The Heart of the Mother

By Doreen LaFlamme

This is my personal life story and journey of survival as a single mother and caretaker of a son diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. The decisions I was forced to make while I was a young mother were heart-wrenching and would affect my family's future forever. I started praying and asking for help to be emotionally strong, for knowledge and understanding to cope with the heart-wrenching times I was about to experience. From New Hampshire to nine European countries, I witnessed supernatural events and miracles from God and the Blessed Mother while praying at the Marian shrines. I found the human connection that led me to God. When we accept our cross, we don't need a miracle because we are doing the will of God. This ten-year pilgrimage was miraculous and life-changing. This is my journey of faith that led me down an unexpected path. How do we live and love when we know everything must end. No more secrets, heart-wrenching and funny! We will know that the light that guided our way was The Heart of The Mother.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9781098080587

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The Heart of the Mother

Doreen LaFlamme

Copyright © 2022 by Doreen LaFlamme

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Preface

Who am I? What am I? What did I do?

I’m the great-granddaughter of illiterate immigrants from Canada who worked in the woolen mills and shoe shops in Sanford, Maine, and Haverhill, Massachusetts, during the 1940s and 1950s. My father was a carpenter by trade, my mother a waitress and cleaning woman. I’m a strong woman, a single mother, and someone who refuses to give up and accept defeat in any circumstance. My world came crashing down when my son, Shawn, was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia at age fifteen.

What did I do? The question is what did God do?

As I contemplated my life, it doesn’t seem so long ago when I was standing on the toilet seat at six-years-old in the mirror over the sink, wondering what my husband would look like, how many kids I would have, and what I would look like when I was old and especially, I wondered what age I would be when I die. I wanted to know my story before it began; it was my desire to know if there was life after death.

My story takes you from 1947 over a seventy-year journey that led this single mother to experience feeling like a prisoner, isolated, tortured, and terrified as a young girl. My childhood prepared me and gave me strength and perseverance to navigate through a divorce. I stopped going to church for seven years because of an annulment. Shawn’s life-long struggle with schizophrenia while bringing up two daughters was overwhelming. While working for Delta Airlines, I traveled to Medjugorje. This is where God took me off the path I was on. My life was transformed. It’s not just the supernatural events; it’s a thirst for knowledge of Him and the people he aligned me with that were mystics and future saints.

I live in a mobile home in New Hampshire. I am not special. I thought, how could this be happening to me? Praise to Jesus, our Blessed Mother, and the Holy Spirit for the divine journey of a lifetime.

Acknowledgments

We have survived because of your dedication to your profession and your patients. For over thirty years, you have been a real blessing to both of us. You are not only a wonderful doctor, but you are a dear friend.

Dr. Hirsham Hafez and Shawn, MD psychiatrist

Healthy Perspectives Health, PLLC,

30 Temple St. #194

Nashua, NH. 03060

1

My Great Grandparents

My Mother’s Grandparents

My great-grandfather Zephrin Jacques, born April 3, 1871, married Lucinda Boucher Jacques, born December 3, 1883. Lucinda, my great-grandmother, was a direct descendant of King Charlemagne the Great from France, forty-four generations removed on the Boucher side of the family. King Charlemagne the Great united much of Europe. He ruled much of Western Europe. He was a Roman Catholic and known as the guardian of Christendom and executor of God’s Will. My great-grandmother Lucinda always thought she was a descendant of an Indian princess. This was researched through ancestry. I can’t imagine the jokes the family would have if they knew their mother was a descendant of a king. A very special king, very important in the development of Europe. Especially since the throne my family sat on was in the cellar, better known as the outhouse. Lucinda, who I visited with my mother and grandfather, was treated like the queen of the family; everyone loved and respected Mamier Jacques. Her son Oliver had a son, Tom Jacques; he did the research on the history of our family. The Jacques family lived in the city of Trois Riviera, a city in the Maurice administrative region of Quebec, Canada, on the shore of the St. Lawrence River, before settling in the United States.

My great-grandparents were immigrants from Canada that settled in Sanford, Maine, and became US citizens. Because they were immigrants, they had a very tough time being accepted in the workplace and often wouldn’t get the same pay as a U.S. citizens. My great-grandfather Zephrin was a mill worker in the Sanford woolen mills. These mills were sweatshops. I remember my grandmother taking me to the mill where she earned ten cents an hour.

My great-grandmother Lucinda, a strong woman, very funny, had sixteen children: Maria, Aldege, Ferdinand, Oliver, George, Henry, Robert, Monique, Yvette, Rita, Albert, Bob, Henry, Monica, and Donald. Lucinda was forty-nine years old when she had her last child, Donald. Antonette and the twins died at childbirth. The Jacques family settled in Sanford, Maine. Her first son was my grandfather, Aldege Jacques; he was called the number 1 son who had the respect and responsibility of helping with the children.

