Tuesday, February 11, 2025

We are on the Mend!

 We fell ill on January 28th and have spent more time in bed than not.


So many have been sick with the crud! Congestion and coughing and feeling miserable.
We weren't really surprised when it was our turn to be sick.


We would sit in the den and watch DVDs or TV but several days ago, I pushed the button to put my chair down and it wouldn't work. It's an electric couch and has shorted out at least twice before. Louis Dean simply repaired the wire and it was fixed. Alas, now he can't remember how to do that. And to make matters worse, I pushed the button to further recline the seat thinking then it would work to go back down. Nope! So we are in a mess with our couch!
Jesse came to look at it over the weekend and will be back when he finds his electric tester and can see if the motor is getting electricity. Probably not since that's been the problem before. Too bad Louis Dean can't remember how to fix it!


I think if the motor is out, we will have to buy a new couch and it will not be an electric one!


Today we dressed and went out to do errands.
It was a real milestone for us.

First we went to the post office to mail a birthday present to my brother, Buster. His birthday is on Valentine's Day! I also mailed a children's Bible book to great grandson, Piercyn, who accepted Christ as his Savior recently. 
Next we picked up prescriptions for Louis Dean - managing our meds is a huge task and requires me to keep my wits about me.

Louis Dean's kidney labs from his annual check up were not good at all and he  had to go back and get more labs done this morning.
He doesn't drink enough water and I am at my wit's end in trying to make him.



We celebrated with Whataburgers! Complete with onion rings and French fries.
Next up was unloading a load at Goodwill.
I am purging like never before.

It had been months since LD and I had pedicures so that was next on our agenda.
Lovely Nails pay us such special attention. They are like friends and family to us and we really do appreciate them.

We were weak from being sick for so long but managed a last errand to Kroger for groceries.

It was a good day and we accomplished a lot.

Louis Dean brought in the groceries and I put things up.


I built a fire in the fireplace and we poured a glass of wine and settled down to watch the 2019 version of Midway.


I took down the Santa wall as we watched....


And I moved the perpetual tree to the baby grand.....


Everything is under construction in here!


It gets worse before it gets better.....


It starts with one painting.....
the rest will follow......

Now for a personal note.....
It is not easy to share my story.
I don't enjoy making people sad.
I have felt the Lord calling me to write my book and it has taken 10 years so far.
The book has brought clarity to me and my siblings and helped us see our life the way it really was.
I don't think I could have written it if we had not had a happy ending. So be it that that ending was when we were all in the latter part of our lives.

It's sobering for me to even read these chapters myself.
It's like I'm watching a movie.
I am certain God had a plan for us and it is by His grace and mercy we survived our childhood and, even though we all four suffered much in our grown up years, we did come to a place of peace and happiness.

Thank you for reading my words and being so supportive of me and my siblings.


Monday, February 10, 2025

Children in the Closet....Chapter Five

     Instead of boarding a train for Kansas City, we were loaded into a big black car. As it took us away from the station that day, it also took away all our hopes of seeing our Daddy. We were in a state of stunned confusion and could not make sense of anything that was happening. Lloydine and Lanita cried softly and Lonnie was fussy and fretting in my arms. Mother was holding Lu Ann close to her and neither she nor the ugly old man said more than a few words as he was driving and I couldn’t understand them. 

    The man turned out to be called “Pap,” and was the father of Clayton Collins with whom Mother was having an affair.  Mother was 31 years old while Clayton was in his 20’s and still living at home with his parents. That’s where we were taken.

               That first day was a waking nightmare for the four of us. Even Lonnie was upset and confused by the unfamiliar faces. We were given some sandwiches for lunch and then we sat huddled together, not knowing what else to do. Our first night we slept on the floor with just a thin blanket to provide a bit of cushion. It made a big pallet, though, and we found some small comfort in sleeping close to each other. Lloydine and Lanita cried themselves to sleep and I put my arm around Lonnie and crooned to him until he slept. Then I spent a long time staring up at the ceiling and tried to make sense out of what was happening to us. I simply couldn’t.

The next morning, just as in the previous one, I was the first to wake up. However, this awakening was a world away from the happy one of just 24 hours earlier. Sometimes, you go to sleep and wake up with no immediate memory of what has happened. I did not know where we were or why we were there. I looked around and saw a strange house and then slowly and painfully, I remembered.

I got up and walked around a bit. We had slept in the living room and all my siblings were, thankfully, still asleep. I went into the kitchen. No one was there. I found the bathroom and was happy about that except that there was a huge old fashioned wringer washing machine in there and it looked like a monster to me. I continued to wander around from room to room. It was a small house so it didn’t take long. A kitchen, a bathroom, two bedrooms and a living room. One bedroom had the door closed and I knew better than to open it. The other bedroom didn’t even have a door so I looked in there. There I saw two people in a bed together. I recognized Mother immediately but not the other person lying with her. All I could see was an arm draped around my mother’s shoulder. It was covered with freckles and, in my confused state of mind, I thought it was my Aunt Irene. She was the only one I knew who had freckled arms. I tiptoed into the room and whispered to Mother, trying to wake her up, but she didn’t budge. However, the naked man in bed with her did! He rose up and ordered me to go back to bed in the living room. This, then, woke my mother.  I did as the man said and it wasn’t too long before I heard Mother in the kitchen making coffee and looking for things to fix for breakfast. From the way in which she was searching, I could tell that she had never been here before either.

