The Tormenting Factor: Generation to Generation

Chapter One

Between Pampers and Depends

I WAS THE ONLY BABY around for miles. All the adults amused themselves by playing with me. Coffee wasn’t in my vocabulary yet, just a little steamed milk.

The stories I’ve heard most from my family all contain two facts: I was a cute child, and everyone loved to tease me. Mother says that’s why she couldn’t keep me at home. The truth is… I was lonely at home. I wanted love and attention, and every time I tried to lay my head in my mother’s lap, she pushed me away.

Daddy married an angel. She was always up in the air harping about something. Mother mentally recorded everyone’s wrongs and played those records over and over vocally. Mother and Daddy owned businesses. Both worked long hours. They had no time for themselves or me. They disagreed on just about everything, and Mother was always raving mad at Daddy. According to Mother, there was a whole studio of records against Daddy. Proverbs 27:15 says, "A continual dropping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike". The Bible’s example of a nagging wife is like a dripping faucet...both will drive you crazy!

My father was a very good man, and he would avoid an argument at all costs. Daddy did all he could to please Mother, but she was never happy. There’s a cute adage, If Mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy. Every time Mother started quarrelling, he would leave to go back to work. He changed the saying to, If Mama ain’t happy, I ain’t staying around here. If he hung around, Mother only sucked all the life out of him emotionally. Her temper was like a wolf; she could turn on you at any given moment. Needless to say, Daddy worked all the time! He was self-employed, so he became a work-a-holic. Daddy had no habits or hobbies, only work. He could not accept failure and he did not believe in divorce.

I inherited the avoid an argument or conflict attribute from my father. His only control was the Silent Treatment. Mother’s harsh words scared me, and almost seemed to devour me at times. I was so scared of her that I imagined her as a monster under my bed. I wanted to be as far away from Mother and the quarrelling as my little legs would carry me. Because we never went on a vacation, or had family time together, I do not have many good childhood memories with my parents. The only family time I remember was spent in someone else’s home.

We lived in an apartment above Mother’s restaurant. My only playground was a concrete sidewalk. This stands to reason that I had no pets, never rode a bicycle, and never did any of the normal things that my classmates did. Living in a business, I was not allowed to have friends visit. I was not allowed to laugh and have fun like other children. Mother slapped me if I laughed. She said it was not business-like. I suppose that is why I was a sickly child. The Bible says laughter is like a medicine or cure to your bones. (Proverbs 17:22) If laughter and a merry heart are a medicine, this only stands to reason that anger, bitterness, and a broken spirit are the cause of sickness that dries up the bones. Even medical books tell us that sorrow dries the moisture in our bones.

I was just a child, but I was forced to act like an adult. My mother controlled me excessively through anger, self pity, and moodiness. She always said she was protecting me, but she was really protecting herself from aggravation if I did not do as she said. I enabled her control by catering to her needs at the expense of my own. I couldn’t wait to visit my grandparents so I could get away from the business that was my home and the broken records that went round and round in my mind. I was an only child until my brother was born when I was in high school.

My parents were not Christians; therefore they never took me to church. Both sets of my Grandparents, however, were Christians. My Maternal Grandparents, the Andersons, were Pentecostal. They were a very argumentative family. This grandmother was Cherokee Indian, thus a curse that had been resurrected in Mother’s temperament - grouchy, nervous, and always on the war path. Like the old cowboy movies, they had a shoot out every day; they used hostile words rather than bullets.

My Paternal Grandparents, the Cooks, were Old Regular Baptist. They were kind, tenderhearted, and very loving do anything for anybody kind of people. The Cooks took me to church with them, but they taught no Sunday School or Children’s Church to train a child. All I really remember about the Old Regular Baptist is that the preachers held onto one of their ears as they hacked their preaching. This means that they screamed their words with long hard breaths until they almost lost their breath. Most of the time, I couldn’t understand anything they said, because they interrupted their long drawn out words with Hu attached to every syllable of every word. Sometimes five or six preachers would "hack" at the same time. My personal opinion of this type of preaching was that they smoked too much and could not breathe well. There was always more fire with the men on the porch than those in the pulpit.

Unlike today’s church, the preachers did not end the sermon. When everyone got hungry, the congregation would literally begin to sing until the preachers sat down. After they sang the preacher down, everybody went outside and ate dinner on the ground. My Grandmother cooked most of the food, and I helped her. I was proud to help this grandmother because she showed a genuine interest in people, and especially me.

Both sets of my grandparents lived on the same hollow. I visited there often. My visits were called going down on the holler. I loved the holler and running through the fresh plowed ground bare foot. At the mouth of the hollow where my grandparents lived, was a little Baptist Church. I walked to this church one Sunday to attend Sunday School. Someone explained salvation to me that day. I was saved when I was eight years old in that little Baptist Church.

Getting saved means the saving of a person’s soul from sin or its consequences, in the life after death, by believing in Jesus Christ as your personal savior. By trusting in Jesus for salvation, the righteousness of Jesus Christ is imputed to the sinner. There are many other terms for the spiritual birth or spiritual awakening that happened to me on that day. Some call it "re-generation". Some call it being born again. In the book of John in the Bible, chapter 3, verse 3, Jesus, the Son of God says, "I tell you the truth; no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again." Nicodemus asked in verse 4 How can a man be born again when he is old? Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born! Jesus answered in verse 5 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but Spirit gives birth to spirit. Whatever term you call it, there is an explanation for it in the Bible.

