Mattie Louise comes from Harlan County, Kentucky.  She was born to a poor family that escaped the mountains for the east coast.  She is an attractive woman who has been through more in her years than lifetimes people have lived.  She's made her share of mistakes along the way.  She knows things through her experiences that she is now willing to tell.  She tells it all, and she tells it like it is.

My parents, like many back in the fifties, migrated from the appalachia mountains of Kentucky to the east coast. My father only had a seventh grade education. My mother did not finish school until she made a decision to do it on her own through mail correspondence. Kids these day's don't appreciate what their parents, nor their grandparents did to get by and just survive.

We were hillbillies in an east coast water town. They kept us kids sheltered for most of the time growing up. We got into enough trouble as children do, but it was the chaos, the anger, the confusion, the insanity of that 'southern hospitality'; or should I say hostility, that would make it incredibly difficult to grow up with.

I'm not saying that what I went through as a child has any more meaning than the next.  What I'm saying that sometimes we get thrown curve balls in life, and I got thrown quiet a few.  I always knew I was different from very early on.  I didn't agree with the teachings of my own family.  I didn't see eye to eye with their philosophy.

My father comes from a long line of men who didn't believe that women should be anything more than her husband's slave.  Women to him were less than second class to men.  I felt like my father always hated me, it's that or I just never understood him.  The older I get the more I realize it's all he knew at the time.  I just wish he knew more and would have invested a little more time with me.  It really affected and infected me.  My father's ignorance, his anger, his depression, his attitudes towards women had a profound influence on what I would do in life and who I would become. 

There are things that I have done in life that I can't take back.  So it goes, my father can't take back those things that he has done.  The only thing we can do is to go on with our own lives the best we can.  In order to go forward, I'll have to go in rewind.  So, grab yourself a cup of coffee as I relay my experiences here for you. 

My mother's mother, we called her Mammaw, was an incredibly strong woman. She lived down in a hollar next to a creek. I mean, right on the edge of the creek and on the other side of the 'tin' house was the road. On the other side of the road was her brother's property. He ran a little grocery store. Mammaw never received any help or lucky benefits from her brother. You would think with there would be such a thing as family helping family, but he wouldn't help her for nothing. Why would she need any help from him? She was left with four kids to raise herself, no car, no nothing. She would get a job working at the school house up the road and there she worked until she passed on. She walked up the road to work everyday. She was no teacher. She was the school's janitor. She shoveled coal to heat the school up. She cooked in the school. She took care of the little school house for many years. Did I say she was beautiful? Did I say she deserved so much more in life than what she got dealt? You better believe it.

 If you've seen the previous , 'Innocents Of the South', you are taking a look at a photo of my mother.  Look at those eyes, the mouth, that face, they are remarkable.  This photo captures so much of that little girl; what she was going through, what she witnessed, what she was thinking.  My mother was raised very poor, but with a mother who never stopped trying to survive.  You can see that in this little girl.  She's holding on, she's sad and beautiful.  She's struggling to make it through all of the hardships that family was eduring.  My mother became successful in her own right.  She would have to go through many trials and tribulations before she would finally find her niche', her place where she could be happy.  She told me of a few childhood memories that have stuck with her throughout the years.  She holds onto them as a testament of her survival and fortitude.

I cannot imagine what my mother went through as a child. Her stamina is a testimony of it all, having survived cancer twice. She's incredible! I highly respect her with all my heart. She has told me things that lead me to believe her childhood was a tragedy, yet she's managed to make it through.

One story she told me was when her father got a hold of her and wanted to pull a bad loose tooth. She knew she had to hold still and not run away like she wanted to. He took a pair of pliers to her mouth. Can you imagine? He took a pair of dirty pliers to her mouth. He did pull her tooth, however it was the wrong tooth. The audacity, the total disregard for her humanity, her life, her feelings, her body? How could this man who was supposed to protect her, who was supposed to love her, do this to her?

I never knew my grandfather, the man I only heard stories about. The man who would leave his beautiful family he had made would not meet his grandchildren. I don't believe I was ever around him, if I was, I was too young to know it. If I was around him, my mother didn't know it.