My mom took me to visit my great-grandmother; I was four or five years old. Her family called her mamier; her real name was Lucinda, maiden name Boucher. Most of her children lived in the same neighborhood and would visit on Saturdays. She would get up very early in the morning on Saturdays. She baked homemade bread and cupcakes and baked homemade beans; she fixed all her goodies for each family to take home. She passed everyone a homemade brew as they gathered on the front porch. She made the brew in a still that was in the cellar. The family gathered around the black stove on the porch to grill the homemade bread and told stories of the news of the week, and sometimes Yvette, my papier’s sister, would play her guitar; everyone would sing On the Bayou. Jeannine, Donald’s wife, told me Yvette knew a few raunchy lyrics; she would throw in from time to time. One time, she sang them to a priest without knowing! What a loving down-to-earth family; they were love and fun.

Can you imagine these people when they got together? They knew how to have a good time, telling jokes, talking about family business, and just happy to be together. They were poor but it seems most people were struggling; no complaints, just enjoying life one day at a time, no sourpusses in the Jacques family. They were always happy; perhaps it was Mamier’s secret recipe or her homemade brew. I knew all the brothers and sisters; so grateful for the memories, a real testament to the love and devotion they had for each other. I could watch them for hours, all talking French at the same time, a family like no other. Mamier knew how to keep her family together.

My great-grandmother Elizabeth, this was my mother’s grandmother who had 15 children, I knew five of them: Joseph, Rosanna, Marie, Binnie, and Flossie. Her husband, Joseph, passed before I was born. My grandmother’s maiden name was Marie Perreault. Her married name was Marie Jacques.

My father’s family

My great grandfather Raymond V. Amirault was born in Nova Scotia in 1854. He was a fisherman and a carpenter and a fireman. He came to the United States on a fishing boat. In 1887 he changed the family name to Amiro when he became a U.S. citizen. He married in 1890 to Emilie Deveau and settled in Haverhill, Mass. They had nine children, two were twins. My grandfather Felix was born in 1891, his both legs were later amputated. He married Chantal Gaudette in Digby County, Nova Scotia they also settled in Haverhill and had three children. Mary, George my dad and Priscilla. The carpentry trade was taught to all the sons, they built the majority of the three decker homes on Came Ave. in the city of Haverhill, Massachusetts. My husband and I bought the house I grew up in from my uncle and father, we were married in 1969. I grew up on Came Ave. with my father’s uncle, my aunt and my twin cousins. The history of this family is interesting because in 1600’s my great grandfather removed 3 or 4 generations married Marie Coyoteblanc she was called (white wolf) they lived among the tribe on the east coast according to the 1708 census. She was a Mikmaq women. Their son married the daughter of Francois Amirault our descendant who was born in 1820. Raymond seemed to be a man on a mission, leaving Canada and starting a new life in America, he built all the three decker homes on Came Ave. in Haverhill, Massachusetts and even purchased many burial plots in St. James Cemetery for generations of Amiro’s.

My Great Grandparents, my Father’s Grandparents and his Father Felix Amiro

2

My Grandparents

Papier Jacques and Mamier Jacques

My grandfather did not go beyond the third grade. He was illiterate until he taught himself, later in life, by reading the newspaper every day. When things got very tough during the Depression, his mother operated a still in the basement where she made homemade brew. They needed to make money to feed the family. My grandfather and the older brothers were trying to help the family survive; they would sell the homemade brew in the middle of the night. He did get caught and spent a few days in jail. He earned the name Al Capone among his brothers. My grandfather Aldege settled in Haverhill, Massachusetts. He married Marie Perrault Jacques; she didn’t have any birth records because the courthouse had a fire and all records were destroyed. She now could keep her age a secret since its whispered that she was ten years older than my grandfather.

Aldege Jacques, my papier, and Mamier, my grandmother, had one child. My mother, Laurette Rita Jacques, was born August 2, 1927, in Sanford, Maine, on the feast of the holy angels. My mother was a ten-pound baby. She was born at home with the help of a midwife. Marie gave birth to my mother later in life; it was a difficult birth. Marie was a diabetic who suffered from this disease her whole life and took insulin every day. She had a cancerous breast removed in her fifties, a few years later, she was the first woman at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston to have parts of her colon removed without having a colostomy bag. She stayed in a special room for three months with an open wound so she could heal from the inside out. Brigham and Women’s Hospital put a gold plaque on the wall in the hospital with my mamier’s name on it to signify her sacrifice to help others. Later she suffered severe pain in her knee from arthritis.