I did not understand all the terms of spiritual birth the day I gave my spiritual heart to Jesus. The minister said that Jesus would stick closer to me than a brother. I didn’t have a brother then. I was lonely, and I needed a friend. I needed someone I could talk to, that would accept me just as I was. I decided to get saved not only to have fire insurance to keep me from burning in hell, but also because I wanted a close friend. I wanted a brother.

Yep, I’m from Eastern Kentucky, the hills if you will. Anything there resembling a sub-division is related to as a holler, partly because all the house sites were hollowed out of the side of a mountain, just big enough to build a home or group of homes by coal companies. The coal companies were not interested in grading enough land for a house to actually sit on. They just wanted plenty of housing for the coal miners, so they placed the houses as close together as they could and even built houses upon stilts over areas where a house normally could not be built. Water on the side of the mountain ran under the houses. Rainwater ran off those mountains and formed hollowed out creek beds. Kinfolks could live in a house on both sides of the creek, and holler at each other across the creek. This was the case with my mother’s parents, the Andersons.

The Andersons didn’t work outside the home, so they were always home. Although I visited often, I only stayed there long enough to wait until my other set of grandparents (the Cooks) came home from work. Why? Because you never heard such quarrelling as went on in the Anderson household! My mother’s habit of quarreling was inherited from her mother; my grandmother’s habit was inherited from my great grandmother. I could see that this seminal trait went back farther than I knew. Solomon said in Proverbs 21:19 that "it is better to dwell in the wilderness, than with a contentious and an angry woman." I, like my Dad, couldn’t stand the quarreling. There was never any peace there.

Mother’s parents came from the depression era. They had a negative attitude about everything (a hard life had also taught them this seminal trait). Mama and Papa Anderson’s marriage had begun with an authentic shot- gun wedding when Mama was only sixteen years old. She was already pregnant with my mother. Papa was a lot older than Mama. He was thirty two. He had been married and divorced (a result of the family curse), and also had older children. After my mother was born, Mama Anderson birthed two more children, both sons. Both of the sons later died the same night with pneumonia. It was never voiced, but reading between the lines, Papa was out drinking the night the sons died instead of taking care of his responsibility at home to keep a fire for his sickly family. The sons’ ages were nine months and three years. Mama blamed Papa for the death of her children.

Papa came from a family with low social behavior (another seminal trait). His parents never even gave him a name when he was born. He had red hair, so people just called him Red. When he became eight years old, he named himself, John Henry Anderson. He was big and he was bad. Thus, he became another BIG BAD JOHN.

Papa drank whiskey and ran around with other women in this marriage to my grandmother, just like he had done in his previous marriage. He didn’t want to be married; the shotgun had over rode his will and he had been forced to marry Mama by her parents. His attitude was bad, and he was mean to Mama and to his children. He encouraged his small children to drink whiskey. He had no idea how to be neither a parent nor a husband. This was evidenced by his churlish behavior.

Mama grew bitter due to her discontented marriage and the death of her two sons. She soon developed crippling arthritis; she had a broken spirit. (Remember Proverbs 17:24 says …a broken spirit drieth the bones.) All her joints were drawn. Her fingers were platted together like the long Cherokee braids of her hair. Surgery or medication did not help her. She was frail and crippled. She walked with a cane.

Mama and Papa slept in separate beds. Mama was grouchy and always sick. Her health was a good excuse not to sleep with a pec’cant (sinful or guilty of moral offense) man. When you live in pain, I suppose it gives you some right to be grouchy. My personal belief is that bitterness and unforgiveness toward Papa was the biggest cause of Mama’s temperament. (A doctor will never tell you to go home and forgive in order to get well; they will lose money if they make those statements.) She suffered much affliction. An affliction is when life is squeezing you so hard that the pressure makes you want to pop!

Eventually, both my Anderson grandparents received salvation, but they still were far from being perfect. Their religion followed the letter of the law, but I am not sure it was God’s law. God accepts us just as we are, no matter how good or how bad. The Holy Spirit leads us into perfection as we study and learn, and in Papa’s case, it took a while to learn.

Papa had to do most of the cooking and cleaning or get a hired girl to do it. When Papa first got saved, rumors were the hired girls were more than hired girls, if you get my drift. I was a small girl, and I overheard conversations from neighbors and other relatives concerning my grandfather’s sexual preference of the hired girls. Papa’s physical needs were not being met at home, because he had a "sick" wife. I believe Mama tried to forgive Papa, but the enmity from the loss of her sons was too deep within her. I believe there is no curse without a cause. I believe unforgiveness was the cause of Mama’s arthritis. Doctors call this an inherited disease, but I call it a family curse.

God not only sees us as individuals, but also as Generations. Exodus 34: vs. 6 and 7 teaches us that we receive curses that are passed down from our fathers into the third and fourth generations. The sins of our fathers (or mothers) usually have hurtful consequences to the children, causing us to form incorrect beliefs, based on our emotions. We human beings then replicate the sinful attitudes and actions of our ancestors, and in so doing we legalize the entry of our curse into three or four more generations of our ancestors. The bad news is that we all are affected by the sins of our parents and grandparents. Saved or not, demons put pressure on every generation to repeat the same kind of sin. This is known as a familiar spirit, and its vicious cycle hurts everyone.

Remember, I said the Andersons were a Pentecostal family that prayed for, and believed in, Divine Healing. Other than having a hot temper toward her husband, Mama was a very devout Christian woman. So why was Mama not healed? I believe it was because she wrestled with a Tormenting Factor of bitterness towards Papa all her married life. Although she tried to forgive him, when a person continually hurts you over and over again, the bitterness swells inside you like inflammation. It will eventually erupt if not properly treated, or in the case of a demon, evicted.