There was cruelty. There is ignorance. There was so much in those mountains. The harsh life, the poverty, it does infect some people like a virus and it spreads making them indifferent to the pain around them, and to their own. You can see it today. Take a look around you at what poverty does to people, it doesn't take too long to look. In my opinion, there is no excuse to abuse drugs and alcohol, however when someone has pain and poverty and no positive option to find outside or inside themselves, they will look for something to comfort them because they surely aren't getting it around them. However, there are some who just keep on getting up after being beat down. There are some who have a willingness to find a better life. They are the ones who will do it, because they have something they didn't give up on, and that is faith.

Mom told me of another story. Her father came home drunk one night. All four kids were in bed. They heard him and were very quiet and didn't move when he came into the room. He had a shot gun. He pointed a loaded shot gun at them and said, "Any of ya' move and I'll mow ya' down as fast as you move. Go ahead get on up, I'll lay you down." How could something like this happen? My mother grew up with this man as her father.

They lived in fear with no visible option, no alternative for a way out.  What is so very sad is total madness similar to this still goes on today.  If I knew of a family who was currently living in such a situation today, I would do everything I could to bring them out of it.  It infuriates me when I see those polished, golden toilet, squeaky slick, over-paid and over-valued power mongruls that basically control our economy and the government do absolutely nothing for real people; as mammaw would say, the 'little people'.  If you have wealth cars, luxury, and huge homes is that your legacy?  Don't you want to be remembered for what you've done for  others instead of how much you had?  If I ever am capable of helping others, you better believe I'm going to it.  Okay, enough of that particular 'soap box'.

My grandfather still remains a mystery.  From what I've heard of him he wasn't worth knowing.  I often wondered what made him that way.  I just feel incredible sympathy for what my grandmother must have endured with him.  He left the family when they were still young.  My grandmother must have been extremely creative to raise those children herself, to feed and cloth them. 

All I have now is a few photos of a white bearded old man.  He looks harmless, but behind those eyes was something else that I'll never know.  He's gone now.  My grandmother is gone. However, my grandmother left a legacy of divine love and a strength.  I will always cherish my memories of her. 

Mom and Dad moved out of the mountains following an exodus of others looking for a better life and looking for work. One by one family members began to spread out. The booming automobile industry beckoned for workers as well as new industry popping out around the cities and coastal areas. Families moved in with families until they found work and found homes. My parents came out of the mountains, however the mountain way of life came with them.

Mom tried to attend PTA meetings but she felt like an outcast. There she was trying to be a good responsible mother and she was treated like she wasn't good enough to be there. The PTA was all about gossip and all about nothing instead of what it was intended for. Mom caught on to that real quick and she decided it best not to go to anymore of their meetings. I imagine she felt like a misfit, an outsider. I know what that feels like. Whenever I meet someone new to an area, I try to help them and make them feel welcomed. I wonder if anyone does this these days. It's amazing what you find out about someone if you take the time to listen.

Those first few years were pretty harsh. My father hadn't quite 'grown' up and carried some bad habits with him that he would soon have to give up. My mother had to deal with them. They were a young family trying to survive in strange surroundings and people. They struggled hard at first. They would barely make it from one week to another. My father didn't make things any easier with his attitude toward women and his life. I truly believe he was miserable doing something he really didn't want to do. I often wonder what he really wanted to do that he didn't get to do in life. He carried a big chip on his shoulder. I wonder what it was.

My father lost his mother very early in life. He only had a picture of her. He doesn't remember her and had to rely on stories about her. She died of tuberculosis when he was just two or three years old. He was the only child. His father would marry again and have many children, however my father was not raised by his father and new family. My father was raised by his aunt and uncle. I often wonder if he had bitterness and anger of not having the love of his mother around him, of not having the things that he would see his half brothers and sisters get. I suppose I'll not know what was going on with him throughout the years, but I do know about the anger and the rage.

 In the next article by Mattie Louise, she will discuss the environment and sexist culture of those days passed, and she will question if it is still thriving.  She will tell of those things that shaped her opinions and sense of self.  She will take you with her as she walks through the past and into the present.

I was the first child. I was the big disappointment because I was born a girl. My father took insult to his manhood at his first child, a girl. He wanted a boy, so immediately after he would father a second child and then he got what he wanted. I would grow up feeling that disdain, that disappointment. No matter what I did I could never be as good as my brother. I wanted so much in life, and everyime I would try to succeed at something I would end up back where I started. Maybe I'm not supposed to be anything. Maybe just being is what I'm supposed to be doing, but being what.

Believe me, I've been being quite a bit. I've been being at everything. So what do I mean by that?

