My Name is Patricia

By Patricia Wittmer

My book is about a frail, sensitive little girl with tender emotions having to grow up with no guidance or help. I lived in the deep woods in the mountains of Virginia in the 40s and 50s with very little contact or understanding of the outside world. One of the strongest sources of support was my Aunt Mamie, who surely must have loved me. She guided me as best she could for what time I got to spend with her. She taught me to braid my hair and how to crochet and cook some, and she told me I was pretty.

After this childhood I was totally unprepared for life. I had little to no social skills but I watched and I learned. I was determined there was a better way of life and I made my way better. I realized I was more than the little girl with a lump on her back that didn't belong, I was a worthy person.

I was denied a formal education, although I did manage to complete the tenth year. The hardest thing to accept as an adult is that I didn't understand I had choices. I raised a wonderful daughter and have two fantastic grandchildren. I was a successful antiques dealer and owned my own shop for over forty years. I like to paint with oils and I like drawing with pencil; I am creative. I have written several children's stories and I write poems. Some of my poems reflect my life and I do jail ministry and I write pomes for the ladies in jail.

I wrote this book mostly for the family years back. Last year my granddaughter told me she had a book she wanted me to read, I read it and loved it. I was reading in bed and when I finished the book I said, "You know what?" The next day, I started, and typed my book, My Name Is Patricia, chapter by chapter. I compared my book to the book I had just read and thought, my life (book) is just as bizarre and unusual. The biggest difference in my book and the other book is mine is not fiction, the other was. As I wrote so many memories came to me and I was able to include them in my book. There were some happy memories, the days swimming in the Clench River and the nice people that crossed my path. The life I lived, no matter what, made me who I am. My life was mostly a life of not understanding and fear, a gripping fear. I thought most every day, "if Daddy was home, I would see Mother die at his hands," a fear no child should have to live with.

I took a chance and sent my book in to see if it could be published and here it is. My hope is, for the ones who read it, they realize that a person can survive. Writing this book and having it published is very healing and humbling. I got to tell my story. I survived and became me.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 21, 2022
• ISBN: 9781638816782

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Marv Auston

DADDY’S WORDS WERE clear, sounding like summer thunder to me as I listened as if it was the first time I had heard him speak. He was talking about moving. He said we had a new landlord, a new word I learned that day. He said the rent, another new word I learned, was cheap—only five dollars a month. Daddy told us—me, my two brothers who were older than me, and my two sisters. I was the next to the youngest, and one sister was older also. Daddy told me after I asked what landlord and rent meant as best as I could understand at four years old.

They, Mother and Daddy, said a new name also, Marv Auston. That name sounded funny to me and seemed to bother Mother. Mother said she did not like that Marv, and just because he was our landlord did not keep him from being bad. She said we girls were to stay away from him.

It was a breezy spring day in the year of 1948. Daddy was talking about the year because he said the war was over. Daddy said he ought to be able to find plenty of houses to paint in Cincinnati. That was where Daddy went a lot. Daddy was a painter, and he didn’t work much, if any. He said there just wasn’t any work to be found here in Virginia. That was why he had to go to Cincinnati.

As I stood looking at my fuzzy, quivering reflection in the puddle that the spring rain had filled at our new place, I began to wonder. My surroundings were unfamiliar to me. We had only moved two days back. I could see my reflection in the puddle as I became aware of being a whole person with arms, legs, and a head. Looking at my fuzzy reflection as the strong wind blew, making ripples in the water in the puddle, I could feel the wind almost move me. I clenched my arms around my small body and could see the shadows of the clouds, mixed with the sun, of the massive sky in the puddle. I could see another world in the reflections in the water that would soon dry up. The shadows of the tree limbs, mixed with reflections of the sun and clouds, moved in rhythm with the movement in the water. Staring at the puddle, my world was condensed to a size I could grasp. Looking at the drifting world in the water, I forgot about being so ascared. I am Patricia.

Sputter, sputter, chug, chug! The Model T came bouncing up the ruddy dirt road that I was getting used to. The road lay on the hillside, between the sage grass and scattered saplings and a few larger stones. A cloud of dust from the car boiled up and fascinated me. The Model T pulled up just below the house and stopped. Marv Auston shut the motor off and leaned out the window that was already open, never opening the car door. The dust settled, and I saw Marv and thought he was a big man, bigger than Daddy.

Hello, sis. How are you? What is your name? I had run to where Marv stopped the car. I am Marv. Come here and see what I have in this poke for you little girls.

