DRAWING FROM THE WELL
For Inspirational Guidance
How the Power of Prayer and God’s Guiding Hand Has
Brought Physical and Mental Healing to Me
Ruth W. Shults
Smashwords Edition
DRAWING FROM THE WELL
For Inspirational Guidance
How the Power of Prayer and God’s Guiding Hand Has
Brought Physical and Mental Healing to Me
Ruth W. Shults
Copyright © 2007 Ruth Shults. All rights reserved.
Mill City Press, Inc.
Mill City Press, Inc.
212 3rd Avenue North, Suite 570
Minneapolis, MN 55401
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ISBN 13 - 9781934248805
ISBN 10 - 1934248800
LCCN
Cover Design by Alan Pranke
Interior Design by Peggy LeTrent
Photos taken by Sue Logston
Printed in the United States of America
In memory of
My grandmother, Johanne,
my mother, Marie,
and
my father, Bill.
My sincere thanks to
Lucy Colson,
Edward Moulton,
Sue Logston
and
Sherrie Quillen
for always being there when I needed them.
Chapter One: My Early Life in Northern New Jersey
Chapter Two: My Early Revelations
Chapter Three: Grandmother Buesing’s Strength
Part Two: State Of Opportunity
Chapter Four: Working in New York City
Chapter Five: Marriage and Moving to California
Chapter Six: Sports Cars Racing
Part Three: Through the Curtain
Chapter Seven: The Mobil Gas Economy
Chapter Eight: A Paradigm Shift
Chapter Nine: The Curtain Opens
Chapter Ten: Divorce and My Own Apartment
Part Four: Thirty Years Of Discovery
Chapter Eleven: Thirty Years with TRW
Chapter Twelve: Affirmative Action
Chapter Thirteen: Creating My Second Position
Chapter Fourteen: The Party Is Over
Chapter
Fifteen: Summation
Part
Five: Throwing My Hat Back In The Ring
Chapter Sixteen: What Makes Ruthie Run
Chapter Nineteen: The Torrance House
Chapter Twenty-One: Another Door Opens
Chapter Twenty-Two: Special Gifts
Chapter Twenty-Three: Mother Dies
Chapter Twenty-Four: Resolving Issues with Dad
Chapter Twenty-Five: Reciprocal World
Chapter Twenty-Six: Spiritual Search
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Summation
Part Nine: Call It Divine Intervention
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Overview
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Have Mercy on My Soul
Chapter Thirty: Through the Curtain
Chapter Thirty-One: Doctor’s Misdiagnosis
Chapter Thirty-Two: Self-Pity
Chapter Thirty-Three: Be Still In Spirit
Chapter Thirty-Four: Was I That Boy?
Chapter Thirty-Five: The Divorce Settlement
Chapter Thirty-Six: The Words “I Love You”
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Not on My List of Things To Do
Chapter Thirty-Eight: The Redondo Beach House
Chapter Thirty-Nine: Giving Back to the Community
Part Ten: Power Of Prayer
Chapter Forty: Spiritual Intuitive Guidance
Chapter Forty-One: My Approach to Prayer
Part Eleven: Cutting Out The Past
Chapter Forty-Two: Cancer
Chapter Forty-Three: Message From Joshua
Chapter Forty-Four: Success of All Successes
Part Twelve: Moving To Arizona
Chapter Forty-Five: My Unexpected Move
Conclusion
About the Author
Foreword
When Ruth asked me to write the foreword to her book, I was both honored and humbled. After all, I am no scholar. I’ve never written a book, nor in any formal sense commented or critiqued anyone’s work. Why me, I thought? As a therapist, I developed a deep respect for the richness of peoples’ life narratives and always felt privileged to help them examine the many intricate twists and turns that life inevitably takes. Were life’s events, the joys, the sorrows, the travails, decisions and frustrations merely a random and mundane sequence of events, or could they be purposeful? In a psychological context, purpose and meaning often provide comfort and healing. In a more universal sense, it may lead to the question of what role God may play in the equation. As I read the work that Ruth had put forth, I was highly attracted to what appeared to be her premise of the importance of “spiritually connecting the dots” to understand life’s purpose and how we can work with God to create that fulfilling and healing sense of connection. So frequently we succumb to the temptation to ponder the possibility of God in our lives in such a “spectacular” way, with stories and promises of miraculous deeds and events. People coming from hopeless circumstances against unspeakable odds, rising to meet challenges of Herculean proportion, which can best be explained by God working in our lives. While we may enjoy such tales of striving, in our more reflective moments we are probably moved to say, “I have not experienced God in such a miraculous way.” Perhaps our lives have been filled with the mundane: pursuing education, making a living, trying to form meaningful bonds and relationships, raising families, managing careers, appreciating the good times and coping with the sorrows. This is life for most of us and this is what I most cherished in Ruth’s book. There is a concept in Judaism about finding the sacred in the mundane, and this is one of the central premises of Ruth’s work that so moved me. How do we invite God into our lives and from the context of living what would appear to be an average, conformist existence, walk in His light and feel sustained. Frequently God’s presence in our lives is seen in reflection upon past experiences, but to be able to recognize it and utilize it in the present as we navigate the twists and turns in the river is true spiritual fulfillment. How do we partner with God, how do we pray to God, how do we react when life doesn’t seem to play out as we would hope. Indeed God is a 24/7 partner, and through Ruth’s experiences I drew inspiration and wisdom that I hope I can apply to my daily, mundane activities. Thank you, Ruth, for chronicling your experiences and giving us a fuller sense of how to walk the path and recognize the sacred that is all around.
