Love Found Love Lost: The Adventures of a Love Struck Girl

By Esther Jane Berman

This fun and helpful book is one's girl's autobiography. She grew with many of life's experiences meeting all kinds of people from all walks of life. Learn how to keep the love of friendship strong and well in spite of the odds. Learn how to experience nature and reap its benfits. Learn the nature of true love. The main reason we lose love is because it was not true love to begin with. Then there are people who come into our lives to give us temporary help. They serve a good pupose, but these relationships usually fade when the help is no longer needed.

Her first husband claimed to love her, but he did not show it. He was seldom home. The heroine shows how to get what you want when you want something so badly. She reaches her goals against all odds. Nothing stops her from getting an education. Her love for the French language came to her quite by chance. She seized the opportunity to learn French and fell in love with it.

The heroine's son also learned how to cope with life's problems. Like his mother, he beat the bullies without lifting a finger. He has the gift of gab. His mother has the gift of writing. He can talk to anyone anytime about anything. His mother will write down every happening. She is also his confindant and ally against a sometimes cruel world. He is an only child, but he is not spoiled. As you will see, he is quite an actor. You will laugh through the book. At times, you may cry, but not for long. The book is up beat with a little drama as lfe unfolds. So hold onto your seat for the ride of your life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Jan 10, 2013
• ISBN: 9781475962277

Esther Jane Berman

Esther Berman, currently a professor of England and French, has a Master's Degree in Language Education from Rutgers Universityh. She has previously published four other books: Photograph Cats, The Oh La! La! Cake Cook Book, Hot Birthday Cakes, The Exotic Dancer. She has one son. She lives with her husband Linus in Summit, New Jersey.

Book preview

LOVE FOUND

LOVE LOST

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The Adventures of a Love Struck Girl

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Book I

By Esther Jane Berman

iUniverse, Inc.

Bloomington

LOVE FOUND LOVE LOST

The Adventures of a Love Struck Girl

Copyright © 2013 by Esther Jane Berman.

Author Credits: Photograph CATS, THE OH LA! LA! CAKE COOK BOOK, THE EXOTIC DANCER, HOT BIRTHDAY CAKES,

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

iUniverse

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.iuniverse.com

1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people de

picted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4759-6226-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-6227-7 (ebk)

iUniverse rev. date: 1/07/2013

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1

My Family Does The Split

Chapter 2

Adventures Of Farm Life, English Style

Chapter 3

Living It Up At Sea

Chapter 4

Back In The Usa!

Chapter 5

On The Run

Chapter 6

Good-Bye Family Hello World!

Chapter 7

Discovering The Wild West 1967

Chapter 8

Back Home On The Range

Chapter 9

Hooray! Back To School 1967

Chapter 10

Rendezvous With Uncle John 1967

Chapter 11

Back To The Books 1967

Chapter 12

Can I Help You? 1969

Chapter 13

Big Happenings 1970

Chapter 14

Revisiting My Childhood With My Child 1970

Chapter 15

College! Here I Come!

Chapter 16

The Babies Are Coming

Chapter 17

Paris, France 1972 Je Viens! Volia!

Chapter 18

Off To The Jersey Coast 1972

Chapter 19

Free At Long Last 1974

Chapter 20

A New Life—A New Love

Chapter 21

Usa’s Bicentennial Year 1976

Chapter 22

A Career At Last! 1977

Chapter 23

Watch Out! Here Comes Blimpy!

Chapter 24

Our European Escapades 1978

Refrences

Bibliograpy

Esther Jane Sayar Berman is the author of:

• PHOTOGRAPHIC CATS—What goes around comes around

• (www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/913357 2009

• THE OH LA! LA! CAKE COOK BOOK(www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/406745 2010

• THE EXOTIC DANCER—Belly Dancing du jour

(www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/1473624) 2010

• HOT BIRTHDAY CAKES, www.Blurb.com, 2011

• FOR THE LOVE OF CATS AND DOGS, www. Blurb.com, 2011

• MAGICAL FLOWER GARDENS, www.Blurb.com, 2011

• www.Youtube.com Search: Dancing36girl 2011

• Sayar, Esther. Ensemble, Lettre, Rutgers University, Italian Club, 1975

• www.youtube.com (eberman cat) 2011

• Sayar, Esther J. A Working Mom’s Cry, Today’s Best Poems, World of Poetry Press, CA, 1980, p.106

• Sayar, Esther J. Grass Versus Gas, Great Poems of the Western World, World of Poetry Press, CA 1980, p.118

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I dedicate this book to my son Hakan Ken Sayar.

Raising him has helped the story to be so much more fun.

He lived with me for my young adulthood, and I really appreciated

his bubbling personality, his helpfulness, and the childhood

joys and challenges he gave me.

INTRODUCTION

Imagine being born an American in the USA and living your first seven years with your parents to suddenly see them split up. Soon after turning seven, mother transferred me, and my younger brother and sister to England for seven years to live with our grandparents. While in England, an American can feel like an outsider. Upon returning home after seven years, one can imagine feeling like an outsider in one’s own homeland. It is quite the opposite of what most people experience.

The contrast of America versus England is what I encountered. My younger brother and sister’s memory of the homeland had disappeared. Being the oldest, I experienced the full flavor of both cultures head on. For sure the language is the same except for a few odd words and expressions. It is the culture where the difference is striking. England for example has a rigid class structure that one does not violate without consequences. Living there, one can experience swimming upstream against the tide. As long as love prevailed, nothing else mattered. With love, one can gladly beat the tide back. Nothing but nothing could stand in the way of love. The love of friendship is steadfast. When friends can stand the test of time and insurmountable obstacles, then that is true love.

Love for the French language is also discovered in England, and it has sustained me ever since. My intense desire to get educated occurred in America where I developed a taste of it prior to it being snatched away.

