By Celene J., July 17, 2017 — I went to a one room brick school in Seneca. There was a swing, teeter totter and Mary-go-round in the school yard where we played at recess. My teacher was Velma Miller. We had wooden red pencils and we did our writing in a tablet. I remember making circles and circles. My teacher kept saying “round, round ready right.” She wanted me to change and use my right hand, but I wasn’t going to do that.
I stayed with my grandma until I was sixteen. Then my mom came and took me. My grandfather died on the front porch on the day she took me, my grandfather had died on the front porch right after we left. Grandma went inside to get watermelon and came out and he was dead. We were not very far away when it happened, only down the block. I could never understand why my mom took me from my Grandma.
My mom was a registered nurse. She worked for the Department of Health. Our first move was to Harrisburg, and later she was transferred to Columbus, Ohio. We lived in Grandview, a suburb of Columbus. One day while living there a man came with a gun and was going to shoot my mom. I ran upstairs and got the neighbor and the man left. My mom would not let me go home after school so I had to stay with my mom at the Department of Health until she was done work and we walked home together.
While we were living in Shaker Heights, OH, one day a man came to the door with a three piece pin stripped suit, camel colored coat and a derby hat. He was a dandy. He asked if I knew who he was and I said no and slammed the door in his face. Mom asked who was at the door. I said, “I don’t know,” and she went to the door and said, “It is your father Jim.” Mom suggested he take me for ice cream in his big white Cadillac, so I got in the car. As soon as we pulled away I said right to him, “I want to know one thing, why you cheated on my mom with Gladys M.” He turned the car around took me home, walked me into the apartment and said “Bye, Lois.” I never told my mom what I said to him.
The doctor told my mom she had lung cancer. My mom had to inspect air conditioning at a place in Cincinnati, OH and told me that is where [she] got the cancer. My mom sent me to my Aunt and Uncles to stay when she went to New York City to have surgery. Dr. Dibaccio and three other doctors removed a quarter of my mom’s lung the first time. My Aunt and Uncle were Catholics and they sent me to Catholic school. I loved the school until one day the nun said we were all going to confession. I said no and the nun went and got my cousin and he explained I was not Catholic. I was wondering where the next place I would go to live.
I went to a boarding school for girls then went back to live with my mom. I quit school when my mom was in the hospital. When my mom was in remission, she made me go back to school, I graduated from high school in Meadville and then went to beauty school. My mom’s cancer came back and she had a second operation and removed 3/4th of one lung. After she had that second operation my mom felt that she was not going to make it this time.