               Lloydine woke up next and got up so quietly that Lanita and Lonnie stayed asleep. She came in the kitchen with her eyes bright with tears. I could tell she was as shocked as I was when she woke up.

Mother was at the sink and Lloydine held onto the counter with one hand and standing in a crane position wailed, “You told me we were going to see my Daddy! I don’t know where I am!” Then she started to cry. I went to her to try and comfort her but all I really wanted to do was cry, too.

               Clayton’s mother was up by this time and she had gone into the living room to check on Lanita and Lonnie still lying on the floor. She had taken a cup of coffee with her and was dressed all in white, ready to go to work. She was a nurse. The ugly old man got a cup of coffee from the kitchen and joined her. Lanita’s very first memory was when she opened her eyes and saw an old man and woman drinking coffee on the couch and just looking at her. She was just three years old, so naturally, she started to cry. This, in turn, woke Lonnie up and he began to cry.

               We were quick to learn that crying was not something that was tolerated in this strange place.Instead of holding and comforting us, Mother became angry and told us all to hush. We were herded back to the living room and she turned the TV on and told us to sit there and be quiet.

               I changed Lonnie’s diaper while Mother went back to the bedroom where she had left Lu Ann asleep in a basket. We were scared and didn’t know what to do so we just sat and stared at the TV.

               I heard the grownups talking together in the kitchen and, just as it had been at Granny and Granddad’s house, the air was charged with tension.  Lu Ann was Clayton’s daughter and he wanted to keep her but wanted nothing to do with Mother’s other four children. Clayton and his parents were trying to talk Mother into taking us to the Lena Pope Orphans Home there in Fort Worth but she was insisting she wanted to keep us. They came up with a compromise.

               That afternoon we were shunted out to the backyard to play with strict instructions not to climb the big plum tree in the center of the yard. There was a small shed out there that was divided into two tiny rooms each with its own separate doors to enter. We learned that Pap was a hatter and half the shed was filled with the tools of his trade. The other half of the shed was to be our home. Mother took our suitcases out there and put them in a corner which would serve as our closet and then fashioned two makeshift beds for us to sleep on. From then on we lived in the shed while Mother, Clayton, Lu Ann, Pap and Grandma Collins all lived in the house. We were allowed to go inside only if neither Clayton nor Pap was home. That afternoon we began to learn the art of becoming invisible. In time, we became quite skilled at it.

               We had thought it was mean of Granny to make us stay outside all day, but now we faced living by ourselves in a small shed with no parental protection at all. When I asked Mother how we would go to the bathroom, she brought out a big Folger’s coffee can and said we could use that. It was a metal can and the rim was sharp and cut our bottoms before we learned not to put all our weight down on it. Lonnie was still in diapers and I wondered what would happen when we ran out of clean ones.

               That evening Mother brought a box of crackers and a jar of peanut butter out to us and said we had the water hose for our drinking water. She also put a small plastic children’s wading pool at the side of the house then gave me a bar of soap and a pile of old rags to use as towels and that’s how we took a bath. We were grateful it was August but what we would do when winter came?

               I tried to pretend that we were playing house and it would be fun. In fact, I was scared. Our whole world had changed and it was impossible for us to understand why that had happened and so suddenly.

               With only one more clean diaper for Lonnie, I put Lloydine, Lanita and Lonnie in bed and, once they were all sound asleep, took the wet and dirty diapers out to the wading pool and scrubbed them in our used bath water. I hung them on the line and went back in to check on my siblings and make up a bed for myself out of some rough blankets I found in the corner. I went to sleep that second night on Waggoman Street with my mind full of questions and no answers to them.

               What had happened to our mother that she would lie to us and trick us the way she did? Why did she give no thought to how traumatized we were with all that had happened to us in the last 36 hours? Why did Mother even have the taxi cab take us to the train station if she had no intention of us going to Kansas City?  Would we ever see Daddy again? Who was going to take care of us?

               That night both Lloydine and Nita wet the bed. They would continue to wet the bed for years to come.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It has been said that children are extremely resilient. I suppose that is true. We began learning how to cope and survive. Lanita and Lonnie were so young that they were just now forming memories that would stay with them.  They remembered very little of our life before. It was different for Lloydine and me. We could remember the “normal” years, as brief as they were. We were old enough to remember and to mourn our present situation.

               I finally confronted Mother about what was happening to us one day when no one else was in the house with her. She told me that Clayton was supposed to have set up an apartment for all of us and she thought that was where Pap was taking us.  She didn’t even pretend that she hadn’t been lying to us all this time about taking the train to Kansas City. She told me how much she was counting on me to help with the younger children. I tried my best to be brave but I was scared, and now I wasn’t even certain I could trust what Mother was saying. I wanted to ask her for reassurance that we would get to stay together. I wanted to tell her I had heard what they were all saying in the kitchen about taking us to the orphanage. But, in the end, I didn’t ask her anything. By this time I knew she probably wouldn’t tell me the truth anyway.

               My siblings and I settled down to our new daily routine. Every morning Lloydine and I would hang the wet sheets on the line to dry from the nightly bedwetting. We tried to spray them with the water hose and rinse out some of the pee if Pap wasn’t around. He was a mean man and didn’t want us to use his water hose.