This book covers the first thirty years of a person’s life caught between two cultures and their histories and being denied love and certain life values during 1948 to 1978.

To fnd love and to keep love, one must give love and all its positive ramifications. As soon as negativity sneaks in, one runs the risk of love found love lost. Negetivty is a net full of holes and cracks whereas positivity is a stronghold of bliss and happiness.

Basically, this is an autobiography of a love struck girl’s historic adventure of a topsy-turvy life of love found and love lost. Some of the names have been changed to protect the innocent.

To quote Pope Paul VI:

All life demands struggle. Those who have everything given to them become lazy, selfish, and insensitive to the real values of life. The very striving and hard work that we so constantly try to avoid is the major building block in the person we are.

Chapter 1

My Family Does The Split

At least four famous people share my birthday March 26, 1948.

Kyung-wha Chung, from Seoul, Korea who came to the USA to study music at Julliard and found herself in an uphill battle. However, she overcame the obstacles and reached beyond their high performance level. She became a famous violinist, played classical music in many different countries, and currently teaches at the Julliard School of Music.

Richard Tandy from Birmingham, England became a famous keyboard player although he plays many other instruments; and Steven Tyler from Yonkers, New York became a famous rock vocalist who was inducted into the Rock’ n Roll Hall of Fame not once but twice. Last but not least is Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez from Spain, who came to the USA and worked on creating comic books including Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and many other adventure stories. If these four famous artists and I were born on the same day, then something of them had to rub off on me.

The year of 1948 had many historical events. To name a few, politically speaking, the incumbent President Harry Truman ran a race against New York’s Governor, Republican Thomas Dewey whom a lot of people thought would win, but he lost to Truman who won overcomingly in spite of a three-way split in his own Democratic party . . . all in 1948.

McCarthyism has to be the most disturbing and detrimental occurrence in the late forties. It featured the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence, also known as the Second Red Scare. This era was originally coined to criticize the anti-communist pursuits of Republican U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin.¹ Thank goodness, as a baby, I knew nothing of this fearful anxiety. Yet in growing up, I saw others blamed for doing something they never did, which is a form of McCarthyism without the Communist element.

My father, an American soldier, found himself stationed in England during World War II.

He met my mother, an English lady of twenty one years of age. She loved her mother, but couldn’t stand her overbearing father to say the least. She couldn’t wait to get out of the house. When she met my father, she rushed to give him her address. After my dad returned home to the States, he sent my mother a causal letter wishing her well in England. She took that letter and ran with it. Within no time, she showed up at his door.

He invited her in for tea. He could not see dumping her in the street, so he invited her to stay. She came, she saw, she conquered. My existence is all thanks to a letter. Had my dad not written my mom, I might not be here to tell the story.

As the first born, my mother felt she needed help in caring for a newborn since she worked full time. My grandmother came from England to care for me during the first year of my life. Grandma Lillian Wright made herself at home in America. She baked pies and did most of the cooking and cleaning.

Elizabeth lived a couple of houses away with her father Joe, and brother Joe. They owned a gas station at the corner of the main road. Her father ran the station with his son. Elizabeth and her family were all from Hungry. They all spoke fluent Hungarian, but at the same time, they were Americans. My father’s parents came from Czechoslovakia.

Elizabeth’s father Joe started the gas station when he first came to America. His wife bore two children in America, Elizabeth and Joe. The children went to public school. By the time Elizabeth became a high school student, boys snubbed her. To them, she appeared old fashioned and unsociable. When she graduated high school, she worked in the gas station with her father and brother. Old classmates came to buy gas and saw Elizabeth’s family as owners of the gas station. Suddenly, they became interested in dating her. But she would have nothing to do with them since they had been so unkind to her in high school. She told them, You wouldn’t pay any attention to me in high school. And now you want to date me? Don’t waste your time.

In her thirties, Elizabeth found a nice Hungarian man by the name of Joe. Her mother had already passed. Elizabeth and Joe got married, but they had no children. Her husband Joe worked in a factory, so he worked at the gas station part time and lived in the family house with his wife and the other two Joes. They were known as the three Joes. My dad felt sad that my mom did not know anyone in the neighborhood. He had met Elizabeth at the gas station, and when she told him she practically lived next door to him, he asked if she would like to meet his wife. Elizabeth in her black framed glasses, straight short black hair and square face said yes with a smile.

Shortly before my birth, my mother wanted to call me Hester. Elizabeth did not care for that name. With Easter approaching, she thought of Esther, and asked my mom, "How does Esther sound? It looks like you’re going to have an Easter baby, so Esther sounds perfect."

Hmm. It’s a possibility. Let’s see Hester? Or Esther?

And if it’s a boy, what will you name him?

Thomas, after my father Thomas Archibald Wright.

Mommy happened to see a toddle pulling a dirty, messy looking toy cart with large lettering on the back displaying the name, HESTER.

Mommy decided right then and there to call her baby girl Esther, and Elizabeth felt relieved when my mother named her new-Good Friday-baby girl Esther instead of Hester.

Grandma also met Elizabeth. She and my Grandma Lillian enjoyed each other’s company. Mommy worked at the factory all day but Elizabeth found time to spend with grandma and me. For my one year old birthday cake, a big red candle stood on the cake grandma made. My first birthday blended happiness with sadness. Happy to be with my family at my birthday party and sad my grandmother who I loved and cherished headed home miles away from me. Before she left America for England, Elizabeth told her I’ll be seeing you again even if I have to go all the way across the Atlantic Ocean, we will meet again. And she kept her promise.

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Esther at one year old with her father, mother and grandmother

in Perth Amboy, New Jersey

At one year of age, I found myself situated with my parents and my English grandma. Although my daddy held onto me, I reached for my grandma.

