The Story of Jean: (1910 - 1990)

By Edwin Henry Masterson

This is a true, semibiographical story about a young woman who was raised by a very strict and abusive father in the Midwest. She led a very oppressed life growing up and then marrying a very abusive husband. The story begins in a hospital, where Jean has lost the will to live. A kindly priest, Father Warner, making his rounds of the hospital ward, encounters Jean, who then relates the story of her life to him. Jean, who now has children of her own, is very depressed that her own children may very well experience a similar fate as each generation seems to pass on to the next the oppression that they themselves experienced while growing up. Father Warner takes it upon himself to help Jean in whatever way possible to restore her willingness to live.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 8, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514481561

Edwin Henry Masterson

Edwin Henry Masterson was born the son of Irish immigrants and raised and educated at St. Mathias in Muscatine, Iowa. As a precocious young man of sixteen, he entered college as a seminary student Davenport, Iowa, studying to become a priest. But this was not to be. He soon left the seminary, was married, and raised a family of ten children. He owned and operated Harvest Gold Bakery in Davenport, Iowa, and became a member of the Davenport City Council as alderman-at-large for many terms. After selling his bakery, he joined Iowa State Corrections as a parole officer in Scott County, Iowa. During these years, he became acquainted with a young woman who related her story to him. This is a story, The Story of Jean, which he wrote in 1960 and was never able to have it published. He left the manuscript to me, his son, in the hopes I would someday have it published. I retyped the entire manuscript from his original and incorporated the various markings and changes into digital format for ease of publication. My father died in 1990.

Book preview

I

Sounds of joy and of anguish; Soft, padded feet, efficient hands, purposeful faces of nurses, nurses’ aides, nuns; The hospital halls echo to various sounds: the lusty wailing of the infants in the fourth floor nursery; the moaning of those in pain; the soft-spoken, plaintive query of the ninety-two-year-old maiden lady who, sitting with a dying nun, whispers, as though to God himself, Why can’t I die? There are hundreds of sounds, reflecting every facet of human existence -— demands for life, for health, for the sometimes merciful release of death; Doctors, laboratory technicians quietly direct their attention to those under their care; The clanking of pans and dishes, the impersonal voice on the intercom, Call for Father Warner.

Every human need, every human emotion, are reflected and echoed through these halls. A life begins here and a life ends here. Between these two extremes, what millions of personal dramas and tragedies are enacted daily as the familiar sounds roll in unending stream?

Father Maurice Warner stopped at the floor nurse’s desk and picked up the house phone. Father Warner speaking -- you have a call for me?

Yes, Father, there’s a woman here to see you. I told her you were making your rounds but she seemed -- well, she seemed quite agitated, very urgent -- she asked me to have you paged.

Did she say who she was, or what it was about?

No she didn’t, Father. I asked if any one else could help her but she wanted to talk to you personally.

Well, meditatively, after a glance at his watch, I have two more calls to make; I should be through in about twenty minutes. Ask her to wait -- in fact, have her wait in the office; never can tell -- it might be important.

As resident chaplain of the hospital for seventeen of his twenty two years as a priest, he had been so intimately concerned with every phase of the spiritual life of its people that he had developed a deep and tender respect for all suffering. Mild-mannered, with an understanding smile, his magnetism was such that everyone instinctively liked and completely trusted him. People, within a short time after meeting him, would come to have the feeling they had known him all their lives, and in the resulting ease of conversation there developed a rapport, as though soul were speaking directly to soul.

It would, indeed, be difficult to pinpoint any one thing about Father Maurice Warner that would explain the secret of such charm; it was more an over-all aspect. He was tall, reasonably handsome, with dark, thinning hair which accentuated a high forehead. In his own brand of twinkling humor he would often jocosely refer to the fact that he had to get up ten minutes earlier in the morning, just to have time to wash my long forehead which barely runs out before it meets the back of my neck.

His eyes, those windows of the soul, unclouded, uncurtained and completely guileless, were his most disarming asset; they sparkled and smiled constantly. Raptly attentive as others talked, marked by a sincere empathy with their problems, it mattered nothing to him if the problem be physical, mental, moral or emotional. With equal facility, his tender attitude eased all burdens.

Only the Catholic patients, of course, made formal confessions to him. But, with little reserve, any and all felt the urge to tell him little secrets of their lives through which he was, many times, able to open up further new avenues of hope and peace. Without exception, those who confided in him did so with no feeling of duress nor fear of revelation; with no feeling that he pried into their private lives, nor under any compulsion to reveal more than they wished. But, strangely to most, a cautious approach to such confession usually opened the floodgates of conscience. They would find themselves freely unburdening pent-up emotions of years, or of a lifetime, followed invariably by a peace and tranquillity they had never known.