– Jeff Paris, MS, LPC
Scottsdale, Arizona
Introduction
I had a profound experience during my seventieth year that I could not have survived if not for the guiding hand of a higher power. For some time I have felt that an invisible hand has guided my life’s journey. I have a strong belief in God as a force in my life and I interpreted this invisible hand to be His. I validated my belief in God’s involvement in my life when I retraced my life’s journey and when I compared those peak intervals during my life to where I felt God’s hand was active. However, to understand my journey I realized I needed to incorporate some of my grandmother and mother’s experiences as well. Some of the tribulations they had with my grandfather and father became part of my emotional heritage – my taproot.
In my grandmother’s case, a betrayal by my grandfather made her fear damnation from her church. I believe my mother’s view of men was greatly affected by my grandmother’s trials with her husband; I feel my mother projected this on dad, which I felt was not totally justified. In a dream dad said to me, “But you don’t know my side,” which was true. In my mother’s desire to guide and protect me, she passed on her mistrust and fear. I, on the other hand, attracted two husbands who played into this stereotype. If I had had a daughter, might I have followed my mother’s example?
In my mother’s mind she was preparing me for a man’s world and in that I believe she succeeded. I bless her for that. The discovery I made in writing this memoir, however, is that the influence of the alienation from my father did not affect my life to the extent that mother’s influence did in trying to protect me from a man’s world. This discovery indeed was a double healing. Even though I fully utilized my free will throughout my life, I was always aware of my parents’ voices in my head.
This is an unusual story. You might believe it, or you might not. In some cases it is hard for me to believe these events really happened. Nonetheless, they took place. You could interpret the events here differently. Great! My truth is not necessarily your truth. That you have reached a different conclusion means that while reading my story you revisited your own beliefs, which is partly what this book intends. It is important to inventory and evaluate our own beliefs periodically and to chronicle our life’s journey.
I am not telling the whole story of my life, only those incidents that I feel led to my revelations in 2001 or those I credit with building my character. The people I have included are those who directly contributed to the story I am chronicling. I have changed names, with the exception of members of my mother’s family and the professionals I sought for guidance.
Midway through my life I was exposed to the possibility of reincarnation. It makes sense to me. Why would God create man with an incomplete soul and not give that soul the opportunity to perfect itself? I visualized that during each lifetime we have the opportunity to place apiece or pieces of the puzzle into a frame that has an image – a blueprint – of our completely developed souls. I believe God knows how our completely developed souls should look and, to that end, He has provided the blueprint. The finished puzzle, then, is our personal master plan. We still have free will to direct our lives, but within the plan’s parameters. As I visualize this, we may indeed miss an opportunity during one lifetime, but we will have a chance to rectify it in another lifetime. On the other hand, we might have the good fortune to fit multiple pieces into the puzzle in one lifetime, thereby accelerating the fulfillment of the soul’s destiny. If this all sounds strange, I ask you to stay with me. I think you will find my story compelling.
I first awoke to my evolving soul’s journey in 1940 when I was not quite ten years old. I did not understand the significance of that experience until 1974 when I was forty-three. Then when I was seventy, I discovered my story really started a year before I was born.
In my twenties, I married. In my thirties, I divorced. In my forties, I married again. In my early fifties, my second union ended in divorce. The chapters of this book are not in chronological order. The subjects in some chapters overlap and further develop incidents already touched upon. These subjects are included to support the purpose of the new chapters, which focus on certain subjects to fully develop each storyline. A lifetime does not evolve in a linear fashion, but contains various levels, that unfold to some degree concurrently. I have arranged this book by subject rather than by chronology.
In the spring of 1935, my father taught me to draw water from a well. This became a metaphor for my experiences and spiritual development. I have not completed seventy-six years of my life on my own terms. I have gone many, many times to the well of consciousness for divine guidance, protection, insight, and nudging. The following chapters will show how this was revealed. They will show how God has played a vital part in my life.
When I began to race sports cars, I learned to mentally plan for accidents so when one did happen, my reflexes would draw upon the programming to help me either avoid the mishap or reduce the damage. For me, religion and prayer offered similar preparation. My mother instilled in me a good, solid religious belief, for which I am eternally grateful. When I was confronted with the possibility of death in 1951, I called upon God. His response became the foundation for my faith in answered prayers.
A spiritual teacher once told me a story that reinforced my belief in answered prayer. She was climbing the stairs to her bedroom when she reached the landing, a man threw a bedspread over her head. She was terrified but had the presence of mind to start reciting the Lord’s Prayer. The man released his hold on her and said softly, “Lady, don’t scream. Just let me leave.” He did, and he left behind everything that he had gathered in a pillowcase. I wonder how this experience affected the man’s life? I only hope it had a positive effect.
Although I feel fortunate that I spent my early years in New Jersey and New York, I feel equally fortunate to have moved as a young adult to California – the state that offered endless opportunities. There as I matured I built upon my experiences from the Northeast.
What awaited me in California was fertile ground that supported my search for a fuller, more meaningful life. I believe this would not have happened to me if I had remained in New Jersey, as much as I loved the state. Just as moving to a farm provided me with character-building experiences during the 1930s, I strongly believe moving to California in the 1950s provided an opportunity for distinct intellectual and spiritual growth that would not have occurred elsewhere. Although my parents were very conservative in their personal, religious and political beliefs, mother’s admonishment – “dare to be different” – gave me permission to break free from those constraints.