My grandmother Marie Jacques, maiden name was Perreault; she was from Sanford, Maine. Her family had a different lifestyle, they were proper and dignified. Her mother was Elizabeth Kennedy Perreault, my great-grandmother. Her parents came to the United States from Ireland. I would visit with her a few times while she visited with my grandmother. She made me a beautiful pair of white knitted gloves. Elizabeth was a beautiful woman who had class; she wore beautiful dresses with lace collars. She was a refined lady with beautiful white hair that she fixed at the nape of her neck with decorative pins.

Mamier had many natural gifts. She left school in the third grade because she never learned how to read or write. She developed her sense of smell and taste. She made the best homemade white beans; Mamier cooked them in the oven for six hours. The house always smelled of delicious food cooking. She made the best roast pork and beef dinner, beef stew with dumplings. She made the best porkpie, it was always served the night before Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve with fresh beets, homemade beans, and piccalilli and brown bread. This recipe was passed down through the generations; it turns out different every time you make it because my grandmother couldn’t read, her nose was her guide. The pie was made with ground pork and spices: cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and salt and onion. It would simmer for two to three hours on the stove. I remember sitting in the kitchen, when I was about four years old, watching her as she made cakes and pies, putting things in a bowl; she never measured her ingredients, her food was delicious.

Aldege Lucien was known as Al. I called him Papier and my grandmother was Mamier. Their first language was French Canadian. On February 18, 1944, my grandfather became an American citizen. They rented a small house on 10 Pentucket Street in Haverhill, Massachusetts. At that time, Haverhill was the shoe capital of the world; there were many shoe shops and lots of work. My grandfather worked at the Ruth Shoe in Haverhill with my grandmother’s sister Flossie. Papier was a laster; his job on the assembly line was to join the soles with cement. I’m not sure why he used ether at his job unless it was used to take cement off his hands. The smell permeated his whole being and his clothes. The lasters held great power in the shoe shops; they had the power to start a work stoppage for more money. Papier could make fifty pairs of shoes a day by hand until the shoe industry was revolutionized by a lasting machine, then the production line could pass from five hundred to seven hundred pairs a day. My grandfather made thirty five dollars to fifty dollars a week, a good wage in the 1940s. Shoes made in the United States were sturdy; they lasted forever, they were top quality, all real leather. There were other jobs attributed to the shoe industry; remember the shoeshine boy that set up shop outside of a busy downtown store and the cobbler where you could have your shoes repaired, the soles and heels used to wear out? It was a mistake to outsource this industry.

Papier always had a hot meal when he came home from work. She always took good care of his clothes. Mamier made sure he had the whitest shirts and his suits were always pressed. Men’s suits were made from wool. Clothes were not permanent press or polyester. Everything was made of natural fibers. They could be very itchy. Papier always wore a felt hat and leather shoes. When they went to church on Sunday, they wore their best outfits out of respect for who they were going to worship. When you love someone, you always want to be your best for them. I learned many lessons from them because they took care of me; you don’t always have to say anything to teach a lesson, observing what people do is a lesson not forgotten.

Mamier could make anything out of any old material, even bedsheets. I watched her sew for hours, making clothes out of old drapes on her Singer sewing machine. Her feet would go back and forth on the foot pedal on the bottom of the machine; her hands directed the material around the sewing needles, she would sew so fast. Everything was basted and pinned. It was fascinating watching her make something old look new. She loved to dye her clothes, you could buy Rit dye in a box for ten cents and, in a few minutes, have something old turn into something new by just adding water to the dye.

I watched her make patterns on the table from an old newspaper. She could create anything by just looking at it. I was amazed how creative she was, especially because she couldn’t read. Mamier loved to make embroidery pillowcases and handkerchiefs; she also crocheted beautiful doilies for the tables and for the back of furniture. Mamier repaired holes in clothes that were made of wool. She had a little business at home that brought in extra money for food and gas for the car. She made them look like new, she even darned socks. People never threw their clothes away, they kept mending them. Their money was used just to buy the essentials. Clothes were passed down through family and friends. They were called hand me downs. The suits, skirts, and pants were itchy from the wool but they were warm, except when they got wet. Winters seemed to be much colder with much more snow than we have now.

