Nunzilla Was My Mother and My Stepmother Was a Witch

by Terry Gelormino Silver

  As a child, I felt that Frank’s clownish behavior and wild antics were what caused the attacks on him and eventually on the rest of his siblings. Yet, I realize now that his antics might not have been a cause but a reaction to the kids’ and nuns’ constant attacks. It may have been his way of showing everyone they could not frighten or defeat him, and that he would laugh in the face of their ridicule and hostility.

  My Hero – My Father

  When I thought of my parents, I mostly thought of my father, because most of my memories were of him. Thinking of him gave me good feelings, but thinking of my mother only caused fear and anxiety. I couldn’t remember any time with her before she went into the Columbus State Hospital for the mentally ill.

  My father had been quite handsome as a young man, and even the nuns seemed to be aware of it. Perhaps part of it was that he had a strong resemblance to the resident priest. I idolized and fantasized about him until he became almost a mythical figure, a giant of a man who would stride onto the orphanage grounds one day like a conquering hero. In my imagination, my father was over six feet tall and he would come and sit up high on a throne so that he could see everyone and they could see him.

  In my fantasies, everyone in the orphanage would have to pass before him and, after questioning us who were his children, he would decide who would get rewards and who would get punished. My imagined punishments didn’t go beyond whippings with a leather strap, and only varied in the number of lashes each would receive.

  The rewards were always candy. Those who had been the nicest to us would get a large milk can full of candy—maybe two. The ones who had been a little nice might get one or two sacks of candy, and the ones not too mean might get one or two pieces only.

  I held on to this vision of my father for quite a few years, but the rewards eventually changed from candy to money. My fantasies were destroyed one day when he finally came to SVO for a visit after an absence of several years, during which he had been admitted to the veterans’ hospital.

  We had been told that our father would visit on the day of the Orphans Picnic. My sister and I waited eagerly on the bench circling the large buckeye tree near the girls playground. When we had last seen him, he had looked like a tall, young, and vigorous man. This time, we did not even recognize him as he passed in front of us. “I wonder who that old man came to see,” I said to Carmela.

  That old man walking with a cane was my father. He was only about forty years old at the time, but he looked much older. He was not as tall as my child’s viewpoint had caused me to believe—probably only about five feet, five inches—and he looked very weak and trembly.

  At first I wouldn’t accept that he was my father, and I wondered what the man was up to. I asked him questions that only my father could have answered, then took out a photograph of him and my mother and asked him if he knew who the people in the photograph were. The tears running down his cheeks gave me my answer. I finally had to accept that the strange man standing there really was my father.

  I also realized that all my fantasies about him were false; that the people who had been mean to us would go unpunished; and I would never be able to make the grand gesture of rewarding those who had been kind to me.

  My father looked hungry, so I shared my hot dog with him.

  Happy Days at St. Vincent’s

  Life wasn’t always grim at St. Vincent’s. The fundraising Orphans Picnic was eagerly anticipated all year long and talked about long afterward. Due to the generosity of local individuals, churches, and civic organizations, the nuns treated us to an annual trip to the zoo, and a picnic to Franklin Park. During the summer we’d get an ice cream or popsicle treat once in awhile, and I remember we went to the circus a couple of times. Women from the Big Sisters Organization would come once a month to bring candy and small gifts to those having a birthday that month.

  During my last few years at St. Vincent’s, some charitable group arranged for us to see movies in the SVO auditorium a couple of times a month. We all loved Shirley Temple, Jane Withers, Deanna Durbin, Judy Garland, and Bobby Breen, and we learned the songs from all their movies. We particularly liked the Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy movies; at least the girls did. I would try to dream about Nelson Eddy by thinking about him before I went to sleep.

  The nuns liked the movies as much as we did, but they would lower their heads and avert their eyes when something too worldly came on the screen—such as a man taking off his shirt or the characters becoming too romantic. The nuns sat behind us, and we’d turn around once in awhile to see if any of them were peeking.

  Holidays like Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Easter, as well as special religious days like the one in honor of St. Vincent, the patron saint of the orphanage, completely transformed the SVO atmosphere.

  The church would be decorated with beautiful cloths and flowers, and the priest would wear much grander vestments. The music of the Latin masses by Bach and other famous composers would be joyous, transporting everyone with their power and thundering magnificence.

  The mass would end with the victorious ringing of the church bells as one of the stronger nuns pulled on the ropes dangling from the church tower down through the vestibule ceiling. We would all feel giddy with happiness, and even the grouchiest nuns would be smiling and have a pleasant word for everyone that day.

  Of course, since we children thought of our stomachs first and foremost, a lot of our happiness had to do with anticipation of the food the nuns served on special days, including the candy treats we would receive.

  At Christmas time, there were decorated Christmas trees in both the library and auditorium, and we had a visit from Santa Claus, who gave each child a gift. Although most of us didn’t know it, the Bishop himself played Santa Claus, hamming it up by ringing his bells and shouting, “Ho, ho, ho,” as we sang Christmas carols for him.