My life began in Perth Amboy, New Jersey. My English mother and American father lived in town with his parents until they moved to their own house a few streets away in Perth Amboy. Eventually, they bought a house in Metuchen. My Brother Tommy’s birth came three years after me, and Penelope came two years after Tommy. When Mommy became impregnated with Tommy, she had TB, so she stayed in the hospital for an extended time. Daddy put me in a private home at the tender age of three.

The home had a grape veranda as wide as a roof over the garden in the front yard. Of course no children were allowed to pick and eat the grapes except on the sly. To get at the grapes, I had to stand on one of the picnic tables and reach up or get a bigger person to pick them for me. That forbidden fruit tasted so juicy sweet.

The family at the home had other children who were older, so they paid no attention to me. In the evening, The mother, a stout woman with a mean face always clad in a white dress with a white apron wrapped around her big body sent me to bed early while the other children sat together in the darkened room watching television.

Once or twice, I wandered quietly downstairs to the living room and saw the family with their eyes clued to the light of the television. I sat behind everyone and watched the black and white television show. That mother must have had eyes in the back of her head, because it didn’t take her long to turn around and see me sitting on the carpet. Then she said, What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in bed.

Oh?

She marched me off upstairs. Now you go sleep, you hear?

Yes.

It never failed. In the middle of the night, I had the urge to go to the bathroom. That’s when I dreamed of walking downstairs in the dark, entering the bathroom, sitting on the toilet seat and peeing with such force. I could have sworn I had peed in the toilet, but every morning, I awoke to a soaking wet bed.

As a baby of three years, I heard complaints, but didn’t get a scolding. Instead we suffered on Punishment Day. Once a week, we had to sit in the kitchen all day to repent our sins. At my young age, I knew nothing of repenting. Instead, I studied my arms. They were covered in brown spots. I had tried scrubbing them off, but they refused to leave me. I asked the mother, Why can’t I wash these away?

Because they’re moles and part of you.

But what if I don’t want them?

That’s like saying you do not want your head.

That’s stuck on me.

So are the moles. Now be quiet and repent your sins.

I sat pondering the profound question of why did I have to keep something that’s stuck on me if I didn’t want it? I thought there must be a way of wishing things away you don’t want. All day, I pondered that question until Punishment Day ended. During the day we ate our meals in silence.

With Tommy born and mommy recovered from TB, Daddy brought me back home. Mommy and daddy asked Elizabeth if she would like to be Tommy’s God mother and her husband Joe his God father. They accepted. I would have loved to have had Elizabeth for my God mother, but instead my God parents were my dad’s sister Mary and her husband George.

No longer the only child but rather a partner in parenting: When mommy cleaned the baby, I held the soap for her and got the towel handy. I couldn’t understand why Tommy had a long willy sticking out. It looked funny, especially when he ran around with no diaper on.

With Tommy two and I five, we sat near the Christmas tree, snuggled up on mommy’s lap as she sat in her arm chair. I looked up at the tree all lit up with sparkling electric candles high lighting the green and red Christmas balls. We began playing with her fingers. I said, When I grew up, I’m going to marry Daddy.

Then Tommy said, Me goin’ marry Mommy.

Mommy laughed and laughed and made us both very feel happy.

*

On the kitchen wall in our Metuchen home, my baby pictures hung on display. Periodically, I glanced up at them finding it hard to believe those pictures resembled me! As a baby, I had blond hair and brown eyes. My eye color remained the same, but my blond hair quickly turned brown. Tommy kept his blond hair although it darkened a bit. We don’t know where Tommy’s blond hair came from. Both our parents were dark haired. Jokingly, we used to call Tommy the milkman’s son.

Both my father’s sister Mary and her husband George were at my parents’ wedding. Both couples had their first born around the same time. My Cousin Loretta’s traits diametrically opposed mine. She became a devout Catholic, I remained a casual Presbyterian. She submitted to authority, I refused to submit. According to our paternal grandmother, she wore an angle’s crown and I stood cloaked like the devil in horns. Loretta’s mother Mary also had a son, but as a baby he drowned in the bath tub. This upset Mary so much she threw herself in front of a train. (Years later George married another woman, but they didn’t have children.) He raised Loretta with his mother-in-law’s help till his second wife took over.

*

My daddy taught me how to pray. In the evening, he knelt down in front of the bed with me. We looked up at the picture on the wall of Jesus Christ and prayed for mommy and Tommy.

My dad, on the other hand, did not have the luxury of raising me to adulthood. However, he did what he could in the short time we spent together.

My devout Catholic daddy clashed with his wife’s Church of England religion. However in America she settled for the Presbyterian Church which did not present so much of a clash except with daddy’s Catholic upbringing.

Mommy and daddy had a farm with baby chicks and pigs, and a big fish tank, a dog and me. Dad and I stood topless on a hot summer’s day. The dog looked more interested in a rabbit or a squirrel across the way.

One day after my daddy had taken a shower, he came out of the bathroom in shorts. That’s when I noticed a brown solid circle on his left knee. Hey Daddy, what’s that on your leg?

He bent down to his knee and me and said, That’s my birthmark.

Years later, I noticed that I too have the same birthmark on my knee. Like daddy, like me.

Mommy worked in a belt factory, and Daddy made cellophane tape at his job. Luckily for my parents, the McCarthy committees were back listing professionals as being sympathetic to the communist party. Professors and teachers, lawyers, and entertainers were accused and hundreds of them lost their jobs on hearsay. Apparently, factory workers were left alone.