Televisions came on the market in 1947. The pictures were black and white; first 3-D broadcast was in 1954. Color was introduced in 1962. At that time, they were a luxury. Mamier would listen to the radio that was kept in the kitchen. The family would gather in front of the radio, especially when President Harry Truman gave a message. We were all ears, I knew it was important, didn’t know why; everyone was staring at the radio like we could see him speak. The respect for the Office of the President was associated with love of country. The second World War had over fifty million to more than eighty million fatalities total from all the countries involved. We were invested in our military and our land; we stood together, shoulder to shoulder, in bad times, especially during the depression. We survived because we were united in one cause. This generation was a generation of courage, bravery, and strength. We all loved our Presidents; no fact-checking his speeches or ridiculing him or his family. We worked hard to make a country we could be proud of. This is the first generation that tears away from the fibers of our history, changes the past to suit their opinions and liberal ideas. They lie and destroy and manufacture stories to gain power to feed their greedy lifestyle. We used to listen to reporters in the 1960s like Walter Cronkite, he was real.

Mamier always kept busy at home; she loved to fix the house. Buying paint on sale was her thing; she couldn’t always buy enough of one single color to paint the whole room so she painted her walls all different colors. If the walls were bright and clean, she didn’t care. So funny, the kitchen was a mixture of pastels. She was extremely clean. Amazing. In 1950, we seemed to keep busy doing our daily chores. Everything took longer than it does today. We walked everywhere from one end of town to the other. Parents didn’t cart kids around. After school, we went outside and played in the neighborhood. Another thing, before I forget, we never locked the doors to our house; there were no alarm systems. My father kept a gun in his room; he never had to use it, it was just there. My dad was a first-class gunner’s mate in the Navy. He received five medals for his participation in World War II. He received the World War II Victory Medal, American-Theater, European-African-Middle Eastern Area Ribbon, Asiatic-Pacific Area Ribbon. Dad was stationed in Newport, R.I., Boston and Brooklyn N.Y., during his service he was assigned to the SS George M. Cohan, SS George T. Angell and SS Anthony Wayne. He had an honorable discharge in 1945. In 1946 he joined the United States Coast Guard as an ordinary Seaman. He also worked in the sheet metal department building warships in Portland, Maine. He was a deer hunter, fisherman, a volunteer scuba diver for recovery, and a ladies’ man. Don’t take that lightly. My mother didn’t! Oh boy, I’m getting ahead of myself.

Mamier saved every cent and made it count; she kept $500 in a little bag she made from pillowcase material and kept it pinned to her bra. She was also a devout Catholic that went to church weekly. My papier was a tall stout man with large brown eyes, high cheekbones, olive skin, and large hands. My mamier and papier were both very good looking. He had the patience of Job! Must have been from all the brothers and sisters he grew up with. Poor folks could not afford plumbing; the bathroom was in the cellar. It looked like an outhouse, only it was inside the house. No one stayed very long in the cellar. This is the throne that I mentioned in my first paragraph.

Also, in the 1940s, houses did not have refrigerators. There was an ice man that came in a truck once a week and put a fifty-pound block of ice in the icebox on the porch; that was where the perishables were kept. I always waited for the ice man, he was fun to watch; he wore a rubber apron and had big tongs he used to carry the ice up the stairs into the icebox. Sometimes he would chip a piece off for me with his ice pick, good on a hot summer’s day.

Mamier had the same creamy white complexion as her mother, Elizabeth, nice hair, and always wore beautiful clothes. Always in a beautiful dress with a large white lace collar. She had a beautiful black Persian lamb fur coat and a fur fox stole; never could understand how she could wear the animals’ head around her neck, the eyes were so scary. She wore it with a nice suit along with her real pearls. She wore her hair up and topped her outfit off with a beautiful hat adorned with a feather. She told me, Ladies always carry a white handkerchief. She had many that were made with linen and lace with beautiful colored flowers. She loved perfume and had a nice perfume glass bottle that I keep on my bureau that belonged to her in 1955; it still has perfume in it. And there was the big silver handkerchief box full of linen embroidered lace handkerchief, hat pins, and hairpins.