There were many years that my grandfather had a lack of control when it came to his sexual behavior. His preferred hired girl was also related to me on my dad’s side of the family. The conversations I overheard said their ongoing affair was common knowledge. My grandmother was not only physically sick, she was also heartsick. It’s often easier to let sickness and bitterness dominate your life so you will have an excuse, rather than play around with a forceful and abusive man. Papa Anderson lived with many Tormenting Factors. Although he got saved, the damage was already done to this marriage. He still had physical needs and without some kind of counseling or proper teaching, force was the only way he knew to meet those needs. Like a lot of older gentlemen, he tried to force his way of seeing things, including his religion, onto everybody around him. The NIV version of Numbers 16 describes this kind of man as being Insolent. Webster’s Dictionary describes this word as one who is boldly disrespectful in speech or behavior, impertinent, arrogant, contemptuous, and overbearing. I believe there should be a scripture in the Bible about living with an insolent man as well as one about living with a contentious woman.

I remember Papa’s Bible was always turned to the book of Galatians. Galatians chapter 5 vs. 15 described his family perfectly: If ye bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not consumed one of another. Vs. 19 says "Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, (illicit sex, between two people when one or both of them is married, but not to each other) fornication, (sexual act between two unmarried people) uncleanness, lasciviousness… Although Papa had gotten saved, he had no education. These were just BIG words to him. He still did not know how to crucify his flesh. He thought because he quit drinking and reveling (vs. 21) that he had crucified his flesh, but this was only the beginning.

Mama Anderson’s brother, George Andy, lived in the same hollow, across the creek, from Mama and Papa. George Andy got drunk every day. He cursed worse than a sailor. He argued back and forth across the creek with Papa about the Bible. Papa still had the forceful "let’s beat you over the head with religion" syndrome. They argued from sun up till sun down. It was enough to make you want to scream.

Any initial sin, even quarreling, is the license for demons to enter or stay in the tormentive playing field of a person’s mind. Once established, demons pressure every descendant until they "give-in", unless of course that individual takes the power and authority of Jesus to cast them out, or break the curse. The good news is that God provided a way for our deliverance from the affects of generational sins and works of our own flesh. He gave us a manual which tells us how to be set free of curses, but too many people won’t read the Bible, especially the parts about demons. (Mark 16:17) …In my name they will cast out demons…

Galatians 5 vs. 20 tells of other works of the flesh: Variance is a work of the flesh causing difference of opinion or disputes. Emulation is a work of the flesh with ambition to equal or surpass another at any expense. My grandfather and his brother-in-law both wanted to surpass the other one in their disputes. These two works of the flesh buddied up with Heresies (doctrine in conflict), every day as Papa and George Andy argued over the Bible.

They were poor, but they did not know they were poor. They ate well because they tended gardens and killed chickens, hogs, and cattle. They heated their home and cooked on a coal stove. They dug their coal from the side of the mountain. If they needed light, they used oil lamps. They never went to school, and they had no encyclopedias, or dictionaries. Computers and internet had not been invented. The Bible was their only book. In trying to outdo each other in their arguments over the Bible, they eventually learned the meaning of the Big words. These doctrinal disputes aided my grandfather in renewing his mind to the Word of God.

The Anderson grandparents didn’t have a car. They couldn’t drive. They seldom went to church, because they had no way to go unless they walked a long way. Mama was unable to walk, so they did the next best thing. They had church at home and invited all the neighbors. They hooped, hollered, shook, and trembled. They were all filled with the Holy Ghost with the evidence of speaking in other tongues according to Acts 2:4 of the Bible, and they scared me to death.

I had really bad earaches as a child. During one of these home prayer meetings at my maternal grandparents’ home, I was put in a chair in the middle of a bunch of people. The people prayed over some warm oil. They put that oil in my ear, and I never had another earache. My dad’s Old Regular Baptist father blew cigarette smoke in my ears all the time, but it never cured my earaches. Although I didn’t want any part of being Pentecostal, I couldn’t deny that their weird tactics had caused my earaches to be healed. (I learned that it does not take perfect people to receive a miracle.)

Mother had one younger sister, Judith. Papa also had another daughter younger than Judith, but we didn’t know about her yet. Although Judith was my aunt, she was close to my age. We played well together. Mother gave both of us black rubber baby dolls from her dime store. We cut up old rags and sewed clothes for the dolls on Mama’s old treadle sewing machine. Papa said we had to learn to work as well as play. He took us to the fields and made us hoe corn. He also tried to teach us to cook, but the only thing he made well was corn bread.

One day, when I was about ten years old, Judith and I had a sweet craving. We decided to make peanut butter roll. It was our favorite candy and there were no stores within walking distance to buy something sweet. We were just going to mix canned cream and powdered sugar into dough, roll it flat like pie crust, and then spread a little peanut butter on it before shaping it. Mama didn’t want us to make candy that particular day and started quarreling. Although she was crippled, Papa took her to the bedroom and whipped her with a belt. I could hear the leather break her skin every time he hit her. I could hear her crying. My heart was broken for her. I didn’t want him to hurt Mama. I had the gift of empathy or putting myself in other people’s shoes. Although Papa had taken our side in the argument concerning the candy, in that moment, I didn’t like mama’s shoes and I hated him. (Demonic activity is always seeking for an open door and generational curses are automatic when disobedience occurs! (Galatians 6:8)

Mama never came out of her room before I left that day. I wanted to lock Papa and his closet full of family secrets in the outside toilet and push it into the creek, but I didn’t. The day was overcast and dreary. The sky looked like I felt on the inside. This incident had a great emotional effect on me. Did I mention that I hate confrontation? I was fifteen years old when Mama Anderson died. She had a lot of physical problems, but her death was caused by arthritis and pneumonia. She died too young, and I felt like unforgiveness had something to do with it.

