CHAPTER 2Singing for My Supper
My mother, Elizabeth, left when I was about twelve or thirteen years old. For Babby and me, it was par for the course. Like the other traumas we had experienced, we had learned that there was little other option than to accept it and try to cope the best we could. We knew that sitting by the door hoping that she would return was a waste of energy and would set us up for more disappointment. It was a nebulous time, of which the memories are a little bit foggy around the edges.
There was also a part of me that understood that the situation was perhaps not as harsh as it could have been, and for one good reason: From as far back as I can remember I had experienced so little maternal love in the first place. Kind words or any gestures of affection from her were virtually nonexistent. I was, after all, the last of her ten children, and she had no doubt already reached the end of her rope. It was the way things were. I didn’t give my mother’s absence that much more thought, I blocked it out. Things would be okay. I put my energy instead toward staying optimistic.
Years later, when I faced a crisis in my own marriage, I had a different perception of what my mother did. I pondered the courage that it took for her to leave. It gave me the courage to change my life. Curiously, both my sister Pauline and I left our marriages at the same age my mother did.
Along with my father’s alcoholism and all the children to care for, my mother had little material comfort or support. There was no running water or electricity at home for much of the time. And medical care for childbirth and everyday problems was basically unaffordable. When Babby and I got a bit older, my mother brought in a little extra money working at a nearby café, but that didn’t improve matters greatly. She also cleaned houses. One day when I went along with her to one of the homes, I could not resist the temptation of a real luxury item within my grasp. It was a stick of gum. My mother read me the riot act that theft was still theft no matter how small the item was, and gave me a whipping to make sure I didn’t forget it.
My sister Ilean, who is ten years older than I, thinks that our parents went “a bit crazy” soon after she left home. She could recall that Daddy went for a decade at one time without drinking. She wrote to me in a recent letter that she was certain he was hurt badly when Mother didn’t come back. She said that life was hard before I was born, but admitted that she had grown up under more tranquil conditions than what Babby and I had to endure. Like me, she also has an appreciation for the fact that our parents instilled in all their children the values we needed to get through life. Despite the hardship and all the traumas, they left us with the skills to take care of ourselves, do the right thing, and have integrity.
Ilean also remembers our mother from her childhood as being strict but fair, with a bark that was far worse than her bite. She thought that behind her toughness was a more loving manner toward all of her children, but that the hard life forced her to be on the defensive. “She didn’t want to leave herself open to get hurt,” Ilean surmised. Our mother didn’t really think she was abandoning Babby and me, according to Ilean’s recollection, perhaps part and parcel of that defensive shield.
Babby and I were only told that she was going to Cleveland to work. Although she left, I still longed for my mother’s affection and never gave up hope for the rest of her life that things would improve in that regard. We spent more time together periodically as I got older and became successful in show business. But she remained a tough nut to crack.
She was a beautiful woman with black hair and bluish-green eyes. Her colorful and larger-than-life character was the kind an actress might dream of playing. She also had a large physical presence, accentuated as she went up and down in weight as she got older. She was tough-talking and strong-willed. No doubt if she were alive today and read this book, she’d probably be angry and try to “beat the gizzard out of me,” even though I write of my father and her after the passage of time with love and forgiveness (along with candor). My father, on the other hand, would have cried melancholic tears of remorse.
Regretfully, I know so little about her life before she met my father, especially about her childhood, because she hardly ever wanted to talk about it. Her maiden name was Elder and her family was primarily from England, with ancestry linked to Sir Isaac Newton. There was also Irish mixed in, and some of her features also looked distinctly Native American. The irreverent joke in the family was that an Indian in the woodshed might have had something to do with her conception.
Questions like how she met my father and why she chose to marry such an older man are mysteries that no one remains around to answer. When I spent more time with her as an adult, some details leaked out from time to time. I asked her once, given all the ten children, whether she and my father had a good love life. “Yes,” she answered, “when he was sober.”