  In the big girls dormitory, we had our own tradition of hanging our stockings on our locker doors for friends to drop something in. Usually we’d wrap up small things like a couple of bobby pins, a stick of chewing gum, a piece of candy, a sharpened pencil, etc.

  The stockings of the most popular girls would be fat on Christmas morning; the girls with empty stockings would be devastated. One Christmas, word passed around about a girl weeping in her bed because she didn’t get a single thing. Although we all could be selfish at times, on this occasion we weren’t. One by one, girls took stuff out of their stockings and dropped it into hers. Then we coaxed her to take another look.

  The Bishop also came to St. Vincent’s on Easter. The girls would be allowed to go to the boys side and watch as he threw dyed, hard-boiled eggs to the boys, who jumped and leaped in front of him trying to catch as many as possible. Some would just splatter on the ground. Then the Bishop would hand out Easter candy to everyone.

  The nuns, like us, seemed to have great enthusiasm for theatrics of any kind. They would cast us in plays and operettas and make all the costumes for us. Some of the shows were for internal enjoyment only, but others were performed for the public, and for these the nuns would charge an admission fee. It was always an honor to be selected for a part.

  I was lucky enough to be picked a few times myself, and my roles included being a slave girl, a witch, a witch doctor, and once a head of lettuce in an operetta about McGregor’s Garden (from The Tale of Peter Rabbit). Though I wanted to be the heroine each time, I always enjoyed the roles I played, and I put everything I had into them. I usually got compliments on my acting from the nuns, who said I became a different person on stage. In truth, I was very confident when I played someone else.

  We were permitted to use some of the costumes from our plays for the Halloween Parade, which was held in the auditorium each October, or we could make our own costumes out of crepe paper.

  Some of the teaching nuns were creative in their methods, and they made learning fun. There was one who used blackboard football games to track our learning, granting us points as we advanced across the field. You could
use the points like money at her year-end store to purchase small items like combs, pencils, holy cards, and candy.

  Another nun would line up two racing teams, then ask a question. Whoever got to the blackboard first with the correct answer would earn a point for their team. The rest of the class enjoyed the opportunity to laugh and be rowdy as they cheered on the team of their choice.

  The English teacher insisted that we should learn and use a new vocabulary word every day. Using three- or four-syllable words on the playground seemed strange at first, but after awhile we got used to the sound of the words, and they became part of our personal vocabulary.

  I remember telling a friend one day as we were going up and down on the teeter-totter, “A very ignominious thing occurred today, and I feel so despondent.” It became a game to see how many of the new words we could combine in one sentence.

  There was also a poetry club headed by the English teacher, who had us memorize poems and recite them onstage. The nun taught us to use very exaggerated gestures while reciting—gestures probably more appropriate to the 1800s—but I completely enjoyed the overacting, dramatic cadences, and overblown phrases nonetheless.

  From the moment I first learned about poetry, I began to write my own. These were usually quite saccharine and melodramatic. I began to carry a notebook around with me during my free time, and wrote down my thoughts, at least when I didn’t have my nose buried in a book. Sister Annella told me she thought I would be a writer some day. She was the only one I remember who encouraged me to think I might become more than someone else's servant one day.

  In addition to the holidays and other special events that brightened up St. Vincent’s life, books were my refuge and escape. Strangely, I never realized how unhappy I was until I transferred to the Xenia home.

  When I was young, the Pollyanna books were of enormous help. I don’t know if children today read the Pollyanna books—perhaps they find them too corny—but Pollyanna helped me through much of my childhood.

  I used Pollyanna’s method of looking for something to be happy about, no matter what terrible things had happened. Though it sometimes took a lot of imagination and effort, I usually found something to make me feel better.

  After a very difficult day, I would lie in bed and review all that had happened, trying to remember something that I could consider pleasant. It didn’t have to be anything major to lift my spirits. Even insignificant things did the trick, like finding a perfect stone for playing hopscotch, receiving an unexpected smile from a nun, avoiding an anticipated fight, or having something I liked at mealtime—or at least nothing I detested.

  There were a few times when I couldn’t think of anything to feel good about, and would just listen to the wind blowing through the dormitory shutters or look out at the moon and stars until I felt better.

  As I got older, the discovery that I could make others laugh—that I had a talent for deflecting others’ hostility away from me and smoothing out tense situations with humor—increased my happiness immensely. I became skilled in imitations, comical gestures, and jokes. Now and then I could even get one of the grouchier nuns to unbend a little as I went into one of my comedy routines.

  Eventually, I began to lose interest in the books available to me. When I was on the Halls work unit, I would raid the library near the front offices, leaf through the books until I found one or two interesting ones, then hide my choices in my bloomers. I would read the books on the sly, and then return them without anyone being the wiser.

  I remember crying bitterly over The Hunchback of Notre Dame, identifying with the poor misshapen creature, as well as with a character in a book about a mountebank. In the latter book, the main character had been kidnapped as a child by a group of mountebanks who purposely disfigured the boy so they could exhibit him in their carnival. They cut a smile into the boy’s face so that even when his heart was breaking, his sorrow was hidden behind a terrible smile.

