Stories of my Father in Honor of Father's Day

[Jerry M. White]

I never met my paternal grandmother. She had already passed when I was born. I’m sure I would have enjoyed her company because I certainly enjoyed the company of her only son…my dad. He had a big heart. He had lots of stories and loved to tell them. He had an interesting past which included time with the grandmother I never met.

 

My dad came from a blended family. That was something of an anomaly in the year he was born…1918. Even if it was due to the death of a mate it was uncommon then. He was the sixth child of my grandfather who I also never met. He died just after I was born. I missed both of them but I knew my dad well, and because of that, I knew my grandparents even though we never met.

 

Here is a glimpse of my dad. When my dad was thirty or so my grandmother was confined to an institution. The institution was called simply Milledgeville. It was the home of the state run asylum for the mentally ill. It is here that she would look blankly into the evening sky and comb out her red hair. It was here also that she was mistreated when mistreatment did not convey the same treatment then as now. When my dad learned of this mistreatment he decided to do something about it. He tried the regular more conventional channels of release and was told that could not happen. But my dad was hard headed and set on getting his mom out of a place where she was being mistreated.

 

One night in October of a year I do not clearly know, he made the drive to central Georgia. This was when there were no major highways leading into or out of that infamous city to the south of Atlanta. He marched into the facility, picked up his mom in his arms and carried her out of the building through the front door. It must have been a sight to see.

 

My grandmother would pass at home with her family. She spent no further time in Milledgeville. That was my dad. He was head strong with a big heart. The poem that follows is in honor of that October evening in a year I do not remember just south of Atlanta.

 

Audacity

 

My father’s father

Took a second wife

Her name was Martha Jane

She bore his sixth child’s life

 

Two sons and four daughters

They all shared his name

But had different mothers

And life was not quite the same

 

My father grew up

As a brother to them all

But his mother was not related

There seemed to be a wall

 

Martha was later sentenced

By her doctors if you will

As a patient in the asylum

Known to all as Milledgeville

 

My father learned in his thirties

Of the care she had received

And decided on his own

His mother would be soon retrieved

 

The medical community affirmed

That she was not allowed to leave

But my father would not hear of it

It was news he simply would not believe

 

He recklessly raced to Milledgeville

On an October Friday night

Picked her up in his loving arms

And left the asylum without a fight

 

Martha died at home with family

In the sight of her loving mate

It seemed a fitting ending

To an otherwise ugly fate

 

JMW

12/28/09