Because of her illness, she could be easily angered and you would not want to see that side of her; she had a temper. My grandparents were in love. No one could say anything about my grandfather to my grandmother or they had better cross the street. Papier was happy working in Haverhill, Massachusetts, the shoe capital of the world. He worked days in the Ruth Shoe, a couple of miles from their apartment. Papier’s job was to cement the inside of the shoe before it was passed on to the next job on the assembly line. Mamier knew when he was coming home. When she saw him walk up the street, she would warm up a hot meal that she already prepared so it would be ready for him when he came home from work. He loved ale, and Papier liked to smoke cigarettes. He would roll his own cigarettes. She would tell me not to bother Papier when he comes home. She said he worked hard and needed to have some quiet time. I would stare at him and he would laugh at me. He and I used to walk downtown before Easter. We went window-shopping and he would let me pick out a beautiful coat, dress, hat, and, always, new shoes. He dressed me up for the Easter parade. I loved spending time with this big gentle giant I called Papier. We also would stop and get my favorite donut at the bakery, a plain donut with chocolate on top for me and one bismark. A bismark was a long donut filled with strawberry jelly with whipped cream on top, sprinkled with confectionary sugar; that one was for my mother, her favorite. Mamier was a diabetic. She used to hide chocolates in her dresser drawers. She never thought anyone knew she was cheating. She would send me to Mitchells department store on Merrimack Street, in Haverhill, to buy her favorite, a pound of peanut and chocolate clusters. It was quite a walk for a little girl with skinny legs.

My New Easter Outfit

It seems Mamier and Papier had their own little secrets. I was their only grandchild at the time they both used me to do all their errands. After lunch on Saturdays, Papier and I would go for a walk; he would tell me to wait outside while he went to have his picture taken. I was standing outside of a barroom. I had no clue at the time, I couldn’t read; I really believed he was having his picture taken. If I got my penny candy, that was enough for me. This went on for a couple of years.

My grandmother was very strict, she always worried that something was going to happen to my mother. She instilled fear in my mother that followed her through her whole life. My mother couldn’t swim because my grandmother thought she would drown or ride her bike too far from home or she may get lost. Once Mom rode her bike to Salisbury Beach from Amesbury; when my mom arrived home, she was sunburnt. My grandmother punished her by taking her bike away from her. My mother kept showing her independence, but eventually, she was fear-ridden and wouldn’t even be able to go over a bridge without anxiety. My grandfather bought my mother a beautiful real gold locket that my mother loved when she was in her teens. My grandmother gave the locket to a cousin because she wanted to punish my mother for making her angry.

After my mother graduated from high school, my mother got a job as a switchboard telephone operator in Haverhill. My mother was in line for the supervisor’s job. She was surprised to find out supervisors couldn’t be married; she was very upset.

World War II broke out; it was a hard time for America and Europe. Men were gone to war and the woman worked in factories, made bullets and bombs and bandages. At this time, Laurette, my mom, was engaged to a man named George Habib. He was Armenian, from Lawrence, who owned a shoe store downtown on Merrimack St. in Haverhill. George was out of town, buying for his store on the weekend, a friend at the phone company wanted my mother to join her on a double date with her boyfriend that was coming home, on leave, with his friend, a navy sailor. This lady told my mother he just lost his wife and he needed some cheering up. She knew my mother was already engaged and was alone that Saturday. She insisted, just one night wouldn’t hurt. She said, You will be doing something for your country. The man that came to the door had dark wavy hair, green eyes, very handsome. He was wearing a maroon suit jacket, he was six feet tall. My mother couldn’t believe how handsome he was; you could say she was smitten. She soon forgot about the shoe salesman and married my dad, George Amiro, on January 16, 1947.

George, my dad, was born on January 19, 1926, to Felix and Chantelle Amiro. He married my mother on his birthday. Neither family had money for a wedding so they eloped on my father’s birthday. I can only imagine the disappointment my mamier and papier were feeling when their only child wasn’t married in the church. I am sure my papier was very disappointed he couldn’t walk his only daughter and his only child down the aisle to give her away properly. The Jacques family all had large church weddings. Another thing, it was tradition that the man that was seeking a girl’s hand in marriage would talk to the father first to ask his daughter’s hand in marriage. There was no regard, in this case, for respect; money was not the issue here because families got together to help one another. The issue must have been my father’s lack of faith.

My grandparents practiced their Catholic religion. My father had only been a widower for six months when he asked my mother to marry him, his wife Helen died in bed of a heart attack. When he asked my mother to marry him, was he lonely and on the rebound? My grandparents may have tried to change my mother’s mind on her choice of a partner. A father tries to protect his daughter’s heart; getting his approval is important to the father and the daughter and the family. He is basically asking permission to join the family. The daughter knows full well she can trust her father’s decision by his approval. There is an old tradition in Canada: every New Year’s Day, the children in the family ask for the blessing from their father. This tradition brings comfort, knowing the person who held you from birth is now handing you over to the man who will take over from him and will love you until death. Jesus gave Mary to St. John at the cross. My understanding of this is that God wants men to look after women, not because we are weak but because we need each other for love and comfort.