Although Papa’s insolence contributed to my grandmother’s bitterness, The Holy Spirit of God travels the hills, the hollows, and the narrow road of life. He is looking for those who are broken down, to assist them, and to help them make it into God’s glory. God’s mercy is so good! He does not leave us in the same condition we are in when we begin our Christian walk. If we consistently strive to do better, eventually we will. I still have Papa’s Bible. It is worn and tattered from use. 2 Timothy 2:15 says, Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of Truth. Papa kept on studying. Through the process of studying, he eventually changed tremendously.

Now, I want to tell you a little bit about my dad’s parents. The Cooks lived in the head of the hollow, about a mile above my mother’s parents. Mama Cook worked for my mother in The Five and Ten Cent Store six days a week. Papa Cook ran The Pool Room for Daddy. They also plowed their gardens, planted and hoed their fields, as well as cooked their own vegetables in the evenings. They canned all their own jams and juices. They slaughtered their own meat. They worked very hard, but still had a way of making all their toils seem like fun. Mama Cook made all her children and grandchildren handmade quilts for every occasion. Every Christmas, we knew we would receive a family gift of Appalachian Old Fashioned Apple Stack Cake, and it was soooo…good. They found time to go to church and to cook for the church folk. If there was not a dinner on the ground at church, they invited the church people to their home and cooked for them. In no way did you visit their house without eating something! They lived 1 Peter 4:9 Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. I watched and learned hospitality from this set of grandparents.

The Cook grandparents were dirt poor. It was fifty yards to their outhouse. Papa’s name was Willy Makeit and Mama’s name was Betty Won’t. They were always a barrel of fun. In most cases, it was like Jesus feeding the multitudes with just a little bit of food that multiplied and fed a whole lot of folk. I liked their mathematics. The Cooks had hearts of servants. I learned an early lesson, to bless the food and there would always be plenty. The Cooks never gave up on anything. I learned to believe that you could do anything you wanted to do, even though it looked impossible in the natural. They taught me tenacity. If I wanted to do something bad enough, and kept on trying, I could do it. They taught me that the shortest distance between any problem and the solution is the distance between your knees and the floor.

The Cooks had a picture perfect marriage in my eyes. I saw Mama and Papa Cook show affection, not only to each other, but to everyone around them. If you can place people on a pedestal, both of these grandparents were definitely up there. They represented love to me, and I needed that same affection that I saw them share. They had a sense of humor that was passed down to their children. (I have not inherited wrinkles, only laugh lines!)

It didn’t matter what I wanted to do; I had their support. The Cooks always tried to figure out a way to help me. I never heard them raise their voices to each other. They never quarreled, and they never ever complained. Although they had other grandchildren, they had a way of making each one of us feel like we were the only one, and that we were the favorite one. They always spoke positive about everything. (I learned when we expect and talk negative, we receive negative things; but when we talk positive and expect good things, we receive the best. I knew nothing of learned behavior at this point in my life, but these grandparents were a prime example of positive learned behavior.)

The Cooks always had time for me. My fondest memories of childhood are making apple pies with Mama Cook. She bought my very own individual tin pie pan and a small dough roller, with which I made a miniature apple pie every time she made a big pie. Because of this, I am an enormous collector of rolling pins today.

Papa Cook would give me his last dime. At Mother’s restaurant, there was an old Jukebox. Papa always gave me his change to put in the jukebox to play music. He gave me all his quarters to sing along with Elvis. The Cooks were true givers. Mother says I’m just like them. Mother was constantly mad at me as a child for giving away my toys to other children that I thought needed them more than me. (I learned to exhibit a giving spirit because of their behavior). I was devastated when Papa Cook also died when I was fifteen. He died with Hardening of the Arteries.

I know you are wondering why I am telling you so many facts about my grandparents. Have you seen the cartoon of a woman looking in the mirror saying, Mirror, Mirror on the wall…I am my mother after all! Well, there is a lot of truth behind that cartoon! To understand my life, you have to understand this coterie (my personal exclusive group of people). Parents and grandparents have a great impact on our lives. Consider Adam and Eve when God said, …By one man sin entered the world Romans 5:12. This resulted in the progeny of mankind to be born with a sin nature (a generational curse) in Ephesians 2.

As a child, I loved experimenting with things, mixing it in my food to see how it would taste. Mother called it gauming or making a mess. One particular day I remember adding ketchup to whatever it was that I was eating. It didn’t taste good. So I added Worcestershire sauce and it still wasn’t good. I then added mustard. It still didn’t taste like I wanted it to taste so I added pancake syrup. Daddy said, Ima, you’re just making a mess. I offered him a plethora of reasons how I was just making it better. Then he said, O.K., but you are going to sit there until you eat that mess. I added a few more ingredients. All of a sudden I burst out crying and said, "Daddy, I can’t eat this mess". He let me get up from the table. (This gauming illustration portrays learned behavior of loving to cook that I had experienced with my paternal grandmother. When the mixture did not produce the desired result of good taste, I reverted to a natural work of the flesh with a crying outburst of wrath. I had seen my mother act this way on too many occasions.)

