The recruiters snare the naive adolescent
As the years went on, my older brothers and sisters left home, one by one, to earn a living. Finally there were left only the five youngest. I was second youngest.
Every summer from the age of ten, I earned a little money by hiring out to baby-sit or help some farm family. I helped cook, clean the house, wash the cream separator, feed the calves, weed the garden, iron clothes and do anything else I was asked to do. I stayed with the family during the week, earning a high wage of one dollar plus room and board. I found out later that other girls were doing the same kind of work and earned a dollar a day. For me this seemed like a fortune back in the early 1940’s.
I worked for the Morgan family one summer just after graduating from the eighth grade. This family had one little girl for whom I was responsible while the husband and wife worked in the fields. I still had to cook, clean, garden, and keep up with all the other jobs while entertaining the little one.
Mr. Morgan was an alcoholic. Almost every evening after supper he would go to town, come back drunk, and invariably beat his wife. One night he and his brother, Jack, who was visiting, started beating their wives. The wives ran out of the house, leaving me there with two babies. I was already in bed and the babies were sleeping.
Jack came into the bedroom. I started crying. He stumbled into the room and plopped on the bed. I was terrified. Barely able to slur out his words, with his brain numbed with booze, he asked me what was wrong. I told him that he should be ashamed of himself for the way he was acting, adding that my parents never acted the way he did. I ordered him to kneel down and to say his prayers. He did just that, weeping all the while. He didn’t lay a hand on me. Some time later the wives returned with a neighbor to rescue the babies and me. They took me to my home. When I told my mother what had happened, it was the last day I worked for that family.
While I was still working for that family, the nuns came for their usual two-week sessions of teaching religion. My noble employer wouldn't drive me to town to attend classes each morning. When I insisted that I had to go, he told me I would have to walk. It was at least two miles from town but I walked that distance twice a day so that I would not miss out on my favorite time of the summer.
In the evening the nuns would be invited to eat supper at different homes in the parish. It was our family’s turn to entertain them. I had come home to be there for this grand event. During supper, one of the nuns began to tell me about their boarding school in Wild Rice. They told me that I should come in the fall to start high school with them. I never had even heard of a Catholic school before, but I was thrilled at the thought of going. They talked to Mom about it. She said she would never be able to scrap up enough money to send me there. The nuns told her that I could work for my board and room. Finally Mom gave in and said that I could go.
If my Dad had been home, he would have put a stop to that. As it was, he was doing roadwork far from home that summer. I was quite good at wrapping Mom around my little finger. Here was another example of my impulsiveness and my frequent failure to listen to my mother's advice.
Always on the verge of destitution, Mom had to scrounge around to get me some kind of school wardrobe. I had very few clothes and most of them were hand-me-downs from the girls who lived next door. These girls were older than me but they had lots of clothes. Mom would alter their clothes for me as best she could, using her old pedal-powered Singer sewing machine. Believe me, I was not the best-dressed kid on the block.
In the fall of 1943, our parish priest escorted me to a small French settlement located about eight miles from Fargo, ND where the school was located. I was so excited to be going away to a school where all the teachers would be nuns. I tried to imagine what that was going to be like. On the way the priest told me that the nuns would be reading all my mail. I was horrified to learn of this restriction. Why in the world would they do something like that? Then I had a startling thought, I had promised my childhood sweetheart, Dick Taylor, that I would give him my address so that we could correspond. Suddenly, I was beginning to have second thoughts about what was ahead of me. My worries were just beginning.
The priest also told me how strict the nuns would be in all other areas. There would be many period of mandatory silence. What was that? In my family, there was rarely any moments of silence. Since I was going to be working for my board and room, he told me that the nuns would really get their money’s worth out of me. Then too, he said the food might be far different from what I was accustomed to eating. This information jibbed with facts told to me by my sister, Mary. In an attempt to keep me home with mother, she had told me earlier that I would be eating mostly prunes and liver, two foods I really loathed. I was about ready to have the priest turn around and take me back home. Then I thought of all the efforts my Mom had made to get me ready. I decided that I had to give it a try. I had been baited and hooked. Now I would either sink or swim. I couldn’t give up so easily.
Next: Adventures at boarding school.