Tag Archives: Family

Memoir, Uncategorized

Father’s Day at the Mental Hospital

My grandfather was hauled off to a state mental hospital after he went after my grandmother with a hoe. The story goes my grandmother knocked him out with a bucket and thought he was dead. When the police came, he was taken away to one of the state mental hospitals that existed then. His diagnosis, I believe: clinical paranoia.

I didn’t see Vovô, as we kids called him, very often after that incident, but I recall visiting him at the hospital on Father’s Day. (Vovô was the grandfather on my mother’s side of the family, which included two sisters.)

On that day, my father drove our family to the hospital. My uncle brought his, which included my aunt and two cousins, plus my grandmother. One time, another aunt, my mother’s youngest sister, came.

The family brought Vovô a carton of cigarettes and made a picnic of the visit on the hospital grounds, with food, croquet, and a game of Wiffle Ball. Vovô insisted on taking us kids to the canteen for Hoodsie Cups ice cream and to introduce us to his friends. I felt half-afraid and half-curious by the experience.

By the way, the photo above is a family portrait my mother took on one of those visits. Vovô wears the suit. My grandmother, Vovó, sits on the bench holding my brother. I was only 12 and the girl on the far left.

Let me tell you a little about Vovô. He came over on the boat from Madeira when he was young and married my grandmother, who came from the same island, here. They worked in the textile mills of New Bedford, Massachusetts. A hard worker, during the Depression he bought a home in the small town of Acushnet, where the family grew and raised much of their food, plus took in boarders. He and my grandmother took English lessons and converted to a Protestant religion. Vovô made his two oldest daughters drop out of high school so they could work in the textile mills or watch the house when he and my grandmother were at work.

I don’t recall Vovô being a warm man. But then again, I imagine it was a huge adjustment emigrating to a new country and one so different than the Portuguese island where he once lived. One of my cousins told me recently our grandfather was bullied by his co-workers.

Vovô spent the last years of his life at Taunton State Hospital. He made a life for himself there. He had a job working in the laundry and even a girlfriend, whom we kids met one Father’s Day. She waited beside a tree on the grounds to meet us. My grandmother refused to divorce him.

He tried coming home once but that didn’t last long.

Vovô died while he watched a movie at the hospital. The lights came on and he was already gone. I went to the wake but not the funeral. I was a teenager then.

Years later, I worked and lived in a psychiatric halfway house, which took in patients from state and private hospitals. At that time, Massachusetts was closing its hospitals and placing people in such places. The staff was untrained and inexperienced. We were supposed to be role models and helpful roommates, I suppose. That experience inspired a novel I wrote, The Swanson Shuffle, but have yet to publish.

The halfway house’s staff had a ring of keys that unlocked every ward in the closest hospital, Foxborough State, so we could come and go freely. When I did, I thought of my grandfather and how he got used to living in one.

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Memory

Remembering Titi Ernie

My aunt’s first name is Ernestina, but I always called her Titi Ernie, a term of endearment I used since I was a small child instead of Tia. She is my mother’s sister, two years younger, the middle daughter of their parents who emigrated to the U.S. from the Portuguese island of Madeira. 

She left us May 31, just months shy of her 99th birthday. That is the photo of her that ran with her obituary.

At her wake Thursday, I shared a few memories, and now I will do that with you.

Titi Ernie was only four feet ten inches tall, so it was always a milestone when my siblings and I were the same height or taller. My own children celebrated that accomplishment.

She and Uncle Louis, and their two sons, Louis and Michael, lived next door to my grandmother Angela, or Avó, their homes separated by a large field that used to contain gardens. We visited them nearly every weekend it seemed, playing with our cousins, mostly Louis for me, since we were only born a month apart. In the summer, we stopped at the ocean-side cottage they owned after spending a full day at the beach.

Titi Ernie was always a gracious and kind person who welcomed us into her home. She remembered us at Christmas and birthdays with cash in a card. Recently, my children, now adults, recalled fondly the pineapple cream puffs she served them, playing on the rocky shoreline of the cottage, and her collection of penguins. I had to remind them to call her Titi Ernie and not Aunt Titi Ernie.

Later in life, when I had moved far away, I tried to visit Titi Ernie when I could, often accompanied by my mother. The sisters were very close.

