Is Grass Always Greener On The Other Side?

Life at Maryville was often boring, monotonous and lonely.  With no power to change this or any other aspect of my life, I acquiesced and accepted it. With the slow and tepid flow of time at Maryville, any change to the routine was something to take notice of. Anything out of the norm stuck out to me, but most of these happenings passed just as quietly as they had come.  There were, however, moments both grand and tragic that became so engrained in my memory that to think of them to this day is to relive them. I excelled at sports from a very young age. Sports allowed me an outlet for my energy and a chance to feel good about myself, which being an orphan by the choice of my Mother was a sensation always in short supply. I was captain of my volley ball team and the ping pong champion of all Maryville (I play to this day).  While I relished the positive events of my life, I lamented the mountain of events filled with betrayal, sadness, and fear. At Maryville, my problems often began, or finished, with the nuns.  Once, I was in trouble with Sister Madelyn for a reason I honestly can’t remember.  She accused me of doing something and I told her I had not, to which she exclaimed, “I don’t believe you.”  Finding strength well beyond my age, I put my hands on my hips and stated that I didn’t care if she didn’t believe me because, “God believes me.”  This woman who had been so consumed with bitter riotousness just the moment before could suddenly utter nothing more than “Mon Dieu”. While memories from sports, or my run-ins with the nuns have surly stuck with me, two events at Maryville which occurred roughly at the same time had a profound effect on me.  A group of joy riding Maryville high school students, and independently, my sister Pat coming so close to death that truly no one believed she would make it, intersected in a way no one could have ever seen coming.

The joy ride the high school students took was only dramatic because it had tragic consequences.  I don’t remember all the details but a group of upper class high school students got in a car and decided to go for a ride.  In and of its self it doesn’t sound so bad however; on that ride they were involved in a horrendous car accident.  One of the students was killed and another was paralyzed and became wheelchair bound.  The others who were more fortunate were also injured, but eventually recovered.

The boy who had died in the car accident was waked at Maryville. Before this, I don’t remember there ever being a wake at Maryville.  I don’t even remember kids getting very sick or dying.  There were approximately 800 kids at Maryville and we were all allowed to attend the wake.  My feelings were so mixed.  On one level, I was extremely curious about the wake, but I also felt very frightened.  My Father had died a few years earlier and, as a result, death was very frightening to me; it robbed me of people I loved.   I attended the wake, but it turned out not to be nearly as scary or traumatic as when I saw my Father that way.

 Around that same time, my sister Pat fell very ill. A lack of adult supervision, and the limited healthcare available to us, meant that illnesses, although rare, could easily be ignored for far longer than they should have been, greatly exacerbating the severity of afflictions. What started as a stomach ache was allowed to develop into a full-fledged appendicitis.  By the time the decision was made to take her to the hospital, her appendix burst. To this day, a burst appendix is a grave situation, but in the 1950’s, it was for all intents and purposes, a death sentence.  She was given the last rights of the Catholic Church, which were administered only when it was firmly believed that death was imminent.   With the last rights read, and being such a sad and dramatic event, the nuns allowed me and my sisters to leave Maryville.  We were driven to the hospital and taken into my sister’s room. I was brought from Maryville to say goodbye to her.

 As miraculous events go, one happened that day. In a desperate attempt to save my sister’s life, they pumped a deluge of antibiotics into her.  In the short window of life that they had left, the antibiotics began to take hold. Slowly but surely, we began to realize that my sister Pat just might make it. As time passed, Pat continued to recover.  She soon left the hospital and returned to Maryville. In the chaos of everything that had happened, I really had not paid a dramatic amount of attention to the students in the car accident. One day, shortly after she came back, I saw her in the yard and I asked her about the accident. With a profound look on her face, she began to lay out that since some of the students in the accident were her friends, she likely would have been in the car with them. It surprised me when she said if she had not been in the hospital, she likely would have gone with them in the car.  I just looked at her in disbelief and felt relieved and perplexed; the appendicitis that nearly killed her likely saved her life.  For one of the first times I could remember, I was anxious to get back to my boring, monotonous and lonely life.   

Pillow War

Sundays at Maryville had its own cadence. Parents could visit every other Sunday, but on the alternate Sundays, when there was no visitation, it was usually slow and boring. Girls who had brothers could visit on that Sunday but since I only had sisters those Sundays were pretty uneventful for me.  Those days would always start the same, with all of the children both big and small filing in for Sunday Mass…and then…there wasn’t much else to do but kill time for the rest of the day.  We were not allowed to work at our jobs because they thought it was sinful to work on the Sabbath.  We were not allowed to play any organized sports; so basically we just hung out and waited our Sundays out.  There was one Sunday, however, I was sick and my day turned out to be not so devoid of activity.

I don’t remember kids being sick very often at Maryville.  First of all we all had to be inoculated.  Second, we were isolated.  This prevented us from getting many of the illnesses children usually get.  I do remember a little boy died at Maryville. When I asked what happened to him, I was told he had a high fever which killed him. For years after that whenever someone had a fever, I thought quite fearfully, that they were going to die.  One Sunday, after Mass, I came back to Isabelle Hall to change my clothes.  I had been feeling ill, but as I began to change, I found myself so sick, I could hardly stand up.  I was having a hard time unbuttoning my dress so Sister Madelyn came over and helped me; I felt an unusual kindness from her at that moment.   She felt my head and said “You better go the infirmary.”

I walked to the infirmary and was greeted by a nun.  I do not remember her name.  I think she was a nurse.  Her habit was all white like nurses as opposed to black and white, which all the other nuns wore.  She put me to bed in the infirmary and told me she would keep an eye on me.  I slept the entire day and when I awoke it was dark out and my fever had broken.  I told the nun I was feeling fine and so she sent me back to my hall. 

When I got back to the hall, I felt well rested and full of energy; I needed some release.   It was Sunday night and most of the girls were watching television but I craved something else.  I walked into the bedroom area, where there were 36 beds and 36 lockers, as well as Sister Madelyn’s cell.  When I went in there I noticed a girl at her locker.  I asked her if she wanted to have a pillow fight and she said, “Yeah!”  So we picked up two pillows and started our fight.  We had tons of fun and it was taking care of my excess energy.  We were hitting each other, laughing, screaming having such a good time when an older girl walked in and saw what we were doing.  When Sister Madelyn came back into the hall that night the older girl snitched on us.  Sister Madelyn asked to see me; she told me she was very upset with me and she followed with, “To think I felt sorry for you this morning.”  I looked at her and told her I didn’t care what she thought of me because, “My mother is going to take me out of here.”  With that, she said, “Mon Dieu!”  On one level, I was just relieved that another crisis with sister Madelyn had been avoided, but in another way, it felt strangely good to be able to use the power that I would not be under her control forever to my advantage. I was able to get away with being a kid.