1950 No Longer an Orphan

This is the story I was told all of my life. My father, known as Joe to everyone though it wasn't his name, owned a service station and garage on St Charles Avenue. He was really successful and very proud of his business. Joe was what we now call a "cajun", having come from Mansura, Louisiana to New Orleans after he graduated from high school when he was 16. Joe had an uncanny knack for numbers- faster than an adding machine for sure. His first job was being the conductor for the St Charles Avenue street car. He fell in love with the city of New Orleans. And who didn't back then? He lived in an apartment with a cousin, who, according to Joe, smoked weed and did nothing and went home after a year due to homesickness. When Joe went into engine repair, he found a second love. And combining the two, he opened his own business and had 6 employees. People loved and trusted him. At Christmas, he received lavish gifts from the people who patronized his business. They would get their cars picked up and delivered washed, cleaned and repaired. Doctors, lawyers, financiers all used the Gulf Service garage. Joe started a savings and loan company and put himself on their board of directors. He had everything except the one thing he really wanted- children. His wife, Evelyn, was barren. There was no other word. Her ovaries were removed at the age of 20 due to a "mass"- probably a cyst of some sort. It destroyed her reproductive life. Due to poor birth control for the rest of the population, there was no shortage of white infants up for adoption in the 1940s to the 1960s. First, Joe and Evelyn got a tiny, sick, impetigo covered baby named Stephen from the Protestant Home in New Orleans. Evelyn didn't want a sickly child, but the folks at the Protestant Home, once they found out Evelyn was a nurse, begged Evelyn to take the infant and save his life. They were ill quipped at the Home to care for this frail life and they told Evelyn and Joe that they were this baby's only chance. In 1947, they took Stephen and made him well- but it was arduous and expensive and time consuming. Evelyn never did describe it as a labor of love. She felt guilt the rest of her life that Stephen had learning disabilities and temper issues. So, in May of 1950, when an administrator from the Volunteers of America while picking up his car from Joe, overheard Joe say he wished he had a daughter to add to the family-well, it was just what the administrator needed to hear. He told Joe about this baby girl, all ready almost 6 months old, who stayed in the nursery at the VOA. He described her as adorable- and told Joe- take a break, come with me and see this little girl. Which Joe did. The child he saw (of course it was me) he described as fair with rosy cheeks and bright, shiny light hazel eyes who laughed and smiled at everyone. Joe said that when he said hello and smiled at me, I reached up with my arms and then laid my head on his shoulder. He was sunk. He said he wanted me, but he had to call Evelyn. Evelyn did not share his enthusiasm. She described herself as tired, tired of taking care of a sick child, tired of the work and tired of not having time to continue to pursue her career as a nurse anesthetist. In fairness, she enjoyed her work. In fact, she had been a single woman and a working woman until her 30s. Now to have to take care of kids- kids that really weren't hers- well, she was not happy. But my father begged her- and he brought her to see me. Since I was small, but very healthy at that point, and obviously smart, she relented. Though years later, when I asked her why she was always so unhappy with me and so, well, mean, she would reply "I never wanted to have a second child. Stephen was enough. But your father just wouldn't leave it alone". (Don't feel sorry, here- at least I didn't go to an orphanage!) At six months of age, within a week of potentially being transferred to St Elizabeth's or some other orphanage, Joe and Evelyn went to the office of the lawyer downtown who handled adoptions. They signed the papers, and I became Lynn, and my life was now theirs to do with as they pleased. It is telling that adoption papers were then filed in the notarial archives of the City of New Orleans- under chattel. I had been transferred in the same fashion as a car, or boat, or, in the not so distant past- a slave. Property. The thing about adoption is that it is based in fraud. The belief that any child can be your child because of a piece of paper. While it is certainly true that biological children can be hated and abused and used by a parent, there is something about DNA that will make other relatives stand up and take care of the child. But in adoption, that child belongs to no one. Some adoptions are wonderful. But I have to say that the vast majority of adoptees that I dealt with in my life are not happy about their adoption and not happy about the loss of a birth mother. Though it is wise to never go there if you are adopted- because it happened the way it did and you cannot change it.  But we can deal with that later. Right now, the happy part of the story is that a baby didn't go to an orphanage and a man who wanted a daughter, got one.