               The backyard was actually a nice safe place for us to play hide-and-seek and other simple games. There were few neighborhood children and the ones we saw were afraid of Pap and kept their distance. I found some paper and a pencil and practiced “school” for Lloydine. I would draw pictures or letters and numbers using the dot-to- dot system and then she would connect the dots. We would pretend to wear high heels and Lanita took it a step further. She found a couple of pieces of wooden blocks and put them in the heel of her socks and pranced around on her tiny feet. I was so proud of her for thinking up that idea all on her own.

               Clayton was still driving an ambulance for Smith and Harris Funeral Home. His hours were random so we never knew when we would be able to go in the house. Sometimes on Saturday mornings, if he was gone, Mother let us come in and eat bowls of cereal sitting on the floor in front of the television watching cartoons. We were allowed to use the bathroom and I would bring in the Folger’s Coffee can and dump the waste down the commode. We used that scary wringer washing machine to do our laundry and then I would hang them outside on the line. We loved getting to wash the sheets in real soapy water. No matter where we were or what we were doing, when we heard Clayton’s or Pap’s car pull up in the driveway, we ran like little mice back to our shed. When Pap was working in his hatter’s shop, we tried to be so quiet that he would not know we were there. Days and days would go by with neither Pap nor Clayton seeing or even hearing us. Grandma Collins wasn’t like her husband or son. She was kind to us and was, in fact, much nicer to us than our very own Granny. We didn’t have to run and hide from her.

               One other thing we had to be careful about was seeing Lu Ann. Clayton isolated her from us and refused to even allow us to see her. She was kept in the bedroom and we didn’t see her for weeks after that first day when we arrived.

               I heard that Social Services had been to visit but we never saw them. The neighbor told me over the fence one day that she had called them. No one seemed to like Pap and this neighbor sure didn’t either but they seemed to like us well enough. Looking back, I’m sure she felt sorry for us. One day she gave us a few pieces of candy. We learned not to tell anyone where we really lived and not to answer questions. The less we said the better.

               The one bright spot in my life during that time was books. Clayton bought huge cardboard boxes full of books at auctions. After he went through the books, Mother would let me take any that he didn’t want. Reading was my escape. Even though I had only finished second grade, I could read very well. I read Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson.  While I didn’t fully understand it at the time, I would read it again and again in later years. It was rather thrilling seeing the scenes in my mind of David groping around in the dark on the stairs with the dreaded fear of falling through as they abruptly stopped. He had no light to shine in order to see his way. This struck home with me and I could relate to the feeling of being surrounded in darkness and not knowing where the next step might take me.

               I remember the day I opened up a copy of Martha Mitchell’s book, Gone With the Wind. I could read and lose myself completely in that book. I was back in the old South with Melanie and Scarlet and all the wonderful characters and drama of that time. It felt good to disappear for a little while. Books would continue to be a comfort and pleasure to me for the rest of my life and I suppose that, even as evil as Clayton was, God can use whatever good there may be in a situation for our benefit.

 We had been there a couple of weeks when it was time for school to start. I was going into the third grade at South Fort Worth Elementary. We had been going barefoot most of the time that summer and when I went to put my shoes on, they wouldn’t fit. I told Mother about it and a few days later she loaded us all up in that big black car and we went to buy a pair for me. Normally, I would have stayed in the car with the kids while she went in but this time I had to go in with her so I could get the right size shoes. As we were getting out of the car, Mother told Lloydine, “If the car should start to roll, just hold your foot down hard on the brake. That freaked Lloydine out and as soon as we got out of the car, she slid over and pushed on the brake as hard as she could. She was so upset and was pushing so hard that her little legs started to hurt, and tears began to stream down her face. She was just five years old. Lanita, who was two years younger than Lloydine, decided to get out of the car and see if she could see Mother and me coming back. When she couldn’t see us, she told Lloydine that she would help her hold the car. She got down by the back wheel and put her little hands on each side of the tire. Lonnie was two years old and hung out the window to watch her. When we walked back up to the car, there was Lanita in a t shirt and a pair of panties crouching under the car holding on to that tire. Lloydine had stopped crying but her face was all streaked and red. Mother was put out with them and mad at Lanita for getting her hands all black and dirty. Lanita couldn’t understand why Mother wasn’t proud of her for helping Lloydine keep the car from rolling.

               When we got back, we walked straight down the driveway to the shed without even going through the house since Clayton was still home.  I cleaned up my sister’s hands as best I could, but that black stuff just would not come off. It would have helped if we had been able to get in the bathroom and use a bar of soap.

               On school mornings, I would get up earlier than the others and get dressed for school, then I would go outside and brush my teeth by the water hose. I just turned it on a little bit so the sound would not draw Pap’s attention. Then I would go up to the back door to see if Mother had left some breakfast food out for us. She usually did but sometimes she forgot.

               While I had been taking total care of my siblings since we arrived on Waggoman Street, Mother now had no choice but to keep them inside the house with her and Lu Ann while I was at school. Once I got home, they were back in my care and the door was shut again. I was happy to go to school. It gave me a sense of security. My teacher’s name was Mrs. Matney. School was my safe place so I was always in a hurry to get there. I walked much slower when I returned to Waggoman Street knowing I would be expected to collect my younger siblings and we would all have to go back to the shed or backyard to play.