My mom wore a white suit and hat and my dad finally had a new suit. They were married by the justice of the peace. My great grandfather Raymond and his wife Emile brought their nine children up Catholic, something changed with my grandfather Felix and Chantal, there was a disconnect with church. It may have been because of Felix’s medical issue. They were Catholic but did not practice their religion. They didn’t know how to show affection to each other or to my father. Thus he was the same way. You would never know how he felt about you on the inside because he couldn’t tell me he loved me or hug or kiss me. I knew, by the way he treated me, that he loved me. He was very protective of me when I was a teenager. He seemed to always be alert of any danger.

My dad was a first class gunners mate on a navy ship, during World War II. He sailed to many European countries; his ship was on a special mission that went to Murmansk, Russia. It was a dangerous mission. A documentary was made about this mission; many years later, I saw it on TV. Dad took a lot of pictures of the war-torn countries and atrocities of dead people in the streets. He did not talk about his war experiences. I found his albums and his war collections one day. The European money was very colorful; the coins were much different than I had ever seen. This was at the top of my list to use for a school project. He was a little miffed, to say the least, when he saw his foreign money missing. He also collected Indian Head pennies; he had a large glass jar. He hid these in the old garage on the second floor. His older sister, Mary, found them and must have told herself, Finders kipsies, looser weepies!

My grandfather, my dad’s father, Felix, had both legs amputated because of circulation problems and was bedridden during the time I knew him. My dad was very good to his dad; he would literally pick him up and carry him in his arms to the car every Saturday to Bing’s tavern. The tavern had a table against the wall, especially for my grandfather so he could sit on it and drink his beer. My dad also bought him his only wheelchair. His bedroom was in the front of the house; his bed faced three windows. This was his life, watching everyone coming and going every day.

Dad was the middle child; he had an older sister, Mary, and a younger sister, Priscilla. All my uncles were carpenters. Dad was taught the trade when he returned home from the war. One day, he told me he joined the Navy because his family couldn’t afford to feed him; they lived off the chickens they raised. He didn’t graduate from high school because his family couldn’t afford to buy him a suit to wear to his graduation. He left school two weeks before graduation.

The uncles built three three-decker houses for all our relatives. Each house had eighteen rooms in each three-decker, six rooms on each floor with two porches on the front and back of the house. My dad bought four lots of land across the street, for one hundred dollars, at an auction, hoping to build a new house for our family. My great grandfather, his sons, and my father built all the houses on my street, except for three. We were surrounded by family: aunts, uncles, and cousins, lots of kids to play with. My father’s youngest sister, Priscilla, had five boys. I was always close to the oldest; his name was Wayne. We went snow shoveling together to make some extra money and I remember typing all his reports in high school. He ended up graduating from trade school. We passed the time putting on plays for our relatives. After dinner, all the kids on the street would play hide-and-seek. My father’s oldest sister, Mary, had twin girls, Paula and Pam. They were a year behind me in school. Another memory I have is on May 1, it was called May Day. We would go to houses and get adorable little tiny May baskets made of plastic or crepe paper filled with gumdrops and tiny candies. It was special having twins for cousins, we had a lot of fun growing up.

3

My Childhood

I was born on December 18, 1947. My mother named me Doreen Ann. We lived in the three-decker with Felix and Chantelle, my father’s parents. My grandfather Felix had both legs amputated. He would give me rides on his lap in his wheelchair over the thresholds; he went so fast that I would fly up in the air and back down. It was his way of playing with me because he couldn’t get on the floor and give me piggyback rides.

When I was three years old, Felix died of tuberculosis; everyone in the family was tested for tuberculosis. Felix apparently coughed while he was giving me a ride on his wheelchair. I had a lung X-ray and it was confirmed I had contacted the disease that was airborne and now affected my lungs. The X-ray showed scar tissue in both lungs. The state removed me from the house and sent me to the sanatorium for TB in Reading, Massachusetts. I was put in a room all alone and tied down at the waist with large white straps to a large crib. The bars were up and the straps were tied to the bars. Being only three years old and only speaking French and not understanding English traumatized me. I was in a sanatorium; everyone spoke English but me. I should have written a song, All Alone and No One to Talk To.

My parents could only visit on Sundays because my mother did not have her license. When they did come to visit on Sundays, they would wear white masks and they would look through the small window in the door. I could not see their faces or touch them. Once they brought me a bag of oranges. I had a turntable record player in my room, a Charlie McCarthy puppet, and a Dale Evans watch. Anything I was given would have to be destroyed because I was contagious. When my parents left the hospital on Sundays, I watched them through the window and would cry myself to sleep. My mother told me the nurses do not want them to come and visit as much because I was so upset when they had to leave me. Twice daily, they put a shot in my arm. I had such a fear of needles; everyone knew when I was being stuck. Once I was given oatmeal for breakfast that made me sick, I vomited in the bowl and was told to eat it. About twice or maybe three times, I was taken in a wheelchair to a room where they put a tube down my nose to my stomach; I would gag and almost pass out. A gastric test was used to analyze the contents of my stomach.

