was no one to help. Within two years, following the birth of her third child, she began to tear herself away from her obligations, from her children, any way she could find possible. We were old enough to fend for ourselves, to go outside, to just lealeave her alone! It became routine, every Saturday morning, after she allowed our viewing of ’Popeye’ on the TV, that we were shoved, my sisters & I, out of the house with the repeated words ‘just go play! ‘.
It would also be in this early stages of our lives that we were introduced and very familiar to ‘switches’ & ‘fly swatters‘, the items that were used to reprimand, to inflict pain. So frequently were those items delivered to our backsides, it became a routine action, day after day. Her rage, her screaming was a common occurrence, and never had she stepped outside to join us, to play, to just have fun. Plus, the usual one that was to be blamed for any wrong doings, I’ve been told, was the middle one, me. But did our Mother’s violent actions of this magnitude contribute to the feeling of abandonment, a coldness that embe dded the hate I felt for her, the hurt that remained in my heart throughout my life?
In 1959 the piano lessons had started and it would be a year later that my earliest spot memory had taken place, in chapter one, ‘The Church Scene’. The investigation revealed that a few years earlier Mother had gone back to school, 'all the way over' in Charleston (the big, big city as it was termed) and became a substitute teacher. No memory of these events, nothing is lodged in my brain, so, did we miss her, or were we familiar with the vacant position, the position of a Mother.
Her first employment, her first taste of independence, was at the same school where I had attended 1st through 6th grade. It would be in the mid summer of the following year, the month of July 1964 when my life almost ended. It would be on that day when there was no one, anyone, with me at my childhood home. Mom had moved out several months prior and rented a house in town, she just wanted to ‘get away’ from E.W, and finally she could support herself. My two sisters had followed her to the newly rented dwelling; I had stayed with my Daddy.
I have one single picture in my hands, taken only a year before the move that shows our Mother posed with us, her three daughters, in Ester attire. That picture would be the only one found with the four of us together, but we did not know, at the time, it would be the last.
Our childhood ‘home’ had now dwindled from a family of five to only a ‘structure’, a dwelling where only two people resided. The feeble house was now desolate, bleak, lacking of voices, void of laughter; you would find only silence within the walls surrounding the tight rooms we once shared. Dad was nowhere to be found, Mom and my sisters were gone somewhere far away. It would be on a Sunday afternoon, mid-summer, when loneliness brought about the decision to ‘go over’ to Aunt Marlene’s house for a visit. It was that far away, was it? It was just ‘over’ on the other side of Big Creek Mountain, so I had mounted a feeble bicycle but to my destination I never arrived. I investigated and found that only Dad had made it to the hospital where I had been taken, so where was everyone? Mom was thirty-five miles away, in Charleston attending college classes, Susie was at the ’Girl Scout summer camp’, Linda was somewhere, I was alone.
It would in the latter part of that same year, December, 1964 when we realized that Mother had given up, when she finally decided to pack her suitcase and run, disappear, to turn her back and go.
The scene before “The Note”:
I had been dropped off at the church to present music that night, as usual, but something was wrong. Where was Mother? Had she had slipped out or had she even attended church that night, I do not know. The service had come to an end, I had stepped outside, but there was no one there to drive me home, at least to the home I was still sharing with Dad. I was told that Mom’s car was parked at the other side of the two lane road, across from the Church, but, I have no memory of this. Then I had decided to met my sisters at the football field, I knew the game had not yet ended, but it was almost over, what else could I do? I met with them and silently followed them to the house where they now lived with Mother, and it would be there, that night, upon entering that place, that the remaining of our family bond exploded, never to be rebuilt.
It was there, in that house that she had moved eight months prior, where ‘The Note‘, would be found. It was the grueling, haunting scene where I heard my Daddy crying, where I watched my sisters whaling in agony. It was with everyone, everyone but me in disbelief that she had run away. I was not hesitant to face the truth, but deep inside I was feeling the same agonizing pain. There I sat, my arms crossed, determined not to show the grief I felt.
Later I would learn; Who found the Note first?
Prior to our arrival at Mom’s house that night ‘The Note’ that had been found in her abandoned car, on the passenger seat and it was discovered by Dad, EW. He had then stormed across the old metal bridge that we would cross over a few hours later, to the house she was now renting, hoping to find her but to no avail. In a drunken rage, he had crumbled the note that he had clutched in his hands, then, with violence, he slammed it hard onto the kitchen table, where it would be found by my sisters. His physical strength had melted; his mental anguish had peaked when he collapsed onto the single frame bed in the tiny bedroom. It may have still contained the fragrance of his wife’s body, her breath on the pillow; he buried himself in bedroom she had left behind. It was from behind the closed door I would hear him crying, it was there that our world ended.
How or with whom she had disappeared is still a mystery even to the date of this writing. No one would ever disclose what exactly happened, never would the story be told, never would the questions be answered.
It was there where we found ‘The Note”, now what.
