A Woman’s Best Friend

Put simply, I hated my Mom’s dog.  Around the time my sisters and I were sent to Maryville, my Mother got a dog, a purebred collie with papers…the dog had papers. We had papers too, we were a ward of the Catholic Church, but that dog was apparently canine royalty or something, which made my sisters and me the peasants. We were given away and she kept the dog.  I guess the ironic part is that dogs often play a big part in a child’s life; they are a friend, a companion, a confidant, and a protector. In my world, however, our dog was none of those things, he was my competitor.  At Maryville we could go home every other month, except in the summer, for a weekend… we could leave on Friday and had to return Sunday.  On Friday after school we would pack a bag for the weekend and anxiously wait to be picked up. Often my Mother did not show up to pick us up till very late on Friday clipping our already short time at home. I always yearned to go home, but I never seemed to find what I was looking for once I was there.

One weekend we came home only to learn my Mother had bought the dog, I guess she was lonely and the dog provided her with warmth and companionship…I felt the irony of her being lonely at that moment, but it would be years until I could come to grips with just how infuriating and truly insane the whole situation was. It amused her that the dog was jealous of us kids….he was used to getting all the attention, and he was not happy to share her with us. When I wanted to get close to my Mom the dog would growl and the growling made my Mom laugh, she thought it was all so cute, it still makes me sick to my stomach when I think about it.  After a while, I came to understand that in life, if I wanted love and affection from my Mother, I would have to get in line behind her boyfriends and now her dog.

I never fully accepted, until I was much older, the idea that my Mother wanted little or nothing to do with me and my sisters. She had married young and always felt marriage and children had cheated her of her youth. She was born beautiful and charming and rather than appreciating those assets, they were a curse to her… they deformed her. 

Weekends at home were often boring and non-eventful …I did like watching TV all night and getting to eat whenever and whatever I wanted, but little else was satisfying.  As you may guess, I did not play with the dog.  Most parents feel bad when their children are sad and in pain but my Mother did not let such feelings burden her.  Often on Sundays when my sisters and I were returning to Maryville, I would sit in the car and silently cry; tears would stream down my face but my Mother never acknowledged the pain and sadness I felt, but when the dog whimpered, she comforted him.   

  

Sister Elenita

There is a feeling of sheer terror, without virtue or reason, which comes over when you believe you are in danger of being mauled by a weasel.  I can still remember days when I was the first to arrive at the lab, cracking the large wooden door open just enough to peer in and gauge my chances of survival. 

I was about 10 and a half when I landed my job in the high school biology laboratory. I remember there were lots of large, almost floor to ceiling windows in the room so every day seemed bright and sunny; but in addition, the job was fun.  I learned a lot about animals, fossils, plants and just about everything that had to do with biology.  What I think really made this job nice, was how I felt so welcomed every day by Sister Elenita, the high school biology teacher. Without a doubt she was the nicest nun I had ever met.  She exuded warmth, kindness, and acceptance like I had never seen or experienced before.

Sister Elenita kept a weasel in a cage in the lab… not a bunny, not a hamster, not a guinea pig, a large weasel.  It terrified me.  I once saw it eat a mouse… an image that stuck in my head. So in my 10 year old mind, it was not a giant leap for me to think that it could somehow get out of it cage at night and be waiting for what unfortunate soul came sauntering into the classroom first in the morning.  I’ll be honest; I did not want to go out that way. So before I entered the room I would always check to see if the weasel was in its cage. I would slowly crack open the door and look and always felt relieved it was still caged in.  Only then would life go on as normal.

Life at Maryville had a strange flow to it.  Mundane boredom, hardship, and loneliness were sporadically interrupted by church and school run events. Every year there was an indoor fair at Maryville.  On display were crafts and other creations done by the high school students.  As a result, the higher ups at Maryville decided only high school students would attend the fair. It would have been educational and a lot of fun for the younger children, but that never seemed to be of paramount importance at Maryville.  One day while working in the biology lab, Sister Elenita approached me and said she understood two of my older sisters were going to put on a big display at the fair and she asked if I would like to attend and see my sisters’ event.  I told her I would love to.  She said she would check and try and get permission for me to attend the fair.  I was ecstatic.

