Category: Commentary

On December 20, 1973, I checked into Methodist Hospital to give birth to my second child. It was a far better experience that the first time around. The labor nurse stayed with me the entire time rather than leaving me alone in a darkened room to wonder if I had been forgotten. My doctor also came by frequently to check on my progress and when the baby turned and threatened to come out breach, he quickly repaired the problem. By early afternoon I had delivered our second daughter, a lovely child that we named Catherine Anne. I was in my hospital room watching The Electric Company and holding my sweet girl within minutes. She was calm and delightful which no doubt pointed to my experience with caring for a baby. I was not the least bit anxious about being a mother the second time around. 

The number one song of that week was The Most Beautiful Girl by Charlie Rich and somehow it seemed quite fitting for the child who would round out our family. She was quite adorable with her head of curly hair, button nose and almond shaped eyes. Luckily the two of us were home before Christmas Eve so that we could celebrate our good fortune with Maryellen who was a bit confused by her new sibling at first. Eventually she had settled into the idea of sharing our attention and almost immediately became a great big sister. 

It turns out that I had no worries at all about the change in our family dynamics. Catherine was sweet from the beginning. She would sleep for many hours and when she did awake she would alert us with a soft little cry. She began slumbering all night long within less than a month and she seemed to be content no matter the situation. She was delightful addition to our family.

As 1974, dawned we felt quite content and complete. We settled into a lovely routine but soon enough felt that we had outgrown our apartment. It was time to look for a home with a yard and trees and good neighbors. It was my friend Linda who found the place for us. The house had been built about twenty years earlier but it was in pristine condition. The owners had raised two daughters there which somehow made us feel that we were destined to live there. The price was right as well. At nineteen thousand dollars it was a bargain given the huge yard and its location close to so many of our favorite places including Mike’s job. 

The owners seemed especially excited to hand over the house they had so loved to a young couple that saw so much potential in it. We signed the deal and were soon placing our belongings in the rooms and meeting the neighbors who would become like family to us in the ensuing years. 

On one side was the Hall family, a clan of five boys with parents Carol and Bob joyfully and skillfully in charge. On the other side was the blended Turner family composed of five children, mostly female, save for one son. Betty and Dave Turner headed that group and would literally become our counselors and protectors over time. I saw instantly that we had come to a very good place where my children might enjoy the same kind of glorious childhood that was mine growing up in Overbrook. 

We settled in quickly and soon enough met other families like the Washburns whose youngest girl, Traci, was almost the same age as Catherine. Either our house or our yard always seemed to be filled with youngsters running and laughing. It felt downright idyllic. 

Once again time began to accelerate. My brother Michael graduated from Rice University and found himself recruited for some amazing jobs, but one stood out more than the other. When Boeing, a contractor for NASA, presented him with an opportunity to work with the space program he knew immediately where his future must be. While working there he met Becky, also an engineer and their love bloomed quickly. Soon it was apparent that I would finally have a sister as they planned their wedding. 

Pat had graduated from high school in the meantime and announced that he wanted to enter the Houston Fire Academy to train to be a firefighter. Mama worried that he was too young to make such a decision, so she asked him to earn a college degree first. He agreed and headed to the University of Houston. 

Maryellen entered first grade with less than glowing comments from her kinder teacher. Her new teacher sensed that Maryellen was much brighter than she had seemed to be and kept advancing her to higher and higher reading groups while noting that the child appeared to have some difficulty hearing. A visit to the school nurse and and quick hearing test confirmed that Maryellen was indeed having auditory problems. After taking her to a specialist she underwent surgery and as we drove home from the hospital her eyes grew wide as she exclaimed, “What is all that noise?” Once again a first grade teacher had saved a child.  

There have been moments in my life that passed so quickly that I recall few details of them. Mostly those intervals have been free of tragedies or major challenges. Thus it was during the early nineteen seventies. The shocking deaths of my young cousin, Sandra, and my equally young Uncle Andrew had reminded me too much of the fragility of life. In a sense I went underground after they were gone, focused on my little family with every drop of my energy. 

Mike was doing well at the bank and our days were blessedly quiet and uneventful, a welcome change to the previous couple of years. The national news was filled with stories of Nixon’s reelection and hints of a strange break-in at the Watergate Hotel in Washington D. C. Mike and I had been among the decidedly small number of people who voted for George McGovern in 1972, when I was finally old enough to vote in a presidential race. I still have the campaign buttons from McGovern who ran one of the most disastrous campaigns of all time. His anti-war position, lack of charisma and fumbling mistakes led to his downfall even as Nixon and his minions worried about what the Democrats might be planning. The bungled attempted burglary at the Watergate would soon become one of the biggest political stories of the time. 