Elaine and Carol had come to see Marv too. Carol and Elaine jumped up on the running board of the Model T on the side where Marv was.

I stood back a little, still close enough to see the poke of candy, as Marv kept talking. I was not used to being close to a car. I had only seen a few drive by on the big road when we first moved to Virginia. This was my first time to see Marv, and Mother had already scared the dickens out of me about him.

Here, sis, take some of the candy. Come here and see what is in the poke.

I had got on the car by Marv, and he showed us the candy. Chocolate-covered creams, Marv called them. I had never seen that kind of candy, and it looked good. We each managed to get a piece of the candy, and I see Mother come out of the house, and I jumped off the running board and stood back a little. Mother had some money in her hand and handed it to Marv and said a couple of words to him. Marv started the car and turned it around and left with the dust rolling. The Model T went bouncing down the road as I watched it turn the curve and go out of sight. The dust settled while I was eating my candy and wished Marv had let us have the whole poke of candy.

Now I’ll tell you girls, you stay away from that old man. He is mean, and he has killed three men. Mother wiped her hands on her dress that she had put on when Marv came so he wouldn’t see her nakedness. Mother only wore a half-slip in the summertime. She went back into the house, quarreling about the cost of the rent and Marv. Mother took her dress off right quick ’cause it was a hot day and she needed to keep her dress good for when she went someplace.

I went saning off to find something to get into. I walked by the garbage dump and reckoned there was nothing worth going after and figured I would go hunt for crawdads to pinch the tails off and look for pearls in their heads. Daddy said crawdads had pearls in their heads that we could sell and get rich off. I had never in my whole life heard of a garbage dump till we moved her to Gree Holler.

*****

That Patricia is four years old today. That girl was born on Memorial Day in the Memorial Hospital. I’ll tell you that is a funny thing. Mother was talking to Aunt Wanda, who had come all the way from Bluefield to see us.

Daddy did not like Aunt Wanda and said she was a whore. Mother said Daddy was an infidel and was going to hell. Mother talked a lot about hell and said we youngin’s were going to end up there if we didn’t watch our p’s and q’s. She said bad youngin’s, like us, go to hell and especially if they sassed their mother. I reckoned that soon, if not already, I would be an infidel ’cause I sassed Mother, she said. I knew I was going to hell too; Mother said so. I also knew that I would be a whore, like Aunt Wanda, as soon as I get old enough to get whore bumps.

What is on Patricia’s back, Bunk? Aunt Wanda asked. Bunk was my mother. Come here, Patricia honey, and let me see your back. Does it bother you, honey? Aunt Wanda had scooped me on her lap and was looking at my back.

All I ever wore around was my homemade feed sack panties that Mother made. Aunt Wanda had already quarreled at Mother for letting me get so much sun. I was blistered across my chest, and the rest of me was red. Mother did put some vinegar on the blisters to stop the hurting.

Oh Lordy!

Aunt Wanda’s words pounded in my head as my mind raced with fear. The words Aunt Wanda said scared me as I talked silently to myself. They were talking about my lump again. The only thought I had in my head was I was going to die because of my lump. Dying meant going to hell, and I was, in my mind, on my way. I twisted and turned and wanted to run as my heart raced and my mind twirled. I mustered up the strength to answer Aunt Wanda and had managed to get off her lap. Nope, Aunt Wanda. I am just fine and dandy. My lump don’t hurt me. I am just fine and dandy, I reckon. The words felt like they were choking the very life out of my body. I had to be good and not get my lump scratched or cut because it would kill me instantly; Mother had told me that. I knew that dying meant going to hell, and I knew hell was a bad place. Mother told us almost every day about hell. She said we were going there because we sassed her.

Don’t it bother you, Bunk? Did the doctor say what caused that lump on her back? Aunt Wanda squinted her eyes and kind of looked like Mother when she was in an uproar.

I could see Aunt Wanda’s tongue through the big gap in her front teeth and hoped my teeth would not turn out like hers. Hearing Aunt Wanda say the word doctor, I began to have fear of the word doctor. I had heard about doctors since I could remember. Now I had a dread of them; they had something to do with my lump that was going to cause me to die and go to hell.

Oh, she was born with that lump on her back. The doctors said if she gets it cut or scratched and gets air in it, it will kill her instantly. She has been told not to get it cut or hurt. She knows she had better listen to me. She knows to not let anyone mess with it or bother it herself, Mother answered Aunt Wanda. Aunt Wanda was Mother’s sister.

