The Fall of My Beginning

By Carolyn Gill Davis

The series of memoirs recalled and compiled by Carolyn Gill Davis (Baird/Jackson) spans seventy years. And although much of her character was formed by the people, places, things, and images of childhood, other stumbling blocks also helped to fortify her beliefs

Her book, The Fall of My Beginning, falls naturally into three parts: While I Learned to Know, When I Thought I Knew, and Then I Learned I Didnt Know. This is not a prescribed autobiography. Instead her book incorporates her feelings, impressions, reactions at many varied times, in many varied places. Emotions are succinctly expressed as poetry and letters to her deceased mother, the guiding force in her life.

The poems range from the awesome wonder and compelling beauty she experienced, in her first formative years in Indiana, her bold and daring years in California, and finally back home again in Indiana.

The reader will find no one major tragedy, but a series that is familiar enough to provide reader identification, and empathy.

Well-preserved and cherished family photographs, a few blurred by age, have a mission to make the reader sense the family pride and loyalty.

In the end, she feels gratitude for her life, as varied and as up-and-down as could be. Even her mother, in Heaven, knows now that all is well. Ms Davis has her mothers letter as a testimony. How fitting a closing to a special book.
Carolyn Gill Davis (Baird/Jackson), Author

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 20, 2001
• ISBN: 9781462839841

Carolyn Gill Davis

Carolyn Suzanne Gill Davis (Baird/Jackson) was born in Indianapolis, Indiana and moved to California two years after she graduated from Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana. She received her Master of Arts Degree from Azusa Pacific University in Azusa, California. She retired after 38 years in the field of social work and education and moved back home. She is the mother of one daughter, grandmother of eight grandchildren and great grandmother of one great grandson. She is the author of The Fall of My Beginning and Bear a Life Seasoned with Sage. Carolyn enjoys traveling, needle work, photography, and a collection of stuffed animals. She is active in church and many organizations. Ms. Davis wrote: My stimulant to write is motivated by life. Life is a road of mountains, valleys, and level plains. Which are orchestrated by the great conductor GOD.

Book preview

Copyright © 2001 by Carolyn Gill Davis.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any

form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording,

or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing

from the copyright owner.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-7-XLIBRIS

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

Contents

PRIVACY

PREFACE

WHILE I LEARNED TO KNOW CHAPTER I 1930-1953

WHEN I THOUGHT I KNEW CHAPTER II 1954-1992

THEN I LEARNED I DIDN’T KNOW CHAPTER III 1992-1999

To God who gave me the gift.

Who is teaching me to ‘Let Go and Let God.’

I hope by the end of this book I will have learned

God’s lesson and begin not to fall.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Photograph on front cover-Photographer Carolyn Gill Davis

Photograph of author back cover-Photographer-Henrietta L. Dailey

To Mary Sue Best who saw the gift.

To Malaika Hakima, MD, my daughter who knew I had a

gift.

To Henrietta Dailey, my sister who encouraged me to use the gift.

PRIVACY

My life has crossed so many paths. Therefore I chose to use fictitious names to protect and maintain the privacy of individuals.

PREFACE

Over 20 years ago this writer sat down with a dream. My mother had passed that summer and I began writing with my first «Dear Mother Letter.»

A computer was not part of my household décor. Pen, pencil, and an old Royal portable typewriter were my household items. This typewriter had followed me since that important fall, when I began my first year of college.

During a convention I attended, one of my roommates said that I ought to write a book. We had been discussing happenings in our lives. Each story I told was so interesting that she came up with that suggestion. As I wrote, ideas fell out from nowhere. I had discussed book writing with a writer. She did not seem too impressed with my work. I became discouraged.

OASIS (Older Adult Service and Information System-a national, non-for-profit organization) offered a class in writing your memoirs. I enrolled and met the instructor who wiped away all the discouragement I had heard before.