               Mother hadn’t been able to buy new school clothes for me that year like she had the previous two. I tried to keep my dress as clean as possible for as long as possible. Mother would do our washing at the same time she did the other laundry while I was at school and when I got home I would hang all the clothes on the line. After they dried, I would put the adults’ clothes in a basket and leave it by the back door. Lloydine and I would fold ours up and put them back in the suitcase. I no longer had to wash things out by hand in the little wading pool and for that I was grateful. We were all still growing so I would give Lloydine the clothes and shoes that no longer fit me and Lloydine, in turn, handed hers down to Lanita. Poor Lonnie was growing fast and did good to get just a diaper and a shirt. Our Aunt Alice would send me some of Mae Ellen’s outgrown clothing so we all at least had something to wear even if it was ill fitting.

               On Saturdays, Mother would tell us to get in the big old black car which she drove as hers by this time and we would make the rounds. That meant she would drive and I would run in at the different places to do errands. One of our favorite stops was the August Pie Factory on College Avenue. I loved that place. It had a great big wooden screen door and I liked the sound it made slapping against the frame when I would go in and then back out. They sold seconds of their baked goods, things that didn’t turn out just perfect, as well as day old goods. There was a huge dark wood counter and everyone who worked there wore big white aprons and white hair nets. Mother would send me in with some coins and I would get as much as they would buy. They often had day old apricot pies and those were my favorite. Bread, donuts, pastries, everything was fairly cheap. We couldn’t store much food in the shed due to the ants so when we got a pie we had to eat it up fairly quickly.

               From there we would go to the Vandervoort’s Dairy Company on South Main where I would run in and get milk. After the errands were done and, if we had been very good, Mother would take us to get a snow cone and we would drive around while we ate them.

               My favorite time for going on a drive was in the early evening when people were just turning on the lights in their houses. I dearly loved seeing in the windows of cozy little houses as we drove slowly past. I most liked the ones that had curtains draped up in swags at either side of the window and with a lamp in the middle. I would daydream about us living in such a beautiful place with a pretty bathroom, real towels and washcloths and bars of scented soap and tubes of toothpaste. I would imagine that nice families lived there and everyone was happy. If it were dinner time, I could see them in my mind’s eye all sitting at the kitchen table holding hands and saying grace.

               As September and October went by, the weather got colder and life in the shed became harder.

We didn’t have enough warm clothing or bedding. I was nine years old and yet I was taking care of three younger siblings. Mother continued to keep Lu Ann inside with her. Just as I was about to ask her what we were going to do now that it was getting cold, she told me that Aunt Ruby and Uncle Hummie would be taking Lloydine, Lanita and me to live with them for the winter and that Lonnie was going to stay with our Aunt Winnie. This was good news to us. We would get to live in a house again.

                No other family was allowed to come to the house on Waggoman Street, so early in November, Mother dropped us off with Aunt Ruby and took Lonnie to Aunt Winnie. Mother must have been grateful that our maternal relatives helped take care of us even when our grandparents would not. I suppose they thought they had done enough over the years.

               Lanita had the one and only birthday party of her childhood on November 5th, 1957. She was four years old and Aunt Ruby made her a birthday cake and had a record made that played Happy Birthday. We loved our Aunt Ruby!  She loved us and made us feel welcome. She showed us great kindness when we were in desperate need of some. We regained a bit of stability during the months we stayed with her.

               I was the only one in school at the time so I rode the city bus to downtown Fort Worth where I changed buses to one that let me out close to my school. I had to get up real early and it was a cold winter. Aunt Ruby made hot chocolate for me to drink before I left and bundled me up for the walk to the bus stop. They didn’t have a lot of money so when she ran out of hot chocolate she would weaken down a cup of coffee and add some milk to it. It was wonderful of them to take us in and assume the expense of feeding and clothing us.

               It was a little scary to ride the bus downtown and then change to another one. Aunt Ruby wrote the directions down on a piece of paper and I kept it in my coat pocket in case I forgot which bus to take.

The first bus stopped at Kresge’s drugstore in downtown Fort Worth. It had a long soda fountain where commuters would sit and visit over a cup of coffee. I waited just inside the doors and watched for the next bus to arrive, always terrified I would miss it and not knowing what I would do if that ever happened. It never did. I reversed the trip after school. Once there was a nice lady inside the drug store and, after seeing me get off the bus every day, offered to buy me a Coke. I was extremely shy and had been taught not to speak to strangers. Also, this lady smoked. Smoking was unheard of in my small world. Preachers said it was a sin to smoke, drink, cuss or dance. I didn’t do any of these things and didn’t know anyone who did except Pap.  So, I told her, ‘Thank you, but I’m not allowed to talk to strangers.’ I told my aunt all about it when I got home that afternoon. I even told her about seeing the lady smoking. Aunt Ruby assured me that it would be okay to accept her offer of a Coca-Cola if she ever asked me again. Sure enough, she was there the next day and I told her my aunt had said it would be okay for me to have a pop as we called Coke, Diet Rite Cola, 7-Up or any other carbonated beverage. I felt so grown up sitting at the counter with her.

               Aunt Ruby and Uncle Hummie still had two daughters living at home.  The oldest was named Vada Merl and the youngest was Rose Mary. Rose Mary was 16 years old and had just become engaged. She showed me her diamond engagement ring. The very next morning she could not find it! She was hysterical and searched and searched but the ring was lost. When I got home from school and learned she couldn’t find that beautiful ring, I joined in the search. I found it for her! You know where it was? Rose Mary had a book case headboard and she must have flung her hand up as she was sleeping during the night. The ring had not been sized yet so it was loose on her finger. I found the ring up against the inside of the bookcase right there by where she slept. Once again, I felt so grown up and pleased that I found it for her.

