To understand anyone, you must understand their parents and their siblings. At least that is my opinion. For I wouldn’t be who I am without the promise and heartache of my parents.
My mom, came from what was referred to as ‘old money.’ Her first ancestor came to the Americas with Cortez, (I’m not proud of the butchery that they did to the Natives, but cannot change the past of my ancestors.) I can only learn from them. Her ancestor was one of the founders of the country. She was raised playing hopscotch in the East Wing of the White House, when they went to visit her Uncle Herman. He served fifty-four years as head of the secret service and was in and out of the White House through many presidents. Her father was a high ranking Army officer, and later a part of the rebuilding of Berlin after the WWII. She felt guilty all her life for what she had growing up when so many had nothing. That guilt became worse when she lost every young man she knew in WWII, starting with her first boyfriend, Henry, who committed suicide after finding out his parents were lost in Nazi Germany.
My father, during the depression, was sent to work the farms so he could eat. He had an eighth-grade education, but according to my mother he was intelligent, just unschooled. They fought and made up, and leaned into each other till they both destroyed each other, for neither of them were strong people.
With eight siblings we all had a role, we filled.
Until a month before my twelfth birthday we lived in a two-bedroom house, my oldest sister had one room, until she joined the convent, and then it was rented out. My father built rooms in the basement, or at least put up blankets separating areas, and we shared a room. My oldest brother had the only one with actual walls and a door. I was a middle child, not fitting into either the older group or the younger one, and we were very poor. Christmas was the only time we each received one new outfit. Otherwise, it was second hand hand-me-downs, they’d go through her girlfriends family 1st, and then to ours. Some days we went to school with lard sandwich’s, and had fried oatmeal that was left over from our morning breakfast for dinner. My memories of those days hold both the good and the bad. But it taught me how to survive, use my imagination, & eat poor if necessary.
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