I had also submitted a poem to the Instructor magazine. It was rejected. I was totally shocked when the instructor of the class told me I had a talent in writing.

She asked us at the beginning of the class what our goals were.

I told her I was looking for a ghostwriter to help me put together my writings. My purpose for writing was to leave a history to my daughter, eight grandchildren and my great grandson. I also had been working on the Family Tree Maker program on my computer. Then I purchased a video transfer. I planned to put together old color slides and pictures into a historical picture file.

As I advance in age and maturity, I have lessons I’ve learned and remembered. They must be passed on before they are forgotten. If I delay, I may develop a senior moment and never be able to recall these lessons and values, which have guided my life and transformed me into the person I am today.

I began by writing a series of short stories. My marriages and divorces have had a tremendous impact on my life and there are several references made to these subjects. These stories have been taken from my real life situations. They have been modified to add humor and to lighten the sadness. Please note that some of the stories are not in time sequence. This was done to emphasize the thought of the individual story.

Life for me has not been a crystal stair. There have been times I could have cried myself to death. I have prayed a lot. I asked God’s forgiveness and thanked God for saving my life. In return I write this book so that my descendants and other people can identify and know that they are not the only persons who have suffered deeply. Never give up hope. There is a God.

My stimulant to write is motivated by life.

Life is a road of mountains, valleys, and level plains.

Which are orchestrated by the great conductor GOD.

WHILE I LEARNED TO KNOW

CHAPTER I

1930-1953

Dear Mother and Happy Mother’s Day, May 13, 1980

Today is Mother’s Day. It is about 6:30 a. m. How are you? I hope you have settled in comfortably. It has been a year since we could say Hello. Youd be surprised at all the changes that have happened since you were here.

Changes have taken place in the world and in my life. As I think about the world changes, I realize how minute my life is, has been, and will be in the future. To me my life is a magnitude of the whole world spun and knitted into one. Everything that I can recall has been monumental. Do you know I can remember happenings as far back as age three or four? Do you remember?

September 23, 1930

The autumn leaves were beginning to turn the beautiful colors of fall. I called them the fire colors. Some were green, yellow, orange, red, and brown. All the possible colors a tree can offer. The wind was blowing a soft breeze, enough to blow a few leaves here and there. The temperature was comfortable. Fluffy white clouds painted an imaginative picture against the blue sky. All was well with the world.

This was the time of the arrival of Baby Number Three. The day was Tuesday. A lot of babies were born at home during this period of history. My older sister and brother were both born at home. In fact, the same doctor delivered all three of us. The doctor and my godmother were there to help. At least there were no problems of babies being mixed up. This has happened in later years in hospitals.

A feeling of excitement must have been in the air. There was the anticipation of a new member to join the family. I would turn out to be the last one in this household.

Come on. Let’s get this thing over, and let me out of here! I screamed as loud as I could. Of course, no one could hear me. They couldn’t even see me.

What is she crying for? It’s dark in here, and I am tired of looking at the same old stuff. I’m the one who should be crying, I yelled this time.

Out of the still of the night, came the cries of a mother giving birth, and followed by the cry of the newborn . . . ME.

"Good, they heard me, and now I can get out of here and get on with my life. Glad I didn’t fall out. I can tell it is the fall season and I know this is the fall of my beginning."

YOU

YOU woke me.

YOU gave me life.

YOU looked after me.

How could one not know YOU?

Do they not see YOU?

Do they not feel YOU?

Do they not hear YOU?

YOU—GOD.

Playmate, Here I Come

Whacha you ‘doin’? I asked.

Makin’ popovers to catch meddlers, answered Playmate.

I could always depend on Playmate to say something smart. She tried to act just like I did. She loved to play tricks on me. One day she wouldn’t come out and play. She said she had a stomachache. Then she decided it was a fingernail ache. So I just ignored her.