The trial of the Watergate burglars began in January of 1973. After many weeks of testimony there were still nagging questions about what had really happened and who had been responsible for the fiasco. In May of the same year Congressional hearings began with television coverage that became a nightly viewing routine for me and Mike. As fledgling voters and history buffs we became mesmerized by the members of the committee chaired by Sam Ervin, a Democrat, and assisted by ranking Republican, Howard Baker. The purpose of the gathering was to investigate “illegal, improper or unethical conduct” occurring during the 1972 presidential election. It was a real time thriller that stunned the two of us and the nation as well as key figures testified about dirty tricks that we had never before imagined. In many ways the hearings became a coming of age moment for the two of us. 

We had moved to a newer and more modern apartment around this time. I had grown weary of climbing stairs with Maryellen’s stroller and other gear. The new place was downstairs centered on a lovely courtyard away from the noise of busy streets. The rooms were larger and the amenities more conducive to family living. It would be in this place that I encountered women quite unlike any I had known before and I would learn so much from them. They were practical down to earth unpretentious souls who might best be described as the salt of the earth. 

We were all staying home with our small children so we shared our common role with gatherings each day while we watched our little ones ride their tricycles or run in the grassy area that stretched in front of our apartments. The women came from places like White Plains, New York and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania that had heretofore only been dots on a map to me. They had profound common sense and the kind of homegrown knowledge that had belonged to my grandmother Minnie Bell. I spent most of the time just listening to them, learning from them, becoming a better person because of them. It was a glorious time of growth for me and best of all everyone in my family was finally doing well. The lull in tragedies or challenges helped me to focus on becoming a more fully defined woman.

I had always felt awkward and unsure of myself but this band of women taught me how to hold my head high. They showed me how to be confident in just being me. Debbie and Rosie and Diane would only be in my life for a brief moment in time before they moved, but their impact on me would be forever. In fact, I vividly remember the very day when I looked in the mirror at my image and smiled because I liked the person that I saw in that reflection. Somehow I felt a certainty for the first time that I had a purpose that was important. I saw the direction of my life laid out before me and I was no longer making decisions based on how I thought others wanted me to be. It was a gloriously freeing time. 

Linda, my friend from high school and college, and I often got together with our children. She had a son named Scott who was a beautiful blonde headed boy with a sweet personality. He had Maryellen got along magnificently. I would learn much from Linda as well. Then there was Cappy who had married one of Mike’s good friends and my cousins in law, the two Susans. My calendar was filled with visits and outings. I even reunited with my childhood friend, Lynda, who also had a son who loved playing with Maryellen.

When spring came in 1973, I learned that I was once again pregnant. I looked forward to having another child with my new found confidence. I shared my joy with the ladies who lived near me and with my family and long time friends. Life was full for me and my family. Mama enjoyed her job at the University of Texas Health Science Center and had regained her confidence and optimism. Michael was doing well at Rice University and Pat was moving steadily through high school making dozens of friends with his characteristic charisma. The veil of sadness that had seemed to cover me for so long was suddenly lifted and I reveled in the feelings of joy. When I turned twenty five that year I was finally myself, a woman unafraid to speak my mind and follow my own dreams. 

I had already experienced many life changing events when my beautiful daughter, Maryellen, was born. None of them felt equal to the impact of being a mother. I suddenly viewed the world and my future from a totally different perspective. I had felt responsible for my brothers after our father died. When my mother became ill I instinctively believed that I must be responsible for her care. I was devoted to Mike and dreamed of graduating and beginning a career. All of those things paled next the wonder of raising a child. It felt as though I had been given one of the greatest blessings ever granted to a woman and I wanted more that anything to be as awesome a mother as my own Mama had always been. 

I had fallen totally in love with my little girl. I was exhausted from lack of sleep as I adjusted to  to Maryellens’s schedule. Some nights I was barely able to drag myself from the bed when I heard her tiny cries. Once I was awake and snuggling with her in my arms I learned to love those nighttime moments when it felt as though we were the only two people on the earth. She was a cuddly and pleasant baby who did not seem to mind the inexperienced mistakes that I made as a new mother. The two of us stumbled along together as she more and more became the focus of both me and Mike. Her future was now more important to us than our own. 

