High School Became Possible

Ivy’s battle ended without visible trouble. I emphasize visible. The hurt inside her was not and is not so easily managed.  I suspect to this day she must harbor some negative feelings.

 But I was a child of a different breed. Hostile, difficult, jealous and sometimes just plain nasty.  I was also infected at an early age with the love of learning. My first library book (brought to the little one room school by wonderful Miss Harrison) regaling maple syrup production in Vermont awakened my need to know a world outside my realm, a need which by some plan of gods or government became possible. The consolidation of schools, the accessibility of a school bus going into the county high school opened a whole big world to me.  But almost not to me.  Mommie vowed she would never allow her children to go to high school where they would get strange ideas and surely become ‘godless’.

I remember vividly the day I stole a three cent stamp from the book of stamps Mommie kept under the Bible on the table next to the sofa. I wrote a heart wrenching letter to Uncle Luther who had moved to Detroit to work in a war factory. I pleaded that he let me come live with him and go to school with his boys. Little did I know that Uncle Luther was living in cramped house with barely enough room for him, Aunt Lizzie and their five children.  Little did I expect that Uncle Luther would send my letter back to Mom.

Challenged by Mommie, angry because of my defiance and embarrassed at my choosing her brother as a refuge, she was livid, Mommie always cared how things looked. I stood my ground. “I will run away,” I said. “I will go to Knoxville and find me a job. And you can’t stop me.” I never stopped to think about how I would get to Knoxville, where I would stay, and how I would live. Who would hire a fourteen year old?  To this day I believe that Mommie would have beaten me within an inch of my life except for Daddy. 

Daddy in one of his rare defiant moments with his wife announced that “Ruthie, she can go to high school.” Had I been less driven I might never have done it. The conditions imposed on me would have stopped some. But not me. I was a difficult child.