You Ask About My Father's Childhood

You asked about my father's childhood. I can give an incomplete and not necessarily thoroughly accurate account. The truth is, there's no one from whom those facts can be obtained. No one in my father's family was completely trustworthy. Only one of his siblings is still living, the uncle who sexually assaulted me numerous times. I'm not certain he's still alive, but as of ten years ago, he was the only one left. I would never ask anything of him.

I'm going to try to remember the names of his brothers and sisters, though the names I knew them by were nicknames or terms of endearment my grandmother used. The sisters: Jewel, Sis (I never knew her name), Eddie, Ruby, Audrey. The brothers: Frank, Melvin, and Jack. Eddie and Frank died before I was born.

When I say that the family wasn't trustworthy, I don't mean that they were all liars (though they might have been). I mean that mental illness touched all of them, that their singular and shared histories were heavily colored by that illness.

My grandmother was orphaned when she was a girl, along with a brother with whom she was very close. I'm not sure how she lost her parents, but I believe there was a fire. I think she had other siblings who also died. Blanche, my grandmother, and her brother Ernest were sent off to an orphanage and ultimately farmed out to various families where they functioned essentially as indentured servants. I can't imagine the treatment they must have endured.

My grandmother married the son of one of those families. I think his family was well-to-do. Or maybe they only thought they were. My grandfather was ultimately disowned, but I don't know why. I don't know how old my grandmother was when she married. I don't even know my grandfather's first name.

Jack, Sis and Eddie were the first set of children born. There was a significant amount of time between the first children and the second group. My grandfather fulfilled his responsibilities to both sets in exactly the same way: he left. He always found a need to work elsewhere, leaving his wife and children to sharecrop in order to survive. Though my grandfather was working, he never sent money to his family. It was a harsh survival. Many times they had nothing to eat, they had very little clothing and it was probably not in the best condition. My dad said that he and his family were ridiculed at school because of their financial circumstances. I have no way of knowing whether that's true. I think it's just as likely that they were ostracized and made fun of because they were crazy. Who knows.

Both of my grandparents were brutal disciplinarians. One of my father's ears was permanently injured from my grandmother's penchant for twisting the kids' ears as punishment. According to several of my aunts and uncles, my grandmother would throw or strike with anything that was handy: a frying pan, a piece of wood for the stove. She had a savage temper.

I don't have any specific tales about my grandfather's disciplinary techniques other than that my father couldn't bear to bring himself to discuss it. I believe that he sexually abused all of his children. My father had a dark secret that he wished to share only with me after I became an adult. I heard him once speak to my (abusive) uncle about him, saying, "You don't know what he did to me."

What I know is that sexual and physical abuse ran rampant in my family. Perhaps my grandmother was sexually abusive, too. I think that's a distinct possibility.

I can't continue at the moment. Sometimes when I think about my father's family, I'm emotionally overwhelmed. I was very, very close to my grandmother. I can't tell you how it pains me to believe her capable of that behavior. So on that note, I have to stop. With any luck, I'll be able to continue the tale tomorrow.