“OHIO” Every SPRING and FALL.

When I was a baby, every “SPRING” and “FALL” – I would be put in a basket/bed on the back seat of the automobile and my parents drove up to “OHIO!”  It was like clockwork, just something my father had to do. Some kind of a tie with his family, of which my mother could never find out much from my father, but a sister-in-law Ester became a good friend and stared filling her in on what the family was all about.

My father never had any money to spend on his family, even though he was working and made good money. With these yearly trips to Ohio, my mother figured he was bringing his money to his mother and family. My father’s mother, my grandmother Leah, finally asked my mother for at least $300.00 loan, signing a note to which was suppose to be paid as soon as the business they were working on made money? Would you believe I still have that note, and if there was anybody to collect from, the interest on the loan would be worthwhile collecting! Start that interest from 1937 and see what you come up with? That’s a tidy sum, something to think about?

During WWII, when Americans were doing without meat, because of the shortage and the need to use “ration coupons” and who had the money to purchase – there was one place in “OHIO” called McLaren Meat Market. I was surprised to hear our name on the radio station K.M.O.X, announcing McLaren Meat Market having meat for sale! Many years later, I heard that it “horse” meat and it came from Canada.

When we were making these trips to OHIO, and I was in the make shift bed in the back seat, sleeping – all was just fine – not a peep out of me, but let the car stop for gas or whatever on the way – I would immediately start crying . So, my mother told me years later, they would drive as fast as they could, that is my father did all the driving, and when they had to make a stop – they had to hurry so fast or listen to me crying. Evidently, I was the best baby except on trips, I must have enjoyed the driving so much as long as we were moving, but let us stop and the whole world of peace and quiet came to an end!


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Another Memory!

When you pay for new cars, you would think that the buyer would also be a “DRIVER”, but not the case with my mother. She was paying for everything my father had to have!

So, before we moved my father was going to teach my mother how to drive. Living on Myron Avenue was at the foot of the hilliest terrain of a subdivision, and the absolute worst to learn how to drive!  I do not believe there are any straight and level streets in that neighborhood. The only good thing, in the early 1940’s there just was neither traffic jam, nor many cars like today constantly in and out and on the roads causing all kinds of congestion. The area we lived in was mostly quiet, you might say really peaceful.

Would you take your three small children and put them in the back seat of the car, and remember in those days, there were no “safety seat-belts” and of course no individual child care seats? But in our case the kids were along for the ride and what a ride this was. I am the oldest and am supposing to be sure that not a “peep” comes out of the mouths of my brothers. This was a “first of first and the last” let me make this clear, right now! This was almost like one of the movies they make today to scare the “H” out of the audience, and we were truly scared!

My mother was told how and what to do and when, and trying to synchronize everything into getting the shifting of gears to synchronized in a way to get up a hill and everything came to a halt  – right there. Nothing moving and we are not going anywhere? We just slowly rolled backwards, some till the car leveled out. Again and again, more attempts were made, only now with lots of screaming, and every -bodies’ nerves, shot!

“Put your foot to the floor, all the way!” “More gas and hurry UP!” and my mother is trying to obey the orders and trying to get the vehicle to go up a steep hill and it just is not going up any further. We are rolling back down and at a pretty fast clip, and we, three kids are screaming as we are looking out the rear window to see the car going backwards. If this situation took place today, we would have been in a major accident, and all out fault! When he car stopped we all got out, and my mother took us home. Where my father went no one knows, but my mother never did learn how to drive a car!


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Distress and Distrust

When you are no longer safe in your own home and your husband acts in such a violent way to knock you unconscious, what would you do? What should you do? Add to the situation that you are the last and 13th in your family and really have no close knit family that would help or even lift a hand to offer you anything for fear of the maniac you are married to, coming after them?

Just as soon as we were all back home together, our house was put on the market for “SALE” and it did not take long to sell! America was now in the “WWII” situation, and we were now looking for a house or an apartment or something, but there was nothing to be found! What a mess of a situation we were in! I remember when we were looking at places to rent or buy; I was very “thirsty” and I had ask for a drink  – said something to the effect of being “thirsty” and my father answer saying, “It is not Thursday!” And along with that, “You are to be seen and not heard from.” So, I just had to wait and see if somebody would feel sorry for me and offer a drink, but that didn’t happen.