My Dad only gave me one spanking in my entire life. He was washing his new red convertible, and I wanted to help him. My mistake was putting water in my sand bucket along with the sand, as I began to wash the car. When Daddy realized what I was doing, he spanked me. Mother thought he spanked me too hard and screamed at Daddy. He never spanked me again.

I was not allowed to sit on Daddy’s lap as a child, and I don’t ever remember being allowed to hug my Dad as a child. Mother was very controlling of everything we did. I loved my Dad very much, but we were not allowed to show affection. I never saw my parents show affection to each other. They never kissed or hugged.

I developed early. My mother never had the girl talk with me, maybe because I was so young when I began developing into a young lady. Maybe she assumed I already knew things I didn’t know. At any rate, when I started my first monthly period, I couldn’t figure out what was happening to me. I was scared. I thought my mother would whip me for staining my underclothes. I couldn’t hide anything from her, so I buried my underclothes in the trash in hopes that she would not find them. She found them! She shouted at me over and over as I averted my eyes away from her. She was too rough on me, and I was traumatized by this experience. My anguish could have been avoided if only she had told me beforehand about the birds and the bees. Even then, she never told me about sex or what to expect as a female. (A parent should always communicate with their children and should never assume anything.)

This was only the beginning of heavy menstrual cramps and heavy bleeding. I also had kidney problems. Somehow, my kidneys became infected every time I had a monthly period. I would get a fever and have to take antibiotics. The old doctor in our small town, Dr. Perty, said I had floating kidneys. He said my kidneys would float around with activity. He said that every time my ovaries swelled, my kidneys were lodged in the wrong position and became infected. He also said that I should never take Phys Ed, and that I shouldn’t run. I remember being home from school with a kidney infection the day President Kennedy was shot. I was watching the news. Actually, I missed a lot of school and childhood functions due to this physical problem that was diagnosed later in life as a kidney disease.

The big building where we lived was in Knotmuch, KY. Knotmuch was a pleasant little town with only about 1600 inhabitants. It was a linchpin of the coal region. Our building was known as the Cook Building, and it sat on the whole city block. Our block was about the only block of business in our small coal mining town. The Cook Building had several Mom & Pops businesses, all of which my mom and my pop owned. The closest shopping center was at least a three or four hour drive to Kingsport, Tennessee. There were no Fast Food Restaurants in our town or even any of the surrounding towns at that time. If you wanted anything other than basic food, you had to drive somewhere else to get it. Mother’s restaurant and a snack bar in the Drug Store were the only places to eat for miles around.

Our apartment was upstairs in the Cook Building. It sat directly over top of the restaurant / bus station. The apartment had five large bedrooms. The Cook Building had a coal furnace. Daddy had to fill the huge furnace with coal several times a day. Like all coal furnaces, it smoked. I can remember waking up in the mornings with black nostrils from breathing in the smoke from the furnace during the night. Because of the smoke, Mother had to paint our apartment at least once a year. Daddy tried to help, but Mother was too hard to please, so she did it herself.

The building had a flat roof with plaster ceilings. Every time it rained, there was a leak somewhere, usually over one of our beds. We always had buckets of tar, and someone on the roof trying to fix it. That someone was usually Daddy. If the leak was not repaired, the whole ceiling fell which meant long repairs with sheet rock and plaster. There would be white dust everywhere, and Mother would have to paint again. One night, the heavy plaster ceiling fell on my bed while I was spending the night with my grandparents. Mother said I would have been killed if I had been at home. Mother hated that building and constantly marinated in bitterness towards Daddy for buying it. (Bitterness was a generational curse that had been awakened in her; Mama Anderson’s seminal traits had produced this ancestral offspring.)

Mother says Daddy told her when they were dating, that he did not want his wife to work. Mother in turn had told him that she wouldn’t get married unless a man had a new house built for her, and… it had to be furnished. Daddy plowed people’s fields with a horse. He saved money until he had enough to build a new house and buy all the furniture. Through his hard efforts, their home was built, furnished, and debt free. Not too many people can say that! Mother was spoiled by Daddy because he was a good provider.

After they were married, Mother never worked outside our home until I was four years old. When Daddy went into business for himself, Mother became furious. She did not want to work. Neither did she want a business that would be in competition with the local coal company stores.

Daddy bought his first service station and restaurant in East Knotmuch, KY, when I was four years old. He had planned on employing his family, but Mother took control. She had learned to be forceful from her father. Daddy then opened another business in East Knotmuch, a Five and Ten Cent Store, to employee his family. Mother governed this business as well. They operated those businesses for a few years. When I was eight years old, they sold those businesses and bought the Cook Building on Main Street in Knotmuch. People thought Daddy was rich. They didn’t realize he was just deep in debt with a huge mortgage, payroll, and operating expenses. People also thought I was born with a silver spoon in my mouth. They did not realize that the spoon was stuck in my throat most of my life, and I continually gagged on it!

