me several books and gave me as much candy as I wanted. I was two years old at this time and Ginnie never told anyone about my fall as I appeared to be okay.
The year 1935 brought many changes to the home on Cedar Street. My grandfather (Mac) was to die. A lot of sadness filled the house; Ginnie was depressed and was not singing and dancing like she did when her dad was alive. She spent a lot of time just sitting around. My grandmother (Molly) was a strong woman, and although she missed Mac very much, she continued to run the household and tend to her rental business. She depended more on Ginnie for help in collecting the rent and doing other errands for her. I was always able to go with Ginnie when she was collecting the rent, which I enjoyed. My mom began to date a man named Ernest Wilson; she married him and in 1935, and they had their daughter Elaine, who is my half sister. They moved out into their own place.
One day when Ginnie was babysitting me, she bought me a new book. I loved the book so much that I would ask Ginnie to read it to me over and over. The book was titled A Child’s Garden of Verses, and to this day it is still one of my favorites. Excited about the book, I went downstairs to show it to my grandmother. When I went to the dining room, she was on the floor. I sat beside her and showed her the book, but she wasn’t talking to me. I called her name several times, then called to Ginnie and she came down and reached for a ring of keys that was lying on the dining room table and placed them on the back of my grandmother’s neck. Molly would sometimes suffer from high blood pressure and pass out; pressing the cold keys against the back of her neck would usually revive her. Eunice came home in the meantime and realized that my grandmother was not breathing. I just remember a whole lot of excitement and crying going on in the house. The next thing I remember is my grandmother lying in a tall bed of satin, surrounded by lots of flowers. Many people were coming in and out of the house, everyone sad and crying. Then my grandmother was gone. Aunty Catherine took over managing the household, and caring for Ginnie and me.
The year before my grandmother died, she had taken in a boarder who was a good friend of the family. He was a very frail and sickly man who appeared to have a very bad cold. My grandmother would make chicken soup for him. He stayed with the family for a short time and then left. Shortly after her arrival, Aunty Catherine realized that everyone seemed to be pale and had a cough. She called a doctor and it was suggested that we all had been infected by the new and most dreaded disease, called consumption or tuberculosis. As a result, we were all scattered around. My mom (who had a new baby) and Eunice were sent to Rutland State Sanatorium in Rutland, Massachusetts. The baby Elaine was sent to her grandmother’s; Ginnie and I were sent to North Reading State Sanatorium in North Reading, Massachusetts. My uncle Paul went to Boston City Hospital. Aunty Catherine was left with the task of cleaning out the house and getting rid of everything or trying to sell it. This was a task that was difficult as not many wanted anything to do with anything that they felt was contaminated. I was kept in observation in North Reading for one month. While they found no signs of tuberculosis in my lungs, they did discover that I had a bone standing out in the middle of my back and by x-raying my back saw that it was diseased. Tuberculosis struck not only the lungs, where it was highly contagious, but also struck many other parts of the body, particularly bones, eyes, ears, glands, kidneys. It was only contagious when in the lungs so we could all be in together and not isolated.
Again I had to say goodbye to a loved one. I had grown much attached to Ginnie, and for me to have to say goodbye even at three was very hard. I cried until I had nothing left in me and fell asleep on the ride from Reading to Lakeville where I would spend the next twelve years of my life.
Admitted to Lakeville State Sanatorium
On October 5, 1936 I was taken from North Reading and brought to Lakeville State Sanatorium. I was crying, kicking and begging, not wanting to leave Ginnie at North Reading State Sanatorium. After arriving at Lakeville I was put in a ward with nine other children under the age of six. My first experience was being brought to a building where I was put on a cold table, where they told me they were going to take my picture. After many pictures they moved me into another room that had a terrible smell to it. I was placed on a table that supported my head, buttocks and feet, and dressed in a body stocking. They told me I would feel a warm, wet feeling as they were going to put me in a plaster cast that would keep my body nice and straight. Once they started with the plaster, I knew why the room smelled so badly. When they started to put on layers of plaster around my body, they suggested that I pop my tummy up as far as I could to give me some extra room inside the cast. They put an iron bar about two inches above my knees, then plastered around that to keep my legs separated. Then they cut the stocking casing and turned it up around the edges of the cast, and when it was all done they said I looked beautiful. When the plaster was dry, they picked me up by the top of the cast under my neck and the bar between my legs, placed me on the gurney and brought me to the children’s ward. They put me in a pair of denim bloomers over the cast and a white Johnny (a hospital gown that tied at the neck and back) and then put the apron strap around me and tied me in the crib.
The daily routine of the babies’ ward was breakfast each morning at seven thirty. This was brought to us on metal trays; we had a cover to lay down on the sheet first so the tray would not leave marks. After breakfast they would bring a basin of water for us to wash our face, and we would brush our teeth and have our hair combed. There were two hair styles; the staff decided how our hair was to be combed. Some had a Dutch clip, while the rest had a braid on one side. At nine in the morning they would move us out on a long cement porch with open sides. The open portion was for the girls from ages six to fifteen who were in the big girls ward; the roofed portion was for the younger children. Around ten in the morning they would bring us tomato juice and water, and then at eleven we would go back in the ward and wait for lunch. We could have a book to read or a doll to play with during this time. After lunch we would be moved out onto the porch from one to three. This was time for us to take a nap. Each of us had the cloth cover that we put down under our metal trays when we ate and would fold them and put them over our eyes to keep the light out to make it easier for us to fall asleep. I really didn’t like this part of the routine, as I was always curious and wanted to know what was going on every minute. At three we would have tomato juice and water and our cribs would be moved back inside the ward. We would play and talk and wait for supper which was at five. From six to seven, we were prepared for the night routine. Faces washed and teeth brushed, we settled in for the night. Some of the children would cry a lot before they went to sleep. The ages ranged from six months to six years. They would be crying for their moms and dads. For me the nights were the hardest.
Fear of the Dark
The night was frightening to me—the darkness would start to settle in, then the stillness. The children sobbed, calling for their mothers. The nurse would come in and say, “Silence, everyone!” Her shadow was clear on the dark brown floor in the moonlight; my heart would beat faster from the fear. All of a sudden I would hear a squeaking sound as the big green gate that led to the porch was opened. My crib faced a set of double French doors the staff used to bring the cribs onto the porch in the daytime. At night, I would see witches coming through the gate. They would be laughing, talking and shaking their fingers at me. I would take the sheet and blanket and wrap it around my head and cover my eyes so I wouldn’t have to see them. They would sit in the corner by the doors and laugh and talk and I would scream! This would bring the nurse on duty to the ward as by now all the children would be awake and screaming. The nurse would come to my crib, pull the blankets off my head, and ask what the problem was; when I would tell her about the witches she would say that it was my imagination and tell me to go back to sleep. This happened over and over again; one night the nurse came in and pulled the blankets off of my bed completely. She said I could not have them back until I stopped screaming and waking everyone up. It was hard to lie in the crib without the blankets; the fear would swell up in my heart. I held my hand over my mouth so the nurse could not hear my sobs. My tiny body was trembling inside the heavy plaster cast that encased it. Tears would flow silently down my cheeks onto the sheets