Mike continued with his studies at college but I had decided to suspend my education for a time. I needed to learn how to care for a child and I was still checking on my mother as often as possible to be certain that she was well. Maryellen and I met many of our neighbors in the small apartment project where we lived whenever I took her out on the lawn to enjoy some fresh air and sunshine. I walked around the neighborhood pushing her in her stroller. The older people who lived there always smiled and waved as we passed them on our daily journey. Life was slow and happy, mostly without incident which felt good given the challenges of the recent past. 

Mike had grown close to two of his fellow teaching assistants, Egon and Marita. Egon was a brilliant student from Germany who almost instantly became like a brother to Mike. Marita was from Chicago and a graduate of St. Thomas University. The three of them were a trio in the Sociology Department of the University of Houston. Over time they would also come to visit with me and Maryellen. They were both taken by our beautiful daughter and it soon became apparent that they were taken by each other as well.

Christmas Eve at Grandma Ulrich’s house was quite special as Mike and I showed off our five month old daughter. She was the center of attention as my aunts and uncles and cousins played with her. The family was growing. Alan and Susan had a two year old daughter named Carla. My cousin Jack had married a Susan of his own and the two of them brought their one year old daughter, Shelley, to the festivities. My cousin, Sandra, who was sixteen like my brother, Pat, had bloomed into a beautiful and poised young woman. I found myself thinking of how proud her father, my Uncle Bob, would have been of her. Obviously Aunt Claudia beamed as everyone marveled at Sandra’s loveliness. The party was a magnificent celebration of the  incredible family that had supported me and my brothers and my mother in the dozen years since my father had died.  

As nineteen seventy one dawned Mike was beginning to question his plan to become a college professor. He did not enjoy the interchange of teaching like I did. Furthermore, he was eager to be a provider for his growing family. An opportunity to work at one of Houston’s largest downtown banks part time convinced him that it was time to get more serious about life. When his boss offered him a full time position, he jumped at the change and suddenly his destiny changed. 

Ironically his buddies Egon and Marita had come to similar conclusions about how to spend the rest of their lives. They had fallen in love and were ready to settle down more permanently, so they too found work and abandoned the idea of being professors of Sociology. Instead they began to speak of marriage and the possibilities of having a family of their own. No doubt each of us was anxious to settle down as the fate of the nation continued to feel so chaotic with the War in Vietnam seeming to be unending and protests against the conflict becoming more and more dangerous with students being killed at Kent State University. The outside world felt unhinged and it seemed important to find happiness and stability wherever possible. 

Mike’s salary was good enough to allow us to move to an apartment with two bedrooms instead of only one. It would be nice to give Maryellen room to play while we had our privacy again. With the help of my brothers we simply carted our belongings across the parking lot and enjoyed arranging them in our larger space. Somehow this little move made us feel as though we were making progress as adults. I celebrated my twenty first birthday and felt as though I had officially crossed into adulthood even though I had already had so many adult experiences. 

Shockingly tragedy struck our family once again when we learned that Sandra had died. She had appeared to be in the peak of health when she was suddenly stricken while at school. Doctors found that she had an aneurysm that had been probably been in her brain from the time of her birth. After a brief stay in the hospital she succumbed to her condition. We were all devastated beyond any description that words might convey. She was only sixteen, two months younger than my brother, Pat. She was the daughter of my favorite uncle, my father’s best friend who had died so young. I grieved intensely for my Aunt Claudia because I now understand the intensity of love that a mother has for her child. It made me ever more protective of my own sweet Maryellen. 

When summer came we celebrated Maryellen’s first birthday with friends and family. As we all sang happily to the little girl who had brought so much joy into our lives I silently felt grateful that my mother was doing so well. It had been two years since her bout with mental illness and I had actually come to believe that she was indeed cured of her depression. She was enjoying her job and seeming more and more like herself. Mike was doing well at the bank and my brothers were advancing into their own adulthood. 

Just as I was lulled into believing that perhaps only blue skies were ahead my Uncle Andrew died. He was still a very young man in his forties when he suffered a massive heart attack on his way to set up a business selling historic coins. I worried that my mother would lose the momentum of her recovery from depression, but somehow she handled his death as well as anyone. She would often relate the moment when she told my Grandma Ulrich that her son was gone. Mama said that a single tear rolled down my grandmother’s cheek, an image that I have never forgotten. It was especially poignant to me now that I had a child of my own. Somehow I felt my grandmother’s pain and understood her just a bit more than I ever had. I was now firmly ensconced in the role of being a mother. 