There is much more I could say about Titi Ernie, but I want to tell you a memory I shared at her wake that no one else knew. I had just graduated from high school and was heading that fall to a state college thanks to the scholarships I received. I was the first of my father’s family to attend college and tied for first with Louis on my mother’s. I was going to major in English because secretly I wanted to be a writer. By the way, neither Titi Ernie or my mother graduated from high school. They were forced to drop out to work in a textile mill or to mind the house so my grandmother could work instead.

That summer, Titi Ernie asked me to tutor my cousin Michael. It was either in French or English, I can’t recall. But I walked to their home or got a ride. I only came a few times. But later that summer, Titi Ernie surprised me with the gift of a new typewriter. I recall it had a light blue plastic cover. The significance of that gift is important because I didn’t have a typewriter to take to college.

I kept that typewriter for many years after I graduated. I even used it when I was a rookie reporter for the Daily Hampshire Gazette, as the correspondent for the hilltown where I lived, Worthington. I wrote my story on that machine then drove it to the newsroom in Northampton for someone else to type into the system. That ended soon when I was given a laptop that transmitted the story via a cord plugged into the phone jack.

I no longer have that typewriter, but I do the memory of that gift and the thoughtfulness of my Titi Ernie.

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Hilltown Postcards

A Yellow Toothbrush and a Box of Food for Christmas

Ah, Christmas: one holiday, so many emotions and circumstances. Happy Christmas. Sad Christmas. Rich Christmas. Poor Christmas. Stressful. Carefree. Lonely. Crowded. Weird Christmas.

I liked the ones we spend with our large family. Great food and laughs, gifts, and even one year, fireworks one daughter bought from the South where she lived.

We had a freshly cut tree with ornaments, many of them made by the kids. Why was one son’s Santa wearing gray and yellow? Because the red felt was already taken. Why did another son’s wooden Santa have a black, bandit’s mask? Just because.

We didn’t have a lot of money then, but we tried to buy thoughtful gifts we thought each child would enjoy.

On the Sunday before Christmas, the owners of the Corners Grocery would host Santa. We adults knew he was really Dave who lived in town, but for our kids who still believed, he was the real thing. 

Santa would station himself in the post office annex to greet kids and find out what they wanted. I recall one daughter asked for a yellow toothbrush. Don’t ask me why but we made sure she got one.

Christmas day was a mad dash for the kids to open their gifts and then we drove to my hometown to spend the holiday with my parents and to visit our extended family. When we lived in Ringville, the very helpful Win Donovan would visit our house to keep the fire going in the woodstove, our only source of heat, so the water pipes wouldn’t freeze.

I remember the Christmas after Hank was hurt on a job site a few months before. He fell 18 feet onto his shoulder because someone didn’t nail a board in place on the floor. He couldn’t work. The people who hired him as a subcontractor wouldn’t pay him while he was hurt.

After all those years staying home with six kids, I found a one-year teaching job. We kept things going with a starting teacher’s pay.

It was close to the holiday when we came home to find a large cardboard box on the doorstep of the house we were renting. It contained food and an envelope with $70 in cash.

We were stunned.

We asked around but no one would admit to it. This kind deed has not been forgotten.

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Author reading

Sweet Homecoming at The Millicent Library

It was indeed a warm welcome when I gave a reading Oct. 18 at the Millicent Library in my hometown of Fairhaven, Mass. I was touched by the people who came, including many who had read my Isabel Long Mystery Series, which the library carries. Thanks Friends of The Millicent Library for hosting me.

When I was a kid, my mother brought me there to borrow books. As I told those who came for the reading, I tried to read the library’s entire Wizard of Oz series — a friend in the audience said he actually had it at home when it was bought at a sale the library held long ago — plus the one for Nancy Drew, when I and everyone else thought it was written by a woman named Carolyn Keene.

When I moved onto the adult books, I vowed to read every one in the library, an impossible task for certain.

I never know how many people will come to a reading or who will be in the audience. I was surprised right away when a man named Mike presented me with a large black and white photo taken a while back of my parents and his parents dancing at an event. How thoughtful.

Chairs were added as more people came. My cousin, Michael, who has read my books, was there. Several classmates from Fairhaven High School, who had likely seen my post on Facebook, were present. There were people I hadn’t seen in a very long time. Beth David was shooting photos for her Fairhaven Neighborhood News, the local paper.