She received permission for me to attend. That night I left Isabelle Hall and walked over to the gym where the fair was being held.  I walked in, I felt so grown up and very special.  But as usual this happiness was not to last.  Within seconds of my arrival, Sister Madelyn, my home room nun, came up to me and asked, “What are you doing here?”  I told her I had received permission to attend so that I could see my sisters’ event. Looking disgustedly at me, she told me to leave immediately and go back to my hall.  I was crushed; Sister Madelyn had a talent for that.

The next morning, feeling absolutely robbed, I went back to work at the biology lab and saw Sister Elenita sitting behind her desk.  She said “Come here Genevieve... I heard what happened last night and I am very sorry.”  She followed with “I have a surprise for you.”  With that she pulled out a foot long pencil (yes an exceptionally oversized righting utensil) and handed it to me. She said, “I hope this makes you feel better.”  There are certain moments in your life when you just absolutely need someone to tell you that things will be ok.  Sister Elenita was there for me when I needed her.  In the end, it had nothing to do with the gigantic pencil or the fact that I knew the weasel was firmly secured (which was still a relief). What really made me feel better was her sensitivity and kindness.  I think of her often.  

 

   

     

Goodbye To Tonsils

I don’t remember being sick very often in the five years I was at Maryville.  It was likely because we were so isolated and not exposed to everything like kids in the city. In addition to the isolation, all the children had to be inoculated against a bevy of childhood diseases and illnesses, further lowering our chances of getting sick. When I arrived at Maryville the one ailment I did often have was a sore throat. Today when kids have sore throats, they are given antibiotics but, when I was a kid, it was customary to have your tonsils removed.  So because of my sore throats, it was decided I would have my tonsils taken out.

One day I was put in a van along with another little boy and we were driven to St Francis Hospital in Evanston to have our tonsils removed.  After arriving at the hospital I was put in a room, given a gown and told to undress and to put the gown on.  I looked at the gown and didn’t see any bottom, just a top – so I stood there until the nurse came back.  I looked at her and said “I usually put my bottoms on first;” she snickered and said “Oh honey there is no bottom.”  With that she put her hands on the bottom of my dress and lifted my dress and undershirt off of me and I was standing there nude in front of a total stranger and I felt completely humiliated.  I was extremely angry she had done that without any warning or without my consent.  Shortly after that the nurse returned and told me the little boy who had arrived with me was being sent back to Maryville because he had developed a fever – I prayed that I too would develop a fever, but no such luck.

Soon a gurney arrived and I was transferred on to it.  I was taken down a long corridor to the operating room. While being pushed down the hall I asked “Is my Mother here?”  The nurse replied, “No, she is not here.” With that I was pushed into the operating room and standing there were many strangers and I was very frightened.  A Doctor approached me and told me I was going to be put to sleep.  With that a glove of some type was put over my nose and mouth and I panicked.  I tried to get the glove off my face, I was frantic, and I didn’t know what was happening.  A number of people came over tried to restrain me and as I was being held down I could hear the ether coming into my nose and mouth.  I don’t remember anything else. 

When I woke up I was back in my hospital room, my throat was very sore and my Mother was standing next to me. I looked at her, I was happy to see her, but I felt she was just a little late. I needed her earlier; she could have helped me undress and maybe reassured me that everything was going to be all right but she was not there when I needed her…sort of how things always went with her. 

Waiting…

In some…well most aspects, Maryville had more in common with a state prison than a boarding school.  All mail going out or coming in was read and censored before being mailed or received.  Parental visits were only allowed every other Sunday between 12:00 to 4:00 or 1:00 to 4:00… I don’t exactly remember which time slot it was.  If parents came out on a different Sunday from the one which they had been allotted, the children were not allowed to see their parents.  Maryville could get away with this because most of us were wards of the Catholic Church; our parental rights had been surrendered. I remember the Sunday I learned I was no longer under my Mother’s responsibility, but a ward of the Catholic Church...  My Mother was visiting and she was complaining about Maryville and I said to her “why don’t you take us out of here”, and she said “I can’t” and I said “why can’t you … you are my Mother” and she said “I have surrendered my rights to you” and I said “you are no longer my Mother, why did you do that”?! And she said “yes I am still your Mother but I cannot take you out of Maryville without their permission”.  I asked her again “why did you do that?” and she said “because I can no longer afford to pay to keep you at Maryville, it is too expensive”. I just looked at her - I was so angry and devastated and also very frightened. My status in this world had been decided by a billing matter.

