I SURVIVED Or Did I

I SURVIVED Or Did I?

JEAN HAISLIP

At first glance the reader will assume this book to be another "I had it tough growing up story." Fasten your seat belt and hang on! This is a gripping account of childhood abuse, parental indifference, neglect, appalling family secrets, and probable infanticide. The author reveals the personal and intimate details of a life-long and elusive search for true love, happiness, and her struggle for survival.

About The Author

Jean Haislip is a talented first time writer. An author whose autobiography is filled with intimate and personal minutiae, chilling facts, tough realism and hypnotic prose that will leave the reader spellbound. This is an engrossing life story perfectly balanced between enchantment and belief.

The author's writing talent is strong and pure. She may well be a gifted talent for this new millennium.

e-BOOK

Maverick Publishing

HOUSTON, TEXAS

I SURVIVED

Or Did I?

JEAN HAISLIP

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

e-Book 2002

www.mittymax.com

I SURVIVED Or Did I?

JEAN HAISLIP

e-Book

Maverick Publishing

HOUSTON, TEXAS

I SURVIVED Or Did I?

JEAN HAISLIP

INTRODUCTION

The author grew up in an era when family meant loving each other and having fun together. Throughout this book Jean is looking for that love. It is a true story of a young girl growing up in a Midwest town. Will Jean ever find what she is looking for?

How much can a person withstand when they are living without the love of a parent and can one survive without love? I thought I was a good girl, Jean says. I knew how my friends lived and tried to do what was right. I could never please my parents. I tried so hard. My father always found something wrong in everything I did. I put my elbows on the table; crunchy food caused me to make crunchy sounds. I talked at the table; I didn’t talk at the table. I couldn’t please my parents. One night after supper I went straight to bed. My mother came into my room and she told me, “your father and I are thinking of sending you away to a girls home.”

CHAPTER ONE

On January 13th an 8 pound 5 ounce baby girl was born. I am not superstitious but seems like it was not a good Friday the 13th for me. My name is Jean. This is my life story.

The first thing I remember is my mother hollering “Get up, get out here, NOW.”

My sister Shirley jumped up out of bed and I was right behind her. We could barely reach the table and we had our fingers on the edge of the table our noses poking over the edge.

Shirley said, “p nut samwich.”

“Girls, get out to the car.” Our mother said in a gruff way. “We are going fishing and you can have a peanut butter sandwich when we get there.”

Just getting up from our nap, we were hungry but we did what we were told. I picked up my blanket and we ran to the car. Our mother was right behind us and our father had just finished putting his fishing gear in the car and was sliding into the front seat. We arrived at the lake at Pevely, Mo. at dusk. The lake was very dark and dirty looking with a dark blue haze over it. It was foggy. I didn’t like the place. Today I am thinking of a place where a scary film would be shot, like the creature from the black lagoon.

My father made a campfire and I had such an eerie feeling that I just sat quietly close to the fire. My mother sat on a log across from me. My father started to go down by the lake and Shirley went along with him. I saw her crawl into the boat and my father pushed it out into the water as he got in and they drifted out of sight.

I just sat and looked into the fire. Later my father came back alone. My mother looked solemn and I didn’t dare say anything. I felt scared and covered myself up and lay down. I heard the forlorn sound of an owl in the distance and pulled my cover even closer.

When I awoke to the streaks of pink as the sun came up, I could see my father pouring water on the campfire and my mother was headed toward the car. I looked around but I didn’t see Shirley. I remembered last night and I instinctively knew that I must not ask where she was. I got up and followed my mother to the car and got into the back seat. I thought we were supposed to be going fishing but none of the fishing gear was taken out of the car. We drove home in silence and I never saw Shirley again.

Home was a real dump of a house where four families lived on Cherokee street. We lived on the second floor and had to share the bathroom with all the other families. The bathroom was at the end of the hall and the house was infested with bats and there were rats in the basement. My parents Frank and Regina were poor people. (They made out well in later years) My early years of childhood were not pleasant. When I was around four years old, my parents would visit friends down in the slums of St. Louis. It was at Sulard Market where farmers lined up next to each other and sold produce. As young as I was, I remember that vegetables were very cheap. I guess it was for the poor people that lived near by as the friends we visited lived in a tall building with eight families. The walkway between buildings was scary and seems like only about three feet wide. It was long and dark. I was scared when I had to walk through that walkway. I kept thinking the Boogieman was going to jump out and get me. I remember it so well and how I had to go down the hallway to find my parents and the friends they were visiting.

There was a nice lady that lived downstairs from us. Her name was Mitt Long and she would take care of me while my mother worked. Mitt never had any children and loved to keep me. She was always nice to me. I remember my mother had scarlet fever and Mitt had me with her for a long time. I liked her so much. We lived there about a year. I often wondered if that old, spooky house is still standing. I know I could find it again as it was just one block off Broadway and Cherokee. I remember my father’s sister; Evelyn coming to visit and we would go out in the alley to take pictures. It was the only place to take pictures without the old house in the background.