               Lanita and Lloydine stayed with Aunt Ruby while I was at school. Every single morning, Aunt Ruby would help Lloydine bathe and put on fresh underwear. She never once complained about having to change the sheet every day and she never made Lloydine feel badly about it. Lanita stayed dry at night now but Lloydine could not stop the bedwetting even though she wanted to. At least she was able to sleep in a clean bed every night.

               We had a Christmas party at school that year. I loved my teacher and wished I had something to give her like the other children did. We had to bring one gift for the gift exchange and Aunt Ruby had bought a box of 10 rolls of Life Savers for my gift. It cost fifty cents. Then we drew names and exchanged our gifts before eating the Christmas cookies some of the mothers had sent for the whole class. I noticed that every single child except me had a gift for the teacher. Mrs. Matney knew that I was living with an aunt and uncle because they were the ones who signed my report card as well as my homework papers. Before I left school that day, I slipped up to my teacher and told her how sorry I was that I didn’t have a present for her. She put her arms around me and told me I was gift enough.

               We spent Christmas with our aunt and uncle that year. It was not like the family Christmas we had loved a few years ago, but it was not as unhappy as the one we had experienced the year before.

They were so very good to us. Aunt Ruby and Uncle Hummie have been gone from this world for many, many years and yet we will always remember their great kindness.

               After the holidays, Mrs. Matney invited me to live with her and her husband for the remainder of the school year. It made going to school ever so much easier and nicer. I even had my own bedroom with a single twin bed just for me. Sometimes Lloydine would get to come over and spend the weekend with me. Mrs. Matney was a very good housekeeper and she cautioned us to keep our feet off the furniture. Since Lloydine still wet the bed, she would sleep on the vinyl sofa. However, she never once let her feet touch the sofa, even though she was barefoot. She always hung her feet off the side so she wouldn’t get into trouble. We didn’t understand then that it was only if we had shoes on that we shouldn’t put our feet on the couch and we would never even have dreamed of doing that!

               Mr. and Mrs. Matney had not been able to have children and they thought seriously of adopting me. So much had changed in our lives recently that I was wondering if I would be separated from my siblings and would ever get to see them again. One Saturday night the Matney’s were going to an event and Mother came over to babysit us at their house. That’s when Mother told me they were considering adopting me. Lloydine cried and I tried not to. In the end, they decided against it and later went on to have three children of their own. I was both disappointed and relieved at the same time.

               Mother had told us that when school was out we could come back and live in the shed again.

However, that didn’t happen as she said it would. Instead, my sisters and I continued to live with Aunt Ruby and her family for the summer and Lonnie stayed with Aunt Winnie.  Mother then promised we could come home in the fall when school began. Lloydine would be starting first grade.

               We soon learned the reason we couldn’t come home. Mother was pregnant again. This time it was with twins.

 









 

Monday, February 3, 2025

Children in the Closet.....Chapter Four

 


 Chapter Four

 

               My second-grade teacher was named Mrs. Angel and I thought she was the prettiest teacher in the entire school. She wore dresses and often a colorful scarf around her beautiful neck. She also had the most stylish high heeled shoes! I looked forward to seeing what she wore to school each day and I developed an obsession with shoes. I wore shoes handed down to me from my cousin, Mae Ellen, but in my mind, I was walking around on tall heels with clever little bows on the straps around my ankles. At home, I would sketch out the shoes I had envisioned each day and I would draw some for Lloydine as well. She didn’t go to school yet but I told her she could wear them anyway. I developed quite a few designs that, instead of drawing the shoes I would be pretending to wear that day, I would simply pick out a sketch from my collection.

               Recess was on the asphalt playground outside and we had only one hard and fast rule – don’t run. One day, for whatever reason, I did the unthinkable and ran! I fell down and scraped my knees pretty badly. Mrs. Angel came running over and before she could say anything I was blurting out, “I’m sorry! I’m so sorry I ran!!” The last thing in the world I wanted to do was disappoint her!

               I would come home after school and immediately change out of my nice school dress into play clothes. Lloydine, Lanita and even Lonnie were always watching and waiting for me. It was nice being the big sister and we all played so well together. We probably fussed with each other as all children do but, by and large, we would play sweet as Granddad would tell us.

                We all dearly loved Granddad. It was fascinating to watch him drink his morning coffee. He would pour some-which was piping hot – into the saucer, blow on it and then pour it back into the cup before taking his first sip. “Saucer blown coffee – oh, man, that’s good!” he would say.

In the evenings, right before he went to bed, Granddad would pour a small glass of Mogen David Concord Grape wine and sip it slowly. Granddad also smoked a pipe and I thought the scent was heavenly. Granny, on the other hand, dipped snuff which we thought was a nasty thing to do. The snuff came in small glass jars and Granny would stuff a tissue down in the bottom of an empty one and use it to spit in. She used some of those many snuff jars as juice or milk glasses for us. We had to try hard not to think about how those glasses had been used before they showed up on the table.

