Culture Shock
After moving to the OS&SO, I experienced so many changes in such a short time span that everything seemed to be spinning out of control. I felt like Alice in Wonderland, having wandered into a strange land where everything was reversed, upside down, and turned around.
I was ignorant of many things taken for granted in twentieth century America, including modern feminine practices. The more spontaneous and democratic way of life at the OS&SO was also completely new. I was accustomed to the more authoritarian ways of the nuns at SVO; I had known my place there, which was to obey and be quiet unless I was asked to speak. Many things which were highly valued at St. Vincent’s seemed to have no value here. It was confusing and unsettling at times.
Because I had tested so well academically, no one realized my complete lack of knowledge in other areas of life, and no one offered any guidance on the basic customs and acceptable behaviors in my new environment. Since I obviously had no idea of the knowledge I was lacking, I didn’t have the slightest idea of what questions to ask; at least, not until I had already blundered my way through, learning the hard way as I went along.
The extreme modesty I had learned at St. Vincent’s was considered ridiculous and unbelievable at OS&SO. Sitting passively and waiting for direction made me appear stupid, not wonderfully obedient and submissive, as the nuns had thought.
Regularly using words of three and four syllables each, the initiative of which SVO’s English teacher was so proud, had become second nature, but at the OS&SO it was looked upon as an affectation, and I was teased by my peers. Still, although I may have known some words they were unfamiliar with, they commonly used words that weren’t part of my vocabulary, such as nonchalant and promenading, as well as military terms and acronyms like reveille, taps, and CQ (call to quarters).
Because the OS&SO was a home for children of veterans, military terms and acronyms were used frequently. There was mandatory Junior ROTC training for the boys, who were called cadets, and quite a few of the male employees were former members of the military, as well.
My housemother, Miss Redway, not only thought I was stupid, but thought I was barbaric for not shaving my legs and under my arms. The fact that girls and women were expected to shave was new to me, since no one at St. Vincent’s had said anything about it. I had certainly never seen anyone doing it. Miss Redway once called me a whore because she caught me without a bra on. I had been at Cottage Fifteen for only a few days when it happened. Miss Redway met me at the bottom of the stairs with a horrified expression on her face.
“Get back upstairs and put on a bra,” she screamed. “You look like a whore. Only whores go around with no bra.”
I was shocked at her unexpected anger and ran back upstairs, embarrassed that everyone had again witnessed my stupidity. I had never been given a bra at St. Vincent’s until the day I was dressing to go to the OS&SO, and it had been issued without any explanation. I assumed bras were an optional garment to wear, like a hair ribbon, hat, or gloves.
I kept getting into trouble with Miss Redway because I made no move when the whistle blew. When she yelled at me, I tried to explain to her I hadn’t heard the whistle.
“I’ve never met anyone so dense and stupid,” she’d mutter. One day when the whistle was blowing, one of the girls asked me,
“Can’t you hear that?”
“You mean the train?” I asked.
“That’s not a train,” she said. “That’s the whistle.
When I was told we would be signaled with a whistle for our scheduled activities, I assumed they’d use a mouth whistle like the nuns did at SVO. I never expected the sound of a train whistle coming from a power plant smokestack.
I got into difficulties at school as well. Since there were a couple of months remaining in the school year, I was permitted to take some vocational courses to sample OS&SO’s offerings. These were usually offered during the freshman year in addition to academic courses.
I couldn’t seem to keep my mind on what I was doing in cooking class and kept catching my apron on fire as I bent over the stove. I still enjoyed the class, though I cringed at how often the teacher coughed into the food as she was cooking.
In sewing class, after a couple of lectures about differences between various materials, we were informed that we had progressed beyond making aprons and were ready for something more complicated. We were issued patterns for a blouse and told to lay the pattern on a piece of material. Everyone in the class may have progressed beyond the basics, but that didn‘t include me. Although I had mended seams before on an old-fashioned sewing machine with a treadle at SVO, the nun had directed me every step of the way. I had never done anything more complicated than a straight seam; I'd never even seen a pattern before.
I kept turning the pattern around and around in my hands as though it were a puzzle whose meaning would become clear after I’d studied it. Then I sat quietly waiting for further instruction as I had been taught at SVO—that we were never to initiate anything ourselves.
I thought the instructor would take the initiative and show me what to do. I didn’t know I was expected to go to her if I needed help.
The instructor apparently had never had a student who turned a pattern around and around in her hands, made no effort to start anything, and asked no questions. She decided I was unteachable. She asked the Head of the Vocational School to remove me from her class because I would never learn to sew. Since I didn’t like sewing, I really didn’t care. I got to spend more time typing, which I liked.
I was a complete failure in gym class. The first day I reported to the gym, I was told to join a basketball game that had already started. I told the instructor that I had never seen a basketball game and didn’t know how to play.
The instructor lost patience with me and said, “Just get in there and play, for heaven’s sake. You can be one of the guards.”
