Wards of the Court
by
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As far back as I can remember, things seemed to be a little out of the ordinary for us,--well especially when comparing our family to other people’s families that lived on our street. Our address was 212 Bates street N.W. , and we were struggling to survive in Washington D.C.
I remember my family starting out as a shattered group of people. There were six of us children then, all boys, ranging in ages from nine down to our then youngest brother Clinton who was less than two years old. We were all born so close together that people used to call us little stairstep kids.
There was our mother,-- Esther, who to my very young recollection, seemed to be around at best on a part time basis, and our father Ulysses, who would occasionally show up to delight us kids with a few magical tricks of squeezing quarters from our noses or pulling coins from behind our young dumb ears and then he’d disappear for an elongated period of time again. The only unified members of our disjointed family were us kids, and even that was destined to change some where and at some time in the future.
I recall Bates street rather well, but to this day I don’t know if I do so because the place held so many fond memories for me and my brothers, (for some reason I’m almost positive that wasn’t why) or if it was because the memories that were fertilized in the Bates street soil were cultivating the strengths and characters that would carry each of us on the incredible journey that lay before us. It is only now, some forty something years later that I’m most certain that the latter is true.
In any case, there are two things that I’m definitely sure of. One is that only God knows the answers to the whys and the how comes for sure, and secondly, it was God and only God alone that knew how to prepare us for whatever we were to encounter on our life’s path. I thank God for doing that, and herein I attempt to share the various accounts of our journey with you.
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About the Book
Wards of the Court is the painful memoirs of the arduously intense journey of five brothers survival as wards of the court. Coming from a broken family beginning in the early 1950s and continuing through the late 60s and early 70s, Ivan Thompson and his four siblings are faced with many life defining situations of survival from dealing with homeless, near starvation, physical abuse and mental cruelties that have been known to not only permanently scar a young child's personality & soul, but also could result in turning that child or those children onto a path of hopelessness and one of no return. The Thompson brothers wage one continuing gallant battle of survival against tremendous odds while holding on to the one thing that gives them the strength to survive another day-and that is their belief that God would one day allow them to see a better day.
About the Author
Ivan Thompson, one of six initial siblings, became a ward of the court in 1959. He survived 11 years as a ward and found his freedom by entering the military in 1970. He eventually earned his GED while in the Army, and upon departure from the military married and became the parent of three children. He is presently employed as a correctional officer with that D.C. Dept. of Corrections. A self taught musician-he has played professionally for most of his adult life. Ivan stumbled across his ability to write through a bet made with one of his co-workers, resulting in his first novel 'The 27th Amendment' and his undying love for putting word to page has led him to now working on his next work 'Exit 163-Lorton.'