It was a hot Memorial Day, and we were sitting under the oak tree in the yard to be in the shade of the tree. I reckoned Aunt Wanda had come to see us because of my lump. That frightened me more. My lump was right in the middle of my upper back and was big and purple, everyone said. I thought it must look like cancer, another fear. I did not know what cancer looked like; I just knew that Mother and Daddy, especially Daddy, talked a lot about cancer and syphilis. I knew they were bad because when Daddy talked about them, he would pace the floor and hike his britches and cuss some. I knew my lump must be bad ’cause it was going to kill me, and Daddy said cancer and syphilis killed people.

Somebody said my lump was the size of an orange. I knew what an orange was because we youngin’s got one most every time, if Mother could find the money to buy some, we got cleaned out. The orange was to kill the taste of the castor oil that we had to take to help clean us out. Then Mother would give us an enema with that big red rubber bag and hose. The hose had a black tip on it that went into us. That enema bag hung on the back of the house. Sometimes I saw Mother use the bag, and I reckoned she was cleaning herself out. We all five got the enema and a spoonful of sugar with three drops of turpentine on the sugar. The turpentine was to kill the worms we had or might get. Mother cleaned us out because all youngin’s needed to be cleaned out at least once a month. We would line up and get on our hands and knees, like when we prayed, with our hind ends up in the air, and Mother started filling us with the soapy water. She made that soapy water with the soap she made in the dishpan with the lye and hog fat. We had to hold the soapy water in as long as we could stand it, and then we got to go to the woods and let it out. More than three drops of turpentine at one time would kill any youngin’; Mother said so.

*****

It did not take us long to find out all of what our new place, Gree Holler, was about. George Hyte was our closest neighbor, and he was a hermit, Mother said. You could see his cabin right well from ours.

We had a chalk mine, and we could dig clay from alongside the road. I learned to shape animals with the chalk and clay and was proud to show them off every time I got a chance.

There was an apple orchard on Wise Mountain, close to the fire tower, which was just above the house. And Daddy said that was where we lived—Wise Mountain, Virginia. There was a big road at the top of the mountain, and we could hear the big trucks drive by sometimes. Some of the trucks would dump garbage, which Daddy told us all about. When they dumped garbage, we would go and hunt for anything that we could make use of. Every time we went to hunt garbage, there would be a man somewhere, and he would whistle pretty songs. He would never let us see him, and we called him the birdman.

We had a coal mine that we could go in. And the spring, for water, was close to the house. There was room for a garden, and there was a dirt fruit cellar. Best of all, there was a big oak tree right in our yard.

The Edwards lived down the way. They had that girl named Judy, who Mother said was a bad child. They had other children and a pet crow named Blackie. Blackie could talk.

I want you kids to know that people make money whistling. I can whistle some, but I can’t whistle like a real whistler does. They make money at it. There are men who make money tying knots too. I can tie a square knot and a few more. I learned about tying knots when I was in the Army. I will show you kids how to tie knots so you can make money. I guess Daddy talking like this was what made us pay so much attention to the birdman.

Daddy, how long was you in the Army? Larry was the oldest, and he asked Daddy.

All my brothers, all three of them, were in the Army and in the war. I signed up and went in for a while, and I have a needle that broke off in my heel, and that got me out of the Army. All my brothers were wounded, and I got out. Daddy didn’t seem to want to talk too much about the Army, and Mother said he got out because the Army said his mind was half functional.

Daddy painted houses for a living. We never had any money ’cause he couldn’t find any to paint, and he said that was why he went to Cincinnati. Mother said our daddy was lazy and didn’t provide for us and went to Cincinnati to be with other women. We ate beans and oatmeal mostly, and Daddy said that was good enough for us; he said he didn’t have it so good when he was our size. Daddy did kill a possum now and again, if the dog treed one, for us to eat. We had crow sometimes, and Daddy shot a robin the other day, and we ate it. Mostly, Daddy ate it. He said he won’t shoot another robin to eat and said there wasn’t enough meat on a robin to waste a bullet on.

Now don’t you youngin’s let me catch you saying bad words. I will kill you for that. I won’t have you going to hell. You say ‘wee-wee’ and ‘doo-doo.’ I won’t have you saying bad words. You watch your p’s and q’s. I am watching you, and I will beat your brains out.

Mother was mixing up the corn bread to eat with the pinto beans when dinnertime came as she quarried at us and kept laying down the law.