In less than two minutes there she was, laughing and talking to me. She didn’t want to be ignored or play alone. I was her only friend. We could go anyplace, do anything, and say anything we wanted to. She had a funny whinny voice that would have irritated the average person. I loved her. I knew she loved me. We could never figure out how to give each other a hug. So we never did.

She had overheard my mother when she was in the kitchen cooking. I would hang around the kitchen watching my mother do stuff. She never told me what she was doing or was making.

What are you doing? I’d ask.

Making popovers to catch meddlers, she always answered. Later on in my growing up period, I learned to cook. I was never shown how; I just knew. I guess the popovers taught me how.

For many years we were closer than two peas in a pod. She was never jealous of the dolls I got for Christmas; they never lasted too long. Sometimes I think she broke them. Then I’d get a spanking and she would just look and laugh.

One chilly day, a little too cool to play outside, we were sitting in my rocking chair playing with my big sister’s doll.

You’re going to have to move in another room. I’ve got to mop the floor. Pick up your stuff, said my mother.

I’m moving as fast as I can go, I smarted back. I got up from the rocker.

Playmate, you bring the doll. I’ll bring the rocking chair, I ordered.

Crash, bang!!

What was that noise? I asked Playmate.

You just broke your sister’s doll, Playmate said.

Well, needless to say, there was Playmate laughing again. I had another one of those spanking.

You are always getting into trouble. Anybody with good sense would have moved the doll first. You just get on my last nerve. Now your sister doesn’t have a doll. Your grandmother gave her that doll, and it can never be replaced. Your grandmother cannot go to the store where she bought it. She doesn’t live in that city anymore. You should be ashamed of yourself, Mother cried, very loudly.

All I could do was cry. The spanking I got, I had to cry loudly or suffer a long spanking. I soon learned to cry loud so the neighbors would hear. Then mother would stop. Playmate had gotten me into trouble. She did not do what I had told her to do. Most of the time Playmate was kind to me. When I got the spanking, she would stop laughing and sit close to me. I think she felt sorry for me afterwards.

I was usually the first one to go to bed, when I was little. Playmate would always go to bed at the same time I did. We could see rainbows of lights floating around in the ceiling of the bedroom. We know no one else could see these but us. We made up stories about the red, blue, green, and other color lights.

There was a time when old dumb Playmate didn’t know one color from the other. I had to teach her. I remember she couldn’t even tie her shoes. She would make me ask my brother to tie the shoes. He never knew he was tying her shoes. He was kind of dumb too. He always thought he was tying my shoes. We kept this a secret and never told him.

One day Playmate wet her panties, and told everyone that I had wet my pants. Needless to say, I got the spanking. I didn’t let her get by with that story again. There were no more wet panties.

We two had many days of fun time. But, as I grew older, I learned things change. The sands of time move on. Once sands are moved; they are never the same again. Playmate soon became less and less a part of my life. I don’t remember when she left altogether. Playmate would come back a few times for short visits in years to come.

Then she left forever. I didn’t even miss her.

Miss Willie and the Broom

As a young child about four years old, I felt overlooked, ignored, and unwanted. I compensated by teasing, making fun of others, and trying to be the funny clown. Seeking attention the only way I thought I knew. I don’t remember many hugs and kisses. I remember being a hindrance and annoyance to the family. Playmate was tired and didn’t want to play with me. Everyone else had something to do except me, and I wanted to help too. I remember taking a broom from my grandmother.

It always seemed to be warm or close to hot weather in Indiana in the summer time. The sun was warm on my face. This was just another hot summer day in the Midwestern part of the country.

Living in this small house, I can remember sitting in my high chair in the kitchen. I could hear the train as it passed near our house. This was a place not talked about, as I grew older. A funny little building was in the back, but I was never allowed to go into it. I was made to use another facility called a slop jar. This was strange to a little four-year-old.

I ran behind and with my brother a lot in those days. We were buddy buddies. The day the bee stung my brother, I beat him running home to get help. There were many marble games he played and I was right there with him. Sometimes the boys would get into fights over the marbles. While they were fighting, I would take all the marbles and run home. My brother always had more marbles than he had when he left to begin playing.

