My Grandmother is in the Second Row; Between the Women in the Front Row

My grandmother was born in the early 1920’s and had a typical family in the northern part of Brooklyn, NY. She had the ordinary life of an early 20^th century woman: didn’t go to college, married early, and had a multitude of children. She got married in 1946 and her first child in 1948. My mom was the fourth oldest of the six children and was born in 1955, which means at the beginning of the 1960’s she would be just starting school. One of the closest schools to where my mother lived was a Catholic school, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel.

My mom would walk to school every morning in her mandatory uniform and would get to school in about 15 minutes, along with everyone else wearing that same uniform. She would see the older students standing on the corner smoking cigarettes, which may have been a factor for her smoking her whole life. She would go to school and not be taught by accredited teachers but by the nuns, who could almost do anything they wanted. They were allowed to publically punish you in front of the class. A few classic examples of the punishment nuns could inflict would be the rapping of the knuckles with a ruler, or having you write something on the board fifty times after school. My mom hated going to that school but there was no other choice, everyone in her family went there, plus her family members were devout Catholics.

One night when my grandfather was out somewhere my grandmother woke her 6 children up (five female and one male) and moved into her brother’s house on Hope Street. It had to be done in the middle of the night while he was gone because my grandmother didn’t want to see how her husband would react to the whole family abandoning him. My mom always speaks well of him and that he wasn’t a horrible person; he simply had a problem that he couldn’t control. She spoke of how about a month later he came to Hope Street late in the night to try and talk to my grandmother. Since it was late in the night she assumed that he was drunk and that would explain why my uncle was forced to stand by the door and make sure that he wasn’t allowed in. Also she remembers that the police were called but my grandfather finally left. My aunt also had an encounter with him after they left. He came by and just apologized for anything he may have done. He said that he never meant any of it and that he feels horrible that this is what it has come to. He was truly remorseful.

She started her search for him around her community of Williamsburg Brooklyn. It seemed like he had fallen off the face of the Earth because no one had seen him or known when exactly he left. My grandmother realized that she was going to have to expand her search and if she didn’t find anything, something was going to have to be done. After waiting for him to come back for a year, my grandmother finally made the decision to hire a professional. She contacted a private investigator to help her find him. He investigated but couldn’t find any leads. It again seemed like he just vanished and that he wasn’t coming back. I would assume that he has passed by now, but no one on my mother’s side of the family has heard or seen him after he disappeared.

Current View of Saigon

During the 1960’s the conflict in Vietnam between the northern communist half and the southern half affected many families. There are more sides and aspects of the Vietnam War such as the Chinese backing of northern Vietnam to stay communist and the United States trying to stop the spread of all communism. The south knew that the United States would help them because they were fighting a communist country. The United States instituted a draft for the war, the first time since WWII. Many families were affected by the draft, including mine. My uncle’s brother was drafted and the outcome for him was not pleasant.

My uncle who was also drafted for the war but was unable to go because of a condition he has, where he is legally blind. His brother was not so fortunate. His brother ended up having a birthday that was selected close to the beginning of the draft process. My mom also had an uncle that was eligible for the draft and just like many other families they sat around the TV to see when his birthday would be selected.

My uncle’s brother was forced to go and after being in Vietnam for a few years, his family received a letter containing the bad news. My uncle’s brother had been killed in the war near Sai Gon, Vietnam. In my uncle’s finished basement he still has a frame with pictures of his brother and the case that contains the American flag. My uncle’s family is just one of  thousands that were so severely affected by the Vietnam War.

Underpass of Brooklyn Queens Expressway

In 1968 when my mother was around the age of 13 she was old enough to go run errands for my grandmother. Just as younger siblings do, her two sisters would occasionally tag along on the trip to pick up groceries. Her other sister Maria was only 2 years younger so they were closer in the maturity level and hung out with pretty much the same crowd. My aunt Michele on the other hand was much younger and tended to just tag along with what they were doing. Anyone who has a younger sibling knows the feeling when they tag along with you, it’s never fun.

So one time when my mom and her two sisters went out to get groceries for my grandmother, my mom and my aunt Maria decided they were going to hang out with their friends and they didn’t want my Aunt Michele to tag along. So on the way back from grocery shopping they have to go through the under pass of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway and once they do they have to cross a semi-busy street. So my mom and my aunt Maria told my aunt Michele that she was supposed to stay on the corner and not to move until they came back. So off they went to play with their friends and left my aunt who was about 9 or ten to stand on a corner with a shopping cart of full of groceries. They came back about an hour and a half later with my aunt, who was scared the whole time she was on the corner, and of course my grandmother was suspicious with what took so long and when she found out what happened she was furious. Needless to say that was the last time they ever tried to ditch my aunt Michele.