Mommy tolerated hearing her babies cry, but my daddy couldn’t stand it. He wanted to put us all in a home, so he wouldn’t have to hear any crying. Furthermore, he worked but failed to stock up on food and other household needs. Daddy loved his mother. She had some kind of hold on him. My mommy would not go near her mother-in-law’s house. When they drove to the house to drop me off, she would take off, leaving me with my daddy and grandmother. Our strong, independent English mother came from Old England. Our strong willed, Slovak grandmother came from her old country of Czechoslovakia. (I used to tell people I am half English and half Check. Check that out.) And my meek mild dad got caught between the two tough women in his life, and his mother fared the stronger of the two.

Staying at my paternal grandparents’ house challenged me. Grandma claimed to be a devout Catholic. Our Grandmother Mary had married Grandpa Joseph, another Catholic from the old country. Grandma Mary ruled the roost whereas Grandpa Joseph sat back and kept quiet.

On Palm Sunday bamboo crosses were worshiped. I happened to drop one quite accidently on the floor. My grandmother screamed, Pick it up quick! I could not see why I should pick up a piece of bamboo in such an emergency. But she carried on, You have sinned! Pray for forgiveness. I picked up the bamboo cross and threw it across the room. That infuriated her. At five years of age, I could not understand the big fuss over a bit of bamboo. Even Loretta cried. Why the Hell is she crying? I wondered.

If our American/Slovak grandmother had been a kind person and not so wicked, I may not have been so obstinate. When she saw a stray cat in her backyard, she took a pot of hot boiling water and threw it on the cat. The poor thing would shake its wet fur wondering what had happened. What my grandmother said meant nothing compared to her actions that spoke louder than her words. She claimed to be a religious person. If that’s how a religious person acts, then, count me out, I thought.

Mommy, on the other hand, did not play the religious card; yet she acted equally as bizarre. When mommy took Tommy and me with her to visit some people, we were left outside to play in the back of the house. We found pieces of charcoal on the ground that made nice black marks on the concrete wall of the lower part of the house. We kept ourselves amused with a form of graffiti. Tommy drew a small circle and put dark circles in the center. I got ambitious and drew a gigantic circle, all around the wall. When the adults saw our artwork, they were horrified. Mommy acted angrier than the homeowners. Look what you’ve done! You can’t go messing other people’s property. She grabbed Tommy and spanked him on the butt in front of the people. You’ve got to learn respect for other people’s property.

I stood waiting for my beating, but Tommy got all the attention. No one cared about my grand artwork. And to think I’d done the biggest damage. Somehow McCarthyism lingered in the air at the time, and entered mommy’s conscience as she blamed Tommy for something he didn’t do while I, the real culprit, got away scot free. Gee Whiz!

Back at the house, I did my chores during the week. Tommy only had to wipe down the bathroom which he did quickly. As soon as he’d done his work, he went outside to play. Meanwhile, I kept working on my chores. By late afternoon Tommy came back in the house looking like a Red Indian with so much sun burn. When I finally finished all my chores on Sunday afternoons, I played in the back yard where I made mud pies for my dolls. In the hot sun, they dried quickly. Tommy and I found it fun to be with dad and catch butterflies. We walked up behind one perched on a flower, and picked it up as easily as taking candy from a baby. Then we put them under a bowl. There were so many butterflies. We could not catch them all.

Come Monday morning I went back to school. Usually I caught the school bus on time. But one day, mommy told me, You go for the bus when the big handle reaches twelve and the little handle is on number eight. I got busy playing, so when I looked up at the clock, the big handle pointed nowhere near the number twelve, so I ignored it. Mommy came out of the bedroom and asked me, "What are you doing here?

I’m waiting for the big hand to reach the twelve.

But it’s well past that. You’re late. Now go!

I left and so had the bus. I decided to stand at the bus stop until I saw the children coming home from school. I stood there in the windy sunshine, absolutely refusing to come back home. After standing there for an hour or more, I saw a neighbor come outside of her house. She asked me: What are you doing out here?

‘I’m waiting for the school bus."

But the bus left hours ago.

Oh really?

‘Let me take you to school." She drove me to school in time for lunch.

In the basement lunchroom, we girls sat in one corner of the room. The girls around me refused to eat the brown crusts of their white sandwich bread. I told them, Give ’em to me. I loved crusts. They piled their bread crusts onto my plate. Yum!

Mommy usually picked me up from school. Often I had to wait for her outside while sitting on a concrete ledge. The hot afternoon sun beat down on me so much that my jacket felt like a furnace even with it resting on my forearms. When mommy finally came, she pulled up in her car and called out, Esther!

Instead of mommy, daddy came to pick me up one afternoon. I happened to look up and saw my daddy looking down from the window up above at me in the basement of my class. Miss Evan hadn’t dismissed us, but when I saw my daddy, I could not contain myself. I picked my things up and started heading for the door. In a stern voice, Miss Evan told me to sit down because she hadn’t finished with us. I had never been that excited to see my mommy. And there daddy waited for me! I did not hear a word the teacher said after she snapped at me. My mind focused on getting to my daddy.

Daddy taught me how to ride a bicycle. He held me until I got a firm grasp. The red bike seemed so big for little ol’ me. Training wheels were unheard of. However, soon I rode that bike up and down the driveway like a pro, thanks to my dad.

I would have loved to have ridden my bike on Trick or Treat night, however in baggy costumes, it would have been difficult. Mommy sewed a black cat costume for Tommy. She made me a clown from an old sheet that she sewed colorful patches on it for my clown outfit. I must have looked like a real clown walking from house to house. Of course, Tommy forgot to meow. Yet, I did laugh a lot.

After making me into a clown, she sent me to ballet school. I did the bar exercises, but mommy let me dance in socks instead of ballet shoes. All the other children in the class were shod with nice pink ballet shoes.

