Mother and Child

When Carolyn was about four or five months old, Mother lived in San Angelo, and so did the Bentons, so I set out on the train in the spring of 1943 to go visit them. There were no Pullman cars available during the War.

The trains were full of servicemen, and when our train met a troop train, we were side-tracked for hours sometimes to allow the troop train to pass. I was all loaded down with a thermos filled with her formula, a diaper bag, our luggage, and goodness only knows what.

Carolyn couldn’t sleep, and so she cried and cried and cried. People who were trying to sleep gave me dirty looks and I didn’t blame them. Finally I took her out of the car, outside, between two cars, and she could see things flashing by. She finally went to sleep about the time we had to change trains in Brownwood, I think.

I was never so glad to arrive at a destination in my life. But we arrived safe and sound.

Mother moved to Pasadena ("B," at left) in the Houston area as soon as she could after I went to Galveston. She had taught in Sterling City ("A," at left) before that. Mother got her Master’s when she was teaching near the University of Houston after Carolyn was born.

I thought it was strange that she followed me about, but that was the pattern of her life. She didn’t think I could survive without her there. She found it hard to make a life for herself without me, I guess. I always felt that she thought I couldn’t survive unless she was there to tell me how!

There is so much emotion tied up in our relationship until yet, that I have trouble looking at the relationship objectively.

Mother was hospitalized a number of times over the years. I think some of those episodes were brought on by her taking drugs to help her lose weight. Speed, I guess it would be called now.
She was first hospitalized in Galveston, where Dr. Hamilton Ford took care of her. Then in Houston. Then in Dallas, where our friend Dr. Weisz cared for her.

She would never carry through with any sort of treatments or help from the psychiatrists after her hospitalization.

Her hostilities were toward the women closest to her. First her mother, my "Mama,” Aunt Lura, Aunt Eva, and then toward me.

I have a hard time writing about her problems. I guess I feel guilty that I was not able to help her more.

I don't think her illness went into the schoolroom with her, though. I think we rescued her each time before that happened.

Mother eventually moved from Pasadena to Roaring Springs ("C" above) up near Lubbock or Amarillo.