Growing up in the strict environment of private school she was very unaware of how much freedom students of public schools had. One of the first freedoms that my mom found was that the exits were always unguarded and open. A short period after she realized they were unguarded, she took advantage of this opportunity. Her leaving school became a very frequent happening. This freedom of being able to leave, no questions asked, may have led to my mom’s addiction because the 70’s were the time of “bell bottoms and marijuana”.

All these things: the freedom of public school compared to private, the experimentation with drugs, and simply not doing the work, may have led to my mom falling behind in high school. In 1972 my mom had fallen a whole year behind in high school. She decided to tell my grandmother that she was dropping out of school, without telling her the reason was that she was actually a year behind. She figured it would be much easier to explain that she was dropping out than explaining she was a year behind.

Aunt Camille

Her addiction to drugs slowly pushed her family farther and farther apart until really no one knew where she was. Drugs are a horrible thing and can end up completely consuming someone’s life; this is what ended up happening to my aunt for a while. Around the time of my mom’s marriage (1973) my aunt wasn’t really around.

My mom later ended up finding herself in the same situation. During the late 1970’s and early 1980’s my mom began to move from marijuana onto much harder drugs such as heroin. Her drug abuse greatly affected her life down the road (much closer to the 1990’s).

Who want to escape such a cute old lady?

After dropping out of high school my mom had been dating this man named Greg and when my mom turned 18 they got married. In my mom’s mostly Italian neighborhood this was not looked down upon but almost expected. It was definitely expected for a woman to get married though. My mother was married with her first husband Greg for about a few years until they disagreed on what her role in the house would be. The trend of getting married at a young age was very prominent with my family.

My Aunt Maria was also one of my mom’s siblings who got married at an early age. Just like my mom she got married at the age of 18 in 1974. Unlike my mother though, she continued her education through high school and into college. While in high school my Aunt Maria was part of a “work-study” program, where she was able to go to school for two days and the other three days she was able to work. She worked to help support her family along with my Uncle Ralphie (who is the third oldest). Her marriage with Tommy only lasted into her second year of college.

My Uncle Ralphie also got married at an early age, 19 in 1972. He got married and left the house to work as a mechanic in a coffee manufacturing company. Just like the other early marriages in my family this one shortly ended in divorce. His wife apparently wasn’t happy with my uncle and wanted a man that, “went to work in a suit” as opposed to a mechanic. I feel my mother hit the nail on the head when she said, “we all got married at a young age to escape my mother.”

My Mom's First Marriage

My mom’s first marriage was a short one and was ended shortly after she had my older brother Jeffery. Her and her husband Greg could not come to an agreement at what her role in the house would be. My mom, going along with the trend of the time, wanted to go out and work, but he felt that she was meant to stay at home. One thing that you need to understand about my mom is she’s very strong willed and she’s not going to be told what to do. So her being that typical housewife from the 1950’s never would have worked.

In 1975 my mom had my older brother Jeff and at around this time she wanted to get into the work force. But her husband Greg found this unacceptable and at the age of 21 my mom’s first marriage was over. She simply wanted to explore the new freedom that women had. The civil rights movement of the 1960’s was a springboard that feminists used to equalize men and women, especially in the work force.

In 1966 at a meeting of the National Conference of State Commissions on the Status of Women, 28 of the commissioners, including Betty Friedan, felt that women needed an organization similar to the NAACP. So they decided to form the National Organization of Women. This organization worked for the equality of women especially in the work forces. Organizations like NOW made it more acceptable for women to work and inspired women like my mom to pursue their own careers. After she was divorced she acquired a job as a bank teller at Chase Manhattan. This proved to be a rather dangerous job.

While my mom was working as a bank teller at Chase Manhattan she said that the bank was held up in 1977. She remembers being scared for her life and just praying that she would make it out alive. She also thought about quitting her job but figured the hold up was a one time deal. A little less then a year later the same thing happened again. At this point in time she realized it was time for her to change professions. She went back to school at NYU and completed their dental hygienist assistance certificate program they offered and became a dental hygienist’s assistant in 1979.

Later in 1979 she had another run in with trouble. In 1979 she needed to have a dental procedure done and she didn’t have the best health care so she had to go to a dentist in quite possibly one of the worst neighborhoods in Brooklyn. She went to a dentist’s office on Maujer and Bushwick Avenue. In the middle of her dental procedure some thief broke in and held everybody at gunpoint. My mom even had the gun pointed at her and held against her head. He took my mom’s wedding ring along with everybody else’s jewelry and cash. He also went into the back and took all the drugs for the anesthesia. My mom can not truly explain how scared she was and how grateful she is to make it out of all those situations with her life.