Wednesday, April 2, 2025
Back Home in Time for Book Fair!
Sunday, March 30, 2025
Our Country Days....
It's been a struggle to do this post so I hope it makes sense!
I managed to add the edits to chapter 12 and hope to publish it in the morning.
Goodnight from the country!
Children in the Closet - Chapter Twelve
Chapter Twelve
The summer of 1963 was terrible for my sisters and brother. After I left home there was no one to take care of them. Lloydine was the oldest at 11, Lanita was 9 and Lonnie was 8 and they were on their own to fend for themselves. The dynamics changed somewhat after I left. Clayton didn’t hate them with the hatred he felt for me. This wasn’t good for them, though. It meant that they were included in things that were in no way age-appropriate to see.
Mother’s birthday was June 6 and, while I had baked her a cake for past birthdays, now that I wasn’t there, Lanita decided she would do it. She bought a cake mix at a nearby store and set about to make it. She read the directions and saw that it called for a cup and a half of water. We had no measuring cups or spoons so she used an empty mayonnaise jar. She watched and waited for that cake to rise while it baked but it refused. When Mother got home after work, Lanita showed her the cake and asked her why it hadn’t turned out right. She explained how she had to use a mayonnaise jar for a measuring cup. Mother told her that any idiot would know better than to do that. Lanita thought Mother would be pleased that she had tried to bake a cake, but she wasn’t.
More and more frequently my siblings were told to get in the car and Clayton would take off to the scene of some horrible accident. Mother would make them go even though they didn’t want to. It was that summer a call came across the police scanner of a child drowning in the Trinity River near I-30 and University. They all drove there and Clayton had everyone get out of the car and sit on the grassy knoll. Lloydine remembers them sitting out there in the sunshine on the green grass under a blue sky watching the heart wrenching scene below. They had to witness the dead child being pulled from the water.
On another day that summer, as they were all in the car together coming back to the house after chasing yet another ambulance, the police scanner in the car began to announce a wreck where someone was decapitated. Clayton threw on the brakes and, with tires screeching and the kids falling all over each other on the back seat, he whirled the car around and headed to the scene. He pulled off to the side of the road once he got there and tried to get close enough to see on foot. The police turned him back and still he persisted in trying to push past the barricade. The kids and Mother stayed in the car and when at last Clayton’s curiosity had been satisfied and they were driving away, Mother told the kids not to look.
They were still devastated and confused as to why they should have to witness and hear about such awful things. Most parents protected their children from the ugliness of death and violence instead of insisting they be an eye witness to it. It’s no wonder that Lloydine was filled with fear and insecurity nearly every minute of her childhood, something that would greatly affect her adult life as well.
Earlier in the summer, Lonnie had stepped on a rusty nail. He told Mother but she didn’t pay any attention to it. Lloydine doctored it with what little she had but it only got worse. It became so infected that by the time Mother finally took him to the doctor, he was in danger of losing his foot. It’s strange that she would so easily have taken me to get an abortion and yet ignore her only son’s swollen and infected foot.
Mother lost interest in Bob that summer and took up with a parking lot attendant named Norman. Norman was already married so they would meet at The Dude Motel in Haltom City. Mother would drop Lloydine, Lanita and Lonnie off at the movies while she went to meet Norman. They remember seeing That Touch of Mink with Cary Grant and Doris Day over and over again. Many times, the movie theater would close and the three of them would be standing out in front in the wee hours of the morning waiting for Mother to pick them up. Lloydine would become so anxious and afraid that Mother would forget and never come for them that she began to hover at the entrance of the theater watching for her long before the movie was even over. To this day, they can all three quote that entire movie!
When Mother would drive over the bridge on the way to Norman’s she would point down and say, “Look! You can see Norman’s house from here.” Then she would start singing Sue Thompson’s 1961 hit song Norman.
Sadly, Norman later committed suicide by throwing himself off a multiple storied parking garage downtown. I don’t know why. Mother seemed to pick men who were not emotionally and mentally healthy.
Mother continued to cook for her and Clayton late at night and she would leave the kitchen in chaos. When the girls would go in there the next day, every single cupboard door would be open, all the containers and ingredients would be left out on the counter with the dirty dishes all piled up. Lanita began to clean up one morning and as she stretched herself as tall as she could in order to put the black pepper back in the cupboard, she hadn’t noticed that the pour spout was still open and as she lifted it up, black pepper fell straight in her eyes! She started crying and Mother woke up and came stomping into the kitchen yelling at her to shut up.