In California during the 1960s and 1970s I benefited from the women’s movement and the teaching related to holistic health and new thought, first as a student and later as a lay practitioner. My twenty-two years of spiritual searching ultimately led me to Judaism.
Working for a major aerospace corporation in the early stages of the race to put a man on the moon, I was promoted into a management position at a time when engineering companies were male bastions. When I was in my fifties, the company paid for me to continue my formal education and obtain a master’s degree.
The aspects of my story that are worth telling are the influence my mother had on my life before I was born and the connection I made with my father after he died. The primary reason for sharing this narrative, however, is my interaction with God throughout my life, both when I was unaware of His presence and when I asked for His intervention.
In my first book, Moonlight Over The Canal – Stories From a Girl’s Life in Historical Morris County, New Jersey (to which this book is a sequel), I cited Bernhardt Crystal who wrote: “We are only temporary custodians of whatever we have stored in our brain. It’s not going to stay there all the time. You have to pass it on so somebody else can pick it up and go on.” I share these episodes with humility. If readers benefit from some of what I have written, I am indeed blessed.
Part One
My First Awakening
Chapter One
Northern New Jersey
I lived in the lake area of northern New Jersey for the first twenty-two years of my life. This area is as well known for its Revolutionary War history, the homes from that time, the rolling hills dotted with forests of lush trees, as well as for, in more recent years, the horse farms owned by some of the rich and famous, such as Jackie Kennedy. These farms are located in the northwestern section of the state. My parents lived in the northeastern portion. I chronicled these twenty-two years in Moonlight Over the Canal, Stories From a Girl’s Life in Historical Morris County, New Jersey, a book published in early 2007. The following is but a brief overview of my life at that time.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
On December 23, 1930, I was born to George Adam (he called himself Bill) and Marie Theodora Reif. Growing up, I lived in two different houses dad built in Lincoln Park. Dad had a successful construction company before he was forced into bankruptcy in 1933 when his bank failed. When I was four-and-a-half-years old, he moved us to the Martin J. Van Duyne Dutch-American stone farmhouse, built in 1789, located in Montville, a small rural community six miles northwest of Lincoln Park. When I saw the large fields around the house and the old barn, I thought this was a great move, but as we walked through the old house I sensed mother’s apprehension. She had just come from the suburbs, living in a new house with all the modern conveniences, and was being thrust into living on a farm and in what was less than her dream house. Miss Sarah Virginia Van Duyne (whom we called Miss Jennie) owned the house that we shared. She lived in the oldest part, and dad modernized our half as much as he could. Miss Jennie was sixty-nine when we moved into the house.
As a young child, the house, its old barn, the dormant Morris Canal directly behind the house, the farmland and the animals that my parents raised provided an education filled with adventure that built character that I feel would not have developed if we had remained in Lincoln Park. I could wander through the woods behind the house or along the railroad tracks for hours – unsupervised hours. But it was watching my parents take control during times of adversity that provided the unconscious lessons that would later benefit me. They became my model for living my life.
The Morris Canal provided endless pleasure. In the summer I would lay on the once-busy towpath to look for objects in the clouds or just fantasize with my imaginary friends. As an only child living on a farm a distance from other children, I had to find things to amuse myself. With my budding sense of independence and imagination, this was not hard. Summers were also spent playing in Richy Wood’s barn, swinging across a hayloft, going on Camp Fire Girls outings in local woods, swimming in the brook that dad dammed or staying at a relative’s lakeside cabin.
In the winter my classmates joined me at the canal, which became the venue for hours of enjoyable skating. We skated until it was dark, very cold, and our extremities were nearly frozen. When I walked into the house, mother would put my feet and hands in lukewarm water. She kept asking me the same silly question, “Why do you play so hard?”
The highlight every winter was mother taking me into New York City to celebrate my birthday. We would see a seasonal movie at Radio City Music Hall, have lunch at the Horn and Hardarts automat and tour one of the many museums and points of interest the city offered.
Dad and mother raised chickens and goats, which provided us eggs, meat and milk. Using the milk, mother made butter and pot cheese, which was used to make her famous cheesecake. A large vegetable garden that was planted at the side of the house consumed almost a full acre. Vegetables, fruit and even goat meat were canned and stored in the cellar under the house; other fruits and vegetables were stored in a root cellar built into the towpath of the Morris Canal. I once remember sitting down to dinner and mother pointing out that everything but the coffee and spices had come from our labors. Although most of what they raised was for our consumption, she sold some of the goat’s milk to families with children who had difficulty in digesting cow’s milk, and a few baby goats were sold in the spring to Italian families for their Easter celebration.
Mother modeled for me the joy of giving comfort to the stranger. She pointed out that as financially strapped as we were, there were still others who needed our help. During the Great Depression, many men left their homes and families to travel from town to town looking for work. Homes were marked to indicate either a helpful or hostile owner. One such marking was a sleeping cat. Often, these men would stop at our house and ask to do some work in return for breakfast. Mother did not put them to work, but she always gave them a wholesome farm breakfast. The standard meal was several pancakes with homemade syrup, three eggs sunny side up, homemade goat sausage, fried potatoes, bread, and as much coffee as they wanted. I had the pleasure of serving them in our backyard.