The talk and reading went fine. I had prepared a script, with each opening sentence highlighted and the script in 22 point, which I had practiced ahead of time so I had most of it in my brain. I talked about my connection to the library and writing experience before delving into the books I have written. I read from them briefly, including the first chapter of Northern Comfort, my latest.

Then I opened it up to questions, which was fun. One man suggested I do podcasts. (Thanks for the suggestion. I am thinking about it.) People had questions about the books such as do I have a hard time keeping characters straight in my different books. (No, I don’t.) What authors do I like? Advice about publishing.

Afterward when I was signing books people bought, I was approached by my ninth-grade history teacher, Dennis Duval. I had written a blog post, The People Who Teach Us, about meeting him last summer at my mother’s convalescent home. I had no way of knowing how to reach him, but he told me he found it online by chance. He had printed it out and asked me to sign it for him. 

It was a sweet homecoming for certain.

NEXT READING: I will be doing one Sunday, Oct. 22, 2 p.m. at the Arms Library in my village of Shelburne Falls.

ABOUT THE PHOTOS: Hank took the ones of me talking and signing books. I snapped the one of the audience.

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Mother

My Mother Is 99

On April 2, my mother, Algerina is 99 years old. That’s a very long life filled with creativity and a curiosity about the world around her. Let me tell you about her.

Her parents emigrated from the Portuguese island of Madeira. They met in New Bedford, Mass., worked in the textile mills, and bought a house and land in a nearby town, where they kept a large vegetable garden and goats. A great deal was expected of my mother and her younger sister, Ernestina. Although a good student, my mother was forced to drop out of high school to work in one of those mills. Her sister had to take care of the house.

As a young adult, Mom continued to live at home, thinking she was going to be an old maid, a term we don’t use today. She was 24 when she met my father, Antone on a blind date. They were married six weeks later. It was a very long and happy marriage that ended when our father passed at in 2015 a few months short of his 93rd birthday. Mom always says their years of marriage were the best of her life.

They had three other children besides me: my sisters, Christine and Kij; my brother, Tony. There are lots of grandchildren, and even great-grandchildren.

My father was active in their town of Fairhaven, Massachusetts, especially with sports, whether playing or coaching it. My mother would be there watching. Both were heavily involved in St. Mary’s annual shows, and my mother put her sewing talents to great use creating costumes for them both. (Her costume-making guaranteed me a starring role in my school plays. The prom gowns she sewed, including the one with the glass beads on the bodice, are in a trunk still.)

It’s unfortunate my mother had to leave school because she loved learning. She wanted to be a nurse, and seeing how she cared for our father in his last years, she would have been a caring one. She was a big reader. When we were kids, she took us to the library twice a week for an armload of books she read in bed. 

Mom took adult education classes in such subjects as millinery — I wore feathered hats with veils to church — jewelry making, cake decorating, painting, you name it.

She and Dad enjoyed traveling, especially to Hawaii, Las Vegas, Madeira, and the Azores.

I have fond memories of the long days we spent at the beach on the weekends. Mom would make clam fritters. (She and Dad dug for clams and quahogs in season.)

She loved eating lobster.

Until she had to give up her license a few years ago, Mom drove to three places to eat and shop — Wendy’s, Walmart and Market Basket, taking only right-hand turns. She had a bit of a heavy foot. Hank joked she drove like she was in the getaway car of a bank robbery.

My mother enjoyed gambling and winning, whether it was Bingo put on by one of the local churches or playing the slots at the casino. She had a head for Sudoku, a puzzle that mystifies me. A loyal newspaper reader, she still has a subscription to the New Bedford Standard Times.

My mom’s not the meddling kind of mother. She let her children find out things for themselves. I am certain there are times she was mystified by the decisions I made and the directions I took, but she kept that to herself.

Mom is also the inspiration for the mother, Maria in my Isabel Long Mystery Series. I give that character a lot of my mother’s interests and personality. She’s nosy and helpful solving crimes. My mother liked that.

On Friday, my son Zack and I paid a pre-birthday visit to Mom. She now needs special care and help, certainly understandable given her age and health. She was happy to see us, as we were happy to spend time with her. When we both sang “Happy Birthday,” she joined us. She still has her sense of humor. When she heard somebody say “Hey!” she responded with “Hay is for horses!”

There’s so much more I could write about my mother, but this post gives you an idea.

Happy 99th birthday, Algerina. Thank you for being my mother.

ABOUT THE PHOTO ABOVE: That’s a formal photo of her taken a number of years ago.

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