It was in August of 1963 that Clayton decided to take everyone on a vacation to New Orleans. It was a shock when Mother went in and woke up all three kids at three in the morning and told them to put some clothes in a paper bag. They were going on a trip. They were not excited about being cooped up in a car with Mother and Clayton for days. He drove straight through. They went back to sleep when they got on the road but once it was daylight, Clayton insisted they watch the scenery and look around. Lloydine had trouble staying awake, though, and Clayton would yell at Mother and then Mother would slap Lloydine on the legs. He took God’s name in vain screaming louder and louder. It was a nightmare getting there and Lloydine was a nervous wreck.
When they checked in, Clayton paid for two rooms and thankfully, they were able to get some time away from him and Mother. If it was meant to be a vacation, it was anything but that and my siblings were relieved to finally get back home.
Once again, they moved right before school started. This time to a house on Bewick Street where they stayed for three years making it the longest residence of their childhood.
This house was laid out in a convenient manner of separating the living areas up with three rooms on one side and three on the other. Mother and Clayton took the three rooms on the left side which included the living room, dining room and kitchen plus the master bedroom and bath. That left the middle bedrooms to Lloydine, Lanita and Lonnie. There was a second bathroom off the kitchen. That posed a problem so it was back to the coffee can situation even though they were no longer small children. But at least they now had two rooms instead of one.
Wednesday, March 26, 2025
Tuesday Treasures With Brenda!
Monday, March 24, 2025
Children in the Closet Chapter Eleven
By February of 1963, Mother had grown tired of helping me continue to see Jesse and told me to break it off with him. I was desperate with the knowledge that I was pregnant. My 14-year-old body had already started to change and I was confused and scared. I didn’t know what was going to happen to me. I managed to get in touch with Jesse by using a pay phone and told him about the pregnancy. To his credit, he remained calm while I was just about hysterical.
I had no choice but to tell Mother. She found a doctor that would give me a shot to start my period. Jesse took me to the appointment but the shot didn’t work. Then she said she knew a doctor who would perform an abortion for me. While I was filled with fear and had very little control over my life thus far, I was overcome with a powerful conviction that I could not and would not kill my baby. To my utter and profound relief, Jesse agreed with me. This was the first time I had defied my mother, but I was adamant about keeping my baby. Jesse had agreed to marry me, so that was what we would do. Mother cried and carried on a lot but it made no difference to me. I was determined that I would not only have my baby but I would keep it! It was a relief to have finally and at long last made a decision of my own about life. It was the very first time I had felt any power at all and I was both scared and proud at the same time. I only prayed I had made the right choice. I never ever considered abortion though I did consider a home where I could live until the baby was born and then allow it to be adopted if Jesse didn’t want to marry me.
The weekend after we married, Jesse’s mother and stepfather gave us a wedding shower. She invited the people she worked with and a few other friends. That was kind of her and we received some things with which to set up our household once we got our own apartment. For now, we stored the glasses, dishes, towels and such in the bottom of the closet In Jesse’s bedroom at his mother’s rental house in Dallas.
Jesse graduated high school at the end of May and I moved to Dallas in June. We lived with his mother and sisters. I called his mother Mrs. O’Dell although her first name was Mary. She and Mr. O’Dell had split up that summer for what would be the last time. Kenneth O’Dell was Mary’s third husband. Her first marriage had been to Amos Davis. He was Jesse’s father and had died when Jesse was just a little boy. She married again and had another son, Danny, before that marriage ended. Kenneth was the father of her two daughters and they remained close to their dad for the rest of his life. When I met Jesse, he went by O’Dell as did his younger brother who was at Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch after he had started a fire that burned down a church.
As soon as Jesse’s senior year of high school was out, he immediately got a job selling encyclopedias door to door. He didn’t even attend his high school graduation ceremony, but had his diploma mailed to him. It took Jesse only a couple of weeks to know that he would not make enough money with this job. His sisters had been playing with a couple of little girls in the neighborhood and they told him their daddy was a stone mason and was looking for a helper. Jesse went to see him and was hired at $1.25 an hour. He learned the trade from the man and went on to become a gifted stone mason himself. However, Jesse was exhausted at the end of every day and would come in, take a shower, eat something and go to bed. He would be gone by six every morning and not get home until dark. He worked every day, including weekends, except for when it rained.
I was lonely and missed my siblings. Jesse’s sisters played outside most of the time so I was alone. Mrs. O’Dell worked as a waitress at the Zuider Zee restaurant just down the street, so I spent the long summer days by myself.
