Elaine’s childhood reads like the tail end of the Oakie Dust Bowl experience. In 1961, at the age of seven, she roared out of Tulsa in the back seat of a two-tone, green and white ’59 Ford Galaxy after her momma took up with her fourth husband - an excon who blew his trigger finger off so he wouldn't have to go to the army. They roamed the country looking for work - three kids selling greeting cards and seed packets door to door while their momma sold books and magazines. Meanwhile, their stepdad laid up drunk in the nearest tavern. Long before seat belts were required, Elaine saw the country lying in the rear window of a car, reading anything she could get her hands on and cementing in place the love of books. That car ride lasted two years, cutting a swath through Oregon, California, Texas and Florida, finally ending up in Southern Illinois, the place she now calls home. The stories from her colorful, lawless childhood are shot throughout with surprising flashes of humor, dignity, loyalty and freedom.
a very brief timeline
Elaine, age 3 1/2, in California carrying Timmy. Her favorite toy, a pull-behind chicken, is keeled over in the dirt behind her.
Momma's people were poor. Her daddy owned a sawmill outside Atlanta and went to prison for killing a man. When that happened, her mother dumped the kids off at the grandparents and left in a Model-T Ford, never to be seen again. Momma fled the bone crunching poverty of the South when she was 12, getting as far north as Baltimore, where she claimed she went around town in a chauffeur-driven limousine, but Aunt Trudy said the truth was far seedier. |
Elaine, her sister Denise, and her brother Kurt in the dining room of the Queen Mary, returning from Switzerland after their parent's divorce. Her momma blew the $20,000 settlement, put the kids in an orphanage and promptly went back to the bars.
Daddy's people were rich. His grandfather built bridges and tunnels for the Swiss government and amassed so much wealth that when he died, Daddy, one of ten grandchildren, inherited three apartment buildings in Berne himself. He didn't want to be an architect like the rest of the family. He loved American movies and cars and cigarettes and wanted to go to America and be a pastry chef, so his momma bought him a bakery in Baltimore. |
Momma and Daddy met in a bar. Momma was already on her first husband, but she couldn't have children and that created a lot of tension. They split up, and then Momma got in a car wreck and was bedridden and Daddy, her friend from the bar, helped take care of her. By the time she got back on her feet, surprise, surprise, she was pregnant with my sister, Denise. It must have really been something to have a baby out of wedlock in 1951. She was pregnant with my brother, Kurt, before they tied the knot. Momma was somewhere between 5 and 10 years older than Daddy. Her age was always God's own wonder and varied depending on the age of the man she was with. The wrong date is even chiseled on her tombstone.
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