               Lloydine and I usually had supper time chores. It was our job to set the table each evening. The plates didn’t match, each one having a different pattern. Some were chipped a bit and one had a hairline crack that didn’t go all the way through so you could still use the plate but it was unsightly. My sister and I had a game of choosing which plate to give to each family member. We all had our own place to sit at the table so we would assign the plates accordingly. I would give Granny the cracked one and Granddad the prettiest one and we made sure Mother and Daddy got plates that weren’t chipped. All of us kids got snuff glasses for tea and the adults drank either from goblets or shiny bright colored aluminum glasses. We didn’t drink milk and now I wonder why that was. The four of us grew up drinking tea and water. Milk was used only for cereal. Perhaps it was to save some precious pennies since money, seemed to be an ever-present issue.

               After setting the table, we would use two saucers for bread plates and stack slices of white bread on them and place one at each end of the table. Daddy or Granddad would say the blessing before we would eat. After supper, Lloydine and I would clear the table and scrape any leftovers onto Granny’s cracked plate then take it out to feed the chickens next door. Then we would come back in to wash and dry the dishes. I washed and Lloydine dried.

               At night we all slept together in the same bed and each of us would wrap ourselves up our own blanket, wrapping around us Indian style and lie down.  For some reason, we feared what might be under the bed so we never allowed our feet or arms to dangle off the edge. One night, just as I was drifting off to sleep, I opened my eyes and blinked in fright. There was a hand right there by my face. It looked exactly like someone was under the bed and reaching up to get me. I was so scared!  I did the only thing I could think of, I bit down on that hand with all my might! Then I screamed out in pain! It was my hand! I started crying and Daddy came in to see about me. When I told him what happened, he took me to the kitchen and fixed a hot dog on a piece of bread for me. That was the best thing he could have done. I sunk my teeth into that weenie and forgot about sinking them into my own finger!

               On Sunday Mother and Daddy would walk with us up the hill to Trinity Baptist Church. That’s where I accepted the Lord as my personal savior, inviting Him into my heart and giving my heart right back to Him for safe keeping. I remember that moment to this very day. I was later baptized in that same church wearing a billowing white baptism gown.

               One of the girls in my Sunday School class got a permanent wave in her hair and I thought it looked gorgeous! What’s more – I absolutely love the smell of the permanent wave solution. Mother was good at fixing hair and she often gave what we called perms to family members, then one day she gave me one. I was thrilled! Mother no longer went to church with us by this time, but she knew how important it was to me and she knew how much I wanted to fit in with the other girls in my class. Daddy continued to take us to church but Mother had begun working on Sundays.

               While none us children ever received any special attention that I can recall, there is one memory of the summer of 1956 that still stands in my mind. Photographers with Shetland ponies would canvas a neighborhood and offered to take pictures of us sitting on a pony. Of course, they charged for this, but Daddy arranged for Lonnie to have his picture taken. We were all so proud of him as he was dressed up in chaps, vest, a cowboy hat and bandana. He wasn’t one bit afraid of that pony. I still have that photo of him to this day.

 

               It was in the fall of 1956 that Mother began an affair with another man. She was working at Hotel Texas at the time and had met a man named Clayton Collins while working there.

               Daddy was not an overly ambitious man but he was a steady worker and was kind to everyone. While he was not well received by Mother’s parents, and they made this abundantly clear, Daddy was always respectful of them and never spoke a word against them. After four children, and still struggling financially to feed, house and clothe them all, he had a vasectomy shortly after Lonnie was born.

               Things were changing. Mother became distracted and was not at home as much as she had been. She worked and then didn’t come home until hours after her shift had ended. This did not sit well with Daddy, Granny or Granddad.  Clayton would bring Mother home – unashamedly driving right up into the yard (there was no driveway) and letting her out of the car. Other times he would bring her home in an ambulance because he worked as a driver for Smith and Harris Funeral Home. Before becoming involved with Clayton, Mother had taken the bus to and from work or Daddy would pick her up if it was late at night. She didn’t bother with the bus anymore.

               The holiday season of that year was very strained. There was no real excitement other than what we children felt. Mother was absent from home even more than she had been and she seemed to have little interest in us. Mother didn’t even try to make Christmas special that year. The scrawny Christmas tree was left unlit and undecorated. Lonnie was still a baby, he would turn two in January,  and Lanita had just turned three, so they didn’t really understand about holidays. They just knew they missed their mama. I was eight and Lloydine was about to have her 5th birthday so, as big kids, we knew there was something dreadfully wrong but we didn’t really know what it was.

               Normally we all dressed up on Christmas Eve and watched Scrooge on television. Santa would visit the tree in the living room while we didn’t notice and then we would spy on our presents. Not so this strange Christmas. No watching Scrooge as a family and no giggling anticipation of Santa’s visit. No Christmas Day trip to our cousins. We opened our few small gifts of puzzles, coloring books and paper dolls on Christmas Eve and played with them for a few minutes before we were all told to go to bed.