My stomach was growing bigger every day and one night I went to bed and when I got up the next morning, I couldn’t fit into my one and only dress. It was one of those housedresses that snapped down the front but I couldn’t pull it together no matter how hard I tugged at the sides. I didn’t know what to do so I went back to bed. Jesse had already gone to work and I was scared. I had no clothes to wear so I just stayed in bed until Mrs. O’Dell came home on her break and found me there. I told her I didn’t have anything to wear, not one single thing I could get into. She was working a split shift, so she went to Levine’s Department Store, which was right next door to the Zuider Zee, and bought two maternity skirts and two tops. She brought them home to me before she went back to work and said that Jesse could pay her back, which he did. He also paid her rent for the room she let us have. The house was a duplex with two rooms and a bath on the other side which she rented out to a young man for $10 a week.
I had never gone hungry at home with my siblings. We always had something to eat, be it crackers and peanut butter or oatmeal or a boiled potato, but it was a different story at the O’Dell house. Jesse’s mother bought groceries by the day so there was never anything extra in the cupboard. We didn’t necessarily eat our meals together as a family, but she did go by the grocery store on her way home each night. She also occasionally brought home fish and hushpuppies from the restaurant after her shift.
Once Clayton found out I was pregnant and married, I was forbidden from ever coming to the house again so I didn’t see my sisters, mother or brother unless they came to Dallas, which they didn’t do often. Mother did bring Lanita over to stay with me for a few days late in June. Mrs. O’Dell had gone out of town and told us to collect the rent from the tenant and buy groceries with it. Jesse didn’t get paid until Friday and we were out of food. However, the guy moved without paying the rent so we had no money and no food. Later when Lanita told Mother about being hungry, she said, “Why didn’t you tell Linda?” And Lanita explained that I had been hungry, too.
By July the weather was sweltering hot and I was growing more and more uncomfortable. Jesse found an old swamp cooler to set up for me. It was the kind you fill with water and a fan blows across the surface to cool the air. Every morning before he went to work, Jesse would buy a bag of ice and pour into the bottom of the cooler. I stayed in front of the fan as much as possible reading book after book to pass the time.
Jesse looked up obstetricians in the phone book and found one not too far away. He had converted his old home into his medical office. Jesse took me to see him and we found out our baby would be due on October 26th. I weighed 89 pounds before I got pregnant and by now I was up to 110. Our doctor charged $150 for prenatal care and delivery and allowed us to pay it out in $15 installments. He told me to eat as much as I could. I needed to gain weight in order to have a healthy baby. Jesse and I went to the grocery store at the strip mall with the Zuider Zee and Levine’s Department Store. We bought boxes of macaroni and cheese and cans of Chef Boyardee’s spaghetti for my lunches. For Jesse’s lunches, which I made and packed for him, we bought cans of tuna fish and jars of mayonnaise for tuna salad sandwiches. Onions, loaves of bread, tea bags, and some fresh fruit rounded out our purchases. We budgeted $15 a week for groceries and that meant three full bags of food. Neither of us ate breakfast and Jesse’s mother continued to share the seafood she would bring home and we ate that for our suppers.
In September, Jesse and I moved into the previous renter’s room since he was long gone from the other side of the duplex. The kitchen had a sink in it but we didn’t have a refrigerator or a stove. That wasn’t a problem, we used an ice chest for the fridge and Jesse bought a hot plate and put it on a TV tray. Instant kitchen! We used a few of our precious dollars to buy pegboard and hooks at Elliot’s Hardware and Jesse fashioned us a place to hang our single pot and pan plus a few utensils. We stacked a couple of boards on bricks for a pantry. I was used to making do with what I had. It was kind of like playing house, in a way. In the bedroom, we had a bed and used some cardboard boxes to hold our clothes. Since I was home alone all day, Jesse bought a small TV at a pawn shop for a few dollars. Mrs. O’Dell was jealous of the way he made sure I was taken care of and I didn’t understand that. She confused me. Sometimes she was kind and other times she was hateful. I never knew what to expect. She constantly complained about Jesse thinking the world owes him a living and yet he worked every single day he could and faithfully paid her the rent for our rooms.
Life was just as stressful there as it was in Fort Worth, plus my body was constantly changing with my pregnancy. I was happy to be away from Clayton, but now I was dealing with Jesse’s mother who was every bit as neurotic as Clayton was. While I can’t say I really missed my mother all that much, I did miss my sisters and brother. My life was no easier now than it had been before and my siblings’ lives were worse than ever.