The Story

Table of Contents

Prologue

The Story

Helen Estelle LaCroix

Walnut Ridge Army Air Field

Clarksdale, Mississippi

The House Where Fred Lived

My Mother

Phoebe Taylor Montgomery

Tilly May

After Fred Was Gone

Mississippi Memories

School – Harold

Virginia Experience

Clearwater, Florida

Abe Washington

Home in Clearwater

Joey Sullivan

The First Prostitution

He Came Back

Tampa Arrest

Another Trip

We Were Taken

Child Protective Services

Thoughts on CPS and Foster Homes

Living in a Foster Home

Foster Home Experience

Laredo, Texas

Andy Slaughter

Red Light District

Trip to Mexico

Getting Back to Nuevo Laredo

A Ride Back to Corpus

Robert E. Driscoll Hotel

The Last Walk

Pachucos

At the Driscoll

Corpus Christi Foster Home

Barkett Foster Home

IQ of 60

Arrival at Boles Home

Tour Days

Chorus Memories

School Morning at the Home

Boles Children’s Home

The Time I Saw My Mother

What I Know About My Father

Abilene Christian College

A Normal Time in College

John F. Kennedy Assassination

Kennedy Was Shot

Hagsie at College

Leaving College

Moving to Arlington

Living Alone in Arlington

When I Met Ken

The Irish Family

Big Family Wedding

Tess Is Born

Trust Fund Threat

The Divorce

My Friend Ron

My Daughter – My Sweet Tess

The Accident

My Brother Harold

What I Know About Psychiatrists

Psychiatry

Suicide

First Suicide Attempt

Dave

Finding My Mother Sick

My Brother

Taylor Henderson Montgomery

How Far Was It

When All Is Said and Done

Where Is My Family?

Prologue

What you will see here are snapshots – of life, near death, and survival. And each snapshot is a picture of a glimpse of The Story. There is little success at chronological organization. The Story does not proceed in a well defined order. It is as if Polaroid snapshots of life are thrown onto a table, then viewed randomly. As each snapshot is placed back onto the table, you know that it only revealed a small part of The Story. You may question this method. Wouldn’t it make more sense to have established order?

It’s possible that you have had a similar experience. You put off filing your photos until a semi-organized pile becomes a disorganized mess. As you look at each of them, some are clear to you, others are nearly forgotten.

So it is with my snapshots. That doesn’t stop you from reaching for one of the other snapshots lying scattered on the table. After you have viewed all of them, you know that some are missing. You would like to find the rest.

The Story

The sun was peeping through the dusty blinds. Traffic noises were starting on the street in front of the building. I looked over at Harold lying on the floor on the top part of the mattress from the bed. Another day was gone and with it a mother that didn’t matter anyway. My mind drifted back to the day before and every nerve in my body tensed. I could see her crying and screaming – her face paste white as the police led her away and the doors to the elevator I was on closed. Her last words were, Sistah you have to call Children’s Services now – do you hear Sistah – oh God Sistah honey. Sistah was her nickname for me.

I would have to go to the hotel to work in a few hours. What would I do? It would surely hit the papers and everyone there knew who she was. She had worked there with me… got me the job by telling them that I was 18 years old instead of 13. I was so tired…so damn tired.

I worked all night long at the Driscoll Hotel in Corpus Christi as an elevator operator. Corpus is where we finally wound up after it all happened. She got drunk one night and blabbed about what she had done one too many times and they arrested her. God damn her! God help us.

I looked over at Harold, my brother, again. He was still asleep. Harold was a year younger than me. I knew he was scared. He was the one on whom all this took the most toll. Then I thought about what that deranged landlady said to us the day before. She asked if we were alone and unsupervised in the apartment. Where is your mother, she asked? You two sleeping in the same bed are you? I can’t have that kind of thing going on. I remembered how sick at my stomach I felt at what she was implying.

I knew I had to call Children’s Services and I dreaded that. We would be thrown into more foster homes and probably separated. God knows what else. The foster homes were sometimes worse than being on the streets. Maybe I could just keep working and somehow we could make it, but I knew Harold couldn’t cope anymore. I don’t think I could either. I was scared…. just plain scared.

I put the coffee on and hurried into the shower. Harold was awake by the time I got out of the shower. All we had to eat was a loaf of bread, bologna and some butter and mayo. I had twenty-five dollars and some cents to my name. I would have to go to work and face my boss. Maybe he wouldn’t read about it and I could ask for a draw on my check tonight.

I thought about having to walk to work at 11:30 tonight by myself.

I guess it all started in Florida. My mother came home one day with a brand new Rambler. She said that she had rented it and we were going on a trip. I knew she was up to something because she was all tensed up. She sat there explaining that we needed to leave Florida. She was rolling a pink piece of paper between her thumb and fore-finger, like she always did when she was in deep shit…and she was sober as a judge that day. Something bad was in the making.