When I entered the gym I had seen the girls running around the floor and throwing the ball into a basket. It seemed easy enough, but I didn’t know the rules of the game. In girls basketball, at least in those days, the guards did not cross the centerline, only the forwards did. Deciding to do my best, I ran across the centerline, grabbed the ball, turned around, and threw it into the other team’s basket, because it was closer to me.
The instructor grabbed her head as if to say, “What a moron!” while the girls on the court and on the benches howled with laughter. I wasn’t too crazy about gym class after that.
I didn’t fare any better in the hospital, where I was supposed to assist the nurse by taking water or other needed items to the patients, making beds, and making myself useful as required.
When I had to work in the boys ward, it became a game for them to get me flustered, especially when they saw how shy I was. One day, one of the boys yelled for water, and when I got close, he grabbed me around the neck and pulled me down to the bed. Another time when a boy standing by his bed said something fresh to me, I kicked at him to show my disapproval. He grabbed my foot and held my leg in the air. Both times the boys were laughing like little kids playing a prank, and I couldn’t help laughing myself, even though I was embarrassed.
Unfortunately, the nurse happened to walk into the ward during both incidents. Because I had been laughing at the boys’ antics, she was certain that I had been flirting with them. She gave me a “D” for that class.
I did better in my academic classes. The English class was so easy for me that my hand was frequently the only one raised when the teacher asked a question. However, it eventually got embarrassing, as it appeared I was showing off, so I soon stopped raising my hand, and pretended I didn’t know the answer.
Apparently the nuns had taught us more in our eighth grade English class than the OS&SO did in their ninth and tenth grades.
I was outstanding on vocabulary quizzes, thanks to the nun who had insisted that we constantly learn new words and use them every day outside the classroom.
I loved the Dramatics cl
ass, where the instructor very obviously loved teaching. His enthusiasm was contagious, and his criticisms were always thoughtful and discrete, never embarrassing. Being naturally theatrical, I tried to get in as many plays as possible, but I enjoyed everything about the class and the productions whether or not I had an acting role.
Mathematics was a tough course for me. Although I had done well in simple mathematics, I was out of my depths in algebra and higher mathematics. Our teacher was a crusty old retired army sergeant, and I was too frightened of him to ask any questions.
The Current Events class was interesting, and made me feel part of the real world as we discussed events occurring internationally and in the United States. I had never been aware of what was going on outside St. Vincent’s, because we never saw newspapers or listened to the news (though we did get to listen to some of the radio shows on Sunday evenings in the dormitory).
As it turns out, I had lived through the depression without realizing it. I merely attributed our lack of funds and food to the fact that we were in an orphanage and couldn’t expect much.
Comparisons
Except for my growing dislike of Miss Redway, my life at OS&SO began to smooth out. Despite my fears prior to arriving on campus and a rather shaky start, by the time the first year was up, I had begun to get the hang of life at the OS&SO, and found it surprisingly enjoyable, even with the normal trials and tribulations of being a teenager.
Although there were still a lot of chores for everyone, the OS&SO just didn’t have the somber atmosphere of SVO. Life seemed to have opened up for me, and suddenly I was allowed to have hope for the future and enjoyment in the present; better yet, enjoyment without guilt. I was exhilarated that I didn’t have to march in long processions, two-by-two, in complete silence throughout the day’s activities, or have to eat my meals in silence anymore.
As arranged, I went by bus to St. Brigid’s with other Catholic kids for Sunday mass, but I felt guiltily relieved that I didn’t have to go to daily mass and didn’t have to pray all day long. Fewer religious obligations seemed to lessen the fear, tension, and pressure I had come to associate with religion. The boredom I had begun to feel at SVO when reciting repetitive prayers over and over again until they lost their meaning had gotten even stronger. Sometimes I wondered if God might be bored hearing them.
Despite my shock at the open display of nudity in the cottage when I first arrived, eventually I began to think the Protestants had a healthier attitude toward the body. That said, I never was able to overcome my own inhibitions about exposing myself.
There were many opportunities for fun and social interaction at OS&SO, including Friday movies, parties, hay rides, pep and bonfire rallies, scouting, sports activities, and dances, including a Military Ball. You could work as a reporter for the Home newspaper, The Home Review, or participate in various clubs. There were indoor and outdoor swimming pools, and a Home Camp in Clifton, Ohio, where every student could attend for two weeks each summer.
At the age of sixteen, students were allowed to date. This might entail making fudge together in the girl’s cottage under the watchful eye of the housemother, holding hands while promenading arm in arm around the campus, walking to school together, or sitting together at the Friday evening movies. On Saturday, if you got a pass from your housemother, you could go shopping or see a movie in downtown Xenia.
Although someone did once invite me to the Military Ball, I never dated anyone at the Home. I was awkward around boys. I often wished I could be outgoing and vivacious like some of the girls, but it wasn’t my nature. This didn’t spoil the pleasure I felt being in the place where my father had wanted to send me long ago. It was also great to be in a place where I was merely one of many students, and less an ethnic curiosity.