               I was glad when Christmas and New Year’s Day were over and I could go back to school. But even as life returned to regular routine, our home became increasingly tense. Now even Daddy was distant and preoccupied and then he seemed to lose all interest in us. That winter was especially cold and bitter, both in the weather and in the attitudes of the adults around us. By February I knew a little bit about why the relationships among the adults in our life were so stressful. Mother was pregnant again.

~~~~~~~~~~

 

               Mother continued to work at Hotel Texas through the spring when it became obvious to everyone that she was pregnant. She had become heavier with every pregnancy and by early summer it was difficult for her to get around and do much. Once again, Granny begrudgingly took care of us while Mother rested. Now, every morning as soon as we ate breakfast and put our clothes on, not only my sisters and I were shooed outside, but our baby brother, too!

               We would play all morning up close to the house. One of the games we played was call Butcher Shop. Trash gathered along the fence lines and we would take the newspapers, smooth them out as much as possible and then hunt around for some good size rocks. We would take turns being the butcher and the customer. I especially loved being the butcher as I would take the orders and wrap the make-believe meat up in the newspaper, just like they did at the little store around the corner. Lonnie and Lanita didn’t quite understand this game that Lloydine and I had made up, so when they wanted to play, we changed the game to “Christmas” and pretended to wrap presents and they would get to unwrap them. We knew all about catalogs as we would play with Granny’s old ones, so we would describe each gift trying hard to find things that would really please them!

               Whenever we were thirsty, we would drink from the water hose at the corner of the house. We were always allowed to come inside for lunch and we didn’t even mind taking naps afterwards, as that just meant we got to stay in the house awhile longer.

               The afternoons were spent at the back of the yard around the mulberry tree. That was our snack, eating fresh mulberries straight from the branches. Sometimes we would find an old tin can and make mulberry soup.

               Before we were called in for supper, Lloydine and I would lie down in the tall grass and watch the clouds form pictures in the sky. We could play that game for hours and taught it to our siblings. Even a small child can see things……in nature as well as in the faces of our parents and grandparents.  We saw lots of things. The thin line of Granny’s lips. The sadness in Daddy’s eyes. We felt things, too. The preoccupation of our mother to the point that she seldom even seemed to see her own children anymore. The hostility of our grandparents toward our parents. We especially felt the lack of feeling important to anyone. No one seemed to pay any more attention to us than was absolutely necessary. It is to our credit that we were, by nature, such good and obedient children that we actually required even less attention than most children our age. At the ages of eight, five, three and two, we were a family in and of ourselves. Lloydine and I acted as parents to our younger siblings, making sure they were taken care of, ate enough food and I even changed Lonnie’s diapers. Mother was coming to the end of her pregnancy and seemed to draw more and more into herself with every passing day.

               At night, we children all slept in one bed out on the “sleeping porch.” This was really a closed in room but it had screened windows that allowed for air flow. Since there was no air conditioning, we were grateful to be able to sleep there. We would be covered in chiggers and mosquito bites after playing outside all day. After our baths, Daddy would sprinkle us with powdered Sulphur to stop the itching.

               We had an old radio on the table beside our bed and I would tune into whatever station I could get so we would have music to go to sleep by. One of my favorites was Dinah Shore singing, “The Shrimp Boats Are Coming.” It was my responsibility to get the younger three to sleep so I would turn the volume knob slightly up and then back down over and over, thereby gently lulling them off into slumber. Then I would lie there wide awake late into the night, wondering about what was happening to our family.

               It was impossible for us to understand at the time that everyone in the family knew Mother was not pregnant with Lloyd’s child, especially since it was a known fact that he had a vasectomy after brother Lonnie was born.

               Mother gave birth to our new baby sister on Monday, August 5th, 1957. She was named Lu Ann Ewing, born at 11:03 PM. Daddy and Granny took care of us while Mother and baby were in the hospital for a few days. Both of them were grim faced and expressed no joy over the baby’s birth.

               There were no baby showers or happy birth announcements when Mother came home from the hospital carrying her brand-new baby girl. No happy clucking over the baby and no nurturing aunts and uncles bringing in casseroles and fawning over the newborn. This was Mother’s fifth child and she used the baby clothes from her other babies to dress her. She still had several tiny, white cotton flannel dresses with tiny white buttons that Granny had made for me. At least I always thought she had made them especially for me, but as it turns out, they were hand me downs she had sewed for her other grandchildren.

                

               Just days after Luann was born, Daddy and Mother gathered all of us children together and announced that Daddy was going back to Kansas City and would get an apartment He would get an apartment ready with plans for us to join him soon. They explained we would take the train as soon as he got settled. It’s very easy to lie to children. Apparently much easier than telling them the truth. Children want to believe. As much as we loved hearing these plans, we could still feel the undercurrent of anger between our Mother and Daddy.  We could hear them arguing when they thought we were in bed fast asleep.

               Lonnie can recall his first real memory that came about this time. He can see Daddy wearing a pair of khaki pants and standing at the open refrigerator door, drinking milk straight out of the bottle. It is funny what our first memories are. This was to be the first, last and only memory he had of his Daddy, for he never saw him again. Neither did Lloydine or Lanita. Later in life, when Lonnie was 18 years old and wanted to contact his father, Mother lied to him and told him he had died. The truth was he lived to be 83 years old and passed away in 2001 when Lonnie was 46 years old. Later when I was 17 years old, I went to Kansas City on the train in search of my biological father when I met him and his second wife. But more about that later.