The time of day was mid-morning. It was just before our time for lunch. There was a hustle and bustle about the house and yard. We had a neighbor named Mrs. Williams, but I called her Miss Willie. She was fat, short, and waddled when she walked. She walked slowly too.

This particular day was a day to clean house. Everyone had a job to do except me. My grandmother was sweeping the floor. I wanted to help too. I tried to take the broom from her and she wouldn’t let go.

Can you imagine a four-year-old pulling a broom of an adult? My grandmother never seemed to like me. I don’t think she liked my father. She always called him ‘The Boss’ and it appeared to me she was afraid of him and would get out of his way. I never understood why; after all, I was only three or four years old at this time.

Of course, Mother saw me and came to make me stop. I knew this would be one of those spankings I seemed to always get.

Miss Willie—Miss Willie! I yelled running as fast as I could

g°.

Miss Willie, open the door and let me in! I called in my four-year-old voice.

There was Miss Willie walking slow with her fat self to her front door. Needless to say, my mother was fast on my heels and caught me. There was that spanking waiting to be administered. As you can imagine, the day seemed even hotter after the spanking I received. Here again I was not able to explain why I had tried to take the broom from my grandmother. All I wanted was to do something to help and feel a part of the household.

Let your children do things. It may be small and they may not do a good job. They will improve in time. Patience will pay in years to come, when they return the love needed for a wholesome family.

Gloom and Dreary

This was a cold, gray, and windy day. Our minister came to our house. He was tall, thin, and very quiet spoken. He seemed to be a person who was concerned about everyone. He usually visited his church members twice a year and his visits began with taking off his black boots, black coat, and black hat. Of course, this was only during the cold weather. This he did immediately. His visits usually consisted of a fifteen-minute stay. I remembered later when I was older; he was a very precise person.

I was only five years old, but I knew there was something strange because my mother was not at home. In fact, he had come earlier, and my mother left with him, thus leaving my brother who was five years older to look after me. No one bothered to tell little me a thing. But I was not worried or concerned. I had my paper dolls to play with.

He said to my brother, Get your sister dressed. I’m going to take you two where your mother is.

Oh, goody, I’ll get to ride in a car. Our family did not have an automobile at that time. My brother found a white fur snowsuit for me to wear. Now we were not totally poor, but we did not have the kind of money that would buy a fur snowsuit. No, this suit was given to my mother by one the people whose house she cleaned. It was so special that it was kept in a special place. My brother was very careful to get me ready. I was excited to be getting a ride in a car and wearing this fur suit.

Are you ready? asked the minister.

Yes, answered my brother.

We walked down the three steps to the sidewalk, where the car was parked. My big brother helped me inside. I felt like a cuddly white polar bear. This time I was quiet. The minister was driving the car, and I think I remembered he was one who was to be feared.

We arrived at our destination. I saw a large red brick building, which seemed to loom into my small view. It was awesome and scary. If the building wasn’t scary, I began to feel a feeling I had not known before. In the distance there were small rooms, with old, old people in them. They must have all been tired, because everyone was in a bed. I had never been to a place like this, and no one had ever told me about it.

There’s my sister and mother, and my grandmother is in bed. How did my sister get here? I asked. I had not seen my grandmother since last summer when she left our house. The leaving of our house is another story. I remember she loved to read, polish her fingernails, and comb her hair. Her hair was snow white. It was so long that she could sit on it. She used large hairpins to pin the long braid onto the back of her neck.

Just be quiet and look cute, replied my brother.

I was left to stand in the hallway. I was not really alone, because there were people in starchy white uniforms walking in and out of rooms. I could hear the crackling noise of their clothes. Some were carrying trays. I didn’t see anything that I could name on them. I just kept quiet and tried to look cute. Finally, my mother came out of the room. She looked very worried and upset. It couldn’t be my fault, because I was quiet and trying to look cute.