I started school in a two-room schoolhouse in January 1936 after I turned five the month before. Since I only spent a half-year in first grade, I sensed I was going to be held back when we all transferred to a fully functional schoolhouse that September. Mother fought that battle and I graduated to second grade with my classmates when we moved. Mother was also determined that I have a sound religious education. Although I was baptized Lutheran, I attended a Dutch Reformed Sunday school, because at that time there was no Lutheran church in Montville.
In 1941, my world and our country changed when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Sixteen of my cousins entered the service, and we thanked God they all returned. The country’s complete focus was on winning the war. Food was rationed, as was gasoline. Cars had different lettered stickers affixed to their windshields identifying their weekly allotment. Everything needed for the war effort was rationed, but no one was upset by the inconvenience. Even children had their projects, such as collecting used foil and empty tin cans. Black shades, replacing the normal white, were pulled over windows at night, and black paint was put over the top half of the automobiles’ headlights. These precautions were to prevent excessive illumination, which could guide enemy planes at night and illuminate the horizon for German submarines. Mother joined a first aid volunteer group to learn how to treat injured persons if the country was invaded. Often I was recruited as a pretend casualty. We bought victory bonds, and everyone who had a bit of land was encouraged to have a victory garden – of course we were already doing that. Men and women were alert all night watching for enemy aircraft. Women entered the factories to build war equipment while men fought overseas
Dad used his carpentry skills to work the graveyard shift at the Kearny shipyard near Newark. During the day, he built a temporary house on the five acres my parents had just bought in Boonton, northwest of our Montville home. A permanent house was built when the war ended and building supplies became available. We moved to Boonton when I entered high school.
The property my parents bought was between two old houses, part of what once was the Miller-Kingsland farm. Johannes Miller built the original house in 1740, which, after Isaac Kingsland bought it, became known as the Miller-Kingsland house. In 1870 the Kingsland brothers – Phineas, Edmund and Isaac Harrison – built another house called the “big house” just east of the old house. However, Phineas and Edmund lived in New York City, where they were both successful lawyers. In the 1880s Phineas was the city’s comptroller.
General George Washington’s army crossed through Morris County many times, but on one occasion his army, plus that of Count Rochambeau, crossed the Rockaway River using the Miller Bridge (under which my friends and I would later make our swimming hole) in front of the Miller-Kingsland house. It was reported to have taken three days to complete this passage.
I was an average student in high school. However, I did receive a National Honor Society award for civic studies in my freshman year. Intense discussions at our dinner table about politics, the way the government ran our lives and the day-to-day progress of the war prepared me for the award.
After graduation I knew I would go to work instead of attending college, which waited until I was in my fifties. Thinking I might become a model, I entered Barbizon Modeling School, but as thrilling as it was to contemplate the career, I soon realized it was not for me. For one thing, the pay was not reliable.
I worked in New York City for five years – first for Equitable Life Insurance in Midtown, then for Home Insurance in lower Manhattan. This was an exciting time. On the practical side, the money I made gave me a degree of independence, filled my hope chest, and ultimately provided the finances to buy my own car – a four cylinder English Morris Minor. In 1953, I married Alex, and the following year we moved to Torrance, California, in the South Bay area of Los Angeles. The wedding and the move will be discussed in chapter five.
Chapter Two
Revelations
There were three incidents in my childhood that foreshadowed my development as an adult. The first was when I was four years old. I stood on the top step of a flight of narrow, steep wood stairs in the home of my parent’s friend. I put my hands against my body and leaned forward thinking, “I wonder how far I can go?” Of course, gravity took over, and my parents gathered their screaming daughter at the foot of the stairs. It was a miracle that I did not break a bone. Many years later, in a college session designed for students to share their earliest recollections, a professor commented on my story. He asked, “And how often do you say that now, Ruth?” This was revealing. I was always pushing on my boundaries and never stayed within a prescribed box.
My second definitive experience, and the most influential, came when I was nine years old, but the full story was not revealed until I was seventy. For years I had said to mother “I wish I had an older brother.” Against dad’s advice, mother told me during her first pregnancy a baby boy was stillborn. She had lost a baby boy through uremic poisoning, from which she almost died herself. She said she was found unconscious in the living room just two days after her doctor told her she was in good condition. Dad blamed the doctors for not giving her proper care. I sobbed when I heard of the loss. She was shocked at my response. Regardless of what she said, I could not be consoled. Mother was sorry she told me, but even with the initial sadness I was glad she had.
The third incident happened when I was in high school. Mother did not want me to smoke cigarettes and admonished me by saying, “Dare to be different.” This mantra not only applied to my not smoking, but in later years it became a way of life. It gave me permission not to follow the crowd. As it turned out, my friends who smoked complimented me for not smoking.
I had always been closer to mother than to dad, and the incident of the lost baby boy made me ever closer to her. I really felt her pain. She went on to tell me that after losing the baby, she was fitted with an intrauterine device (IUD) and was told she should not try to have another child, because her life would be in jeopardy. Then she became pregnant with me. She described her pregnancy as relatively easy and said the day before I was born she scrubbed the kitchen floor. This may indeed be true, but it could also be that she was pacifying me because of my initial shock.
Mother told me that she had a different doctor for her second pregnancy. His office was in Jersey City, about thirty-five miles southeast of Lincoln Park. Mother felt he did not believe the story of her first pregnancy, since just before the delivery he asked her to recount it. When she finished, his response was that she would not have a problem with this birth and he prepared her for the delivery. As the doctor predicted, she did not have any physical problems – she had a normal delivery. But from what I found out in my 2001 sessions with Dr. Morris Netherton, whose practice is in past lives, the second doctor reinforced the fears she had from the first pregnancy. The details of this can be found in chapters forty-two and forty-three.
