The first day of March, 1938 I came home from school to find my Uncle Bob sitting on our front porch swing. His face was very drawn, his eyes were red and he looked as though he had been crying. In a voice that was low and serious, he asked me to sit down next to him on the swing. He put his arms around me and told me that father had committed mother to Woodville State Mental Hospital. I said I didn’t understand. He explained to me what that meant and then I started to cry. He calmed me down and I asked him to tell me what had happened.
He said father had taken the day off work and had appeared at his front door early in the morning. Father told him and Aunt Margaret that a state ambulance from Woodville State Hospital was going to pick up mother this morning and would Aunt Margaret watch Johnny? Uncle Bob said they agreed to take Johnny, Jimmy and I.
Uncle Bob related what happened. When the ambulance arrived they all went down to our home. Mother was playing with Johnny. When she saw my father come into the house followed by two hospital attendants dressed in hospital garb she went ballistic. Uncle Bob said she fought like hell. It took two attendants, the ambulance driver and my father to drag her out of the house and put her into the ambulance. All the while she was screaming at the top of her voice, “Joey, Jimmy, Johnny”. Over and over and over again, Joey, Jimmy, Johnny. Uncle Bob said he could hear her screaming until the ambulance reached the main highway a full quarter of a mile down Trax Lane. Note: Mother was to spend nineteen years in Woodville State Mental Hospital working like a slave in the hospital laundry before a drug came on the market that would control her condition.
I asked Uncle Bob where Johnny was and he told me Johnny was up at his house. He told me that when Jimmy came home from school that the two of us were to come up to his home and stay with him.
I left Uncle Bob and ran at full speed up the hull and through the Trax orchard to the woods on the other side of the hill. I reached a large oak tree in which I had built a platform high up in its branches, out of breath and exhausted. I had spent many an hour in the past on that platform trying to make sense out of our home situation. It was almost ark before I climbed down to walk back to Aunt Margaret’s house. My mind was made up.
I knew that Uncle Bob and Aunt Margaret were good people and would sacrifice their own well-being to help us. Their house was small and they had four children of their own to care for and certainly didn’t have room for three more. Also, Little Margaret and her husband Mick were living in the cellar basement apartment. I told them that Jimmy, Johnny and I would be all right just where we were. Our only problem would be eating. I couldn’t cook worth a damn. Uncle Bob laughed at that remark. I told them I had made up my mind. After hours of debate where everyone gave their opinion, including Aunt Margaret’s children, everyone saw I wouldn’t give in. Even at age twelve I was a tough SOB and once I made up my mind nobody could change it.
Finally Uncle Bob, over Aunt Margaret’s protests, agreed. He said we could eat supper at his house or supper could be sent down to our house whichever we preferred. We could fix our own breakfast and pack our own school lunch. On our way to school each morning I could drop Johnny off at his house to spend the day and I could pick him up after school. As the three of us got ready to go home, I asked Uncle Bob where father was. He said he didn’t know nor did he give a damn where father was. That was the first time I ever heard Uncle Bob swear.
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