Not an Ordinary Life

By Sharon Ricklin

This is the true story about the life of my mother, Barbara Joan Secklin.

Born in 1931 and given up for adoption, she may have been one of the "black market" babies.

After her "adoption" she was abandoned in a hotel room in Chicago.

She was motherless, abused, and forced to give up her firstborn.

She was divorced in an era where it was seriously not cool.

She raised six children, only to out-live her oldest and her youngest.

She cared for her husband of over 50 years when he became ill - and then wrote a book about it.

She beat cancer - twice.

She is an artist, a poet, and an author.

I'd call her a survivor, but she'd probably say, "It's just my life." 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sharon Ricklin
• Release date: Aug 14, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223770015

Sharon Ricklin

Sharon grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and always knew she wanted to be a writer. Besides being a mother and grandmother, she also spent time as a medical assistant, a ranch hand, and a teacher. While homeschooling her youngest son, she wrote her first novel - Song of Memory.    A multi-published author of paranormal, time-travel and contemporary romance, Sharon also co-authored a paranormal adventure novel with her Mother, Barbara, titled, Shadow of Cheveyo.    Sharon is a full-time caregiver and part-time writer, but as much as she enjoys writing, she is not looking forward to the day this changes…    She also enjoys interior decorating, photography, and great Sci-Fi movies, but her greatest joy in life is hanging out with her kids and grandkids.

Book preview

A Note from the Author

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This book is an Authorized Biography. Most events are from my Mother’s memories (from her perspective), and in some cases, from her children. Wherever real names have been used, the author has obtained full permission; however, certain names have been left out, and some faces have been obscured from photos to protect their identities.

Writing an authorized biography is not as easy as it sounds, especially when you happen to be a part of the actual story and not all of the history is good... The negative accounts must be written in a way that does not appear judgmental, yet no matter how hard you try, that’s exactly what it ends up sounding like. For that, I’m sorry.  But I felt it was necessary to write what actually took place, rather than gloss things over.

For the record, every single chapter, page, and paragraph was read by my mother and she’s given her approval to publish. It’s not to say she wasn’t tempted to ask for a few retractions, especially in chapter 15, but in the end, she felt compelled to let me tell the whole truth instead of skipping the cringe-worthy parts. For that, I will always be grateful.

All of Mom’s memories came from the best of her recollections, and I did my best to give an honest narrative of the events as she told them to me. If there are any discrepancies, they are purely by accident and are not meant to cause harm or injury to anyone from her past.

This is simply her life story. 

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Acknowledgements

The author’s profound gratitude:

To Brandi and Charlotte - my Beta readers

To C. J. Rains - my editor - Her helpful suggestions and encouraging critiques are appreciated more than she’ll ever know.

To Bob - He suggested the title of this book at the exact same moment it hit me, when Mom mentioned that her life was certainly not ordinary.

To Barbara - She taught me the love of reading, always encourages me in my writing, and at the age of 92 is still a walking thesaurus - My Mom.

♥ ♥ ♥

I am also grateful to my small, but enthusiastic group of fans who continue to cheer me on with their rave and colorful reviews on Facebook, Goodreads, and other online sales outlets.

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Sharon Ricklin, Author  (https://www.facebook.com/SharonRicklin.Author/)

Cover design by: SelfPubBookCovers.com/AutumnSky

Chapter 1 - Heartbreak Hotel

"Indifference and neglect often do much more

damage than outright dislike." 

~ J.K. Rowling ~

Chicago, Illinois - Circa 1933 -

At an unnamed Hotel - long before the time of free Wi-Fi, HBO, or central air-conditioning...

His hotel room was stiflingly hot, but the smoky corridors were worse. The man stepped out of his room onto the dark red and green floral carpeting, and as he pulled the door shut, he only hoped that a walk in the fresh air might be helpful. He glanced at the ancient walls that were decorated with vintage still-life paintings. Each picture was framed in ornate, antique-gold, and helped to hide sections of the faded pink and green striped wallpaper. The long hallway felt gloomy, depressingly dreary, and now echoed with the faint cry of a child.  

As the man passed each mind-numbing picture, the sound grew louder.  Reaching the end of the hall just before the massive stairway that led down to the grand lobby of the hotel, he paused at the last grayish-white door. Yes, the crying was definitely coming from this room.

He wiped his sweaty brow as he listened. The soft whimpers mingled with the murmurings from downstairs on the main floor, and he couldn’t tell if someone was attempting to calm the child or not. Fingering the brim of his Fedora, he continued to the stairs and went down. While exiting the luxurious foyer, he placed the hat on his head and headed east. The man welcomed the gentle breeze on his face and forgot all about the crying kid.

Upstairs in Room 201, the child cried louder. Eventually, other people noticed the incessant crying and began to report the nuisance to the front desk clerks.  The hotel manager most likely knocked on the door, but no one answered. Or, perhaps one of the maids went in to clean the room and found the youngster all alone. You see, the exact details are lost to history; the narrative you just read is a fictionalized account of a true event.