As I stated earlier, I entertained the possibility of reincarnation in my thirties, including the concept of choosing my own parents. The idea became plausible when I reflected on mother’s story that she became pregnant with me, even though she was using an IUD. It would appear I truly wanted to use these parents to reenter this world.
I have never used reincarnation as a reason or excuse for my current situation. My interest was only why a relationship worked or did not work and to help me accept responsibility for my actions in this life. Through my past life sessions with Dr. Netherton, I became more open to understanding my alienation with my father. This will also be discussed in more detail in chapter forty-three.
After thinking about this story and reflecting on my father’s interaction with me, I now feel that he would rather have had a son. When I attended a lecture by the author of a book on being a second child, I realized I was indeed a second child. I was competing with someone who did not exist in my world, and thus I could not fully win the favor of my father. In hindsight, I feel in my father’s mind there was a fine line that separated the boy who died and the girl who lived. But I needed to be accepted as a girl and not live in the shadow of what might have been.
As I said, my relationship with mother was always close. Dad did not have much time for me; he was either working outside of the house or on the farm. Although he was caring, I don’t remember him ever telling me he loved me. As an adult, I realized he had no model for being a father, as he grew up in a Catholic orphanage. Furthermore, during the 1930s and 1940s, not showing affection was typical of men’s behavior. Then again, he showed the greatest love for his family when he provided for us during the Great Depression, even after he lost his lucrative construction business. This was a devastating time in American history. Knowing something intellectually, however, is no substitute for hearing the words.
When I was forty-seven, I was fortunate enough to hear dad say the words, “I love you.”
Chapter Three
Buesing’s Strength
To understand something of my socialization, one needs to know the background of my grandmother and how her life influenced my mother’s parenting skills. I believe mother and I inherited grandmother’s organization skills, her inner strength, and her determination to overcome unexpected adversities. But I also believe our mistrust in men stemmed from grandmother as well.
My grandparents, Anton Gerhard Büsing and Johanne Katherine Grafeld were married in Quakenbrück, Germany, in 1881. Grandfather was twenty-two and Lutheran, and grandmother sixteen and Catholic. Before they got married, grandfather received a special dispensation from the local priest, monsignor and bishop based on him agreeing grandmother could continue in her Catholic faith and baptize and rear any children they had as Catholics, even though grandfather would not convert. He broke his pledge and personally carried his three children, Helene Marie Antoinette, Karl Friedrich and Anna Elise Henriette, to the Lutheran pastor for their baptisms. This broke grandmother’s heart. The bishop was furious. He told grandmother that none of her daughters would survive and that they would never be interred in consecrated ground. According to grandfather’s story, the bishop proclaimed from his pulpit, “Büsing gets no business.” Because of this edict, grandfather was forced by religious and economic reasons to emigrate to America with his family.
In 1886, grandfather left Germany for the United States. His port of entry was Governor’s Island, the immigration depot before Ellis Island was constructed. He continued to Fort Williams, where his immigration papers were processed and his name was changed from Büsing to Buesing. His brother met him there and found him living quarters on 16th Street near Avenue D in the German village in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. This area was referred to as Alphabet City, and it is where the vast Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village housing projects now stand. Grandfather was cautioned to stay east of Second Avenue so as to stay safely among German-speaking people. Italians, Poles and Irish who lived on the west side were also trying to make a living. He found work as a cabinetmaker, having papers to prove he reached this guild status. He worked long hours, six days a week, to earn enough money to bring his family to America.
Every week he sent money to grandmother, who put it in a bank in Quakenbrück, unbeknownst to her sister-in-law, with whom she was living. In March 1889, she booked passage for four to America on a ship from Bemerhaven, northeast of her hometown. She was twenty-five years old, Helene was six, Fredrick was four and Anna was two.
Grandmother planned to reach Bemerhaven a few days before their departure. She pulled a cart (the typical means of transportation) carrying her luggage with little Anna riding on top; the two older children walked alongside. When they reached the seaport, Friedrich wandered too close to the edge of a canal and slipped into the icy water when the bank gave way. Helene jumped in the water to push her young brother up the bank to safety. A block of ice hit Helene and carried her downstream where her lifeless body was later recovered.
I can just imagine grandmother rushing back to Quakenbrück, with the two small children and Helene’s dead body, which was to be buried in the Lutheran cemetery. There she had to face the judgment of her priest and her Catholic family. What guilt they must have placed on her. After the burial, the three of them had to race back to catch their ship and sail to America. I can imagine how distraught the children must have been and the guilt and sadness four-year-old Friedrich must have felt. With all that grandmother was coping with, I wonder if she had the time, or the insight, to help young Friedrich deal with his guilt. I doubt it. She was probably rehearsing in her mind what she would tell grandfather when she arrived with only two children. I become limp when I think of the grief that she must have borne all alone while crossing the Atlantic Ocean, in steerage, in what must have been extremely rough seas in March.
The family settled into a larger apartment in the same German quarter, staying in what was called a cold-water flat. These apartments were built like railroad cars, long and narrow with no hallway – just rooms separated by doors. There was no central heat or hot water; each tenant provided this.