So, every other Sunday parents were allowed to visit.  It’s not that they did, they were allowed to.  Who was going to show up on any particular Sunday was anyone’s guess.  The kids were informed their parents had arrived through a public address system which was piped into every hall room.  Every other Sunday two girls would volunteer to sit near the PA system and listen for the announcement of whose parents had arrived – one would listen for the names and the other was the runner.  I always volunteered to be one of the two. In some ways it was boring and monotonous to sit there for hours listening, hoping and praying I would hear my Mother had arrived.  Being close to that speaker and being the first to hear anything gave me a sense of control that I so badly craved.  Sometimes she visited, but often, she didn’t.  Sometimes, she would arrive so late we could only visit for a few minutes. The nuns lived their life by a schedule, and they were not about to make an exception for anyone in the outside world.  If you had 3 minutes left in your visitation window, you received 3 minutes… that was it.   This whole process was torture – needing and loving someone so much as I did my Mother and yet having no control to get or give the love I needed and deserved…and in my 5 years at Maryville I ended up enduring this Sunday ritual roughly 162 times.

Religion

As Maryville was a Catholic facility, religion played a very important role in our lives.  We were young, vulnerable and did exactly what the nuns wanted.  If you did not go along with whatever they preached, you paid a terrible price.  Power and fear are deeply motivational tools when you want children, or anyone for that matter, to obey; just look at any dictatorship. 

Most mornings Sister Madelyn would flip on the overhead dorm lights and start yelling “let us praise the lord, let us praise the lord”. Now, although it was her request for us to praise the lord before thinking of anything else, praising the lord was rarely the first thought in my mind.  The idea of going back to sleep usually won.  We were expected to fall out of bed, fall on our knees and pray.  The prayer we were demanded to recite went like this: Jesus hanging on the cross, tell me what did I, did I make the tears drop dear lord, did I make you cry, I’m a naughty child, as naughtiest as can be…….. It wasn’t bad enough that we felt destroyed because our parents didn’t want us, but we had an additional burden that we were the children who made Jesus cry, because were so bad - it is truly remarkable that any of us survived.

Every Sunday and on other religious holidays we attended Mass. We were expected to kneel through most of the Mass which was hard and challenging for small children.  There were five priests assigned to Maryville and we never knew which priest was going to say Mass.  This was important because of our desire for breakfast.  At Maryville, our meals fit in around Mass.  We would eat dinner at five every day, so by eight the next morning we were famished, the only obstacle between us and breakfast, was the speed with which the priest could orate the Mass. Some priests said Mass with a rapidity that kept the service moving and breakfast closer, while others languished on their words in a way that made you wonder if it would ever end.  As the priest entered the church, there would be either a collective sigh of relief or a very unhappy quiet groan; all of us knew who said Mass quickly and who drug it out endlessly. 

Despite my general desire not to be there, there were certain good moments that came during the services. In the 50s, the Mass was given in Latin and there was a lot of singing of the hymns – I liked the singing particularly during the Christmas season.  During Christmas we would sing the Gregorian chants as well as other well known Christmas songs – it was fun, it made me feel like a kid. It was nice to get those windows of happiness no matter how small. I still miss that part.  

Émilie Dionne

The nuns of Maryville were all French Canadian.  Being from Montréal, French was their first and preferred language, but they all could speak English as well.  They never taught us French, I don’t think they thought we were good enough to deserve being taught.  I never asked to learn it because, well, the vast majority of interactions with the nuns were unpleasant to say the least, and I did not want to have to beg them for something they dangled above us.  When speaking with each other, the nuns always spoke French.  My name being French in origin, Geneviève, I always new when they were talking about me (some of the girls’ names did not translate so literally).  I did pick up on some of the words and phrases simply because they were said so often.  I still remember when Sister Madelyn was frustrated she would always say Mon Dieu! (My God!).