Evelyn was the snob of the family. She had money and let everyone know it. She would come to the house, driving her big Buick and let you know about what she did that week. She had money, but she married into it. My grandmother, father’s mother, lived with Evelyn. I stayed away from her as much as I could, as she was very hateful. She informed me that she only had one grandchild and that was Evelyn’s son.

“You are a nobody.” she implied.

I tried to like her, she was my grandmother, but it was hard for me.

My father had a sister, Catherine. She was my favorite, she was married six times but she didn’t care what the family said about her. It was her life and she was happy.

Annie, another sister of my father, was crippled up with arthritis. She was married twice but died in her home alone. She was a hairdresser and lived in Jennings, Missouri. I didn’t see her very often.

We moved to Lemay, Missouri into an old church, there were no walls and the ceiling was very high. Grass was tall around it and there was a dump in the back yard. It was a big, deep hole, which ran to the creek about a half-mile away. The weeds would get so tall in the summer that our neighbor next to our house was always afraid of a fire. She was a frail lady in her seventies. My father would set the weeds in the dump on fire. She would stand on her back porch with a hose, trying to keep the fire from burning her little house down. The fire burned with a fury and I know she was praying her house would not catch on fire.

My father would laugh and laugh, “That old shack should have burned down a long time ago.”

I know the dump was an eye sore but it was Frank’s way of having fun. It went on for about two years until the lady passed away.

Frank did not like his neighbors and the neighbors didn’t like him.

It took many years to fix up that old church and make it into a livable home. There was one bathroom, one bedroom, kitchen and a living room. I slept in the living room on a sofa that made into a bed. The house had a big porch on the side and a cherry tree. That tree was beautiful with the cherry blossoms bursting out all over in the spring and then hung heavy with the ripe red fruit. I started to school at age seven. I went to St. Andrews school. I wore old blue uniforms with a white blouse and black tie. I had black and white saddle oxfords.

I tried to join in the fun activities at school but I was always having terrible nosebleeds. I was excited when we had a school parade but I could only walk halfway. I was too weak to walk all the way.

Frank worked for an air condition company in St. Louis and Regina worked at Jefferson barracks. I was about eight when I started to notice things in our home was not like the other children’s homes. I could play with my friends at their house but I could not bring my friends home when my father was there. He would tease them and “poke” fun at them until he made them cry. I didn’t understand why he was so mean to my friends.

By the time I was nine I began to have the feeling I was in the way. I never did anything right. I could not suit my father and it didn’t take much to get a beating. It seemed just being in the same room with him was reason enough. A lot of the time I didn’t know what I had done wrong. My parents never would explain to me what was right and what was wrong about anything.

Late one summer my father decided to build a room on the big porch for me. I was so happy. I would have my own room. I had a bed in the corner and a little kidney shaped vanity covered with a glass. I put some pictures of my school friends under the glass. One day when I came home from school, all my pictures were gone. My father said he didn’t like them. I couldn’t understand, as they were my school friends. I was so hurt. I could not replace those pictures. Why would my father do such a thing? If a girl friend would call the house and I answered, I could only say hello and then my father would grab the phone and listen to what they were saying and answer, “You are not to call this house again.” Sometimes he would even go so far as to say something nasty to them. Why could I not talk to my little nine-year-old friends?

All school activities were forbidden.

One time, however, when we had our annual school picnic there was going to be a Ferris wheel and a Merry-Go-Round. I was given $2.50 for the day and was told to be home by 7 PM. I was with school friends, talking and playing games and the time slipped away. A raging Frank came to the school, grabbed me by the arm and kicked me hard. I ran home ahead of him, hoping by the time I got there his anger would settle down but it didn’t. I went to the bathroom and started getting ready for bed when the bathroom door opened and I was beaten until I fell into the tub. I was almost unconscious. My mother stood there and watched my father do it to me and did not say or do anything to stop him. Finally when I was able to get out of the tub, I went to bed. I wondered what did I do to deserve such a beating. I was with my friends and yes I did forget the time. I wondered if all my friends had gotten a beating also. I sat up and stared out the window and kept thinking what did I do that was so wrong.

My mother came in and told me, “We are thinking about sending you to a girls home.” I couldn’t even cry. Even my mother was not my friend and wanted me out of the way. I felt hopelessly lost. I had heard them mention that they wanted to travel. They didn’t want me around. I started to sit like a statue when I was at home and do nothing to keep out of trouble. My mother was working at the Jefferson barracks, cooking for the soldiers. She started at 6 AM and worked until 4 PM. I had to get myself up and ready for school. When the school day was over the real work for me began. When I came home from school, I cleaned the house, made supper for my father and did the dishes. It would be 10 PM before I was able to do homework and I started to fail in school. The sisters would write notes to my father and he was always ready with the old strap. I don’t know which was worse, the strap or his big hand across my face. I would run to my room and in the winter it was very cold as there was no heat in the new room he had built. They left the doors closed to my room. I would cover up and cry. I wondered why this person in my life that was called father, who was supposed to care about his child, was so mean to me.

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