A Life of My Own. Donna Wilhelm

      Mother was too stubborn to learn how to read and write English. I was stubborn, too. I refused to learn how to read and write Polish, and no matter how fluent I sounded, I remained Polish illiterate. In truth, neither Mother nor I had much tolerance for other people telling us what to do.

      I wondered if we had something else in common. As a child, I often felt lonely. Had Mother, too, felt lonely with no one to help her adjust to a new life in America? She’d been pampered and sheltered in her youth—what could have prepared her for future adversity and isolation? I had questions, but getting the truth from Mother was no easy business.

      On one of her quiet days, however, I plunged in and asked her, “Mamusia, how did you get from Ellis Island to Hartford?”

      She turned her back to me and walked to the stove. No answer.

      I tried again. “Did you have a job?”

      Mother perked up and turned around with a smile. “I get work in photography studio,” she said, her voice filled with pride. “They hire me to paint black and white photographs and make them look like expensive color portraits.”

      Later on, I’d reflect on Mother’s privileged background. How ironic that as a young pampered girl learning something seemingly impractical—like painting flowers in Old World Poland—helped her as an orphaned refugee find work in America.

      I pressed on to learn more. “How did you meet Tatush?”

      Her eyes softened. “Ach, he is coming to photography studio for making official family picture.” She flashed a coquette’s smile. “When boss ask if anyone speak Polish, they come to back room where I am painting and send me up front, for make sure customer order most expensive color portrait.” Apparently Juzo impressed young Hania with his job as assembly line mechanic at Pratt & Whitney Aircraft Company in East Hartford. “Was good money then, many Polish immigrants want jobs—not many get them.”

      “Did you fall in love?”

      “Few months later, we marry.” No details.

      I couldn’t imagine my parents as a young and tender couple. As a wife, Mother was tyrannical and showed my dad little affection. As a young mother to my sister Edith and the mysterious Holden Girls, she was harsh and drove them away. Edith was the only one who came back for more, although rarely. Mother’s relentless “gifts” of leftover dinners and over-ripe apples were confusing in light of her otherwise miserly affection. Later there would be other gifts to strangers, many of them life-changing.

      Dad and Mother as newlyweds, ca. 1919

      Edith, Mother, and Dad, ca. 1923

      Schooldays Inspection

      My upstairs closet was a lonely wasteland. One metal rod separated two sections into ugly and pretty. The ugly side held wire hangers and my horrid school clothes. The pretty side had nice wooden hangers. On one, hung my soft chenille bathrobe that kept me cozy every morning and night. On another, my pink satin dress, size Junior-Large, trimmed with a meager row of lace along the neckline. Even when I had no real place to go, I’d put on that dress, stand in front of my bedroom mirror, and imagine I was a beautiful princess.

      Three pairs of shoes didn’t take up much room on the closet floor. One pair of scuffed school loafers squatted next to muddy olive rain boots. Behind them sat a tightly closed, chocolate brown shoebox from G. Fox & Company. When I lifted the lid and spread open the tissue paper, a glossy pair of black patent Mary Jane’s made me giddy with pleasure. Every week I rubbed a gob of Vaseline over the leather until my fingers were reflected in the glistening surface. If it hadn’t been for the wedding of one of Dad’s relatives, I never would have gotten the dress or the shoes. Mother only bought them because she didn’t want to be embarrassed by her daughter dressed in shabby school clothes and dirty loafers at a fancy wedding. The bad thing was that my feet and my body were growing too fast, and soon the beautiful Mary Jane shoes and my princess dress would be too small.

      Every school day, my mother stood like a warden at the bottom of the stairs, ready to inspect me. I’d descend, halt in front of her before rotating around like a robot. I don’t remember ever being sent back upstairs to change—there was nothing in my closet she hadn’t chosen. What I never forgot was the disgusting odors of Mother’s soiled housedress.

      Post inspection, she ordered me to the kitchen and planted her overflowing bottom on a high-back chair. I squirmed on a small wooden stool in front of her. “No move nothing!” Her hand waved a pig bristle brush. Unlike the bobbed style copied by all the “in girls” at school, my auburn hair had never been cut. When loose, it fell below my waist.

      My sweaty, pudgy fingers gripped the edge of the stool. If we had fifteen minutes, Mother might do “donuts”—two coils of braids tightly wound into circles above my ears, anchored by hairpins stabbing into my scalp. If time was tight, she either twisted my thick hair into one fat braid tapering into a rubber-banded stump, its wayward ends fanning out. Or she yanked my hair into two ruler-straight braids measuring from my ears to below my shoulders.

      In school, I tried to act as if being different and looking different didn’t matter to me. But that was a cover up, because my classmates’ stares and taunts shaped a daily gauntlet I had to pass though.

      “Mamusia, I hate my old-fashioned clothes and hair—they make me look like an immigrant!”

      Mother’s face turned red like a boiling beet. Her pale blue eyes darkened, and she began to scream in Polish (I’m embarrassed to translate). Furious, Mother stomped out of the kitchen. I didn’t move from the stool, even though I knew what was coming. Behind her bedroom door, The Warden grabbed the hanging leather belt, wrapped the buckle end around her hand, and marched back to teach me a lesson that I hadn’t learned the last time.

      Her hands never touched me. Instead, she lashed the belt wildly at my bottom and my back where bruises wouldn’t show. Her outbursts were predictable. It was impossible to know what would bring them on. And that was what frightened me the most about my mother.

      The big kitchen clock got The Warden’s attention. “Now time go to school!”

      Passing the hall mirror next to the front door, I couldn’t stand looking at myself. I fumbled with the heavy lock, sighed deeply, and began the thirty-minute walk to school. My bottom still smarting from the morning’s punishment, I consoled myself with the memory of gentle Brutus and wished he were still alive and by my side.

      Mother’s influence over me would last a lifetime. As a wife and a mother, I would ask myself again and again: How had I allowed Mother to insidiously shape my expectations, weaken my self-confidence, and expose my vulnerabilities? Why couldn’t I see her as a fractured role model and trust that I deserved unconditional love? Her character, formed by adversity, would weave itself deep into my psyche. Years later, I would finally be able to reconcile that despite the angst, fear, and rebellion that she had provoked in me, she’d also inspired my fortitude, courage, and resilience.

      Dad and the Farm

      Juzo, aka “Joseph,” Sosinski, resembled a bald-headed Ike Eisenhower in khaki casuals, as he drove the 1950s Packard sedan with silent intensity. Beside him in the passenger seat, I stretched up my eight-year-old body and craned my head left and right, like a vigilant bird that couldn’t risk missing a critical opportunity. Dad said our journey was to check on things at the farm. But we both knew the real purpose was to escape from Mother who, for mysterious reasons, avoided going to the farm.

      Carefree times were rare, and I savored them. For me, the farm was a place of refuge and wonderment. For Dad, the farm offered freedom—to eat simple meals, to enjoy nature, and to withdraw into silence. I felt my presence at the farm was almost irrelevant to him.

      Old Glendale Farm was located in the township of Hebron, some eighteen miles from downtown