Once a year, they took fluid from my spine with a huge needle to see if I had TB in my bones. I had to lay on my stomach for hours, not moving. This pain was so bad I can still remember this experience. This procedure was followed by a horrible headache for days. I thought I was being tortured because I didn’t feel sick. There was no physical contact at this time; I didn’t know why I wasn’t home. I was told by my mother, who spoke fluent French, that I was sick. One time, a nurse cut my fingernails too short and made them bleed. The same nurse broke the only record I had for my record player because she said I played it too much; the song was "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. When they took me in the wheelchair out of the building, I knew I was going to be tortured. I used to look down at the cement road and count the ants on the ground until I was in the building because I was so nervous. I tell you this because it is very significant later in my life.

My Chinese doctor’s name was Dr. Tongue. I liked him because he wasn’t mean. He said, Come with me, I want to show you something. He was going to tell me something he did not want me to ever forget. He said, Never have gas if you have an operation, and Never smoke because you could have your lung removed. He showed me a picture of a lung removed. This really made an impression on my young mind at four years old. After a year, I was not considered contagious and I was finally moved to another place called a camp.

Because I was not contagious, the restraints were taken off. I had freedom but not strength. My dad came to visit; he didn’t like the way I looked, my bones were showing through my skin. I was vomiting every day after breakfast. He told me he was going to come and see me early next week. On a rainy Thursday night, Dad came to the camp and stole me out of this camp, he didn’t care if he was arrested. He told my mother he didn’t want me to die in that place. No one ever came for me or questioned him. From that day on, my father was my hero; no matter what he did, I was forever grateful to him. I can still remember standing next to him in the front seat of the car, wearing a yellow slicker raincoat and hat. That is a very vivid memory for a four-year-old. My dad always showed me he loved me by protecting me my whole life. He couldn’t say I love you or kiss or hug me, instead he spent time with me; he was there when I needed him. That was enough for me, he saved my life.

When I got home from the hospital, I had a big adjustment. My parents were now living in a small apartment on Pentucket Street in Haverhill, near my mamier and papier. My dad bought me a red three-wheel tricycle so that I could ride it in the apartment. I would ride that little bike from room to room till I fell asleep. One day, my mother put me in my crib for a nap. I wouldn’t lie down so she put a white sheet over her head to scare me and say she was the boogeyman. I was petrified of the boogeyman. I wonder what she was thinking, I just spent a year frightened out of my wits. I needed to be rocked and cuddled. Well, this went on quite a while.

My crib was in my parents’ bedroom. One night, I heard the window open in front of my crib. Both parents were sleeping when I saw a man crawling into the window. I screamed to my father; he got up and closed the window on the man’s fingers. The man fell two stories on the sidewalk. He was a boyfriend of my mother’s friend who was intoxicated. That experience was so frightening for me that it has stayed with me my whole life. I hate being alone in the house at night. I always wake up with every sound I hear, I think there is someone who will break in and hurt me. This has led to many sleepless nights. Because I was very traumatized, I have these memories etched in my brain. I’m now seventy-one years old and wake up over a raindrop.

The apartment had only three rooms. Because it was on the top floor, it was very hot in the summer. Sometimes late at night, we all got in the car and went for a ride to Salisbury Beach. I could always sleep in the car. In the 1950s, cars and houses did not have air conditioners. We did have fans, if you could afford one. The only way to cool off was to go swimming or take lots of cool baths.

One day, my mother heard a knock at the door. It was a woman that came to tell her that she and my father dated after my father’s first wife, Helen, died. My dad and Helen were only married one year when she died suddenly of a heart attack. When my father woke up in the morning, he noticed she was not breathing. The woman’s name is Theresa Zeedick; she told my mother that she was pregnant. My dad denied he was the father. This woman took him to court, he had to pay weekly child support to the court. Since there wasn’t such a thing as DNA testing, no one knew for sure. She had a son named Stephen Zeedick, he is half-Jewish, and now, he has a father that is a carpenter. This lady later got married and changed his last name. He was from Warwick, Rhode Island.