Finally, we found an apartment, but it was just until we could find a house. The buyers of our house wanted to move in right now, so we stay a couple of months in an apartment – but really living out of the boxes. My parents were not to unpack and repack for such a short time. Also, the money that my mother paid for the house that we did have, she now receives only half. My father said he was entitled to half. So, when we find another house – an 80 year old house that the neighbors told my mother they could have bought for $2,000.00, now cost my mother $3,000.00. My father spent his portion of the previous sale money on himself! You can see what a “Happy” life this has turn out to be for all of us.


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Changes will be coming.

When the neighbors called for medical help for my mother, there was also the other social services’ doing their duty to place the three of us? So, for a short time, my mother was receiving some necessary care and we were in a temporary home for children, but nothing was addressed to the real situation. The real problem was my father and his having to drink and run the streets, while drinking, tavern to tavern, women and song! This was the time to correct the situation, and nip it in the bud, because looking back now at all the unnecessary harm and misery for our whole family started, here!

 


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“My Momma is on the floor!”

The words of an old song, “No one knows what goes on behind closed door” or something like those words, and that is the truth! Our family seems to be just fine, but no one had any idea what was really going on in our house. My father was younger than my mother, and he felt that he should have a good time using my mother’s money. My father could do a lot of things to make a living, but he would always come up with the deal that this particular work just was not for him, and that he should go to school to learn to be an electrician, a plumber, or maybe learn to sell vacuum cleaners? These entire he did for awhile and to no success.  Many years later we all called him, “Jack of all trades Master of none!”

My mother is a small bone and only five foot woman and always anemic as the thirteenth child in her family, and wanted her own family and children. All the children in her family were well educated, but that was not the case with my father’s family. He said he was older than he was to join the Army during the depression times. He put in three – two year stints, working mostly in the kitchen while serving in the Philippines under Gen. MacArthur. After serving his country, was aboard a train to St. Louis where he would reconnect to a train going to Ohio where he lived. Destiny or the “Stars” brought him meeting a cousin of my mother’s family on that train, and was invited to stay  for a couple of days during his layover. And there at a family celebration to welcome the soldiers back is where he met my mother!

Everything that “happens,” happens for a reason, and there must be a greater plan for all of us, so why not do the best with the “cards” you are dealt? That’s what happened in my father’s case. He found a good looking woman, and she had money, and her family liked him.

In the first year or two my father could not come up with money for a down payment on a home, but my mother could pay for a nice home on Airport Drive, near Lambert Air Field. But then, what would they do?  So they found a nice area building up in Pine Lawn, and purchased a home there. That is she paid the money, and also bought the second new car, as he was drinking and had completely wrecked the first automobile. How he walked away from the wreck, no one knows? My mother did not learn how to drive, but was always the one to do the purchasing of the vehicles.

So, after not being home for three days and three nights, and not a call home to my mother, my father finally comes home in a drunken condition. With the three small children to care for all alone and again expecting another child, my mother is upset with the condition and behavior of my father, who shows no concern for his family, only that he has money, car and fun for himself. My mother asks my father, “Where were you?” My father did not answer, but swung around and with his fist, hit my mother smack in the nose! Mind you, those three small children are crying and seeing their mother lying on the floor. My father just turns and out the door, and back to the car and off he went.

I am the oldest and crying and trying to get my mother to say something or get up and nothing happening? So, I ran out of our house and went to the next door neighbor. Crying, I could hardly say anything, but blurted out, “Momma’s on the floor!” At this point in time – God is in charge – I did what I could for help and now older people must take over.

It was a bloody mess and my mother miss-carried! My mother was always so grateful that I had enough sense to go to the neighbors for help.


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Movie Stars or Operators?

Movie Stars 001Three new employees in my class of of 6 learning to be Telephone Operators!We were getting ready to go out for lunch. It looks like a pose for a “Movie Star” magazine?


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