Chapter 3

Noxious Weed

There are three parts to story, each distinctive yet under the same roof.

Part One

Mom was the oldest of six children, her parents raised them up in Stayton, Oregon. My sisters and I called our grandparents Dade and Gram. The empty lot next to their house was covered with Scotch’s Bloom, the bushes had pretty, yellow blossoms but their strong and pungent odor was much like the sexual abuse suffocating their family life.

Dade built their two-story house, using poor grade lumber, the walls so thin they certainly wouldn’t pass an inspection like today. Mom worked at the post office and she bought the windows for the whole house.

Gram called Mom, “her right hand.” Mom was the oldest of three sisters and a brother. The unknown really scared Gram, so Mom took the responsibility from about the time she was a teenager. Gram drove Mom to the bank to make their house payments, mom even answered the door at home when Gram didn’t know who was there, because as I said, the unknown scared her.

Part Two

When my aunt Fran was little, had a series of ear infections which burst one of her eardrums, as a result she didn’t hear well, her speech was garbled and the kids at school made fun of her. Gram didn’t like it so she took her out of school. As a result Fran never learned to speak clearly, her handwriting was barely legible and her spelling was very poor.

Fran and I shared a twin bed during my summer break. On the nightstand there was a small dish full of coins. I wondered why anyone needed money in a bedroom, perhaps it was a carryover from the depression. She used Ben-Gay rub for aches and pains and I loved its smell. She had false teeth and I found it fascinating to watch as she put them in a cup of water and added a tablet to make a fuzzy blue explosion.

When I was about eight I went to work harvesting crops during summer vacation. Fran had a good work ethic, we learned hard work pays off. She got up early and made a full breakfast of eggs, bacon and toast. Then packed lunches before we left to work in the crops with me alongside to pick raspberries, strawberries, beans, tomatoes and corn.

I learned to pay my own way as a kid and it carried into my marriage with my husband Dave. I remember it used to cause problems. Like the time I drove our new car to the bean field when we didn’t really need the money. Dave wasn’t happy, he was embarrassed, but I saved the two hundred dollars I earned for a long time which made me feel secure, a common theme I sought in my life.

Part Three

My Aunt Betty’s husband crashed his truck into a bridge abutment while driving drunk and he died instantly. She was left with an infant boy, no home and no income. The obvious answer was to move to Dade and Gram’s.

It was complicated; my cousin Fred lived with five highly favored adults who were spoiled rotten. It didn’t serve him well in the real world.

We went to Christmas every year. Fred lived with doting grandparents, aunts, and of course his mother, all of whom gave him several gifts which meant he ended up with a mountain of presents. My sisters and I got only one present each so my parents decided we wouldn’t go there for Christmas anymore thankfully.

He was the “king” of the house. In my story he will reappear but not in a good way.

Part Four

Gram was extremely anxious and nervous. I watched her take pills from a kitchen cabinet. I didn’t know why until I was an adult, and I suffered from anxiety too. Her anxiety caused her feet to get stuck until someone lifted her up so she could stand. I know now, it is a neurological condition from extreme anxiety and stress.

Even though Gram’s father had done jail time for sexual abuse, he still conveniently lived in Gram and Dade’s house. While he was there, he sexually abused Mom’s youngest sister Norma leaving her vulnerable and unprotected for years. There was a tool shed in the back of the property of the house where Gram’s father exposed himself to my sister Grace and my aunt Norma.

Norma fled immediately after high school graduation. She married Bill, we were told that he didn’t want to come to their house because it wasn’t clean. Years later I learned that was a bold-faced lie her daughter, my cousin Paula, told me it was because of the abuse.

Years later he abused me in a living room, he reached up under my dress and put his hands in my panties with a living room full of adults who looked away.

He was creepy.

He was everywhere.

Why, Oh why was he living there?

My grandpa Dade was extremely harsh with his children, his weapon of choice was a razor strap hanging on a nail on the back porch. He whipped my aunt Molly because she wouldn’t eat vegetables. To her dying day her diet was chicken, potatoes, strawberries and chocolate. She was thin and gaunt her own version of anorexia.

My uncle Joel endured the harshest discipline because he was a boy. He joined the military the very day after graduation. He settled in Texas and I only saw him twice because the abuse he suffered, it robbed me of the chance to get to know him.

Joel, Molly and Norma Mom’s youngest sister all were essentially run-aways.

But there’s hope, even for the broken.