Helen Estelle LaCroix

I was born on December 1, 1943 at the Station Hospital, Walnut Ridge Army Air Field, Arkansas. My mother was Phoebe Taylor Montgomery. She was born in 1915 at Sardis, Mississippi. My father was Henry Emilien LaCroix. He was born at St. Liboire, County of Bagot, Province of Quebec, Canada, but I am not sure of the year. He was younger than my mother.

My father entered the United States Army in April 1942. He married my mother in December 1942. I don’t know exactly what happened to him during the war years, but he spent the rest of his life in VA hospitals, or other medical facilities. He died at Seekonk, Massachusetts in 1980.

My mother’s sister, Estelle Montgomery Baird, died in 1939 at the age of 30. My grandfather, Fred H. Montgomery, died in 1945 at the age of 62.

I relate these events to you because I believe that they had a great impact on my mother, and therefore, became important in later developments in my life.

Most of the things related in these pages were pushed back into the deepest recesses of my mind. They were, and are, very painful and disturbing. I have been told, by someone who read these pages before you saw them, the thought that came to their mind was could this have really happened? I assured them, as I now assure you – it could and it did.

Walnut Ridge Army Air Field

In 1942 construction of WRAAF brought a flood of workers to the area around Walnut Ridge, Arkansas. Residents of Walnut Ridge and Pocahontas opened their hearts and homes to the new workers. People rented out vacant rooms, garages, attics and moved the kids into Mom and Dad’s bedroom to accommodate the workers.

Unemployment had reached an extremely high rate during the height of the depression. Walnut Ridge was described as a Ghost Town – no pedestrians, no automobile traffic. No one had any money – why come to town? At one time there were 17 empty buildings on Main Street. The new air field brought a never before experienced prosperity to most people.

Now anyone who wanted to work could get a great-paying job at the air field. Folks that were once glad to get $1.00 per day were suddenly making 50 cents to $1.00 per hour.

Airfield construction began in 1942 and it opened in October 1943. It was used by the United States Army Air Forces as a training base during World War II. Among the airfield facilities was a fully equipped 203 bed hospital. There were 260 tile-block apartments.

In addition to being a flight training facility, Walnut Ridge was also a major maintenance facility, servicing C-47, P-40, P-51, B-17, and B-29 aircraft.

In the last year of the war, the airbase was also used to hold German Prisoners of War. Very few local citizens knew about these prisoners, even though about 300 German POWs were held, and they were used to help local farmers meet agricultural needs.

In 1947 the United States government formally turned the base over to Walnut Ridge.

WRAAF

We were in Arkansas living on the Air Base in what appeared to be barracks style housing. There were several other families in this building…each unit side by side. We lived in the one at the end of the building which had a large concrete area to the side of it where children could go out and ride their tricycles, play games, etc. There was also one lone big tree standing at the corner of the cement area, but we were too little to climb it. I remember that the entire area was sort of desolate and dry…not much grass around…just patches in front of the housing units. The building that we lived in faced the air field with hangars for the planes (in the distance) and there were other Air Force buildings scattered around. There were uniformed soldiers in the area. Our unit had several beds or cots (probably three). There was a small kitchenette with a table, and a bathroom off of that. There was no real living room, just one large room with a couch and a few dressers and the cots. There were two windows in the room with the cots…one next to the side facing the Air Field and other buildings, and another in the kitchen overlooking that cement play area. Mother slept on the couch next to a wall, Harold and I slept on cots on the other wall which is where the window was looking towards the Air Field. The planes would take off right over our buildings. I don’t remember Taylor being there, he may have been in boarding school then. He started boarding school pretty young. I remember one night while I was just barely dropping off to sleep on my cot, my mother got up and grabbed Harold and me and said, Come away from the window…they are marching prisoners out there. It was dusk and the sun was going down on the horizon. I glanced back at the window as mother was pulling me away and I saw the silhouettes of the men marching across the field, sort of linked or tied together as they marched all in a row, and soldiers with what looked like rifles in front and back of this line of men. Don’t know if they were German prisoners or not…would seem so at that time. The other uniformed men were American…mostly in those jungle suits I call them. My mother was having a fit about it. She pulled the shades, moved the cots and made us sleep right next to her that night. Neither Harold nor I were really scared because we were too young to understand anything about it all.

There was also a couple that lived in the unit next to us and the man was very sick at the time. I remember mother saying that he had diabetes and had gotten to where he couldn’t walk. He was a very big man. I just saw him once while my mother was helping his wife roll him over. They weren’t there as long as we were. My mother would go over to give him injections and help his wife roll him over. Now I don’t know what he was doing on base. I do know that we were on an Air Base though.

We had very little sweet to eat, because I would ask mother for a candy and she would say, We don’t have any Sistah, honey. She also would bitch about not having enough sugar for her coffee. We didn’t have a lot of butter either. Mother drank black tea instead of coffee mostly, and she’d re-use the tea bag because I remember her keeping them and not throwing them out. Seems to me, there were times when someone would bring groceries to us. I don’t remember my mother taking us anywhere to shop while we were there, or her ever leaving on her own. Every now and then, she would give Harold and I a butter and sugar sandwich for a treat and we loved them….couldn’t have them very often though. We ate a lot of potatoes and beans and peanut butter sandwiches. I don’t remember having eggs either.