The Cook Building was built in front of a mountain on the main street of our town. When it rained hard, water backed up and drained inside the restaurant through the brick walls of the building. I remember coming home from school as a child to sweep water out of the restaurant. The ground floor of the building also housed the Idle Hour Pool Room where Papa Cook worked, the Cook Barber Shop that my Uncle Taul operated, and The Five and Ten Cent Store where Mama Cook and Aunt Rue worked. Behind The Five and Ten Cent Store in the same big building was the Kerns Bakery warehouse. The apartment where we lived was upstairs above all this, along with thirty to forty hotel rooms. Some were rented nightly. Some were used for storage. And some were rented by the month. I remember three of our monthly renters:

1. Papa John was from Yugoslavia, and he lived with us for many years. He called me baby girl. He had a hot plate in his room on which he cooked Yugoslavian dishes with cabbage. His food always made the place smell wicked.

2. I remember a divorced nurse who did sewing for people for extra income.

3. Clarence was a one legged alcoholic man on crutches who died one night in his room.

Mother employed cleaning ladies, cooks, waitresses and sales clerks. Mother did the buying and the bookwork, and told everybody else what to do.

Daddy’s full service gas station and car lot were separated from the Cook Building with a seven foot alley. A passageway had to be left open in order to get a backhoe behind the building to clean the rock slides that caused the flooding. Daddy bought a backhoe and learned to operate it in order to clean those rock slides himself. Due to our mountainous terrain, rock slides and shale rock were just a part of our life in Eastern Kentucky.

Not only did Daddy pump and sell gas, he sold the cars that used the gas. He financed the cars he sold and personally held the liens. People charged most of the gas. Daddy was a mechanic and worked on everybody’s car. He didn’t have to drive a car to tell you what was wrong with it; he could just listen to the way the motor ran and tell you if it had a problem. Daddy also did body work and painted cars, thus his nickname Bondo.

Daddy went to Bristol, TN and Mt. Sterling, KY every week to buy cars for resale. He always brought me taffy suckers from The Ruth Hunt Candy Shop in Mt. Sterling. Daddy was a giver like his parents. He probably gave away more than most people will ever have in a lifetime. If he sold someone a car and they were having trouble paying for it, he told them to take care of their family first. He told them they could pay him later. He didn’t charge fees for late or missed payments like finance companies today. If I had the money owed to my family on charge accounts, I would be rich. Needless to say, I am not.

Mother was not a giver, and her life had been shaped this way by her parents. She was an implacable business woman. She would not sell a child a candy bar unless they had every penny of the amount due, plus the tax. She did not inconvenience herself to help anyone. She was resentful to anyone who tried to get her to reduce the price of her merchandise. She made crude remarks to Daddy’s customers who had been late on payments. Mother acquired a reputation for being difficult to deal with! She reminded me of Scrooge in all the Christmas stories. I now realize that you can have a pocket full of money and still have a poverty mentality, because of the way you are raised. You can also owe for the pot you pee in and still have a rich mentality. Learned attitude makes all the difference in the world. Mother had the poverty mentality, while Daddy and I had the rich one.

Mother screamed at me most all of the time, but I never back-talked her, or argued with her. Her temper was the source of my fear. I knew she would flatten me to the ground with her fist. I was a timid child, and the only emotion I showed was fear, although I felt conflict with her in my heart. Mother thought negative (a seminal trait that just comes naturally to the carnal mind) like her parents. She was very judgmental of everyone. I spent most of my time trying to defend the people I loved to her. I thought positive (learned behavior) like my dad and his parents; I could not understand why Mother was the way she was. (Although seminal traits come natural to us, learned behavior takes a little more effort. Carnal minds must be renewed to learned behavior.)

My mother was very jealous (another seminal trait that resurrected into a generational curse). Daddy rode with all the customers who test drove the cars for sale. If the customer was a female, my mother watched and quarreled. She never trusted anyone. I am sure this stemmed from her parents’ marriage. Mother accused Daddy of having an affair with every female that bought a car from him. She didn’t do this in private, either. She always made sure one or more of their employees knew she was accusing him. This gave her an audience, but only embarrassed Daddy.

We actually lived where my parents worked, so Daddy was always home and yet always working unless he was gone to the car sales. When he went to the car sales, he was only gone for a few hours, never over night. He always took three or four men with him to drive cars home that he purchased at the sales. I could never understand why Mother thought Daddy was having an affair, he was never out of her sight; but I couldn’t have blamed him if he did. I felt so sorry for Daddy. I couldn’t understand why he stayed married to Mother and withstood her constant quarreling and false accusations. Confucius say, Wife who put husband in dog house soon find him in cat house. My father was a good man and did not heed Chinese proverbs!

Mother startled easily and always heard things that no one else heard. As long as I can remember, she has always been a thesaurus (store house) of fears. She is afraid of everything that moves and has to control everything and everyone around her. I believe she even has a fear of being happy. Mother received burns as a child and is emblazoned with scars. Let me tell you about her burns: When she was three years old, her Dad, Papa Anderson, took her with him one night to get drunk. Papa had made a Hot Toddy in an old metal baking powder can on someone’s potbelly stove. She picked up the can from the stove, and because it was too hot, she dropped it. The hot content spilled all over Mother’s legs. Mother had on long handle underwear and knee socks. The boiling hot drink soaked through Mother’s clothes. Instead of pulling the clothes off of her to release this hot liquid from her body, Papa picked her up and ran all the way home with her. She screamed every breath of the way, as the hot toddy was soaking deeper and deeper into her skin on the long journey home. Mother’s legs are still scarred from that hot toddy some seventy five years later.

Another day, she was very cold and wore an adult’s jacket that was too big for her. Her little brother was in a high chair. When Mother started to reach up to do something at the high chair, the extra foot of sleeve on the jacket that was too big for her came in contact with the extra long handle of a skillet of hot grease that was boiling on their old coal stove. The hot grease spilled all over Mother’s head, face and arms. She was admitted to the hospital for several weeks; moreover, her eyes were swollen shut. Mother has scars all over her face, in her hairline, and on her arms from this incident.