Go in the room. Your grandmother wants to talk to you, she spoke to my brother. He went in the room and seemed to stay a very long time.

When he came out, I asked, What did she say to you?

She just told me to be a good boy, he answered.

I returned to being quiet and looking cute. I knew any moment my name was going to be called to go into the room where grandmother lay in the bed. I waited and waited. But my name was never called.

After what seemed to me to be another day, we all got in the minister’s car and rode home. No one talked. No one said a word. Of course, I was still quiet and trying to look cute in my white fur snowsuit. Mother did not tell me she liked the way I looked. I don’t remember ever wearing that suit again.

I was left with an empty feeling of being ignored, abandoned, and not wanted. The feeling of invisibility was over me. Love, caring, and being important was far from me. Grown folks just didn’t know how children of all ages want to know they are significant and are loved.

Death Close to Home

I did not cry. No one had explained anything to me. All I could think of was that old grandmother, lying in bed, looking stupid, and not calling me into her room.

She never asked or called to see me. She never liked me and I don’t like her either, I said to myself. Playmate couldn’t tell me what I needed to know.

We didn’t have a telephone in those days. We were either too poor, or Daddy wouldn’t pay for a phone in our house. A neighbor came over and told my mother she had a phone call. When she came back, she sat in a chair and cried. I laughed and laughed in a hidden corner of the room. The only time I cried was when I had gotten a spanking. The neighbor must have spanked my mom, I thought. I had never seen her cry, and I didn’t know why she was crying. No one told me why.

I had learned to listen carefully to the house’s conversations. I finally figured out my mother’s mother had died. I was criticized because I did not call her Grandmother. Even after I was much older, I always called her ‘your mother.’ She never seemed like a grandmother to me.

I was five years old during this time. I was not permitted to attend the funeral or see her body. I was totally ignored and sent to stay with a neighbor the day of the funeral. She made fudge, and we looked out the window and ate fudge. The family finally came home. No one told me about her dying or about the funeral. Of course, my sister and brother were allowed to attend.

What did she tell you when we went to that place? I asked my brother for the second time.

To be a good boy, he replied. The same answer.

If that is all she said, it sure took a long time to say it that day. I think she must have told him, Don’t love your little sister. She’s bad. She’s mean. She’s like her father. At that time I did not know my father was not my sister’s or my brother’s father. I heard later from my sister that my grandmother never liked my father and thought he was very mean.

It never hurts to tell the truth even when you think someone is too young. As she grows older, the truth will be understood. Like me, the person will feel she was a part of a family unit. This is important in providing mental stability for anyone.

The Man in the White Clothes

People can appear very large to a small child. This is the way the man in the white clothes seemed to me. As I rode my tricycle up and down my street, I would see many interesting people. Some were tall, short, fat, skinny, dark, light, old, and middle-aged. Of course, every one was old to a little girl of six.

I had no idea what this person thought, felt, or knew. He would sit in a chair in the front yard. He didn’t appear to be a mean person. He always smiled and said, Hello. I think he might have been ill because someone would bring him outside to sit in the sunlight an so he could breathe the fresh air.

The summer before, I was not allowed to ride my tricycle to the end of the block. Now I could go all the way. To my surprise, the man in the white clothes said, You seem to be a good little girl. I want you to have this. I got off my bike and walked over to him.

Oh, thank you. I’ll get my brother to take me to the drug store to get an ice cream cone.

I returned home as fast as I could.

Mother, I’ve got a nickel and I can buy an ice cream cone.

Who gave you that nickel?

The man in the white clothes.

Go wash your hands and the nickel. That man might have tuberculosis. Don’t you ever take things from people you don’t know! You should know better, she screamed at me.

I was afraid to ask her why I should not talk or take things from strangers. How would I know that? No one had ever told me not to take things from strangers. I certainly didn’t know what tuberculosis was. This terrified me, and I washed my hands and the nickel good.