Such was the quality of the man, attracting confidence and instilling hope, that for many he resembled, in his black cassock, the long-robed figure of his own ideal that, twenty centuries before, inspired the same feeling in the people of Galilee.

There are two important thresholds in life, he would say in one of his lectures to entering classes of student nurses, — one by which we enter life, and one by which we leave. Of all the facts of life, you will find these the two most important. These will be your greatest concern -- these, and the easing of the pains and sufferings that are encountered between these two portals….

On any given day he might be called upon to administer last rites to a man whose tortured life of sin was about to end, through a mysterious saving grace, in final salvation; and then, at the behest of a frantic mother, baptize an infant whose trip from one threshold to the other was to take only minutes.

Leaving the nurse’s desk, Father Warner walked along the corridor, continuing his interrupted visits. A nurse, coming from room 227 at that moment, paused as he approached.

How’s my little patient tonight? he asked her softly, nodding toward the door she had just closed behind her.

About the same, Father. No interest in anything—doesn’t respond to anything—no fight at all. Takes her medicine, but even that doesn’t seem to be helping.

The nurse’s staccato answers, followed by a hopeless, shrugging gesture, summed up for him his own observations of the past few days. A slight grimace, as of pained futility, furrowed his brow momentarily.

I’ll try having a little chat with her. May I go in? She isn’t sleeping is she?

Oh, certainly, Father, it’s OK to go in. No, she isn’t sleeping -- just lying there staring at the wall. If you can get her to talk, it might help relax her so she can sleep, but, with a skeptical expression, she just hasn’t wanted to talk to anyone.

I’ll have another try, anyway, he said in mild determination. He knew that some form of communication had to be established or this patient was going to die. He had watched her slowly sinking, day by day, since her admittance five days ago. The charts and hospital records listed her ailment as pneumonia, treatment and cure for which were, by now, well documented and quite routine. But the doctors, with all their new skills and wonder-drugs, had been unable to snap her out of it or, for that matter, even stem the tide of its deterioration. Father Warner surmised that something else must be troubling her -- some gnawing, frustrating condition, thwarting her will to live, which would show on no chart. Just as, in chemistry, the undetected presence of some foreign substance will keep two known elements from reacting in a prescribed, predictable manner, so must it be in the case of Jean. As the nurse had observed, she just had no fight in her at all. If she would only smile. Or scream. Or cry. Any outward vent to almost any emotion would be a good sign, a break in the armor.

Entering quietly, Father Warner propped the door open. As was customary at that time of the evening, the room was only dimly lit. But he could easily discern the very white, drawn face, the gauntly staring eyes, the entire listlessness that had so characterized Jean for the past few days. Her hospital record card listed her thus: Mrs Jean Richards, age 28; mother of three children; religion -- Christian (non-Catholic).

Little else was known about her; she hadn’t spoken a dozen words in five days. Her attitude was not one of unpleasantness, merely one of not caring whether she lived or died. Even in illness, one could see that ordinarily she would be a most attractive woman. A wealth of dark, curly hair cascaded down the sides of her face, neatly framing her well-defined features. In an earlier attempt to cheer her, two of the student nurses assigned to the floor had taken time to brush her hair and fix it for her. This approach, through the natural channel of female vanity, had been rewarded by a wan smile and a lightly-murmured, thank you. Her deep-set blue eyes, exaggerated now through her illness as to appear sunken, gave her face a mysterious, haunting quality of shear loveliness. One limp little hand outside the covers moved ever so slightly in recognition of Father Warner’s presence and a faint attempt at a smile momentarily changed the blank despair of her face. Her smile, not much more than a parting of the lips, was quickly noted by the priest as the biggest concession in facial mobility that he had yet seen from her.

Jean the priest spoke her name softly, almost reverently, as he smiled his encouragement of her effort.

Yes, Father, she answered in an even lower whisper than his.

Do you feel up to talking a bit? he queried, cautiously.

With you ... yes, Jean answered haltingly.

Feeling any better?

For answer, Jean slowly moved her head from side to side. Should I? she finally managed to murmur.

Lacking the will to live was not a new phase to Father Warner. He had seen despair before: But ...in one so young? How does a counselor cope with it? How can the will to live be imparted? Fleetingly he thought of the walls of Jericho, that impregnable fortress of biblical fame, and how, with the correct formula of sound and motion, the Lord’s armies had brought them tumbling down. But how, with a human fortress, with pent emotion, or frustration walled up in the silence of a heart -- what would be God’s formula for this? There must be a key. But could he or anyone else find it in time?