1949- the Beginning

I was born in New Orleans in 1949. The weather was warm, though it was winter. I don't know if 1949 was unusually warm, but I know New Orleans had several Christmases in my childhood where playing outside in shorts was just fine. I was born on a Tuesday in December, to a woman I only met once- during the first days after I was born. I was about 7 weeks premature, and put into an isolette with 100% oxygen. there were no tiny IV lines, so, like they do with cats, they put normal saline with dextrose between my shoulder blades and let it absorb in. My birth mother, a woman named Sarah, was 5'3" tall and weighed all of 100 pounds. She wore a size 4.5 in a shoe. She was fine boned and had been frail all of her life. She was married to my father- a man I got to meet much later in life. But they had decided to go to the Volunteers of America maternity home and have my mother give me away. I'll never know if it was a good decision or a bad one. Eighteen months later, my mother had another baby, a boy named Greg. And 18 months after that, she had her last child, a girl she named Candace. She raised them in Florida. But she was told that I was frail- tiny and weak. That I didn't look like I would make it, and if I did, well, I might be handicapped. According to the records from the Volunteers of America, she wept. She saw me twice and cried each time. But she left anyway. I have no bad feelings over this because that would be pointless. She did what she had to do. And I survived. I left Touro Infirmary's nursery at the age of 32 days- one day for each week I had been inside my mother. I was put into the Volunteers of America's nursery for what was to become six months. And the last note in the record before I left says "She has made remarkable progress. She has grown into a pleasant and happy baby who eats well and seems to have surpassed all the maturational milestones despite her prematurity". Someone there loved me and I will never know who. I had none of the signs of being an institutionalized infant. I slept well, ate well, and laughed a lot. I wish I had known the nurses who loved me for 6 months. They were the best mothers I had. And I thank them.

Far From Home

I miss my New Orleans. The New Orleans of my childhood and adolescence. But then again, I have missed that part for a long time.
I miss chasing dragonflies along Bayou St John and waving at the nuns in the covent that was across the street from my house on Mirabeau Avenue.
I miss Terry Flettrich singing “Fais do do” for the naps I never took.
I miss Mr Bingle.
I miss a sno-ball from Hansen’s SnoBliz.
I miss dancing on my father’s toes in the Blue Room for my birthday.
I miss getting sun damage lying on a beach towel in the driveway with my friends. In March.
I miss playing jacks on the cool concrete walkways in Bienville Elementary.
I miss eating at the Polynesian restaurant at Pontchartrain beach and being allowed to go ride the rides all by myself- with no one worrying that I was only 7 years old.
I miss the vanilla taffy sticks sold from little carts at City Park.
I miss playing tennis in City Park with Susan and Bruce (Bruce is not here anymore).
I miss playing guitar and chess with Jimmy.
I miss riding my bike everywhere- especially my peacock blue bike that took me down to the West Esplanade canal before it had a name.
I miss crawfish pizza.
I miss Veterans Highway turning into a gravel road not far from Lakeside Shopping Center.
I miss going to the Point with my boyfriend who shall remain nameless. (See below)
I miss buying cheap champagne at a drive in liquor store and drinking it with The Boyfriend and Bobby (not here anymore) and Judy by the old seal pavilion in Audubon park. Then finding a swing. Then DRIVING home.
I miss going on a date at the lakefront and almost getting arrested for standing in the Mardi Gras Fountain on a dare.
I miss going to the principal’s office at J C Ellis – especially since the teacher who always sent me was my best friend’s mother.
I miss going to the principal’s office at Riverdale High School.
I miss going to the Frostop for lunch because the teacher I had at Metairie Jr High liked me and let me go.
I miss wearing a blue gymsuit that was a one piece.
I miss gym. Why didn’t I appreciate it more? It was much more fun than a treadmill.
I miss going to to F&M Patio and dancing to the music of the very young Art and Aaron Neville.
I miss driving down St Charles Ave at Christmas to see the lights glitter in the leaded glass doors- with me wondering what really went on in those beautiful houses.
I miss eating in Bucktown when the restaurants served boiled crabs and shrimp on newspapers and there was no air conditioning- just ceiling fans.
I miss running behind the mosquito truck while it sprayed fumes all over us.
I miss buying creole tomatoes at the market and getting an oyster poboy before I went home.
I miss my high school buddies- if we had known how far flung we would be, would we have treasured one another more?
I miss my college friends- the same as above applies. If we could go back to Louisiana for one day…..
I miss driving a 1965 Plymouth Fury on the newly completed parts of I-10. I miss driving a VW Beetle to work at Ochsner.
I miss spending the night with Janis and going to run in track meets with her at the Jefferson Parish Recreation Dept track. It was the place where I discovered my freakish ability to high jump.
I miss going to stupid high school parties where we had no clue as to what the future would do to us.
I miss not having all the people I love accounted for. No safety of roll call or dorm check.
I miss Major (he is not here either). Not that I would have called him- but it was a comfort to know he was happy and alive and just being himself. I miss laughing with him and his adventures as a country mouse resident in the French Quarter.
I miss the comfort of all of those things. I miss the thunderstorms and the bayous and the streetcars and the friendly people. I miss what is gone and cannot come back.

To those who are gone, I miss you. Even if I would have never seen you again anyway.
And those who moved away know what I am talking about.
New Orleans was a wonderful city to grow up in. It was a great time.
I miss New Orleans.