There really was a child left all alone in a hotel room in downtown Chicago in the early 1930s. It was a little girl between the ages of 1½ to two years old who had recently been adopted. Of course, they alerted the police. And it took several hours to locate the mother. She had decided to leave the child alone because the woman simply had to go shopping.

One can’t help wondering if the baby was hungry. Or thirsty. Or scared. Or exactly how long she’d been left all alone. And as grievous as these uncertainties may be, we will never have answers to those questions.  Clearly, the woman was insane. No one in their right mind would ever leave a baby all alone in a hotel room.

And as horrific as the incident of the neglected toddler was, there’s one tiny element about her story that is positive. It is believed that some forms of insanity can be hereditary; therefore, it’s a good thing that there was no blood relation between the disturbed woman and the baby.  In fact, it’s a very good thing - and something for which I am personally thankful. Not only did the child grow up normal and of sound mind; some 18 years later, she became my mother.

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Chapter 2 - Black-Market Baby

"Every person from your past lives as a shadow in your mind.

Good or bad, they all helped you write the story of your life,

and shaped the person you are today."  

~ Doe Zantamata ~

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Here is an interesting plot twist: Many years ago someone divulged that my Mother was one of the infamous Chicago black-market babies...

According to Adoption.com/wiki  A black-market baby is the term for children who are illegally adopted. There is usually a payment involved to the birth parents, an adoption attorney, an adoption facilitator, or another intermediary or an agency, in order to avoid complying with the law...

...In the early 1900s, private religious and secular groups established orphanages for the care of children, but were soon overwhelmed... Social changes and the absence of regulation meant that by the 1920s, the climate was fertile for the sale of black market babies to adoptive parents. Doctors, attorneys, and others let it be known that babies were available, no questions asked...  

My mother was told that she was sold by a doctor whose sideline was, most likely, selling babies to infertile couples, who perhaps didn’t legitimately qualify. We don’t know why or how Mom ended up for-sale, but the Wiki article says; "...Many (babies) were born to poor or single mothers who were put to sleep for the delivery, only to wake and be told their baby had died. Others, faced with the stigma of unwed motherhood, knowingly relinquished their children.

Even when babies were given up with the mother's consent, steps were taken that have made it difficult for adoptees to learn the truth. Doctors often delivered babies in their offices, making it easy to falsify records. Sometimes adoptive parents were listed as birth parents, eliminating the need for adoption and making it impossible to trace the sale of these black market babies. Details as to date and place of birth were sometimes changed on the birth certificates.  (This is exactly what happened to Mom) Birth mother consent forms were often falsified. Or birth mothers would check into hospitals under the adoptive mother's name, so all records would show the adoptive mother having birthed the child."

The adoptive parents, Harry and Sydelle, had married in 1924. Mom was born in 1931, and the adoption took place sometime later. Mom’s birth certificate lists Harry and Sydelle as her actual parents.

These newly made parents had absolutely no business trying to raise a child. As Mom viewed them in later years, she could see that Harry appeared to be hard-working, but ineffectual, and Sydelle proved to be domineering and flighty. As anyone can see from the hotel story, she was obviously a threat to the child’s wellbeing. She was also bipolar, but almost always manic. No doubt the adoption was her idea; one of her magical, fun, brilliant, unstoppable ideas.

We have no knowledge of the obstacles Harry and Sydelle may have faced in the post-depression world of the early 1930s, nor what interesting, strange, or dangerous incidents might have taken place in those beginning months. But we are well aware of what ended their parenting. 

Sydelle came from a well-to-do family, although not much is known about them. She bragged about being a piano player, but Mom only witnessed this a few times, and says her skills were just so-so. Filled with a grandiose manner, Sydelle knew no limits. She considered herself one of high society, spoke often of important meetings and nonexistent luncheons and outings. Overflowing with delusions of grandeur, she had convinced herself that she was a person of importance. And since Sydelle truly believed that she belonged in high society, she needed to be out socializing, eating at fancy restaurants, and patronizing upper-class shops. Mom says she seriously lived in a Great Gatsby fog.

One day, while Harry was at work, she planned an outing for herself. Sydelle took the baby, headed into downtown Chicago, and booked a room at a hotel. She decided to do a bit of shopping, and then find a fancy restaurant that offered fine dining. There, she could rub elbows with the upper crust. And in her ridiculous delusion of self-importance and greatness, she actually left the toddler all alone in the hotel room. 

Of course, a frightened, screaming child left alone in a hotel room would absolutely guarantee police involvement. Authorities would have to be notified. Questions would be asked. Somehow, this reality escaped her mind and became the catalyst that changed her future completely. 

They couldn't find Sydelle for hours. After they located her and Harry, they remanded Sydelle, and unsurprisingly, her family and the court system committed her to a mental institution. Personally, I would have liked to hear that someone had pressed charges...

With Sydelle out of the picture, the baby became a real problem; Harry had to go to work, or he’d lose his job. Now, suddenly a single father to a newly adopted child, he felt there was only one option open to him. He would have to ask his mother to take over the care of the toddler at her home in Milwaukee. 

Thus begins the next 17 years or so of Mom’s life. These were the years she was forced to live with the Captive Kitchen Midget. She had to endure the Angry Monster of the Middle room. And she found herself always yearning for, but never attaining, more time with the Ghost from the Land of Soon.