He tried a new tack. I’m sure your babies would be glad if you’d only try.

The staring eyes blinked closed for a second or two and he saw her hand contract just enough to tell him that he had scored, if ever so slightly. But almost immediately her hand was again limp. She moved her head, this time toward him. He had the impression that her slightest motion was accompanied, if not by actual pain, at least with an excruciating, numbing fatigue.

They’ll be better off, I think, she managed to murmur, as if she were off in the distance and looking on impartially at the scene from somewhere outside herself. I’ve let them down -- just can’t seem to make it. Her voice, slowly spacing each word, trailed off weakly. How long have I been here?

Five days, Jean, he answered promptly, not wanting to interrupt her talking. As far as he knew, these were the only sentences she had spoken to anyone. He hoped she’d have the strength and courage to continue. Particularly he noted the halting, disjointed manner of her speech, each word accompanied by a separate birth pang, as though the pain of thinking the thoughts necessary to produce the words was intolerable. Now he feared that, having started, should the effort become too great, she might lapse into a silence from which she might never emerge.

Again the eyes closed. This time the limp hand closed into a fist, and then relaxed. I’ve let my babies down again she repeated in such plaintive, despairing, halting tones that the priest, himself, wanted to cry, for all his years of experience. Her deep-set eyes were bottomless wells of sadness.

Stifling sudden emotion by deftly biting his lip, he gently patted the limp hand, not trusting himself to talk, for fear of saying the wrong thing. Her eyes and face relaxed from the tension she had suffered during her last statement. The thought occurred to him that, actually, she was more exhausted than relaxed.

One of the things for which he intended to probe -- that foreign substance frustrating the proper reaction to her treatment -- problems at home or lack of love or insecurity must be the key to the problem if he could only get her to talk more later.

Jean, you’re very tired. Try to sleep now and I’ll come back tomorrow. Will you talk with me some more, then?

Just a momentary flicker of a smile and a slight nod answered him, the eyelids fluttering with fatigue.

Standing for a moment by her bed, his lips moved in a prayer, and his hand rose and fell in a blessing.

God keep you. May you find the will to live, and in peace, he whispered over her, then quietly left the room.

Jean stared at the ceiling in contemplation. Here, she thought, was a true man of religion -- a human being sincerely dedicated to the task of helping others. His title, Father Warner, bought back thoughts of her own father, Bill Blake. How could two men belong to the same human race and be so different?

Weakened in body by illness, depressed in spirit by emotional strife, her mind, always alert and active, was even more keenly sensitive now than before. Emotions bottled up by years of futility; what remained of her waning energy was concentrated in mental activity.

Unable to unravel the turbulence of her spirit, her thinking processes resembled a carnival motordrome, where snorting mechanical monsters, defying gravity, clung to the sheer walls of a small enclosure, circling dizzily at increasing speeds but ending, inevitably, back where they had started. Such spiral thinking, in-bred and non-productive, constantly drained her physical energy, deprived her of countless hours of needed sleep, and reduced her to a chaotic state of complete exhaustion. Could there possibly be a way out of this labyrinth of disjointed, kaleidoscopic dead-ends of dead hopes?

Now, in her conscious mind, stood two men -- Father Warner, and her own father, Bill Blake. Father Warner’s eyes were soft, gentle and kindly; Bill Blake’s, cold, beady and calculating. Father Warner’s smiling face offered understanding, help and peace; Bill Blake’s disdainful and hard, breathing hatefulness like a dragon exhaling fire. Father Warner, with his hand extended in a blessing; Bill Blake’s hand poised in anger to administer pain and suffering.

Nostalgia can be many things. Its general connotation is one of happy memories -- of dear, departed days; of a whimsical, childish desire to return to the land of one’s birth, to a place where there was no pain. The far away places, the green hills and the lush valleys of youth’s home -- are the theme of many a song carrying almost universal appeal; for even to those who cannot recall happy times, there is the ever present desire that such had been.

To what bankruptcy of spirit can a lack of such happy memory lead? When, instead of wistful, calm happiness in reminiscence, comes instead pain and bitterness, can there be any compensation for the loss? Such calm escape from present ills by quick mental excursion into the happy past bolsters many a battered soul, providing a resurgence of hope and indomitable will with the strengthening thought; things have not always been like this -- there have been happier times -- they will return .…

For Jean, there had never been such a time. Hatefulness and bitterness had been her inheritance and, though possessed of a strong will, strengthened as steel is forged in fire, yet there were the inevitable moments of human weakness when retreat to a happy, dreamy haven was sought -- but always found impossible.