Most days, in the summer, all five of us would go down to the big rock and play. The big rock was just that; it was big and flat, and it lay on the hillside by the dirt road. We could slide on it, and it acquired many names—the fort, our house, a store, and a hiding place. We would dig in the dirt by the rock and find treasures, mostly broken glass, and imagine all kinds of happenings.

CHAPTER 2

The Smiths

P ATRICIA, YOU PUT some clothes on and go down to the store and ask Mr. Jessy if he has any feed sacks saved up for me. I need to make you girls some panties. You can’t run around here with your nakedness showing. You will turn out to be no good. You are already just like that old trollop Lill Wilson. Mother’s big titties were hanging over the washboard that was in the tub as she scrubbed the clothes, along with the rags, on the washboard. For some reason, Mother saved rags, and she washed and ironed them. Mother hardly looked up as she kept on scrubbing and quarreling.

I put on my striped coveralls that I hated. I thought they made me look like a railroad man. They had a trapdoor in the back, and I never used it. I just pulled them down.

Mother said that was all the clothes I had, and I was to be proud of them. She said some youngin’s were not as lucky to have what I had.

Mother never wore anything in the summertime, except her half-slip until someone came around, and then she hurried and put on a dress. Daddy told us what her titties were a long time ago.

You get that lipstick off too. I have told you a thousand times to stay out of my lipstick. That is all I have. You ain’t big enough to wear it, and you leave it alone. I will conquer you yet. I have conquered all these youngin’s. But you, your time is coming, and it is coming soon.

Okey dokey, Mother. Can I have a nickel to get a box of Cracker Jacks with?

No, you cannot. I don’t have a nickel. You get out of here and do what I told you to do. You are no good, and some man is going to beat your brains out. All you do is hang around here and drive me crazy. I am a nervous wreck. Now you get out of here.

Carol was helping Mother wash the clothes, and I was glad to get to go to the store. I had carried water for the wash, one bucket at a time, until my fingers were sore.

Hello, Mr. Jessy. I opened the screen door to the country store that seemed like a whole town to me.

Mr. Jessy was standing behind the counter, straightening things. The store smelled good, and I seemed to always be hungry. Hello, honey. What can I do for you today? Mr. Jessy smiled as he picked up a rag and began to wipe the top of the glass counter as he asked.

I went twisting in front of the glass case as I answered. My eyes were on the big licorice sticks that I didn’t have a nickel for. I had walked by the graveyard, hoping some men would be digging a grave so I could go to the store for them. There wasn’t any this day.

Mother sent me to ask you if you had any feed sacks saved up for her. She said she would pay you when she gets some money. She said she needs to make us panties. My fingers ran across the front of the long glass case, and my attention had shifted to the big roll of bologna in the case with the other meats. I was so hungry, and I wondered how good a whole roll of bologna would taste.

Well, honey, I do have some sacks for you. Tell your mother that I will save all I get for her. Have you eaten today, honey? A big smile overtook his round freckled red face. Mr. Jessy was a round man with red hair and red face. He wore bib overalls and a white shirt all the time. He was always smiling and always kind to me.

Yes, Mr. Jessy, I swanie I have ate today. I had a cucumber, and Mother has a pot of pinto beans cooking right now on the cookstove. I reckon they will be cooked soon, and we will have dinner. We called the midday meal dinner.

Well, honey, I have these bananas that have turned old, and you better take them home. I will have to throw them away if you don’t take them.

The only bananas that we got were the ones that Mr. Jessy gave us, and sometimes Daddy would manage to steal a few at the Piggly Wiggly store in Coeburn.

I reckoned Mother was going to beat my brains out for throwing a hint for the bananas and tried to think of a way to say no. I just said, Thank you, Mr. Jessy. Will you put them in the poke with the feed sacks? I can’t linger here. Mother says she will give me the beating of my life if I wear my welcome out.

Where are the other children today, honey? Mr. Jessy was wrapping the bananas in a brown wrapping paper. He said it was to keep them from getting on the feed sacks.

I reckon the boys are off somewhere, and Carol is helping Mother wash the clothes. That Elaine pined off with the dog. I ’spect they are running the woods, looking for lizards and chipmunks.

Here, honey, is your stuff. Now you be careful with the bananas and make sure your mother gets them. I took the sack. Do you think you can carry all this stuff? You are pretty little, honey.

I reckoned I could and took the poke. Thank you, Mr. Jessy. I reckon I’ll be seeing you.

"Here, Patricia. Why don’t you take one of the licorice sticks? I have a