There was no time to mourn Helene’s tragic death or recover from the trip across the Atlantic before what the family referred to as “the curse” struck again. Anna died of diphtheria, an epidemic that passed through lower Manhattan that year. The losses were so staggering that bodies were put outside houses and collected daily and then interred in common graves, according to religion. Anna was buried in this manner in a Lutheran cemetery in Brooklyn. Grandmother knew she had to get her family out of the city, but this took several more years. In the meantime, she scoured the neighborhood looking for ways to earn money to supplement grandfather’s wages.
Grandmother then had four boys. Willie and Henry were born in New York City. In 1893 the family moved to Jersey City, where George and Justus were born. My mother, Marie Theodora, was born on December 4, 1898 and was given Helene’s middle name, Marie. In the following years three more girls were born – Wilhelmina (Mina), Johanna (Hannie) and Josephine (Josie).
The curse struck a third time when my mother developed rheumatic fever. She was very ill with a high fever, requiring grandmother’s constant care. Fortunately, my mother recovered with no lasting effects. The curse struck but did not win.
In 1908, they moved to Secaucus, New Jersey, where grandmother’s last child, Karl (Charlie), was born. After nineteen years in America, grandmother’s dream was fulfilled. In Secaucus her children could breathe fresh air, and the younger ones could go to a good school. Being in the country, they had ample space to raise animals and grow food.
The curse struck again in 1912 when diphtheria of epidemic proportion infected Mina. The house was quarantined; my grandparents, Justus, Marie, Hannie, Josie and Charlie remained inside. Each day, Fred placed food from his butcher and grocery store on their front porch; the doctor did the same thing with medications. The family would kneel around the dining room table each day and my grandparents would lead them in prayer. Imagine the anguish they must have felt, believing their misfortune was the result of grandfather’s broken pledge to grandmother and the Catholic Church.
After two weeks of the quarantine, the doctor told them the authorities were lifting the restrictions. Mina had survived the crisis. All the family’s bedding was washed and disinfected. Health officers placed a large yellow candle in each room to burn for twenty-four hours, after that the windows could be opened. The family lived in the barn another week waiting for the fumes to dissipate so they could again occupy the house. Grandfather, Justus and Marie returned to work and the two younger girls returned to school. Mina was still recuperating.
My mother and Mina survived the curse and so did grandmother. It no longer had the power over her, for which I know she thanked God. I hope she also forgave her husband; his betrayal must have been a heavy weight on their marriage during those twenty-one years. None of grandmother’s other children died during the seventy-one years following Anna’s death.
In the twenty-first century, we know curses have no intrinsic powers – only the powers that we give them. However, grandmother was twenty-five when Helene died and lived in a time when the clergy’s words held a great deal of power. God must have cried for Helene’s and Anna’s untimely deaths, for the anguish my grandparents endured, and for the way the bishop abused his authority by cursing grandmother in the first place.
In 1922, my grandparents and five of their youngest children moved to a five-acre property in Towaco, New Jersey. The family likely moved there because grandmother wanted more space for her farming. Secaucus was becoming residential, and undoubtedly there would have been restrictions against keeping a cow, pigs and chickens. Mina, Hannie and Josie soon married and moved from the house. Grandfather and Marie continued to commute into New York City by train.
My mother met my father in 1927, the same year my grandmother became ill with kidney disease. She died two years later, at age sixty-four. Mother and dad married on August 26, 1928 and moved to Lincoln Park into a house that dad had built.
The stories mother told me of grandfather were not as complimentary as those she told about grandmother. The stories about grandfather added to my growing mistrust of men, which played out in my adulthood years. If she had told different stories, and if my personal experiences with my own father were different – if he was not as aloof – would the way I recount my history differ? I will never know. Our test in life is how we deal with the experiences we face.
Mother and her siblings began working to support the family as soon as they met the basic legal requirements related to education. Mother had worked more than twenty years before she married dad at age thirty. After marrying, she did not work, and she led a comfortable life for a short time. But the Great Depression destroyed that existence, and she was tossed back into living a hard farm life. No wonder I felt her apprehension when we stood together in the living room of the Martin J. Van Duyne Dutch-American stone farmhouse in Montville.
Part Two
Chapter Four
New York City
Before I graduated from Boonton High School in 1948, I trained at Barbizon Modeling School with the goal to become a fashion model, but I soon realized modeling would not provide me with sustained employment. I had borrowed money from dad to take the class, and I wanted to pay him back promptly to be free of debt. Therefore, I needed to find steady employment. As I was walking south along 7th Avenue in New York City on my way to the subway station, I found myself in front of the Equitable Life Insurance building. I gathered up my courage and knowing that I did well in my high school business classes, I entered the building to apply for a bookkeeping position. Equitable didn’t have the position I was looking for, but they hired and trained me to be a keypunch operator (the precursor to the computer data entry operator). My basic pay was about $60.00 a week, but I frequently worked overtime to save as much money as I could. I worked for Equitable for two years.
Dad drove me to and from the railroad station in Boonton every day. The terminal was Hoboken on the Hudson River, and from there I took the Hudson Tubes to the 34th Street station. I wore a hat, gloves and dark clothes. I could not afford to buy my work clothes so I made them: dresses, blouses, suits, jackets, coats and hats. I enjoyed designing my own wardrobe and making my own fashion statement. I loved working in Manhattan. I took advantage of shopping for sale items at the large department stores and later when I could afford it, I attended Broadway shows. At Christmas, R. H. Macy’s on 34th Street and Saks Fifth Avenue, Lord and Taylor’s, and other expensive stores along 5th Avenue all had beautifully decorated holiday windows with moving displays.