I was shaken after my mother’s bout with mental illness. I hoped that we would all return to a kind of normalcy and we actually did for a time. I was still taking college courses and Mike was attempting to earn an advanced degree. My brother, Michael, entered his senior at Jesse Jones High School where he was proving his mettle in mathematics and science. Pat had entered high school as well. Meanwhile Mama was working as a substitute teacher while searching for a full time job. Each of us kept moving forward even as we had been quite affected by the events surrounding Mama’s bout with mental illness. Somehow our lives would never again be quite the same.

In November, shortly before I celebrated my twenty first birthday I learned that I was pregnant. The news brought great joy to all of us and gave us something wonderful to think about. In particular Mama seemed to be more elated than she had been for many months. Her uptick in mood eventually gave her the confidence to embark on a new job at the University of Texas Health Science Center where she would work on a long term blood pressure research project. She had begun to question her stamina for teaching and so it was good to see her moving in a new direction. Little did any of us know how important her new job would ultimately become for her mental health. 

Nineteen seventy would prove to be a good year for all of us even though the Vietnam War was not going well and protests broke out on college campuses all over the country. Because I was carrying a child I became less and less involved with the politics of college. Instead I hunkered down to become more and more serious about the direction I wanted my life to take. I was in a nesting mood, planning for the arrival of my first born child. 

In that year there were no ultrasounds being used to determine whether a woman was carrying a boy or a girl baby. The reveal would not take place until the day of birth, so most items purchased ahead of time were generic in nature, suitable for either boys or girls. Since we were in the dark, we also had to choose two potential names for the child which took some imagination and compromise before we finally decided how our little one would be addressed. If it was a girl we would name her Maryellen after our two mothers, Mary and Ellen. If it was a boy he would be known as Thomas. 

That spring Michael graduated from high school as the Valedictorian and announced that he had been accepted to Rice University on a full scholarship. He would study Electrical Engineering. We were so excited for him and intensely proud that he had done so well. He and Pat worked that summer at a roadside produce stand on Mykawa Road, carefully saving their money for the fund that they had been creating years before. Their plan was to pool their resources to purchase a used car that they might share. It was difficult to believe that they had grown up so much because I still thought of them as the two baby boys who came to live with us so long before. 

As my summer time due date approached I became enormous in size. Friends let me borrow maternity clothes which back then tended to be unfitted loose dresses that easily allowed room for my expanding girth. Generally one size fit all. By the end of June I was overdue and feeling miserable with feet so swollen that I was barely able to stuff my sausage like feet into a pair of shoes. I was also having difficulty walking due to a pain in my left hip that made each step send a stabbing shock up and down my leg. It was a very hot time to boot. Nonetheless I waited patiently for the baby to grace us with an entrance into the world.

The generosity of family and friends had filled our one bedroom apartment with diapers, clothing, blankets, a high chair, a stroller, a baby bed, a playpen, children’s books, and all sorts of toys and accoutrements associated with the care and feeding of a tiny person. I was anxious to welcome my little one into our world, but it would not be until mid July that my contractions would begin. Unfortunately my doctor was out of town vacationing so I would end up spending my hours in labor with a doctor that I had never before met. I was left mostly to myself in a darkened room wondering if the staff had forgotten me.

I spent the next eighteen hours having regular contractions that seemed to be going nowhere. I was literally beginning to wonder if I would ultimately be sent back home like the woman who had been moaning incessantly in the room next door. I was shocked when one of my nurses explained that the lady’s contractions had stopped and so she was no longer there. I worried that all of the pain I was feeling would end of being be for naught. I wished that the staff would at least let Mike come to visit with me, but their policy was to keep untrained folks at bay.

My entire family had gathered in a waiting room where they discussed the future of the child who was about to enter their lives. Pat proclaimed that if it was a boy he would take the youngster fishing. If it was a girl he would escort her to her first dance. Everyone was overjoyed and full of anticipation. I was becoming more and more certain that the baby was somehow stuck inside. I actually began to drift off and on into sleep. 

Finally in the early morning hours of July 18, 1970, the doctor and nurses wheeled me to the delivery room where a beautiful nine pound two and a half ounce little girl made her grand entrance into our world. She was beautifully perfect and so large and well formed that everyone agreed that she was long overdo. I was ecstatic but exhausted so the doctor gave me something to sleep and after briefly sharing my joy with Mike I fell into a deep slumber that was only interrupted at feeding time. Maryellen Burnett would change us all for the better from those first moments of her life. It was a beautiful new beginning. 

