I have always planned to write a book about my Mother's life. Suddenly my life is becoming a more interesting topic to me. However, my Mother was a strong, dedicated, determined, loving but fierce woman for her time. She gave birth to 11 kids and ended up raising 10 of them pretty much as a single Mom from 1948 to 1966 and on till we were all grown.
My Father helped get us here but didn't do much to help keep us here. Then he died when the 11th child was only 1. Go figure. I was 9.
My plan is to start my book here by blogging and then rolling it over into a novel or two, or three.
I am sure there are many single Moms in this world but single Moms who had 11 kids; not as many.
So my story begins.
My Mother was born September 6, 1928. She ran away from home when she was 19 because her parents wouldn't let her go to school and was making her raise her 8 brothers and sisters while her Mom went galavanting around cheating on her Dad. If she tried to get out of it, she was punished and beaten by her Father. So at 19 she got fed up and left. They even sent the police after her but they didn't make her go back home. She was living with her Mother's sister in West Virginia.
Unfortunately for her, but fortunately for us, she met my Dad when she started as a cook's helper at the town restaurant. He was on leave from WWII and decided he wanted to be with her.
My Father wouldn't let up until he had my mother and with his good looks and charm, and a bit of conniving, he won. She married him and immediately got pregnant; or was that the other way around. In those days you didn't get pregnant first but my Father was sneaky so whichever way it happened, my brother Larry was born on November 14, 1948. Not too long after, like 16 months to be exact, my brother Little Sterling (named after my Father's saintly (NOT) brother) but at 6 months old Little Sterling became ill. My Mom, of course had Larry and Sterling at home (given the time) but she had to take Sterling to the doctor because he was wheezing. The doctor told her he was fine and she took him home but, unfortunately, the doctor was wrong. My brother died through the night from double pneumonia. That changed my Mother's life drastically but not my Father's so much.
My Father, when he worked, worked in the coal mines of West Virginia since at that time (1951) that was the most popular employment in West Virginia. Or, other times he would be a minister, when he suited his purpose. My Father didn't like to work, but he did like to drink his alcohol and chase the women.
My Mother became pregnant a third time, this time with my brother, Gerald, who was born (yes at home) on September 20, 1951 in West Virginia. My Mother always did the laundry for neighbors and odd jobs to make extra money since my Father didn't always have a job. But he did work hard at keeping her pregannt. Once again my Mother became pregnant and this time she had my sister (yes a girl), Donna, on February 11, 1954. My Father actually spoiled Donna for the first 3 years of her life but then he grew tired of her, as my Mother told it, and casted her away. So much for Daddy's Little Princess. I guess my Dad couldn't stay sober long enough to make that last.
Then my Mother decided she was tired of waiting for something great to happen in West Virginia. Some of my Father's sisters and brothers were relocating to Chicago, so my Mother decided to do the same.
First my Mother was driving to Chicago. This was when Donna was a baby so she had 3 kids, the oldest 4 years old, then 2 years old and the baby a few months old. As she was driving along (per her story of many times) she almost drove the car into a ditch. This scared the begeezes out of her so once she got to Chicago, she gave up driving, forever. I mean, she never again got behind the wheel of a car to drive it.
So, from what I understood from her, one of my aunts had a job waiting for her for managing an apartment building, which also included an apartment for her and the family. Unfortunately, in those times building owners would not let a woman run the show so she had to say my Father was living there too. Which allowed him to come in and out as he pleased, causing uproars and getting my Mother pregnant many more times.
More tomorrow if you are interested....
