PROLOGUE
Previously, we saw Mama’s first husband, Mr. Loren had died, leaving her with 4 small children, and my Daddy’s (Claude) first wife (Ms. Nellie) had died as well, leaving him with three children and an infant son who needed a mother.
They had known each other, and this union just made sense for all concerned. As will happen though, small children will many times resent their change in circumstances, and maybe never accept their new step mother or father.
Mama’s children were all “in rags” (as my daddy later told me himself) so one of the first things he did was to buy them some new clothes.
HIS Eldest daughter resented this, because she didn’t get anything new. Daddy said he told her that she already HAD new clothes. And so the seeds for discontent were sown.
My sister Linda had been born, which disappointed Daddy, this in turn broke Mama's heart
Then Claude began to stay out late and drinking.
I was so heartbroken at first I did not know what to do.
When he finally went to completely broke he closed the shop and let all the mechanics go. Then he just stayed at the house and pittledPiddled around the farm for about three months.
Then he went back to the shop and hired one of the men who had worked for him before he closed up.
Earl Bowles was the man.
They worked in the shop and I kept the books although I had no previous booking training. We put ourselves on a cash basis [meaning no credit] and I wrote to all our creditors asking them to give us time and we would pay them all we owed them, some every month until we had payed them all.
They were all very nice about it, and in about two years we payed them all which amounted to about twelve thousand dollars.
During this time we moved to town.
There is living quarters over the building we used for parts and a service station. This is where we moved to.
During the war[WW II] an Army Camp was established about twenty miles from Town.
This camp was made permanent and on weekends there was always a crowd of boys from there in town.
Nancy [Mama’s eldest] had married a local boy, but Claudelle[Daddies eldest] and Bobbie[Mama’s second daughter] were just the right age to be interested in boys and dating.
Before long they were dating these boys. Most of them were nice boys and we did not mind our girls going with them.
Before Claudelle graduated she married a boy named Al from Ohio[she was pregnant]. He was sent overseas and Claudelle stayed with us until her baby was born, but when the baby was about four months old she went to Al’s family in Ohio.
We did not see her again for three years.
Bobbie finished school and joined the Navy.
She was in for four years, but she only served for two years, before she too married.
Bobbie married a boy from West Virginia named Tom.
Claude and Nancy and I went to their wedding.
They had the wedding at Tom’s home.
His parents wanted to have it there as Tom was the only son and his stepmother was not in good health and could not travel.
While we were there we went to see Claudelle and Al in Ohio. We had a real nice trip.
Nancy had never been to the mountains and we got a bang from her reactions.
Claude had to take a Frazer [a brand of automobile] that had been burned for the insurance.
(Picture a car in front and a truck in back.) This was before the first “El Camino” was released.
We had homemade toys, swing sets and seesaws in our yard.
He had worked out that you could weld a cracked gas tank with gasoline still in it by piping the exhaust from a running engine into the neck of the tank; all carbon monoxide (CO), no oxygen(O2), so the gasoline could NOT burn nor explode.
He was the only man around who would weld cast iron.
He was truly a man ahead of his time]
Claude built a pickup truck out of this car and built a plywood cover for it and we took a ten-day trip through the mountains in this.
We had a camp stove and pots. We took these and a mattress to sleep on and had a wonderful time. The next summer we went to Florida for another ten-day vacation.
After this our trouble really began.
Earl had gotten married to a girl named Carolyn, who was much younger than he was. We all started to go out to nightclubs and dance and we all did some drinking. I am not proud of the fact that I did drink at all, but I did. I soon began to notice Claude was paying lots of attention to Carolyn but I thought it was because she was young and attractive.
After all, she did not have anything to do but keep house for Earl and herself, while I had to keep book and run the station and keep house.
Earl had to go to Florida to see his mother who was ill, so Carolyn came and stayed with us while he was gone.
One day while she was here Claude had to have some parts from Savannah and I had to go, as he would have had to close the shop if he had gone after them.
That night after I came home Carolyn asked me if I would keep the baby for her to go to the picture show and as he was a good baby I did not mind keeping him for her.
Earl had their car so Claude let her drive the pickup to the show, and he took our car and went to get me whiskey, so I thought, but he did not return home until very late that night.
He actually met Carolyn at the show and they went off somewhere together for about two hours.
At the time I did not know this, Earl came home that same night and I fixed him a lunch.
He waited until time for the show to open[?close?] and when Carolyn did not come back he decided to go look for her.
He parked the pickup and waited for her, followed her back here and they picked the baby up and went home, but Earl did not tell me that she did not come out of the show.
Claude and Carolyn went out on several more dates before Earl was sure who she was going with, but, when he found out he told her he knew who it was and she had a chance to stop before he told me.
She did not choose to stop, but before Earl had time to tell me I found out.
While all this was going on Claude’s younger daughter became pregnant and the boy who was responsible, a service boy from Camp Stewart had been discharged and gone home to Texas.
I guess all this was too much for me for I had a nervous breakdown.
I was unconscious for several hours.
When I knew where I was [came too] Claude was by my side.
He told me I’d had convulsions and that was why I was strapped to the bed.
When I came home from the hospital I told Claude I would give him a divorce if that was what he wanted, but he cried and begged me to give him another chance, that he never did love Carolyn as he loved me. He promised he would not see her again.
As far as I know he did not.
Not long after this Earl and Carolyn moved to Florida.
IMPORTANT NOTE
the year is now 1952. When a young, unmarried white woman became pregnant in South Georgia, USA, to save face you quietly sent her away, to live with a relative (hopefully) until after the baby was born, then for the most part, the baby was given up for adoption, or perhaps adopted by the family, and the Mother became the big sister.
To keep the young woman home, with the family was UNHEARD OF, it was SCANDALOUS and my parents suffered greatly for this, being shunned by the people in our small town.
How do I know this? Years later while growing up, it was a frequent topic of late night drunken ranting by my daddy.
We kept our daughter home until time for the baby to be born. We took her to the hospital and when the baby was born a little red haired blue eyed girl.
We named her Debbie, and the next year Sylvia went back to school and finished high school with honors. The night of graduation Sylvia told us she had been married since Christmas. She married a man much older than she was. We hated to see her do this, but if she wanted to do this we could do nothing. We prayed she would be happy. She now has a little boy two years old and is expecting another baby in July.
§ End of Chapter Four §
All of this is from an account, written by my mother, typewritten in ALL CAPS, on lined notebook paper, folded in half and stuck in her bible.
She had forgotten she'd written it. She gave me permission before she died, to keep it.
Mama died in 2002
"Love Came Twice"
chapter Four
by
Jerry E Smith
©1/23/2018