I never got any ballet shoes, but when mommy and I went shopping in a department store, she bought me a skirt. Mommy held up two skirts. Which one do you like? she asked. This one with big red roses against the white, or this longer black one with orange roses. I pointed to the red rose skirt. I want that one."

Mommy liked the black skirt with orange roses, but she could not sway my decision. After all, I had to wear it.

Occasionally, we went to the fair in town. Those big pink puffs of cotton candy grabbed my attention. When I put my tongue on it, the pink fluff melted into nothingness. The dancing twirl sticks also fascinated me. I imagined twirling one of them around my fingers, but as a child, I never got the chance.

At the movies, I loved The One Hundred and One Dalmatians. Snow White and Betty Boop were also lovely. Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck were my favorites.

In the 50’s, kids loved watching Mickey Mouse on television. Daddy bought me a black Mickey Mouse cap with ears, plus some Mars bars and other candy. I kept the goodies on top of the refrigerator so Tommy could not get at them.

The next day, I came home from school and saw the top of the refrigerator had been ransacked. Apparently Tommy got on a chair and with a broom knocked down the goodies. In a furious rage I ran to mommy, Look what Tommy’s done! He’s taken all my candy from the refrigerator top.

That’s what happens when you don’t share. She gave me no support. For a week, I did not speak to Tommy.

Even though daddy impregnated mommy once more with their third child, she up and left my daddy for another man by the name of George.

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Esther at 6 with Tommy at 3 standing with step-dad George

in Keansburg, NJ

On a sunny day, mommy and George took Tommy and me to Keansburg Amusement Park in New Jersey where we rode bumper cars. They were so much fun-running cars into other cars without getting hurt.

Mommy looked upon George as her Prince Charming, but he turned into Count Dracula.

By the time Penelope came into the world, mommy had long left daddy. She didn’t even want him to see the baby. At Penelope’s baptism, she opened one eye, then closed it and opened the other eye. The adults couldn’t stop talking about that advent. Mommy invited George to come live in the house she and dad owned together. Dad’s home and his children suddenly became off limits to him.

As young children, we viewed mommy playing house with a different man as normal. We also believed in Santa Claus. However when all the presents were laid out under the tree, I noticed the labels read: Merry Christmas from Mommy. Merry Christmas from Elizabeth, etc. I asked George, These are gifts from Santa Claus?

That’s right.

But why do I see other people’s names on them?

Santa Claus delivers them for your mother and other family members.

The Santa Claus business confused me at my tender age of six. All this time, I believed Santa Claus and his elves made the toys and presents in his workshop at the North Pole. Why do parents run their children through a window glass of illusion? I wondered in not so many words.

A counter top with a big open space above it separated the big kitchen and the huge living room. On that counter top stood the dolls mommy had made for Christmas. Hard plastic dominated the top part of the doll, but for the skirts, mommy had created them with different colors of mesh and sewed sequences on to enhance the lavender, yellow and white mesh skirts. As I admired them, I noticed George looking at them too.

Among the many toys around me, I enjoyed the Jack-in-the-Box the most. I’d wind up the box and out popped Jack the clown. The spinning top took some work to get it to spin. I had to keep it straight and bear down on it get it going. The dolls were my babies who never wet their pants, or cried to make me sigh. They simply looked beautiful and charming all the time.

With mommy home, I didn’t play games. She got me scrubbing clothes clean on a scrub board. When the clothes became clean and rinsed out in the sink, mommy helped me spread them out on the back lawn to dry in the sun. I also did the dishes and other chores around the house on my own. In a sense, cleaning house and doing laundry became games I played at keeping house.

When we had birthday parties, mommy made Tommy a pink cake with blue icing. She knew pink’s a girl’s color, so she justified it by saying, Tommy was such a cute baby. On my chocolate birthday cake, Happy Birthday Esther ran across the cake in white icing. Thanks to me, my dad played his part in the birthday preparations. If my daddy had a back bone, he would have walked into his house and told George to get out. Instead he granted his wife’s wishes to not set foot in the house again. So he came to my bedroom window and handed me all the party things, such as hats, balloons, and pretty paper napkins. I kept all those hidden in my bedroom closet. I loved seeing my dad. We chatted a bit before he left. At birthday party time I brought out the party equipment. Mommy enjoyed herself and company so much that she hadn’t noticed the party paraphernalia. So I asked her,

Do you know who brought all these party things?

She shook her head.

Daddy did. ( Of course, George did not attend the party. )

Mommy smiled and said, Oh? O.K. as if to save face in front of her company. Elizabeth sat at the party table. I did not know if she knew beforehand of my dad’s participation in the party preparations. After mommy left my dad for George, Elizabeth took care not to say anything about my dad in front of my mommy. She turned her attention to our big fish tank in the living room. Beryl, she said, Where did you get that fish tank from with those tropical fish?

They were on sale at the pet store. I’m glad you like them.

Mommy could afford a big fish tank with tropical fish, but she had no money to buy us beds. At bedtime, Tommy and I had to sleep on the bedroom floor. The baby slept in a baby cot. I slept close to the entrance, watching the light through the crack under the door.

One night, a loud noise woke me up. The next thing I knew, a policeman opened the bedroom door. I stood up at attention. My mother said, The children sleep here. He looked at me standing up watching him. He then closed the door and left. Curiosity overwhelmed me. When all quieted down, I snuck out of the bedroom and tiptoed into mommy’s room. My eyes bulged at the white sheets on the floor, covered in blood stains. What has George done to my mommy? I wondered with horror.

The next morning, George had vanished. I rode the bus to my first grade class. When I came home from school that afternoon, I saw mommy sitting at the kitchen table with George. I got real close to mommy and asked, "What’s he doing here? He’s been a bad boy."

He said he’s sorry.