Jean writhed slightly and emitted a low sob. Trying to dispel the unwelcome intruder on a scene which could otherwise have brought peace, relaxation and rest, her mind kept returning, as if by fixation, to scenes of many years ago….

II

The tempo of life in Pleasantville was similar to that of other small Midwestern towns -— unmarked by the constant bustle of larger cities, and perfectly content with its everyday chores. Approaching from the prairie which surrounded it, its first landmark was the water tower, visible for miles, a stark white bulb outlined against the sky, around the perimeter of which large black letters proclaimed its name to the world.

The year was 1936. Still casting off the last fetters of the great depression, Pleasantville was slowly staggering back to some semblance of respectability -— a new store front here, a fresh coat of paint there, as business, still wary, cautiously started re-investing in itself.

Bill Blake, clerking in the paint and hardware store, took note of the increasing activity. His was an analytical nature, cold and calculating, eyes sharp, and mind alert. He was at the point of making two great decisions; first, the purchase of his own business, for which he had saved with a passion amounting to penury; and second, to remarry.

The fact that he was soon to make a third great decision was unknown even to him at the moment -- but this third decision was to have an even greater impact on his future life than the other two combined.

Never a religious person, Bill Blake was about to acquire religion. It came about quite suddenly; in fact, almost spontaneously, as if the answer to a need, the presence of which he had not been aware.

For Bill Blake, even if for no one else -— or for all of Pleasantville, collectively -- 1936 was to be an epoch-making year, a year of decision, a turning point in his life.

Bill was twenty-seven, father of two children, and had been wifeless since his divorce three years ago. The situation was not to his liking, living alone, and the children in an orphanage. He had given it much thought and no end of brooding. There was no going back; that phase of his life was over and done, at least as concerned the resurrection or repair of the shattered bits of his marriage. He had no wish to bring about its resurrection. The thought of Beth always brought back a painful reflection of the circumstances which had produced his present frame of mind.

Such frequent reflections were disturbing, causing emotional squalls which threatened to deflect him from his one major goal: financial independence. He could regain the helm, following one of those upheavals, only at the cost of conscious inner struggle. There was never any set pattern to the disturbance. It manifested itself only in short, disjointed episodes, in no chronological order. His complete confusion of mind and spirit resembled a fever of bad dreams from which one fights himself awake.

Marry her, or you’ll go to jail and she’ll go to reform school!

Bill shuddered at the recollection. Beth Templeton’s mother had meant business and he knew it. He also knew that he deserved that and more. However, just why should he marry Beth? And, for that matter, why had he? Pained, he had searched the stone-like face of the mother to determine if she were bluffing. She wasn’t. He was twenty-one at the time, and Beth had just turned fifteen.

Fifteen. And a tiny tyke at that -- but cute! She had deep-set blue eyes that seemed to look into one’s soul; dark, curly hair, long and beautiful. A happy kid, as free of malice as any fifteen-year-old. But those eyes! They pleaded; they yearned. Bill had looked into those eyes and had unashamedly felt they were pleading with him. They had overpowered him in their complete innocence and guilelessness.

The profusion of flowers that splashed back brilliant colors of bright, warm sun that beautiful May afternoon should have brought a feeling of peace and joy. But, at fifteen, Beth was no longer the happy, carefree girl she had always been. Gone was the happy sparkle in her eye, the swinging, dancing gait of her walk. The doctor had told her and her mother that there could be no doubt about it; little stirrings had indicated there were only about four months to go.

She had cried. This was her birthday, and the doctor’s words were her birthday present. She hung her head and a feeling of inexpressible loneliness swept over her. Racked with sobs, she lifted tear-rimmed eyes to her mother in a heart rending appeal for sympathetic understanding. She found, instead, a cold look of complete disgust. The family name would be ruined by this ungrateful little tramp. Where love, care, and understanding might have saved a lifetime of torture, there was nothing but self-righteousness and smugness. The opportunity was lost in one fleeting second; there would not be a second chance.

The drug store soda-fountain at the corner near the high school, from which echoed the sounds of teen-age merriment, suddenly seemed hollow and raucous. The kids were all there -- Donna, Jean, Sandy, George, and all the rest, laughing, listening to the juke-box, kidding; maybe even occasionally trying to find out what tomorrow’s geometry assignment was.

