We fought so much. Every time one of the kids did something wrong, it was always my fault. “You are the oldest April. It’s your responsibility to watch them.” I was becoming a person, separate from one of her children and our relationship was not based on love, so it was doomed. I say we fought, but in reality, she yelled or hit me and I cowered and shut up and took it. If I tried to stand up to her, there would be hell to pay and I would pay for it. But I was getting tired of taking it, and there was once or twice that I stood up for my self and I lived to regret it. Our conflicts manifested themselves into arguments, like the day we had one of the most life changing fights ever, “for me anyway.”
My mom had driven by and seen me walking home from school, holding a boys hand. I wasn’t a slut or anything, I was only fourteen and still a virgin. I had only been felt up one time, by Billy Mosley “oh yea, by the guy at the MaNeeley’s pool too”, maybe I was a slut.
Anyway, I came into the house, went into the bedroom and changed clothes. A minute later my mom came into the bathroom where I was standing and she was holding the sweater I had just had on. She walked up to me and slapped me across the face, and then she shoved the sweater in my face, she was screaming at me. She said “You have been smoking! Smell this sweater! It stinks like cigarettes.” She let loose on me with all her might; she slapped me and hit me for five minutes. She was screaming that she had seen me with “THAT BOY” and how much of a slut I was. When she was through, she left the house in her car.
The ironic thing about that day was that I hadn’t even been smoking. I had smoked cigarettes before, but not that day. I had just been standing around a bunch of kids at the bus stop that had been.
I started cleaning the house and dreading my mothers return. When she got back home, I was expecting to get it again, but she came in all smiles and asked me “How would you like to go live somewhere else?” I asked her what she meant, were we moving again? She said “No. I am wondering if you want to go live with your aunt Martha in Texas.” Now Martha wasn’t really my aunt, she had been the church secretary when Dick Buck was alive and we all called her aunt Martha. After Pastor Buck died, she had gone to be the secretary to another preacher in Corpus Christie Texas. She said “You could live with her and go to school there. You know that Martha works for a man that runs a private school there. That is where you will go to school.”
I was mad at my mother, the thought of getting away from her and my stifling life sounded great to me, so I jumped at the opportunity. I said “Yes, I will go live with Martha in Texas. When do I go?” My mom told me that I would fly to Texas, and that we would leave tomorrow, I was in shock! I was going to get away from my mother, my responsibilities of my younger siblings, and I was going to fly on an airplane. Maybe I would even have a room of my own. I couldn’t believe my luck. I remembered Martha being a very sweet lady. I would not get to say goodbye to anyone at school, but I needed away from the battles with my mother, so I was excited.
When I went to bed that night, I was thinking all kinds of things, no more fighting with my mom. I even started missing my little monster siblings. Who would take care of them when I was gone? But the thought of a new life, in a new place away from my mother was overwhelming. I didn’t sleep all night. The next morning I got another treat. My mother had almost never bought me any new clothes. But she took me out and bought me three new dresses. I was in seventh heaven. She even let me pick them out. It was a great morning.
I packed my suitcase and that evening my mom and I left Tucson on an airplane, it was so exciting. When we got to Dallas, we had to take a commuter jet that sat twenty five people, on to Corpus Christie. It was a real adventure. My mom and I didn’t fight one time. The trip took all day.
When we landed, Martha was waiting for us. I remember she had a little “Carmengia” a type of Volkswagen. She was as nice as I remembered. I was ambivalent, because I didn’t know her that well and by now I was having a little anxiety about being so far from any one or thing that was familiar, but I was also excited. As we drove through town, I tried to take everything in. The first thing that I remember about Corpus Christie after getting off of the plane was the humidity and the cold. It was September 16th 1970 and Corpus Christie had just been through hurricane Cecilia less than a week earlier, and it had done quite a bit of damage.
While we were driving out of town I wondered just how far out of town she lived? After fifteen minutes of driving out into the boonies, I asked her how far we were going. She said “Well I thought we would go by the school first.” That got me worried, just where was this school? Apparently it wasn’t in town. Finally another half an hour later, we pulled off of the road and up to this big red brick building. The front of it had a steeple on top, and it said on a big sign. “The Peoples Church” and underneath that it said “The Rebecca home for girls” I knew right then that I was in trouble.
We got out of the car and went inside through these big, white, double doors that led us into a big foyer. It had red carpet and there were doors coming off of all three sides of this foyer. The doors that were straight ahead were big white double doors, just like the ones we had just come through. Then there were regular sized doors that went off of both the other sides, two doors on each side. Above the big double doors facing front was written “Ye who enter, enter the house of the lord” I was getting very leery, I was going to be going to a church school? I looked at my mom and said “Mom, I don’t think I want to do this.” She said, “You haven’t even seen it yet,” but I was getting the jist of it.
A tall woman and man came out of one of the side doors; it said “office” on it. They came over to us and introduced themselves as “Granny and Poppa” The woman shook both my mom’s hands and Martha’s. She looked at me and said “Well April, lets introduce you to the girls.” She opened one of the big swinging doors that faced us and I was amazed at the size of this room. From the foyer, you entered facing an alter and podium, up on a stage at the very end of this long room. There were doors with numbers on them, running up and down both sides of this long room. In the middle it had red carpet and tables and chairs took up the first half of the room. The second half of the room was a church. It had an aisle that went up to the Alter and on both sides were seats facing the middle of the room. It was like a double sided choir bay, each side had like a little fence around it and you had to go through a little knee high wooden gate to get into each side, from the aisle. There were about four rows of chairs in each side. So whoever sat there looked at each other across the aisle.