My first efforts to quell the ravages of my mother’s mind were fraught with misunderstandings, mistakes, a total lack of knowledge about mental illness. We hide such things in darkened rooms. Few people wish to even hear about psychosis, paranoia, deep depression much less openly discuss such diseases emanating from the brain. We have all too often shamed and spurned those whose minds break down. Finding help for loved ones suffering from such illnesses is all too often a far too difficult task. Loneliness is the partner of mental illness. 

In the summer of 1969, I found myself facing one of the greatest challenges of my life when my mother drifted into a fog of depression so severe that she was rendered incapable of even discerning reality from paranoid contortions of her mind. I was up to that point a rather naive and unsophisticated soul. I had never before encountered anyone with a mental illness. I knew little or nothing about what to do for someone so deeply melancholy as my mother now was. 

When I contacted my aunts and uncles for advice I soon realized that they were as baffled as I was. They were reluctant to do more than come to visit her and then shake their heads in confusion when I asked what we might do together to help her become well again. Their comments urging her to pull herself together were as fruitless as the medication that Dr. Jorns had previously prescribed for her. The food that they brought to her ended up in the trash because of her fears that it was poisoned. She was in deep pain from her very legitimate illness and I soon realized that I would have to be the person to find a treatment for her. 

I called Dr. Jorns again and when I described her worsening symptoms he agreed that she needed more expert help than he would be able to provide. He gave me the names of two trusted psychiatrists and suggested that I contact one of them, noting that I would not go wrong with either one. I randomly called the first one on the list without any real knowledge of his education or reputation. I had to simply trust that Dr. Jorns was not misleading me. 

The doctor had a clinic with his father and brother in the Memorial Baptist Hospital that used to be in downtown Houston. When I described Mama’s behavior to him he urged me to bring her to the emergency room of the hospital and get her admitted. He would treat her from there. 

While he made the task sound simple I already knew that it would take some slight of hand to get my mother to agree to such a plan. I enlisted her long time friend, Mrs. Barry, to help me. Together the two of us convinced Mama that she needed to see a doctor so that she might feel better. I explained that Dr. Jorns had suggested that she see a specialist at Memorial Baptist Hospital and that he might want her to rest in the hospital for a time. While she initially quashed the idea, I was determined to get her there one way or another, so I talked her into submission. 

The following day Mrs. Barry drove me and Mama to the hospital. The doctor with whom I had spoken had already alerted the admissions department that Mama would be coming. They were ready with the paperwork that had to be completed. That created the first dustup as Mama became suspicious of all of the personal information they wanted from her. Ultimately I had to finish all of the documents and when my mother refused to sign any of them I was the one who placed my name on each page. 

The whole process was exhausting to both me and my mother. Mama began to feel so weak that she protested very little when a nurse took her to a room in a wheelchair. She was greatly confused by then and I suspect she was feeling betrayed by me and Mrs. Barry as well. Nonetheless she had very little fight left in her when the nurse gave her some medication to calm her down. She was soon sleeping deeply for the first time in many days. 

I learned to drive on the freeway to downtown in the weeks that followed. I visited my mother daily and saw progress even as I sensed that somehow my relationship with her was now strained. I knew that she loved me and hoped that she realized that everything I had done was also out of love, but she was never able to admit that she did indeed have a mental illness. It would be a bone of contention for the rest of her life. Sadly at the time neither of us understood that her illness was chronic. I hoped that it was a once in a lifetime event precipitated by the traumas that she had endured and triggered by the stress and disappointments of the teaching position that had overwhelmed her along with the difficult relationship she had with her mentally abusive man friend. 

When Mama finally came home she was better, but shaken by the experience. She insisted that her doctor had assured her that she was cured and would never again endure such an horrific experience. Her next goal was to find another job. Mine was to return to the University of Houston to work toward my degree. It had been a difficult summer but I was optimistic that better times lay ahead for me and Mike and for my mother and brothers as well. 

Perhaps the best news was that my mother finally had the determination to end her relationship with the man who had in many ways contributed to her fears and melancholy. It was easier than she had thought, but what she never knew is that her brothers had visited with him when I told them how he had been treating her. They essentially suggested quite strongly that the man would have to deal with them if he continued to harass Mama. He got the message and the bravado he had used to manipulate her disappeared. I was relieved to know that we would never have to see him again nor hear his boasts about knowing powerful people who were willing to use violence to change the face of our nation. We all had a second chance to restart the next chapter of our lives without the yoke of negativity weighing us down. My optimism and determination returned. Better yet I now had proof that I was capable of accepting adult responsibilities. It was time to get serious.