My salary was not going to dramatically increase in the near term by staying at Equitable, so I found another position at Home Insurance Company on Maiden Lane in the Financial District in lower Manhattan. I worked in the midst of history. Both Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr once lived on Maiden Lane. Furthermore, when Manhattan was first colonized, the northernmost part of the settlement was protected by a wall, ergo the name Wall Street. Beyond the wall, young women tended the cattle, ergo the name Maiden Lane. The route I now took to work changed. When I reached Hoboken, I had the option of taking the Hudson Tubes or the Hudson Ferry to Fulton Street. The ferry was my first choice.
Working in lower Manhattan was an experience in itself, as it was the site of early American history. Across the bay was Ellis Island, where between 1892 and 1954 seventeen million immigrants came to America. The area was also the place where returning dignitaries were honored with ticker-tape parades. In 1951, I was in the crowd gathered for General Douglas MacArthur’s parade after President Harry Truman recalled him from duty during the Korean conflict. It was customary for all companies in lower Manhattan to allow their employees to leave work and form the crowd welcoming the honoree. Paper was thrown from the open office windows onto the crowd and the honoree below. The day the general addressed Congress and gave his memorable “old soldiers” speech, his address was piped through the speaker system at Home Insurance.
Commuting from downtown New York was also a unique experience. At 5:00 PM, the offices closed, and as employees left the skyscrapers they converted the city’s narrow streets into one wide sidewalk. Like ants, the commuters disappeared into the ground headed to the various subway stations and the trains that would eventually take them home.
I, on the other hand, would walk one of two routes to catch the ferry to Hoboken, where I could take the Delaware Lackawanna & Western Railroad (DL&W) home. My preference was to walk west down Maiden Lane, north on South Broadway and west on Fulton Street to the Hudson Ferry Terminal. During the winter, making the Fulton Street turn was often an impossible maneuver. The street would become a funnel for the cold winter wind that was so strong it often stopped me in my tracks; sometimes I had to walk backwards, combating the strong wind that would go right through my clothes. My other option was to take a shortcut through Washington Market that occupied a full block in a warehouse-type building. Merchants rented individual stalls to sell all kinds of foods – fruits, vegetables, meats, cheese, coffee, and more. Commuters often bought freshly ground coffee and for forty-five minutes I would smell that enticing aroma.
It was a stimulating time. I had the best of both worlds, working in a major city while enjoying the peacefulness of nature when I returned to my family home in Boonton. (This must have been the same feeling the Kingsland brothers felt in the late 1800s.) For an independent young person, this was pure heaven.
When the cost of the commuting became prohibitive, I found a job at a computer service bureau ten miles from my parents’ home. But before I started working there, I bought a prior-owned four-cylinder Morris Minor. We called it a gutless wonder, but it provided affordable transportation. Having my own car gave me total freedom.
Chapter Five
Moving To California
I met Alex at Boonton High School in the fall of 1947 when my senior class was putting on a play. I was the assistant stage manager and was in the hall when Alex and a few of his male friends, all from a neighboring high school, walked by. I believe it was love at first sight. Alex was slightly taller than me, with light brown hair and a great smile. He was good looking and charismatic. We immediately started to date and found that we had similar interests. Even our differences complemented one another; he was the extrovert to my introvert.
Alex’s family lived in a commuter community west of Boonton. Through Alex and his family, I was introduced to a way of life I had not been exposed to before. Alex’s parents both came from a modest background, but his father had a college degree, which allowed him to develop a formidable business. My parents were not as fortunate, but they modeled good moral and ethical behavior. Alex’s father understood that; his mother saw that I was not going to have a college education and that my parents did not have money. She wanted her son to marry someone better connected and I understood her desire. However, her lack of approval added to the insecurity I already had about my background. I had not yet learned to appreciate the character qualities my parents had. I was only aware of their lack of formal education and their financial limitations after I found myself in a much different social gathering. If the bankruptcy had not happened, I believe I would not have had these feelings.
In 1949, Alex attended Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The college social life was exciting yet the superficial motivation of achieving this level of gaiety – chiefly getting drunk – was not my idea of a good time. (I can trace back to this period when Alex’s excessive drinking started.)
Life with Alex was fun, unpredictable, sometimes glamorous, and always exciting. He had a winning personality and could always talk his way out of a problem or persuade people to do what he wanted. Initially, his behavior was charming, but later it wore thin. I had second thoughts about our exclusive relationship, and for a short period I dated a man I worked with. Eventually we resumed the courtship, and we got married on June 12, 1953, shortly after Alex graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business. National Supply Company, an oil well equipment manufacturer, headquartered in Pittsburgh, hired Alex. Before Alex was assigned to one of the company’s manufacturing locations, he had to complete a nine-month training program. One of the attractions of this company was the possibility of living in California.
Our wedding was a simple one. The ceremony was in the Boonton Lutheran church, and the reception was at my parents’ home. My maid of honor was his sister, Mary, as my close girl friend Celeste had died six months before. Alex’s best man, Harry, was his college fraternity roommate. We spent the first night of our honeymoon in New York City’s Plaza Hotel, a total surprise for me. Alex had remembered how I yearned to ride in one of the Hansom cabs parked in front of the hotel. It was and still is a grand hotel of the first order. We took a ride through Central Park that night; it was like a scene from a movie.