One night, while having dinner, the police came to our house and arrested my father. They said he was behind in his support payments. They put him in handcuffs in front of me, while we were having dinner, and took him to jail. My mother called Uncle Red, my dad’s sister’s husband. Uncle Red gave us the bail money. When I was about ten years old, I went to the welfare department and paid weekly until Stephen was eighteen years old. I would have loved to tell him the role I had in his welfare and the fondness I developed for him. I bet he wouldn’t believe his half-sister went every week to pay for his support. My parents pretended it was my responsibility. I thought of him every time I made the payment, wondering what he looked like and if he was happy? When the technology became available, I tried to find him but it’s like he disappeared. Without knowing his last name and his birthdate, I couldn’t find him. I don’t even know if he was my half-brother, but my dad paid for him for eighteen years. I would like to tell him about his father, I think he deserves to know about him. I contacted the office in Haverhill where I paid the money for his support. They could not pass on the information because of the privacy laws. He may not know anything about having another father or would he know about me and his brother.

My mother felt and acted much differently to my dad after all of this. He had an affair with her best friend while she was in the hospital giving birth to me. In fact, she found this out the day she came home from the hospital. I was just a few weeks old when this woman knocked at the door so these were still fresh wounds. My mother went to see the priest and had a talk with him over all of this. Since they eloped the first time, Father Shaughnessy recommended that my parents get their marriage blessed in the church. My mother was happy to do this but it didn’t seem to change anything. My father was brought up in a family that didn’t seem to show love, he had a very hard childhood. He did not believe in God; he was an atheist. His marriage vows didn’t mean anything to him. He was like a married man living the life of a single man. I don’t think he missed many opportunities concerning women.

My mother reached out to her friend George that owned the shoe store in Haverhill; she picked my father over George years before. He never got over losing my mother, and he was now married. She took me to meet him one afternoon at his shoe store. A very nice gentleman, very handsome with olive skin and large brown eyes like chocolate drops. George remained friends with my mother for many years.

He was married but his wife couldn’t have children. He would call the house on the days he closed the shoe store; they would meet and have coffee or lunch and talk about their lives. Life would have been different for my mother if she married this George, he would have been faithful. She cheated on George the shoe man when she was engaged to him and now my father, also named George, cheated on her. What goes around comes around. I kept this secret with my mother until now. George wanted my mother to have a baby with him, he wanted children. My mother, of course, had to stop seeing him and she did. He thought of me as a daughter. I would stop by and see him at his store from time to time. When I went by his store, on Merrimack Street, he would wave me into the store to come in and talk to him. He gave me gifts when I graduated from high school and other special occasions. He also dyed shoes to match my fancy dresses or gowns. George always gave me the shoes free. He liked talking to me; he was a very handsome gentleman and an impeccable dresser. I didn’t feel guilty or take sides. I didn’t feel like I was being disloyal to my father because my mother’s friend was nice to me. He was engaged to my mother and she broke his heart. I liked him; he was a good soul. This was sad for both!

My father’s mother, Chantelle, took care of her husband, Felix, all his sick life. He had both legs amputated due to circulation problems. When he passed, she moved to Nova Scotia, Canada. When she was in her eighties, she remarried Mr. Lezon Gaudette in Nova Scotia her high school sweetheart. My parents and I moved back to the three-decker that his parents built and owned. She left this house to my uncle Maurice and my father. She came back every summer, I’m guessing, to keep her citizenship.

Mamier, my mother’s mother, took care of me when I came out of the hospital. She was a great cook; she made homemade beans early in the morning, they would stay in the oven all day, and her famous porkpie. The house smelled so good. The big old white washing machine was in the kitchen for two days; it took two days to do one wash. One day to soak and beat the clothes with her stick, the next day, she washed them. There was a wringer with wheels on top of the tub. She used to pass the clothes through the wringers and then drain all the water out of the tub into the sink. There was no such thing as a spin cycle. What a long drawn-out affair. She had a clothesline on pulleys that hung on the side of the garage secured to the house. She would hang everything outside using clothespins. When the laundry came off the line, it smelled so fresh. Making your bed with fresh-dried sheets would give you the best night’s sleep. She used to put her nylon stockings in the refrigerator because it kept them from running. Also, because the clothes were made with natural fabrics, they would wrinkle so badly that my grandmother wrapped them in cold towels before she ironed them and put them in the refrigerator overnight.

She always made me take a nap after lunch and then she said I needed to go outdoors to play. She recognized the value of sunshine and fresh air. Mamier and I would take the train to Boston for her yearly check on her diabetes at the Joselyn Clinic. That was special because we would walk to Filenes Basement. She was always looking for a bargain for Papier or a new dress for a wedding in the family. This store was where all the seconds would be sold, a whole floor of mountains of clothes; women would take the clothes right out of your hands and push you to get what they wanted. Women would strip down to their underwear to try before they bought. Mondays was the real big markdown day. What