Another time, Mother and her little brother were wrestling on the couch. The little brother kicked Mother, and she rolled from the couch. The end result left Mother lying in the fireplace along with the burning fire. She has the print of the fireplace grate on her back. If you looked at Mother today, you probably would not really notice her scars, but they are as fresh in Mother’s mind as they were the day they happened. Mother is the original inventor of the phrase It’s all about me, and rightly so. These incidents were all so traumatic to her, that they ascertained the direction of Mother’s life. Mother’s name is Ima Fraid. Because of her fears, a familiar spirit of fear has tormented Mother all of her life. (2 Timothy 1:7)

Like her parents, Mother never learned to drive. Although Daddy owned a used car lot full of cars and tried to teach her, she was just too afraid of driving. She’s afraid of accidents. Although she can’t drive, she takes control of the wheel vocally and tells you how to drive, because she’s afraid you will do it wrong.

Mother got pregnant and had another child after I started high school. She named him Tom. I always wanted a brother or sister. I tried hard to help with Tom, but the baby didn’t want anything to do with anyone other than Mother. Mother still worked all the time, and had little time for either or us, but Tom demanded her attention. As he grew, he would purposely break things or throw temper tantrums out of jealousy, trying to capture mother’s attention. He had mother’s temperament. When he was older, he screamed and argued just as much as mother and always got his way. I hated being around, because the two of them scared me.

I had Daddy’s nature, and although I tried to avoid Mother, she slapped me a lot. I knew Mother had a nerve problem, but I didn’t think I deserved to be slapped. When Tom did something wrong, Mother usually punished me. She began cursing and threatening Daddy that she was going to find herself a younger man.

Even though there were employees to do the work, mother just wouldn’t release the control of the businesses. Daddy offered to pay a housekeeper, but Mother was too particular to let anyone else do things for her. I was not allowed to make my own bed, because it was not good enough. These were the days before permanent press fabric, and Mother did all her own ironing. She even ironed our underwear. Mother was overworked and this did not help her nerve problem.

One night, Tom had just begun to walk. I needed to take a bath for school the next day. I had been watching Tom all evening so that Mother could clean the apartment. I told Mother that I was getting in the bathtub, but I guess she forgot. I heard a big crash. I threw on a robe to see what happened. Tom had broken a lamp. When I entered the room where mother was gathering the broken glass, she hit me in the face and I fell to the floor. She had knocked me unconscious. She said it was entirely my fault. She blamed me. The next morning, I left home with my uncle. He took me to Mama Cook’s house. Two days later, Daddy came and asked me to come home. He promised me that nothing like that would ever happen again. I returned home with Daddy.

With the added stress of another child, operating several businesses, and struggling to pay for those businesses, Mother’s nerves and attitude grew even worse. With Mother’s vile language concentrated on Daddy, there was an intolerable uncertainty of what would come next. She was bitter. She worked too hard. She kept saying she never wanted to be in business in the first place. Daddy didn’t want her in business, either, but she wouldn’t quit.

What was Daddy to do? Daddy employed his entire family and couldn’t quit. He couldn’t sell the building where we lived. He owed too much money on it. The only other jobs in Eastern Kentucky were inside the coal mines. If Daddy had found a buyer for the building, all his family including his mother and father, would lose their jobs. Daddy didn’t want his family to have to go inside the dangerous coal mines. The more Mother quarreled, the harder Daddy worked. Daddy didn’t even have an eighth grade education, but he thought there was dignity in hard work. Daddy was the type of person who never gave up on anything, even if it killed him, which it eventually did. I learned his tenacity.

I had a very real experience with God when I got saved at eight years old. I remember promising God that I would read my Bible every day. I also prayed every day. I prayed mostly for my parents to get saved, and for Mother to stop quarrelling. We never went to church, and I had no Biblical teaching. I read my Bible every night before I went to bed, although I did not understand a lot of what I read. I tried to be perfect, because one thing Mother taught me well: Fart once and all the poop after that gets blamed on you. Parents can make your life into a safe place, a place of peace and happiness, or they can make it into a living hell.

Chapter Two

The Perfect Couple

SHE’S A HYPOCHONDRIAC AND He’s a Pill

I claimed to have boyfriends, but I had never been on a date. I was tall and skinny; boys didn’t want a girl friend that was taller. Daddy owned almost the whole town, and the boys I knew were afraid of Daddy. If someone came in our restaurant and cursed, Daddy asked them to leave. He was not a Christian, but he acted more like one than any of the Christian men I had met. I never heard my dad say one bad word in his lifetime, and he did not drink alcohol. He had a boldness to defend our honor, because he would not let anyone else drink or curse around his family. He had been taught by his parents to respect women, so it really bothered him when Mother began using vile language.

I went to a few sock hops when I was in junior high school, but I really didn’t fit in with the crowd. I had only a few friends and most of them were relatives who were older. When they became of age to date, my friends forgot about me. Aunt Judith and Cousin Rosie had recently married. I was now fifteen years old. Daddy owned the only theater in town and it was located just down the street from the Cook Building. My propensity was selling theater tickets and working with Daddy, rather than enjoying dances and watching the movies like the other children. When Daddy bought the indoor theater, with it came the only drive-in theater in Eastern Kentucky at that time. Even if I had a date, my parents would have been watching. I was in the public eye every day, but truly sheltered.