Somehow that did not feel right. He had attacked my mommy, made her bleed, got arrested, and then she took him back because he said he’s sorry. I thought, how sickening!

Frankly, I didn’t know of mommy’s pregnancy with George’s baby. After giving birth to the new baby boy, they christened him Gary. She put me in charge of looking after him while she and the rest of the family went out. So at seven, I watched my new born brother. On her good days, mommy looked so happy that I took such good care of the baby; she asked, What can I buy for you? I’d been skipping around the house with an imaginary skipping rope, so I asked for a real one. She promptly bought me one. It felt good to be using an actual skipping rope for a change.

Taking care of the baby meant watching him. One day, he lay half naked on the bed. When he wanted to go pee, his little willy stood up straight and spouted like a fountain. Watching the baby sometimes proved interesting.

One day while all alone in the house with the baby, I got so hungry. Mother hadn’t left me any food, and I felt starved. I opened the refrigerator door and saw a big cake with butter cream icing. The second I put my finger on the icing, I heard a car driving down the driveway. I slammed the fridge door shut and ran to greet my family.

When mommy opened the refrigerator door and saw my finger imprint on the cake, she got hysterical. What have you done with my cake? You’ve ruined it.

I failed to see what I had done wrong. How could a simple fingerprint ruin a whole cake? That called for punishment. For the next week or two, they confined me to the attic for total isolation. When Tommy put my food at the bottom of the attic stairs, he held his head down so as not to make eye contact with me. Hence, I experienced an introverted world.

One sunny Sunday, company came. I caught a glimpse of the young couple coming and going from the attic window. Frankly for an introvert like me, the attic suited me just fine. I had my own little world to explore. Lo and behold mommy had stored her goodies right there in the attic! I found lollipops to lick and writing pads and pens for scribbling. At night time, pitch darkness surrounded the room, so I entertained myself by rubbing my eyes. If I rubbed them hard and long enough, I would see small colorful stars. Otherwise, I would see yellow clouds. Hanging out in the attic seemed more like of a vacation than a punishment. At least I did not have to clean clothes on a scrub board and lay sheets out on the grass to dry, or do dishes after everyone had eaten. Nor did I have to babysit. In fact, the punishment lay on mommy to survive without her little helper. As for me, I enjoyed my vacation away from the family.

After everything returned to normal, George spent evenings with mommy and me. (Tommy and Penelope had an earlier bedtime than I.) George lay resting on a big arm chair, and mommy sat across from him on her arm chair. I sat cross-legged on the floor watching television. On the children’s show, the lady talked about a contest. She asked for children to write a letter saying how much they helped their parents around the house. I got busy writing about how I did all the laundry, all the dishes, and how I watched my baby brother. I also wrote about how I am responsible for keeping the whole house clean while my brother Tommy only had to clean out the bathroom. After I wrote it, I showed it to mommy. After she read it, she let George read it. He took it upon himself to rewrite my letter. I asked mommy, Did he write all what I did?

Mommy nodded with a smile on her face. The letter, I believe, got sent in, but I never heard about it again. So I figured I didn’t win or George had edited my letter a little too much. I firmly believed no child my age helped their parents more than I did.

For my seventh-year birthday, mommy bought me a huge beautiful doll in a bride’s gown. That doll accompanied me for seven years. She sat regally in a chair in the living room of my grandparents’ home.

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Esther at 7 with bride doll in Metuchen, NJ

We had a brown mutt of a dog. One day we were playing in the living room on the hard wood floor with the dog. Penelope aged about eighteen months old ran when she suddenly fell. She got up with her head in a bloody mess, and she cried so much. Both Tommy and I got scared. Mommy rushed into the room and screamed, Who did it! She couldn’t wait to beat the life out of us.

Tommy quickly said, The dog did it.

Suddenly calmness prevailed. We did not get beat, nor did the dog. The attention went to taking care of Penelope’s head.

Shortly after that incident, George took the dog and we three children out for a ride. When we got to a barren spot, he let the dog out and said, If you’re going to hurt children, you must go. Then he drove off. Sadly we watched the dog being left behind with nobody wanting him. We never blamed anything on another pet. The dog had been accused of something he didn’t do just as many professionals were being accused of supporting communism without any evidence. Just to be subpoenaed or falsely accused called for severe punishment. It seemed and still seems no one is entirely free of McCarthyism. Always someone or something is being blamed for something they didn’t do. It happens to animals, to children and adults alike. Sometimes all too often, people are too quick to jump to conclusions without digging deep into the situation or giving it any kind of analysis. When one says, life is not fair, they mean few if anyone are fairly judged. When Tommy said, The dog did it, our parents took it for face value without any question or curiosity as to how the dog did or didn’t do it. During the McCarthyism era, people were treated no better than dogs.

During that time though McCarthyism began losing ground. In March of 1954. CBS newscast and analyst, Edward R. Morrow (²,³) aired on his show See It Now, his attack on McCarthy by using footage of his speeches to portray him as dishonest, reckless and abusive toward witnesses and prominent Americans. In his concluding comment, Morrow said:

We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must remember always that accusation is not proof and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law. We will not walk in fear, one of another.

We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep into our history and our doctrines and remember that we are not descended from fearful men.

The United States Supreme Court began overturning cases one after another, hence undermining McCarthyism. Once the accusing committees starting getting sued and drained of funds, they ceased to exist. The end of the 50’s brought an end to McCarthyism. However, forms of it still exist today both officially and unofficially. Loyalty oaths are still required in California for all officials and employees of the government of the State. And at the federal level a few portions of the McCarthyism in the Internal Security Act are still in effect. It seems as though we have come from an Age of Anxiety known as McCarthyism to Terrorism targeting Muslims. Name calling or blaming someone is at best a fallacy. Most people from all four corners of the world are good. It just takes one or two radicals to make the whole group look bad. Contrary to popular belief, one bad apple does not make the whole barrel bad. However, it can make all the apples in that group look bad when in reality, they are really good.