               Daddy left us on his birthday, Sunday, August 11th. He didn’t leave with suitcases full of things to start our new life. As a matter of fact, he left with very little. He went out the side door with only a shoebox and a pair of Argyle socks on top and the clothes on his back. He slipped away without saying goodbye to any of us, but Lloydine was watching and saw him go. He that one last argument with Mother and then he was gone. 

                              We left Granny and Granddad’s house on a sunny day in late August of 1957. It was a Saturday morning and the taxi picked us up and carried us to the train station. We were being promised one thing, a reunion with our daddy and a new life in Kansas City, while all along much different plans had been made and were now becoming our reality. A horrible and terrifying reality. We would never again go back to being the young innocent children who had woken up all happy and excited that morning. Our lives changed forever that day and not for the better.

                             



Sunday, February 2, 2025

Out of Commission....

 Monday was our last mormal day this week.
I slept late and took naps and rested.
I thought I was just tired.

Tuesday with Brenda was good and we had fun and found lots of good things.
Summer is here and joined us at Texas Thrift before she headed out for her doctor appointments.
She lives in Arkansas but keeps her Dallas area doctors which enables her to come visit me as a bonus.


I'm finally ready to shift gears from Christmas/winter to spring.
I'm thinking this table runner will work in the sewing room with all my honey themed collections.


I'm loving decorating the fence between us and Stephanie.
LD and I sit on the kitchen deck in the mornings and it's nice to see the plaques and canvases.


I've been buying up baskets and attractive storage containers for our hundreds of DVDs.
That's been my solution to Louis Dean watching movies he can relate to.


I can't believe we have already worn out one of our cat carriers and I was excited to find this brand new one for  $10.


I love this canvas!


This French style piece is now hanging in our bedroom, replacing a framed scripture which will go to the guest room.


Love this!


The Bible for young children is for Piercyn and I will be mailing this out to him as soon as I feel better.


Brenda found me some really nice purple things to wear to Harrison's hockey games.

Brenda and I had our traditional after shopping lunch at Chick-fil-A and then we both did a grocery run at Aldi's.

By the time I got home, I was on my way down and, after putting things up, I went to bed.
Congestion and coughing that's made my stomach ache. Plus a terrible headache and feeling miserable - I knew I was really sick.

And I'm still sick but am slowly improving.
Not sure if this is the flu or whatever but now Louis Dean has it, too.
And just today Summer came down with it.


We are all sleeping a lot and spending a good part of every day in bed.
This afternoon, Summer made some cereal for us and she and I ate ours on the driveway, sitting in the sun. It felt good and the breeze was such a blessing.
I put the cats in the guest room and opened up the house and turned the attic fan on.
I thought some fresh air would be a good thing!

Then we all went to bed, again, until late this afternoon.

Hopefully we are on the road to recovery.....










Wednesday, January 29, 2025

A Day Late and a Dollar Short.....

 That's a saying my mother used to say and that's how I feel!
It's been a week since I posted a regular  journal entry and it seems that the more behind I get - the more behind I get!


Last Wednesday Louis Dean had a Medicare Wellness Checkup.


I am so grateful that as Louis Dean complains about going to the doctor visits - he is gracious and goes along with the program even when he doesn't like to do so.


Since he is diabetic, they always check his feet.
He is borderline but has no feeling in some parts of his feet.


Here he is waiting for his lab work.
Instead of seeing a podiatrist - we visit Lovely Nails on Beltline Road.
They do so much more than Dr. Garcia - plus they make over him like he is a movie star!
I think I've made him famous!

Since it was a fasting appointment and it was now 3:00 ....


He was excited to have a hamburger and fries at Braum's.


Louis Dean and I have enjoyed these cold evenings by the fireplace.
So have our cats.


I have no idea why this pic is here but we do love our pepper poppers!


Samantha is our super star and always posing!
I opened the fridge to prepare a meal and looked up......
We never know where we will find her!


She is quick to claim a new basket or investigate an open cupboard door.


I have a funny story about these pajama pants.
Louis Dean and I were having coffee in his music room and he wadded this pair of pajama pants up and said, "You can cut these up for rags or whatever you want to do with them but I slept in them last night and like to never got them off this morning!"

That's because these are my pajama pants!!!

I talked to my brother, Lonnie, on Monday and he laughed so loud when I told him this story!

Saturday morning we were up really early to go to North Richland Hills to watch Harrison's hockey game. It started at 9:15 and we were early!


Only for hockey games are we early!
I don't want to miss a minute.


Amber and Mike are loving the whole hockey adventure - just as much as I enjoyed her Synchronized Swimming! She explains to me the importance of a hockey game by comparing it to her swimming experience. This particular game was like playing Santa Clara's B Team.....they played the Penguin's B team.


And they won!


Amber, Mike and I went inside to the ice rink while Louis Dean opted to watch from the the windows where it was warm.


I love being a part of the whole hockey experience with not only Harrison, but Trystan, Kailey and Logan, too!

We made it to Harrison's Sunday game when the Brahmas played the Penguin's A team.


And, once again, they won!


3-2!

Life seems to be slipping by and I hope to not get behind in my journal entries.

When Lonnie and I talked on Monday - I was telling him about chapter 3.
He was a baby in the last chapter but apparently the family next door to Granny and Granddad continued to live there for years and years.
Right off the bat, Lonnie said, "That was Joe and John Bowman! They went on to serve long sentences in the penitentiary. Lonnie has an amzong memory as did Deanie and Nita.
While I remember my early years, they helped me fill the blanks in later years.

Today is Lonnie's 70th birthday!
He is so precious to us and we all love him dearly!
His humor is so funny and we laugh and laugh when we talk on the phone.