The rest of our honeymoon was spent driving a roundabout way to Alex’s first work assignment in Robinson, Illinois. We drove my new Morris Minor north along the Hudson River through New York State passing West Point to Albany, Saratoga Springs, Lake George and Lake Champlain before reaching Montreal, Canada. After a two-day stay, we continued west along the St. Lawrence River, stopping to see the canal locks at critical points, until we reached Toronto. Then we doubled back to the United States and crossed the Rainbow Bridge, proceeding through customs at Niagara Falls. It always gives me a special thrill and brings tears to my eyes when a customs agent says, “Welcome home.”
From there we drove southwest to Robinson, Illinois, where Alex worked for three months in the company’s field office. We rented a large one-room apartment in a private home, where I learned how to cook. Because we did not have much money, I frequently prepared macaroni and cheese, which I have not eaten since. The people in the town were friendly and we enjoyed those three months getting to know one another better and adjusting to married life. We considered the time as part of our honeymoon. One of the high points for me was driving to St. Louis to see the Cardinals play the Brooklyn Dodgers. Dad and I followed the Cardinals; Alex was a Dodger fan.
When the three-month assignment was completed, we took a southern route back to Boonton, passing through Louisville, Kentucky, where we toured the site of the Kentucky Derby. I had never seen such lush green grass or so many white-fenced horse corrals. I stayed with my parents in Boonton until Alex’s training program was over. I returned to the company I had worked for, and Alex spent the remaining six months of his training program working at plants in Odessa, Texas and Torrance, California. He was ultimately assigned to the Torrance office.
The company moved our meager amount of furniture, including wedding gifts and all the items that became my hope chest. I packed the car with clothes and the basic items for our anticipated apartment while we waited for the moving van to arrive. Mother and I drove to Pittsburgh where I met Alex. This was the last time that mother and I had exclusive time for so many hours. We enjoyed ourselves, talking and talking as two adult women, and then she took a Greyhound bus back to Boonton. I knew she was sad, but I was overcome with my excitement and didn’t acknowledge her sadness.
The 2,200-mile drive from Pittsburgh to Manhattan Beach, California, was a new experience for the two of us – kids who had not been farther west than St Louis. One of the trip’s highlights came when we stopped at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Alex asked if we could drive on the track. The man at the gate looked at our little four-cylinder car and gave us the OK, provided we did not drive faster than forty-five miles per hour. I could thereafter say, “I drove on the Indianapolis race track.” We had fallen in love with sports car racing while we were living on the East Coast, attending races in upper New York State and on Long Island. This was an exciting pit stop for us.
What I thought I knew about the United States drastically changed in our five-day trip across the country. First, I thought the Southwest was desert, and to me desert meant sand. Wrong. Route 66 through central New Mexico ran parallel with an endless row of red-rock mesas. In the northwest part of Arizona we drove through forests in Flagstaff. From there we drove north and spent a full day at the Grand Canyon.
When we entered California, we were approximately 280 miles from Manhattan Beach and the Pacific Ocean and I was eager to reach our destination. According to all that I saw in travel books, California had beautiful palm trees and flowers. But we had car trouble in San Bernardino and lost daylight while the car was being repaired. We left just before sunset, and for the last seventy miles of our trip I had my nose pressed to the window looking for the promised greenery.
In 1954, there was no freeway system connecting San Bernardino to the South Bay area of Los Angeles, so we drove on surface roads. Even though we were losing the light, we could see and smell that we were driving through orange groves and dairy cow territory. This was a vast improvement from the desert, but I still didn’t see the flowers and palm trees I was anticipating.
The South Bay section of Los Angeles was a disappointment and a complete culture shock. In the morning, I looked out of the window of our motel in Manhattan Beach to see television antennas on buildings so close they looked like they were connected. The sky was overcast. I later discovered the cloud cover was typical for April but at the time I thought, “Oh my god, I came three thousand miles for this?” I had expected trees and blue skies. I also learned that it was typical for beach communities to have houses built close together because of the value of this choice property. Once we walked along the beach, we could see how beautiful the small houses were with flowers thriving on the small piece of land.
We found a second-floor apartment in Redondo Beach, a block from the ocean. This area had more trees and open space between buildings than in Manhattan Beach. After the moving van delivered our furniture, we quickly unpacked the basics and headed north to see a sports car race in Pebble Beach. The trip north did more for me than any consoling words Alex used to allay my disappointment with the South Bay. I saw beautifully manicured rolling green hills dotted with California oaks. We passed miles of grape vines and wineries. There were cattle grazing and occasionally we saw oil derricks. There was the open space that I had grown accustomed to in Montville and Boonton.
A month later my perspective on living there changed when the overcast lifted. From our back porch I could see the majestic Pacific Ocean and the beautiful Santa Monica Mountains across the bay. I squealed with delight at seeing the mountains and their breathtaking beauty, which provided a backdrop for the early morning surfers. I thought there could be nothing more beautiful than that scene.
In July of that year, we flew back to New Jersey when Alex’s best man Harry married Cindy. (Cindy now lives in Northern California, and we marveled at how our respective spiritual journeys have paralleled one another.) I looked at the houses and saw how they lacked color and their spacious yards seemed devoid of character. I did not realize that I was in the process of making the transition from the east to the west. The transition was not complete until that fall when I came home from work and conjured up the smell of the season – burning leaves. I sat down and cried. After that I never felt homesick again. It was as though the last remnants of the East Coast had burned out of my psyche.
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