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Mommy with Tommy at 4 in standing by our house in Metuchen, NJ

This photo depicts the outside our house in Metuchen, 1954. From the time Tommy could chew food, he’s been eating like nobody’s business. Yet throughout all his life, he remained slim, even though as a toddler he had a pouch. Granted the sun got in his eyes, but Tommy always had a hard time smiling for family photos. He typically kept a straight grim, poker face especially when being photographed. Mommy also kept a straight face. Like mother, like son.

Chapter 2

ADVENTURES OF FARM LIFE, ENGLISH STYLE

In March, 1955, I’d turned seven. The following month on April 5th, 1955, Sir Winston Churchill resigned as Prime Minister of England.⁴ "In World War II, Churchill got the British up in arms with his famous speech: We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.⁵

On April 6th, 1955 following Winston Churchill’s resignation, Anthony Eden became Prime Minister. And mommy began divorcing our dad. She feared losing us to our father since she already had a baby out of wed-lock with another man, hence making her look like an unfit mother. Therefore, she sought drastic means. She whisked us from America to live in England with her parents. Our English grandfather happily rejoiced to see his daughter again. Ever since she’d left England for an American soldier, he missed her. He drove us to a big sweet shop. Mommy went for the chocolates. As children we sought the more colorful candies at the other end of the store. Our grandfather stood a bit taller and heavier than mommy. He wore a white shirt with brown pants held up with black suspenders. He helped mommy pick out chocolate. He took his daughter to a sweet shop as though she were still his little girl.

Our grandfather drove us in his old black Daimler to their farm Laurenden in the countryside of Tenterden, Kent. There we met our English grandmother, a sweet woman with a nice smile. She wore a full length flowery apron over her green dress. We also met our mother’s brother, John, and his wife Audrey and their daughter Ann. We enjoyed meeting our English relatives,—our grandparents, and our uncle and aunt, and their eighteen month old, baby girl Ann. Uncle John, a tall, slender, joyful businessman with brown eyes and brown hair looked so happy to see his sister and her children. (Years later, we learned of in-law problems between our grandfather and our Aunty Audrey such a stunningly beautiful woman with short brown hair matching her big brown eyes.) At this time though, our grandfather focused all his intention on his daughter completely forgetting about his grudge against Audrey for the time being.

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Mommy with her niece Ann in Tenterden, Kent, England

Mommy posed for a photo while holding her niece, our English cousin Ann. The farm house stood in the rear while construction took place for the future prefab. In the far background, the English countryside completes the picture.

Mommy stayed the night. The next morning she left, saying she’ll come for us some day. In the meantime, she kept the letters coming, and sent us Christmas gifts. Uncle John and Audrey also had to get going to their home in Leicester. He worked for Sylvania Lighting. Although he held the title of a chartered engineer, mechanical and electrical, his job kept him in production and development with business trips to firms throughout England and America and sometimes Germany. He came to see us periodically with his daughter Ann until she reached school age. We saw a lot of Uncle John for as long as we children lived in England. If we had stayed in America, we probably would never have seen the other half of the family.

As an American transplant at the age of seven, I went to a primary school in the English countryside. My surname name, Stovega, seemed foreign and strange and different to those English children. Without trying I became the odd ball in many respects. I liked to make big letters in my handwriting while everyone else in the class wrote tiny letters. The teacher, a thin middle-aged woman with her graying brown hair pinned back in a bun made a point of telling the class to write bigger. Then she glanced my way and said, Not you, Esther. You can make your writing smaller.

My classmate Ann and I became friends fast. We met at the sweet shop. She bought sweets, while I waited in line. She looked at me and said, You’re in my class, aren’t you?

Yes.

As we walked out of the shop, chewing on Tootsie Rolls and Mary Jane sweets, we talked and chatted like old friends. Our sweet tooth couldn’t get enough sugar. Next to my thinness, Ann resembled a watermelon. We became known as, Fatty and Skinny. We used to sing a song, Fatty and Skinny went for a walk. The wind came and blew Skinny away.

In the mornings, after getting off the school bus, I made a bee line to the sweet shop. One morning I saw a young boy whose parents owned the shop. He had the privilege of helping himself to sweets without paying for them. What a lucky boy I thought. The dessert money from my lunch money became my sweet fund. I had to choose between dessert after lunch or sweets for the morning snack.

One day as we were walking to school, stuffing our faces with sweets, one of the other children in the street said, Look what I have. It looked like a pair of toy binoculars. Then she said, With these, I can see you with no clothes on. Then she giggled.

Let me look at that? I said.

No!

At first, I thought she really could see me naked, but when she wouldn’t let me see her bare, I doubted the truth in it. We left her in the street play acting as peeping Tom.

In the playground before class, the boys played marbles, and the girls ran around playing catch me if you can. Often, I ran so fast, I’d fall on my knees and land onto the concrete playground. My knees bled. Soon they were covered in scabs. I’d sit on the toilet bowel at home and pick away at my knee scabs. I picked away at them until I saw pink. I had to be careful not to pick a scab that would bleed because that just made another scab.

In English class, we learned nursery rhymes and read poems. One particular poem we read, entitled: Monday’s Child.

Monday’s child is fair of face, Tuesday’s child is full of grace, Wednesday’s child is full of woe, Thursday’s child has far to go,

Friday’s child is loving and giving,

Saturday’s child works hard for a living,

And the child that is born on the Sabbath day

Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.