Oblivious to their surroundings, Jean and her mother approached the corner as a couple of girls turned in at the door to join the crowd. Happy Birthday, Beth; c’mon in! they cheerfully called to her.

Happy Birthday! The deep eyes welled afresh with tears. I can’t, I can’t. Mother and I, we’re -–-.

Beth couldn’t take it any more, and she couldn’t explain. She broke and ran. She had to get away from everybody, including herself -- the one thing she was to find impossible.

Well, I’ll -–! What’s the matter with her? Carefree youth shrugged it off with a ho-hum and joined others at the juke-box.

**********

Bill Blake shuddered again. How well he remembered the sick, empty feeling he experienced. Everywhere he looked he was confronted with two pairs of eyes -— Mrs. Templeton’s, hard, disdainful, uncompromising; Beth’s deep, beautiful, but so tearful, so scared, that the very depths of the sea could not have held the wells of sadness.

Economically, he was not ready for anything like this. In Beth’s case, she was too young to know the full meaning of love. She had, of course, heard all about it on the juke-boxes -— it was part of every popular song. It was bandied about, kidded about, and all the kids had been in love many, many times. They’d be madly in love with the boy across the aisle for a day or two and then, after seeing him carry Suzie’s books one afternoon, they’d just positively hate him and the next day be madly in love with someone else.

Love at that age comes easily, like pressing an electric switch. It was passed around freely, like sharing the lunch-time apple and meant little more than that. But it was altogether a beautiful part of the pain of growing up. It was thrilling to an average, healthy girl, but also confusing and mysterious.

The first pulsations of growing awareness that there were boys; the first feelings of a power they didn’t know they had; the first giggly attempts at conquest, were the life of these youth. Of course, they knew all about love. At first blush it was a wonderful, thrilling feeling. There was only one trouble; namely the boys! They were such a bunch of dolts, not even dry behind the ears. All they ever thought of were football, or basketball, or their science projects. Would they ever grow up?

Oh, well, the idea was good, anyway. But it was just a bit frustrating to these young girls, so delightfully feminine, so worldly in their first clumsy attempts at sophistication, that the boys were such a bunch of kids. They felt surges of this female power just budding and, fortunately for most of them, nature took care of them by letting the boys develop more slowly and be just kids at the same age. Not understanding the power they had, nor the nature of it, many would have been helpless in its toils if the boys had been anywhere near them in the same age of development.

Beth had always been with the crowd. She, too, played with ideas she didn’t understand and, being more obviously endowed than the other girls, had attracted many more admiring glances from the older boys. One of these, Bill Blake, had shown more than just a passing interest.

Beth was the envy of the whole crowd. Of course they were jealous -— they couldn’t help but be. Beth had won where they had failed. She had a boy friend and he gave her the attention all the girls would have fain received from their stupid contemporaries.

Bill was out of school; in fact, he had been out for three years now. He didn’t work regularly -- it was at the depth of the depression and there just wasn’t much work to be had. His father worked at the drug store, and, for lack of anything better to do, Bill was accustomed to hanging around, doing odd jobs, making an occasional delivery, and just being handy in case he were needed. There weren’t any jobs but, being ambitious, he stayed close to where an odd tip might be involved.

The girls came and went. There were always a few of them in the store after school hours. Those who had a nickel or dime to spend would kill an hour or so just drinking a coke, gabbing and listening to the juke-box. That little one, Beth -- gosh she was cute; you could see her eyes all the way across the store. Even at that distance those eyes were so soulful and so filled with unanswered questions. When they laughed, they sparkled; when pensive, they were so deep and mysterious. They were absolutely the most beautiful eyes he had ever seen.

**********

Now, here was this woman, this mother, demanding that he get married! How? How could he? He hadn’t meant any harm -— he wasn’t in love -— he didn’t even have a job!

They’ll have a job for you in jail, alright! You knew she was under eighteen. You’d better talk to your dad -- or would you rather I did?

Bill didn’t have much of a choice. He nodded sullenly. The arrangements were made and they were married by a justice of the peace, with some office help for attendants. Not much formality. No wedding bells. No Lohengrin. No gay laughter. No friends wishing them well. It was a plain, simple, unadorned business contract, completely devoid of all the romance about which juke-box songs prattled.

Disillusionment was a bitter lesson in this Love business. It was just a cold, brutal thing. All the warmth and joy were gone. And a baby was coming soon. Neither Bill nor Beth was quite sure why they found themselves in such a position -— but, there they were.

To suggest that anything even vaguely resembling love or respect could take root and flourish from such a beginning would be a suggestion which