A very small number of nuns were kind and displayed a soft heart.  Most were mean and vindictive and many displayed no emotion what so ever.  I have always been struck by an individual choosing a life dedicated to charity and love, when their own hearts were so devoid of those exact feelings. My hall room nun, Sister Madelyn was one that showed no emotion, I always felt she just didn’t like us, a curiously poor way to begin every day. 

As if hall room was not enough, Sister Madelyn had a way of showing up in far too many other episodes of my life at Maryville. One summer day, I was walking into the cafeteria for either lunch or dinner, I don’t remember which, and Sister Madelyn was standing there as if she were a greeter at Wal-Mart. Normally I would say nothing to her unless I was spoken to first, but as I approached her I saw she was crying.  I had never seen her cry before, this was very strange; I don’t remember seeing her laugh before either, most of the time I felt she showed us a total indifference and an unchanging cold demeanor.  Exactly why I engaged her I do not know, but maybe it was because it was so frankly shocking to see her cry...  I stopped and said “why are you crying”?  She said “Émilie Dionne has died” I just looked at her for a minute, thinking who is Émilie Dionne?  “Is she a relative of yours” I inquired, trying to make sense out of this encounter. “No!” she snapped “she is one of the Dionne quintuplets”…I had no idea who the Dionne family was (they were a French Canadian family that had quintuplets naturally in the 30’s and became something of a phenomenon for that fact). I also had no idea what a quintuplet was, so essentially, I understood none of the words that came out of her mouth at that moment. I looked at her for a second and just walked into the cafeteria and started to eat, never knowing why Sister Madelyn was crying. Had I known who she was talking about, I would have been struck by the irony of the situation; that she felt so emotionally struck by the death of a 20 year old Canadian girl, whom she had never met, while she was so thoroughly cold, uncaring, and removed from the hundreds of children, orphans, right before her, who were all facing crises of their own.       

Jimmy Dorsey

There were many do’s and don’ts at Maryville.  We were not allowed to read comic books; we had to eat every bit of the food they served, even though much of it was uneatable (the putrid and at times rancid food had such an effect on me that to this day I cannot eat bread pudding or Spanish rice). We could not say shut up to anybody, so we learned to say “up shut the other way” with as much vehemence and ire as one would use to say Shut …Up (or anything else).  Parents could come and visit every other Sunday but if they came out on the wrong Sunday, we were not allowed to see them. .  We could go home every other month for a week end except in the summer. During June, July, and August, we were not allowed to go home as it was thought that polio was contracted during the summer months, and that our isolation might spare us from that illness. In addition to a large and formidable list of other restrictions and rules, it was known that we were not allowed to order anything and get it delivered to Maryville, and while I may have abided by most rules, this was one I decided to break.

One day, during one of my visits home, I went to a candy store and bought a Nestle crunch bar.  Upon opening the wrapper the wrapper contained an offer.  It said, with two Nestle Crunch wrappers and 15 cents I could get a Jimmy Dorsey record.  I had no idea who Jimmy Dorsey was, but I assumed he had something to do with music because why else would he make a record?  It did not matter that I had no idea who this person was; I was thrilled with the idea of getting a record (or just anything) that I could call mine.  I would get 15 cents from somewhere, buy another candy bar and send it in and wait for my record.

A few weeks passed, and Sister Madelyn came over to me one day, and she had in her hand my Jimmy Dorsey record.  She said “you know you were not supposed to do this”, I didn’t respond.  An 8 year old is really not prepared to make rational arguments, so I stood there, silently, it was all I could do - she handed the record to me and said with a stern tone of institutional distance and indifference, “don’t do this again.  I put the record in my locker and just smiled. I felt like I had won – it was a wonderful feeling. I couldn’t really explain my excitement over the record, I had no way of playing it, no record player, no turn table, but I didn’t care, my desire wasn’t about playing anything, it was about having something.   It is now 58 years later and I still have my Jimmy Dorsey 45 and I have never really cared about the way it sounds.