Of course, at that time, the word gay portrayed a perfectly normal word for happy. Ironically as Friday’s child, according to the poem, I’m loving and a giving person. To boot, having been born on Good Friday makes it a double whammy. As a child, I lovingly helped my grandmother in the kitchen. I did all my chores without complaining. (And as I got older, I became more loving and giving to a fault.)

We also read the Bible. When I saw the Book of Esther in the Bible, I thought of all my deep dark secrets being exposed. It had me worried until I learned that the name Esther in the Bible belonged to someone else, not me. Whew!

Our teacher insisted on social rules such as red and pink do not go together, and you should not eat fish and milk together. When I told grandma, she said, I think red and pink go well together. And what do your classmates eat for dessert after a fish diner?

They to van and get ice cream on a stick.

Ice cream is made from milk.

So much for picky school rules. I did see one girl wear a pink shirt with a red jumper, and it did look nice. Personally, pink and white dominated my wardrobe.

A stricter rule concerned the discipline method. If any child acted out of line the girls would get hit with the slipper, and the boys got the cane. Just the thought of being hit kept us all well behaved.

In class, we read stories such as Little Red Riding Hood who had unknowingly told the wolf where her grandmother lived, so by the time she got to grandma’s house, the wolf was waiting for her disguised as her grandmother. Then Little Red Riding Hood questioned her grandmother about her big ears, big eyes and big mouth. Not until the wolf jumped out of bed did she realize she had been fooled by the wolf. Our teacher grew impatient with this story. She said, Why did the wolf go through so much trouble when he could have eaten her in the woods and be done with it? Then she answered her own question. I know it makes the story interesting, and children do learn a lesson which is?

Don’t talk to strangers, one boy said.

Very good, but there is one more lesson?

Don’t dawdle?

Not quite. We sat in suspense. Finally she told us, Listen to your parents! And as the Bible says, Honor thy father and mother." I wondered if that included grandparents. In grandpop’s eyes, we had no choice but to obey him.

After lunch, we girls hola-hooped on the playground. Those hoolas were made of bamboo wood, nailed into a big circle. One time I hoola-hooped so much that my stomach hurt. I threw that hoola hoop all the way down the other end of the playground. I just missed hitting the big chestnut tree in the playground.

During the months of September and October, the boys used the chestnuts to play Conkers. They made a hole with their pocket knives right through the chestnut for a string to go through. They knotted the string at the base. Then they played Conkers to see who could hit and smash the other boy’s chestnut on a string. Two boys, including my brother Tommy, battled it out each trying to conquer the other one’s conker.

Playing conkers existed in real life whereas Cinderella is a fairy tale seen on television and in fairy tale books. Cinderella portrays a simple girl highly mistreated by her step-sisters. She moves up in the world by becoming a princess. Her fairy god-mother does some magic with conditions. While dancing with the prince, Cinderella loses track of time. As the clock strikes midnight, she hurries home from the royal ball before midnight or her coach would turn into a pumpkin and her evening gown would turn to rags. Hence the expression, Leave before midnight or you’ll turn into a pumpkin came from Cinderella. It is truly a fairy tale that can dazzle a little’s girl’s heart.

Cinderella does not have to worry about diseases since they do not exit in fairy tales as they do in the real world. The school administrators and the health officials found TB or tuberculosis to be of major concern. Every child had to be tested by law. So we all got the shots to see if we were positive or negative when it came to TB. Tuberculosis is a bacterial infection of the lungs and sometimes other parts of the body, and it is spread by droplets in the coughs or sneezes of a person with the disease. In Britain, TB known as Consumption in the 19th century became a major cause of deaths in Britain at that time. The 1950’s were an era of mass disease campaign. During World War II and its aftermath, diseased rats had soared among weakened populations. Forms of tuberculosis known as the White Plague had reached epidemic proportions. In Poland, for example, the child death rate from TB had multiplied four times. UNICEF; (United Nations Children’s Fund) forged a major vaccination campaign on an international scale to immunize all infected European children.⁶ If the spot from the shot on our arm turned red, we positively had TB. However, if it faded away, it became negative and therefore insignificant. For some reason, I kept thinking of negative as something bad. So when I learned of positive being bad, it twisted my brain around. Tommy and I came up with negative TB results, so that showed good or negative. (Penelope skipped this test being too young for it.)

After we survived the TB shots, we could enjoy the spring bluebells and primroses that came out all through the woods around our sleeping hut. Gosh! They were so beautiful. Grandpop must have planted the bulbs before we arrived. Bluebells dominated the scene. Primroses were more delicate and not so plentiful but still very beautiful with their white petals and yellow stamens and pistils.

The colorful season of spring fell upon us. Every May 1st, we danced and pranced around the May pole in the playground. Strips of red, yellow, green, blue and white hung from the top of the high May pole. Each girl in my class held a strip. As we pranced around the May Pole crisscross fashion, the pole became covered in a braid of color. The strips got shorter, and our walk came to a full stop. Hence! May Day in England. In the country we had no May Flower Beauty Queen, just one big beautiful pole covered in colorful ribbons with pretty primary school girls standing around it.

One weekend in May our grandfather took us treasure hunting at the town dump to see what other people had thrown out. I picked up a delicate pink cup with a gold rim around the top. The handle had broken off but otherwise, the cup remained in good shape. Grandma used to say, One man’s garbage is another man’s treasure. I loved that pink cup. Daily, I drank my tea from it. One day, I said to grandma, This is such a pretty cup. If it only had a handle, it would be perfect.

Grandma reminded me, If it had a handle, you would not have it. She had a good point there. She also reminded me, "Your grandfather took you to the dump early, because the early bird gets the worm."

You mean by going early, we get the good things?

That’s what it has become to mean. It used to mean the early bird got the worm from the apples at the market. If I found a worm in an apple, she said, at first, it would be scary. But the more I looked at it, the more tantalizing it would become. Grandma