  I remember how my heart broke for that poor man, and how I cried for a very long time.

  Getting Ready to Transfer

  Although the children at St. Vincent’s were only supposed to stay until they completed the eighth grade, my brother Frank stayed two years beyond that, and I stayed one. The nuns hadn’t known what to do with us, since my father insisted that his children not be separated. My sister Carmela was finishing the eighth grade, and our two younger brothers were probably in the fourth and sixth.

  In the interim, the nuns arranged for Frank to start high school at a local parish school, and for me to spend my final year at SVO in the children’s kitchen with Sister Annella, who sang cowboy songs for me while we peeled potatoes or washed pots.

  If there were no relatives to take in the eighth grade graduates, the nuns usually tried to place them with a family in Columbus or another local community. These families would feed and clothe the teenagers in exchange for their labor as servants or workmen until they were adults. It was up to the families as to whether the teenagers would go on to high school or not. Some eighth graders did not get that opportunity.

  Our father had wanted to transfer all of us from St. Vincent's to the Ohio Soldiers and Sailors Orphans Home (OS&SO) when we were quite young. I found this out by snooping into the orphanage files while on Halls duty, when I was supposed to be cleaning the front offices and library. The nuns apparently didn’t dream that any of us would dare look into the files; they certainly weren’t kept locked.

  To prevent being caught, another girl helped me by sweeping around the corner from the front vestibule, where she could see down the long corridor in plenty of time to give me a signal. It she saw a nun coming, she’d tap the floor with her broom, and I would have enough time to close the files and get back to work.

  In the Gelormino file, I also found a translated letter from my grandfather in Italy, telling my father not to send us there, as he would be unable to take care of us. Another letter was from my father, asking the court to allow his children to be transferred to the OS&SO home in Xenia, Ohio, as we had appeared to be very unhappy when he had visited us. The court responded with a letter insisting that we were completely happy where we were, and should remain with the nuns at St. Vincent’s.

  If anyone ever checked with us to see if we were happy, we weren’t aware of it. Occasionally a visitor would come to the orphanage playground, accompanied by a nun, and talk with any children who happened to be nearby. The visitor usually asked general questions about school, what game we had been playing, or about a toy we happened to have in our hands. At the end he might casually ask us whether we were happy at St. Vincent’s. Since the nun would be close by, the answer would never be anything but yes.

  A few months prior to the discussions about what to do with the three oldest in our family, including the negative aspect about the Xenia home put forth by the nuns, it had been arranged for the five of us to visit our father at the Dayton Veterans’ Hospital. The trip may have been arranged by the American Legion, since they had begun taking an interest in SVO children whose fathers were veterans.

  My siblings and I were shocked at our father’s frail appearance at only forty three years of age. He sat hunched over in his wheelchair, obviously in great pain and very distressed that we did not come to him with instant affection. Instead, we stood in a semicircle in front of him and stared. He whispered brokenly, “They don’t know me; my own children don’t know me.”

  Even though I felt awkward doing it, I felt such pity for him that I went over and placed my arm around his shoulder, trying to pretend we weren’t such strangers. We couldn’t stay long, because he was in great pain, and the hospital staff said we had to leave. We all bid our father a sad goodbye and kissed him on the cheek, because we felt it was something he wanted and expected.

  I’m sure my siblings and I had this last visit in mind when we informed the nuns that we’d abide by our father’s wishes and agree to transfer to the Xenia home, even though the nuns emphasized that we could refuse to be transferred. />
  The nuns warned us that we must remain true to Catholicism even though the Protestants would make every effort to tempt us away from our faith. At that time it was considered a sin to associate with Protestants, so we, as well as the nuns, were fearful about falling under their influence. We also hated the idea of going to yet another institution, complaining to each other, “First St. Ann’s, then St. Vincent’s, then the Ohio Soldiers and Sailors Orphans Home, then the Old Folks Home.”

  The sewing room nun made Carmela and me new heavy rayon dresses, which were over-decorated with a generous supply of bows around the puffed sleeves and gathered necks. We thought the dresses were beautiful, since they were the best and newest we’d ever had. The dormitory nuns rummaged through the donated clothes to gather the rest of our going-away clothes.

  Frank got an outdated suit and a tall hat. Carmela and I got a couple of additional dresses, and underwear completely unlike the ones we had always worn—panties instead of bloomers, silky-feeling slips instead of cotton petticoats, and brassieres (a garment we had never seen before).

  Even though I was well developed by this time, and my sister just slightly less, the nuns had never provided us with bras or even mentioned that they existed. We giggled over the bras, and turned them around in our hands. It was fairly obvious what we were supposed to do with them.

  The nuns just guessed at the size of bra we should have and had made no attempt at measurement. Carmela’s bra fit better than mine, which was at least a size too small. I barely managed to get the uncomfortable thing fastened.