Harold and I could go outside only if some adult was watching us and only at certain times. I remember being out on the concrete slab with Harold one day and seeing what looked like a wolf with his head cut off hanging in that one tree beside the concrete slab and his head was on the concrete. The eyes were still open and so was the mouth. I went over to investigate and stuck my hand inside the mouth and it closed on my hand! I went screaming into the house with this wolf head clamped on my hand…my mother was beside herself. She started yelling at the top of her lungs for someone to come and help, and a man in one of the units (in uniform) came running into the house. Between the two of them (mother and this man) they pried the mouth open and got my hand out. Now that I think about that, I think I had to go to what looked like a hospital on the base and get shots. I had to go for several days to check my hand also because the teeth had poked holes in my hand. I don’t remember it hurting much though. We didn’t stay long there at all…maybe only a few weeks or months.

Clarksdale, Mississippi

Clarksdale is a city in Coahoma County, Mississippi. It is located on the banks of the Sunflower River.

Located in the heart of the Mississippi Delta, Clarksdale was known as the Golden Buckle in the Cotton Belt, with enormous plantations. In 1946 the development of a single row mechanical cotton picking machine quickly changed life in the Delta.

The large workforce of underpaid and exploited African Americans required to work the sprawling plantations instantly became expendable. This came at the same time that increasing numbers of African American GIs were returning home from World War II.

The Illinois Central Railroad operated a large depot in Clarksdale, which quickly became a primary departure point for the largest migration of human beings in modern American history, the black migration to points north.

In 1954 a wealthy Clarksdale attorney argued unsuccessfully in favor of segregation against Thurgood Marshall in the United States Supreme Court.

The House Where Fred Lived

Fred Montgomery was my grandfather, but I don’t remember him. He died when I was a baby. I remember being in my grandfather’s house several times. It was in Clarksdale, Mississippi and a lot of the people there seemed to me were black, but there were also many very influential and wealthy white folks around. It was my impression later in life that my Grandfather Fred was one of those influential and well off people. My mother told me that he was a criminal lawyer. I could tell that my mother was very close to Fred and loved him dearly from the way she talked later in life. I’m sure that I would have loved Fred too. As for his wife, Lyda, my grandmother, I never felt comfortable around her. She wouldn’t smile much and made Harold and myself call her Buhba. She wouldn’t let us call her grandma. Harold and I used to get on a big piece of cardboard and slide down the stairs (two flights of them) and Buhba would get beside herself with frustration. Buhba was a piano teacher and she insisted that I should learn to play the piano. My feet couldn’t touch the foot pedals so she would work them and try to teach me to play the song, A White Sports Coat. I hated that song and still do. Buhba wasn’t the least bit musical in my opinion…too stiff. My mother would sit down at that piano and play jazz songs by ear. She was so good and she’d sing too. The whole house would start to rock and Tilly May, our maid and my nanny, would stand there swaying her big body to the music. Buhba would get really pissed and go upstairs and sulk for awhile. That just egged my mother on and the night was young.

Fred’s house was a very large two story red brick home with a big covered front porch that went the entire length of the house. I loved to sit out on that porch in the evening with my mother and Harold and my nanny, Tilly May. Everything seemed so peaceful and you could smell the honeysuckle bushes when they were in bloom. There were lots of old oak trees in that big ole yard. My favorite time sitting on that porch in the evening was when the hot tamale man (an old black man) came by the house pulling a cart behind him just loaded with those tamales. They smelled so good and I’d start hollering at my mother for money to go get some. That tamale man would be yelling, Hot tamales! Getta yo hot tamales! I would rush on down to the street with change in my fist and bring back as many as I could carry. He always knew I was going to do that, and he would sort-of shuffle along slowly in front of our place. I liked that old man. He smelled like those tamales and his face looked like shiny black leather with two big ole white eyes. He was always sweaty. Guess so, it was hot and muggy in Mississippi to be selling tamales.

There was also a servant quarters in the back of the house. It was two story and large enough to house four families. I think Tilly May lived in one of them. Harold and I used to sit on the steps of the servant quarters sometimes and watch the lightning bugs, and even catch and keep some in jars to look at till the poor things died. I do remember that Harold, me and Taylor, my older brother lived in those servant quarters at one time, because Taylor used to walk Harold and me to school from there. I don’t remember much about living there then, but we also lived there later too…when I was about 11 years old. That’s another story.

There was a park across the street from Fred’s house with a sandbox that Harold and I used to go and play in. There was always a bunch of kids in that sandbox…black and white. Funny, nobody ever seemed to mind whether you were black or white in the sandbox.

My Mother

Phoebe Taylor Montgomery

I relate to you only what I know of my mother that she told me as a child. She told me that her father was a prominent criminal lawyer in Clarksdale, Mississippi. She said that she used to work in my father’s office many times. My mother was very close