As I washed, I thought of the poor man in the white clothes that people didn’t want to be around. Then I thought he must have been lonesome and maybe very afraid and unhappy. Giving me the nickel might have been the highlight of his day. How could a six-year-old help?

I did get to buy the ice cream cone. That was the last nickel I ever took from someone I didn’t know.

Reach the Top

I must tell you

Of an old old Dream.

The old Dream when at

Age of six or seven,

In the Dream, I crawled

On my knees

Up an incline smooth with rocks.

Beautiful house at the top.

Surrounded by colorful flowers,

And green shrubbery.

In the Dream I never reached the top.

A Dream I’ve n’er forgotten.

This Dream.

I have always wondered . . .

Was there a message to be read?

Fall a Bright Beginning

Christmas had passed and the first of the most exciting, happy times of my life was about to begin. This summer had been unusually hot. It was so hot we slept downstairs. My mother put two chairs together and made a bed for me. My brother and sister probably slept on the floor. My brother might have slept on the front porch. I doubt it because the mosquitoes were too bad.

I remember people saying the temperature was over 90 degrees. This lasted almost 19 days. During this time, the temperature soared to over 100 degrees for eight straight days. You know, there was no air-conditioning then. We were too poor to even have electric fans. Summer was almost over. Like that September day in 1930, the season was slowly turning to fall again

I had spent the whole summer wondering and asking questions about the things that happened at school. This was going to be my first year at that big brown brick building down the street from our house. We seemed to have moved a lot. This new house did not have a little building in the rear. Here you could walk upstairs and use the facility. Everyone got to go there. Even me.

Of course, we had lived in other houses since that first one that I could remember. This one was what was called a double. There were people who lived next door, but a wall separated us. I could hear what they said, if I put my ear next to the wall. That was a good no-no for me, if I ever got caught.

There was one sad episode that occurred during the summer after grandmother died. My grandmother had liked to read and had gone to the library often. I don’t remember going with her. It seems some woman befriended her, and my grandmother gave her a steamer trunk. This woman worked at the library that was housed in the school I would be attending. This was a huge person, tall, and big. It is surprising how big a grown person appears to a little child.

We walked to the library on this very hot day. I enjoyed the trip because I didn’t get to go to very many places. My mother tried to talk to her and ask her for the personal belonging left in it. I was with my mother, and wished I had been older.

I understand my mother gave you her trunk, and I would like to have the personal items. My children’s birth certificates, pictures, and other family things were in it, my mother pleaded.

No, you can’t have a damned thing. You mistreated your mother and she hated you. She had to call the police in order to move out. You’re not stupid, she yelled back.

I remember that day, the summer before this last one. The children had teased my brother and me.

You threw your grandmother out, they taunted us.

Let’s go into the house, my brother told me.

We were sitting on the curb and we ran into the house.

Needless to say, my mother did not get anything. She was not the fighter I have grown up to be. I wished she had gotten the things. It would have added to our family history. The walk back home seemed even hotter.

I knew I was going to like school. Everyone close to me had gone to school. My grandmother was a schoolteacher. Everyone would sit around and read books, but I didn’t know how to read. I would get a book and sit and turn pages. We never had little children’s books around the house. I couldn’t wait to be big enough to go to the library and bring home books.

I was disappointed my first day at school. I had to leave Playmate at home. We were given our first grade reader. I almost cried. I could not bring my reader home. The next day we were given crayons, and they had to stay at school too.

My first grade teacher was the most beautiful person I had ever seen. She wore bright colored clothes. Her hair was black and curly. I couldn’t believe I had been missing all this beauty all my life. Guess what? She liked me too. I was smart and learned to write, read, and do math with little effort on my part. She never had to fuss at me or spank me. I did all I could so she would like me and she showed it. She liked me so well, she invited my mother and me to visit her at