I tried being an honor student. I did that. I tried being a college student. I did that. I fooled myself by thinking that my father believed in me. I had to have some faith, some hope that he really wanted me to succeed and have a life, since that is what a father is supposed to do? I was so good at fooling myself that I actually qualified for a scholarship, that I could go to college, that I could pursue my dreams. I remember that night well. I was excited. I came home with the papers to fill out. My mother was helping me. My father got up and became curious at the attention my mother was providing me in helping me fill out the paperwork. He wanted to get a look.

He began looking and said, "Wait a minute, they want my social security number? They want to know how much money I make?" My mother and I were silent. He ripped the paper up. I was mortified. I didn't know what to do or say. I asked, "How am I going to go to college?" He said, "If you want to go that bad, then I'll help you."

The day would come when I would graduate. My mother had to plead and drag my father to the graduation. I could tell he didn't want to go. I got a part-time job. I applied at the local community college. I didn't really want to go there, but that's the only alternative I had. I would bring the bill home for my first semester. My father said, "Prove you want to go by paying for it yourself." I did. I had to arrange my schedule work and college around my father's schedule. I would use his car to go to work and college. You cannot imagine the pressure of all that.

One day when I came home I saw a vehicle in the drive way. It was a truck with over-sized wheels. I came in the door to find my brother beaming with pride. "Who's truck is that out there?" I asked. My brother boasted, "It's mine, Dad bought it for me." I realized my father would never help me with college like he said he would. I realized  I would never be seen by my father, that what I did didn't matter to him much. He would continue to do things for my brother. I believe he was living through my brother. I believe he was so focused in doing things for my brother in an attempt to make up for those things that was never done for him. The irony of it all is it was never done for me.

I gave up on college when I met a way to escape. I would meet a man who wanted me. He wanted me to marry him. The whole idea that a man actually wanted me was a new concept. I talked myself into marrying him since 'girls' were supposed to do that. You know, get married have kids. I did it.  I thought I was doing what I was supposed to be doing.  I thought if I did what I was supposed to be doing, getting married and having children, that somehow I would be happy with that.  Somehow I thought I would be satisfied. 

Little did I know I would carry a bitterness into the marriage.  I would carry my lost dreams, the future I had given up on into the marriage.  I didn't have the time to pay attention to what I lost at first.  I was concentrating on my children.  I thought maybe I could live through them.  I thought maybe I could give them the future that was stolen from me.  I threw myself into my first daughter.  I tried to provide her every opportunity for enrichment, knowledge, and self awareness.  Then my second child, another daughter came along.  I was a devoted mother.  I was consumed into my children.  I noticed a complete difference in rearing my second daughter.  She was different, but not merely different, it was something else.  She didn't respond like the documented milestones suggested.  She didn't engage like she should have.  Something was wrong.  I felt it in my soul and began to seek out answers.

I didn't get any support from 'family'.  I didn't get any support from his family, they knew it all after all.  They kept insisting that I was comparing my daughters too much, I was expecting too much out of my youngest.  I knew better.  I knew there was something wrong. 

So the struggle to get answers began.  I would take her to this doctor, to another, no one doctor had the answer because they didn't know.  Was it her hearing?  Was it a behavior issue?  Was it a psychological problem?  What was it?  A few years would go by of monitoring her development and it began to show.  She was tested.  Finally, the diagnosis came like a harsh ax to my heart to my own denial because I wanted to believe she could be 'fixed' somehow, it could be corrected somehow.  She was diagnosed mildly retarded. 

I cannot begin to describe the turmoil I went through.  I cannot begin to describe the pain I felt.  I kept trying to work with her to make it go away.  It wouldn't go away.  It stayed and I began to crumble at the truth.  Again I would try to seek support from family, and again I would be denied that support.  They would ignore my hints help.  Instead they would wait like vultures to blame their own doubts on something.  They would begin to somehow blame me for my daughter's disability, when I already blamed myself.  Everyday I would ask myself, "What did I do wrong?  Was it something I ate?  Was it something I drank?  Was it something I did?"

To add to the malay, to the destruction of my dreams for my daughter, was the destruction of my mother's marriage.  She should have divorced my father long ago, however the time would come and it came.  I provided my mother a place to live for a while.  My brother was angry.  My brother was angry with me, as if it was my fault, the end of my parents marriage.  My brother dumped my mother's things at the driveway.  It was an awful period.  I didn't know how much longer I could hold it together.