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Chapter 3 - Captive Kitchen Midget

"The absent are never without fault,

nor the present without excuse."

~ Benjamin Franklin ~

Being raised by an elderly Jewish grandmother doesn’t necessarily sound like a bad thing. (Matzo ball soup is delicious!) But I'm sure there were many pros and cons to this unusual situation. Born in Russia in 1879, Grandma Tillie was in her fifties by the time my mother came to live with her; probably too old to start over and raise a small child. Even though she’d raised her three boys to adulthood, her life was far from carefree. She was a full-time caregiver for her youngest adult son, Sam, who suffered from severe Cerebral Palsy.

This woman was thin and bony, with a hump on her back - more on the right side than the middle. She was quite short; somewhere between 4’6 and 4’9. She was so tiny, that Mom’s friends would often ask if she was a midget or a dwarf.

Her education level is unknown, but she was fluent in several languages. She always spoke in Russian to her husband, Charles, and Yiddish to her youngest son. (Yiddish is ‘Judeo-German’; a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews.) Her Jewish newspaper was partially written in Yiddish, and she read it every week. She read her Hebrew Bible, prayers were always said in Hebrew, and she was fluent in German and Polish. Most of her neighbors were also immigrants, and luckily, she understood and could get by with most of the other Slavic languages.

When Grandma Tillie spoke English, she had a thick Jewish accent. My mother’s name, Barbara, would come out sounding more like Barbada. When she talked to Mom, it was very common for Grandma to lapse into Yiddish. Because of growing up in a multilingual home;

Mom learned many Yiddish and Hebrew phrases and words, and can still recall them to this day.

Even though Tillie had immigrated to the more modern country of America, it seemed she had a difficult time assimilating, and she remained a slave to the old ways in Russia. She continued wearing long dresses, heavy black shoes, and babushkas on her head. Tillie spent most of her time in the kitchen cooking from scratch and always wore a white apron, which was often stained with various foods. She would occasionally socialize with the neighbor ladies and have them over for hot tea, which they invariably drank in clear, tall glasses.

Mom recalls all the many trips to the local butcher shop, but particularly the times they’d go for chicken. The butcher would literally bring out several live chickens for Tillie to choose from, and once she was satisfied, he would take it in the back room and cut off its head, hand it to whoever was responsible for defeathering it, and then bring it back out front. Every single part of this chicken was used in Tillie’s cooking. Bones were used to make soup. They ate the gizzards, livers, necks, and hearts. Chicken fat would be saved and rendered to make schmaltz. Cooking with schmaltz is common in Jewish cuisine because it adds a buttery richness without adding any dairy, which is crucial in order to keep a kosher diet. Schmaltz is also used to make matzo balls, chicken liver pâté, roasted potatoes, and latkes (potato pancakes). The chicken skin was used to make gribenes, which are crisp chicken skin cracklings, made with or without fried onions. There were even times when Tillie would ask the butcher for the chicken feathers so she could make pillows.

Besides all the things she did with chicken, she also made many other foods from scratch. She made her own wine from grapes. She made sauerkraut in crocks in the basement. She pickled many different vegetables: pickles, carrots, beets, etc. She’d even roll out dough and make her own noodles. There was always a lot of baking; cookies, pies, and cakes. Of course, Mom would help with all of the cutting and chopping. She’d even be sent into the basement to stir the pickles.

Mom doesn’t remember a lot from when she was very young, but one of her more vivid memories of her grandma was during the time when she was a small child and had growing pains in her legs. As Mom lay in bed crying, her grandma would rub the youngster’s sore, aching limbs, and repeat over and over, "Sha schlafen, which basically translates to, Shh, sleep.  She also has a vague memory of being very little and running up to her grandma and hugging her legs. Her grandma’s response would be, Mein kind, which means, My child." This reaction gave Mom the rare feeling of belonging and being loved.

Barbara at about 3 years old

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When Mom was around five or six, she came down with Scarlet fever. This disease is a bacterial illness that mainly affects children and causes a distinctive pink-red rash. The illness is caused by Streptococcus pyogenes bacteria, also known as Group A Streptococcus, which are found on the skin and in the throat. Even though Scarlet fever is less common now than in the past, outbreaks still occur. (The bacteria that cause strep throat are also responsible for Scarlet fever.)

Apparently, Mom’s case was bad enough to land her in the hospital. She has no memory of the fever or the rash, but has a vague recollection of the hospital bed which seemed more like a crib.

Years later she was told that she went into the hospital with Scarlet fever, and came home with a case of Chicken Pox. She definitely remembers the itching!

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Mom feels that as she grew older and started school, her grandmother’s affection towards her began to wane. This alone is sad when you realize the old woman was really the only mother figure she ever knew. Once she was old enough to realize that her friends had more normal families that included two parents, Mom started to question her Grandma about the whereabouts of her mother. Some of Tillie’s answers were: She’s sick, or I don’t know. Sometimes she’d say, She’s a gypsy, or, She’s dead, or She ran away! And if she was in a particularly bad mood, she'd blurt out, She didn't want you!