“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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