And Mom's side

Mom had two older sisters, one lived in Wisconsin when I was young and the other in California.  I remember we went to Wisconsin once to visit.  I don't remember much about the trip or the visit.  I remember Dad saying stuff about "Oshkosh by gosh".  And, Mom singing, "I love to go a wandering".  My mind tends to "forget" things it considers unimportant.  I knew we had never visited them before and probably never would again.  I grew up in Michigan, California by car in the 1950's was a trip we would never take.

I didn't know much about my mom's sisters.  According to Mom, one got the looks and the other got the brains and Mom got nothing.  I knew the oldest sister was very smart and she was school teacher.  I didn't know what she taught but I knew I would like her if I ever met her.  I liked most teachers, they were pretty smart and, in my eyes, not crazy or abusive.  Seems like they talked about the teacher the most but maybe I honed in on those conversations the most.  I knew my aunt the teacher would save me if she knew.

My maternal Grandmother lived exactly 100 miles door to door from us.  I was allowed to visit her in the summer and on some weekends.  Mom would put me on the Greyhound Bus and Grandma would meet me on the other end.  I was almost seven when Mom's dad died.  Grandma was very sad and cried all the time.  We were driving to her house one weekend and I was told not to mention Grandpa.  Well, I did and Grandma cried all the while holding me and twisting my ear.  It hurt like heck and I never mentioned Grandpa again.

Dad's family was...

To put it simply they were not always nice to each other.  I never really knew all of them very well.  He has one younger sister, born on his birthday, she lived with us when I was very young.  She had a baby that had a hole in its back.  I am pretty sure the baby died.  She also had a couple husband's which died in auto accidents, I believe.  She was someone I really liked but was hardly ever part of my life.

He had many brothers and a couple more sisters.  The one sister cried all the time and the other sister took care of Grandma until Grandma died.  He had a younger brother in and out of prison.  He lived with us for awhile.  I don't know why he left but Dad kept the doors bolted and chairs propped under the knobs.  That brother was in and out of both state and federal prisons.  Another younger brother was killed in an auto accident with his best friend.  They were going over a 100 miles and hour and hit a tree head on.  They had both bought large insurance policies just before the wreck, so there was talk of suicide.  

I never knew why we didn't get together very often for sure.  I knew my mom didn't like grandma very much but I still didn't understand.  A few years ago I received an invitation to a paternal cousins get together.  I decided to go and saw cousins and aunts and uncles long forgotten about.  I ask the cousin hosting the party why we didn't get together more as children.  She said, "Because all the men would get drunk and get into fist fights".

Did it start out that way...

When Henry and Roberta met it was "love at first sight", or so they said.  They met at a roller skating rink on a Saturday night in 1947. The following week they decided to marry.  Roberta's dad would not sign for her to marry so they had to wait a few weeks until her 18th birthday.  Ten months later along came me.  I'm Linda, the oldest child of Henry and Roberta.

Henry got a job with the telephone company.  That was a dream job back in those days and Henry loved his work.  When we vacationed we stopped at nearly every telephone company.  He was a WWII vet and we heard stories of "The War" over and over.  Nothing very horrid although, I know he saw the atrocities only war can show.  Henry was an alcoholic, a veteran, a telephone man and an insanely jealous bully.

Roberta was a housewife and invisible when I was very young.  She also worked for the telephone company as switch board operator.  I cannot remember her, only snapshots of a woman that I called Mom.  Mother was very beautiful, she looked like Elizabeth Taylor.  She was scared of my dad's mother.  The story goes that my paternal grandmother chased my mother around the house with a butcher knife.  We hardly ever visited them because of the insanity there.

When they married I just know they didn't even discuss having children, leave alone discuss abusing them.  However, all forms abuse ran rampant in our house.  Before my stay in Henry's house horrors was over, there were four of us children.  Don was born 17 months after me, Mark was born 7 years after me, and Ann 12 years after me.  Mark had 2 heart problems never before seen in a baby and he was suppose to die any second.  He didn't but it was a terrible thing to have to live with.