A guy named Ben Dover, twenty one years old, came into my mother’s restaurant. He said he was getting ready to enlist in the Army. I had a crush on his friend, a Christian boy, but the friend was not interested in me. I was tall and too skinny and I also had a gap between my two front teeth. I wanted to go to a dentist and see if the gap could be fixed, but mother said that was crazy. My mother’s reprimand was so harsh toward me that I had no self-confidence. I thought a nice boy would never be attracted to me, so I was flattered when Ben began to flirt with me.

Ben was a lot older than me when we began talking. We sat in a booth in my mother’s restaurant to talk. He said he was shy and couldn’t talk to many people. Talking was the limit of our dating. We had been talking about two months when Ben boarded the bus to boot camp for the Army.

Even though Ben was twenty one, he said he had never been on a date either. After he enlisted, we wrote letters. He asked me in a letter to marry him, and I said yes. I wanted an orthodox home and a family where I could show and receive affection. I wanted to do things together like other families. I heard the children at school talk about going out to eat in Tennessee, or visiting tourist sites on vacation. I had big dreams and I thought if I got married, all my problems would be solved. Most of all, I wanted to get away from Mother’s sudden bursts of anger.

I was a virgin. I did not know the facts of life. Mother missed telling me those facts. We did not have the kind of relationship where I felt comfortable asking her about details she did not want to talk about. Although Ben and I were talking about getting married, I didn’t expect my mother to agree to it. However, it sure was fun to imagine something that was far removed from my present circumstances.

Ben came home on leave for Christmas in December, 1964. I was a sophomore in high school, mid-term. He asked Mother if we could get married. Of course, I expected her to say no because she never let me do anything I wanted to do. Much to my surprise, she said yes. Mother didn’t ask Daddy for his opinion because she made all the decisions concerning our family. Daddy just let her do it because he couldn’t stand the quarrelling when he opposed her. She was planning to divorce Daddy, and this made things easier for her. I was shocked that mother had agreed to this marriage. She never talked to me about it, so I felt like she was glad to get rid of me.

Mother went upstairs in our hotel to talk to the lady that sewed for her. The two of them came back downstairs to Mother’s Five and Ten Cent Store to cut a bolt of white fabric. The next morning, I was wearing a brand new, hand sown, white dress. Ben’s parents and my mother traveled with Ben and me to Clintwood, Virginia to get married. Where I come from, if you mentioned marriage, you automatically thought of Clintwood because it took three days to get a license in Kentucky. This was as common as going to Los Vegas to gamble. Daddy had misgivings about the marriage, and wouldn’t attend the ceremony. We might as well have been gambling as far as Daddy was concerned. The stakes were too high for him, but he wouldn’t challenge Mother. In today’s culture, my entire family would have been charged with statutory rape because of my age.

Our first stop was the courthouse in Clintwood to get the marriage license. The man behind the desk asked my age, and I replied fifteen. He laughed and said, Honey, I can’t give you a license to get married. The law says you have to be sixteen, even with a parent’s signature. Somehow, I felt relief, but Mother retorted, Is there some place else we can get a license? We were told license was also sold upstairs if you were old enough. Upstairs we went! When the man behind a different desk asked my age, Mother sharply responded and told him I was sixteen. We got a license, found a preacher, and got married on a lie. I viewed my marriage as a jail break!

The marriage was consummated in a motel room that night in Pikeville, Kentucky. Call me stupid, but I didn’t have a clue! I bled and he got sore. I never returned to school, but one of my teachers started a rumor that I must have been pregnant. NOT!! She also made cynical remarks to my classmates that if I couldn’t take Phys Ed, I shouldn’t be able to have sex. I was the butt end of her bad jokes.

The next day, a car from my dad’s car lot, was packed with skillets, an iron, and things my mother thought I would need to start housekeeping. Everything came from Mother’s Five and Ten Cent Store. We drove to Fort Devens, Massachusetts, where Ben was stationed. An Army couple that Ben knew rode to Massachusetts with us. Their kinfolk had killed a hog while they were home in Kentucky; in addition they transported a cooler full of fresh meat in Ben’s car. We arrived in Massachusetts in the middle of the night. It was fortuitous that we found one apartment with a shared bathroom down the hall. There were no grocery stores open so we purchased a loaf of bread and some eggs at a gas station.

The next morning, we all were hungry. No one knew how to cook. Ben and his friend were privates in the army. We were too poor to go to a restaurant. Mother never cooked at home; in fact she paid a cook to do that at her restaurant. I had helped my grandmother with the church dinners, but I didn’t know much about fresh meat; nevertheless... I unpacked my new kitchen things and made an attempt to cook breakfast. We had fresh pork chop, fried eggs and toast. My learned behavior had finally availed. Everyone ate the food like it was gourmet.

Not only was this the first time I cooked a meal without Mama Cook’s assistance, it was also the first time I cooked a meal for my new husband. I was a little nervous. I tried to keep busy, so I continued by washing the dishes. I left them in the sink to drain because I wanted to clean the cabinets in the apartment before I decided where the dishes would be kept.

After breakfast Ben’s friend’s wife had to go to the bathroom. The bathroom was down the hall outside of our apartment. A fellow from the other apartment had the bathroom in use, so she came back to our apartment and proceeded to pee in one of my new kitchen mixing bowls that Mother had given me. That was not bad enough. She emptied the bowl of pee in the kitchen sink over the dishes I had just washed! Although I