Another unbelievable pleasure was having money to spend. The Home distributed allowances to the children each month according to their ages. The last amount I remember receiving was 50 cents. This seemed like a fortune compared to the ten cents a year we received for spending at the St. Vincent’s Orphans Picnic.
There was less bullying of younger girls by the older ones like at SVO, at least in our cottage. My sister made friends with girls from other cottages, but my friends were mainly Iris Jean and Berdene in Cottage Fifteen.
Berdene was a very small, good natured girl who was always ready for mischief and fun. When she wasn’t into mischief, she was busy making little outfits for her older sister’s little girl.
Iris and I became particularly good friends, even though she was a couple of years younger than me. How could I not like her after she announced she loved my name? Besides that, she was an extremely imaginative, pixie-like girl, had a great sense of humor, and seemed very sophisticated to me. We got in all sorts of mischief, appreciated each other’s humor, indulged in outrageous fantasies together, and daydreamed about the future and what our husbands would be like.
Iris Jean definitely piqued my interest when she shared her life story, giving me the impression that she had led a southern belle’s existence before her parents were murdered, and she had to enter the Home. She showed me a picture of herself with a parasol and one riding a horse; also a picture of her parents, which she kept in her locker like a shrine, with a small bouquet of artificial flowers in front of it.
Perhaps the primary reason for our bonding was the fact that neither of us had our feet firmly planted on the ground.
Once, I almost wrecked my friendship with Iris Jean. We had gotten into a minor disagreement about something, and when I couldn’t convince her, I struck her with my fist. That was the common way of settling disagreements at St. Vincent’s.
Iris got teary-eyed and looked stunned, as though no one had ever done that to her before. I immediately realized by the shocked expression on her face that hitting someone else wasn’t the customary way of settling things at the OS&SO, at least among the girls. I realized I would have to learn different ways of settling arguments from there on out.
It seemed traitorous to compare SVO with the OS&SO, and so when the obvious differences between the two made me think negative thoughts about SVO, I quickly put them out of my mind. I thought that being critical of the nuns and SVO somehow threatened my faith, and that scared me.
The superintendent of the Home and many of the employees would emphasize to us “This is your home,” and you felt they meant it. This was so different from the nuns repeated reminder: “You are fortunate we took you in,” and the implication that we should be more grateful.
Teenage Crushes
My first romantic dreams involved older men, such as the actor and singer Nelson Eddy, and the man whose nephew I’d taken care of before I came to the OS&SO. I continued my obsession with older men by getting a crush on two of my high school English teachers. I doubt that either was aware of my infatuation.
I suppose if I had been more socially adept, I would have aimed my romantic attentions toward boys my own age, but I had no skill at small talk and no knowledge of how to appeal to teenage boys. Unless we were in class and the conversation was about academics or school activities, I was completely awkward and mute.
The English teacher I had in the tenth grade, Mr. Pilson, had the unanimous admiration of the girls in his class. Mr. Pilson had a beautiful build; he was tall and athletic and, according to us, moved like a tiger and had a marvelous deep voice. The fact that he had a face like a bulldog did not detract from his handsome good looks, as we all agreed. Somehow, his heavy eyebrows, deep-set eyes, and exuberant self-confidence only enhanced his strong masculinity.
I knew I didn’t have the essential qualities to make such a heroic person notice me, so I made no effort to get his attention. Instead I worshipped him from afar. Iris Jean had Mr. Pilson in another class, and her fantasies about our Adonis were grander than my own. I had confidence that she could capture his attention if she tried, and that if she did, she would give me all the details of their trysts. But Iris only had teenage boyfriends, so the great romance I had
anticipated never took place.
The boys liked Mr. Pilson too. He was an example of someone whom they would have liked to be, especially once they noticed his effect on the girls. They particularly respected the way Mr. Pilson started off the school year by declaring he had been a teacher in a boys reform school, knew how to handle trouble makers, and wouldn’t take crap from any of us. Then, loudly notifying us he would be boss, he became the nicest, most enthusiastic teacher we’d ever had. Boys who previously thought poetry was sissy stuff recanted after hearing it in Mr. Pilson’s deep, booming voice, and watching him as he paced around the room reciting dramatic verses with great passion and obvious enjoyment. He could have recited the dictionary and all the girls would have melted at his feet.
The other English teacher during my junior year, Mr. Elwin, did not have the raw masculine charisma of his competitor. If I had to compare them to movie stars, Mr. Pilson would be Clark Gable, while Mr. Elwin would be Leslie Howard, in the movie Gone with the Wind.
Mr. Elwin was attractive in a more gentle, scholarly way and had a slightly receding chin. His group of admirers was smaller, and I may have been the only one who had a crush on him; at least I’d never heard other girls raving about him like they had Mr. Pilson. This gave me hope, and I figured I might have a small chance with someone not quite as god-like.
Mr. Elwin loved poetry of the more delicate and gentle type, rather than the boisterous and dramatic kind that appealed to Mr. Pilson. I loved both types of poetry, but I wanted Mr. Elwin to admire me and think I had a gentle poetic soul.
Nunzilla Was My Mother and My Stepmother Was a Witch Page 9