From Rat-Tail Ridge to Capital Hill and Back

How My Life Started I tried once to get Mom to talk about her and Dad’s courtship, but didn’t learn very much from her. She did say that Dad got a “rattle-trap” car at some point and that they rode around some in it. I also asked my aunts and Mom whether Grandpa and Grandma Miinch (Grandma was formerly a Stanfill) thought Hadley was okay from the start. Their memories were unclear on this. Mom’s sister, Aunt Clela, said Hadley sometimes took Gleta for rides in an old Ford car (probably a Model T) that belonged to his parents. She said Gleta’s parents often insisted that Clela go along. Clela stated that on at least one occasion Gleta had not told the truth about where she spent a night away from home. Dad’s sister Lula Schneider said she also remembered those car rides, and that she begged to go along, but that Hadley wouldn’t let her. It seems pretty clear that Gleta was a bit of a rebel and that Hadley had helped hide some of their activities. When I was a child, I was quite nosy and liked to read things that were none of my business. That type of temptation continued during my teen years. It led me to discover something that was really shocking to me. Mom and Dad had a small storage compartment in their dining room. Inside that space was a still smaller wooden box in which they kept important papers such as real estate deeds. Whenever they needed to find a document of some sort, they would look in that wooden box. One day when I was about sixteen and everyone else was out of the house, I decided to take a good look in that box. One exciting thing I found was a little blue book about male-female relationships. But that wasn’t the most shocking thing I found that day. That was my parents’ marriage license. I was startled to read that their marriage was in July of 1931. This hit me pretty hard because it meant that I was born less than two months after my parents were married! Obviously, I was conceived out of wedlock and came very close to being born to a single mother. Even today I am amazed that no one ever said anything to me about the fact that my parents got married just before I was born. In our family, not much was made of birthdays, and wedding anniversaries were never even mentioned. Interestingly enough, when a 50th anniversary party was held for Dad and Mom in 1981, no one said a word to me about the fact that I would be 50 shortly after their celebration. In country living, there was a fairly effective and broadly respected shroud of silence constructed around some inconvenient facts. Long after 1981, I learned that there had been an uncomfortable discussion at Mom and Dad’s home when plans for the anniversary celebration were being discussed. When the question of the exact date of the anniversary came up, one member of the family said the 18th of July 1981 “couldn’t be right” because of my age, Mom yelled from the kitchen “that is right!” I can only imagine the looks that must have come upon the faces of the sons and daughters-in-law who were part of that conversation. Later, I asked Aunt Clela to comment on what the family attitude had been toward Mom’s before-marriage pregnancy. Clela said it had been hard for them—especially for Mom’s mom, Grandma Carrie—but they had not held it against Dad. She reported on one conversation that took place about the time Dad and Mom went to get married that did show some bitterness on Grandpa’s part. In discussing the fact that Gleta would now have a new name, Grandpa had said, “just tell her to change it to ‘Yount.’” He was referencing another local woman who had delivered a child while unmarried. Grandma Carrie quickly shut him up with, “no, she can just change her name to ‘Miinch’ or ‘Stanfill.’” This was a reference to the fact that there had been an out-of-wedlock birth in one of their families and a “shotgun marriage” in the other. Mom was not a trail blazer was Grandma’s point. Maxine had known for some time that I was “on the way” before my parents were married. She and her Sister Velda learned about Mom’s pre-marriage pregnancy by reading some old love letters between their parents. Truman Heitman and Mattie Mungle were neighbors and friends of my parents during their youth. In one of the letters found by the girls, a reference was made to Hadley and Gleta having “a problem.” When they asked Mattie what the problem was, she told them reluctantly—after scolding them for getting into her and Truman’s letters. Some time ago, I asked Maxine why she never said anything about the circumstances of my conception and birth. She said she thought I probably didn't know, and she didn’t want to be the one to inform me. When Dad and Mom got married, he was working in a chicken processing plant in St. Louis. I was born at St. Louis City Hospital (now closed) on September 8, 1931. Apparently, I was quite healthy from the start. My parents took me home, though, to a bedbug-infested apartment. They talked often about how one would stay awake to kill the bedbugs while the other tried to sleep. They were not in St. Louis for long after I was born. Dad was laid off shortly afterwards, as the great depression began to create widespread unemployment. In January 1932, Dad and Mom left the city and bought an 80-acre “farm” from Fletcher Smith of Patton. They spent a tough first winter there trying to keep me and themselves warm in a poorly built house.