It wasn't long until my mother pulled herself together and got her own place.  She was beginning a new life for herself.  I was proud of her.  I wanted to pull myself together too.  I wanted to work and build something better for my daughters.  Little did I know it was a distraction from the undeniable truth.  I could not bare to look at the future that was set forth for my youngest daughter.  I could not bare to take a look at the limitations she had.  I just tried to focus on what was needed then.  I tried to focus on work and working with them, my daughters. 

His family, my ex-husbands family tried their best to NOT be there for a mother in desperate need; instead they would attack and find ways to hurt.  I would be hurt time and time again.  Maybe I took things too personally, maybe I was too sensitive to the things that would be acted upon me, that would be said, that would be done.  How could I not take it personal?  Here is where the crumbling of my inner self, who I was, what I had become, where I was, began.

I suppose I was bait and I was catch all in the same. I look back on it now and wonder what if? What if things were different? What if I had that scholarship to college that I wanted so much? What if I had the support I needed from my father? What if I got treated differently? Yeah, we all can look back and either thank our lucky stars for the small blessings we have, or we can wallow in it and let it form who we are. I did a little of both.

I tried like hell to continue my college education but there was something that would come up and get in the way of it. I tried like hell to be a good mother, again something got in the way of that.

I fell apart. I didn't have the strength to take everything on. I could not do it all. I couldn't be an exceptional mother something I wanted to be, I couldn't be an exceptional wife something I wanted to be, I couldn't be the happy homemaker something I tried to be. All I could do was be dismantled. Little by little I would fall apart until one day I came to this idea, this unacceptable idea that I was worth nothing and would be nothing to no one. I knew my husband had an affair. He had admitted this to me. I had faced the dreaded news of my youngest daughter's disability. I felt completely and utterly worthless.  There would be events and things that happened which would convince me I didn't belong. My husband forced himself on me not once, but twice.  This action took something away from me.  When a woman says no, she means no.  When it is your own husband who takes something from you without your will involved it does something to you, and it does something to the marriage.  I had more damage done to me.  So, there I was barely existing.  The emptiness was too much. 

I began to space out and just forget about what I was doing. I began to lose track of where I was and what I was doing. I was in a mode of which I cannot explain today. I began to seek out help and that help didn't help me, it helped destroy me more. I figured the only option I had left was to disappear, since I was already disappearing in my own family and in my own life. 

I believe my husband knew what he was doing to me and he became even more vicious in his actions.  He began seeing another woman and would call me to tell me not to come home.  I would stay away for awhile.  The marriage was over.  My husband began to threaten me and he finally forced me to move out of the house.  I was afraid.  I was afraid of everything and especially of him.  You see, men had been horrible to me and I found that I couldn't trust them.

 After realizing that I would lose everything I loved, a family, a home, husband, and my children, I was at the point of no return.  I did'nt want to live.  Then I met someone.  I met someone who wanted to be close to me, who found me interesting, who wanted to be a part of my life.  This person was someone I would have never thought that I would be with.  This person was a woman.  Being with a woman was my escape, it was my freedom.  I felt alive for the first time in years.  However, being with a woman was my complete wipe out.  I would be erased from my family methodically and completely. 

My ex-husband began pushing my children away from me.  First he began denying me visitation.  Then he convinced my oldest daughter to not see me anymore.  I didn't understand it.  I don't know what happened.  What did I do?  When I was pushed out of my daughter's lives, I was again almost destroyed.  If it wasn't for my mother, who told me to just walk away because he was trying to kill me emotionally, I would have died.  I was dying.  I've never fully recovered from the loss.  I've tried on and off throughout the years to have contact.  My oldest has alot of anger at me.  All of her anger is firmly on me.  I wish I could take it all away from her.  I wish I could change the things that happened.  I am so sorry for all of it.  I cannot go back and correct it.  I cannot get back all of the lost years.  I carry it with me everyday.  I suppose that is one thing that my daughters can have some satisfaction in.   I do take most of the blame and responsibility for their feelings; however, I will not take all of it. 

My ex-husband, with his counterpart, is due some of the blame.  They deserve some of the blame.  However, I don't believe that my daughters, especially my oldest daughter could ever see her father to blame for anything. 

Many years have passed by.  There is not one day that I don't think about my daughters.  I wonder what they are doing and how their lives are. 

Today, I am just making it.  I get by.  I smoke heavily.  I try to focus on other things than that of loss and disappointments in my life.  I have had many losses.  I have had many turning points and I'm going through one right now.