The Women Who Raised Me

by Victoria Rowell

  Agatha’s brewery up in the attic of the white clapboard two-story farmhouse at Forest Edge thus became a sight to behold: orderly rows of two-toned brown-glazed earthenware jugs that no human dared touch until fermentation had fully captured the rising summer heat. As soon as Ma could hear the corks popping, she knew the beer had reached its robust potential—and it was time for the army of jugs to be moved down to the cold stone cellar, ready for Grandpa to sample, consume, and enjoy year-round.

  The beer in and of itself almost wooed him. He drank it straight from the cream and dark brown jugs that we later used for doorstops. Resting the jug on his shoulder, Grandpa would let the beer pour into his mouth. Nobody said a word. His children and grandchildren understood without being told what Ma figured, that Grandpa was mellowing, ripening like the bounty in her garden and in her orchard, like the grapes on her Concord vines. That part of him that had commanded respect but had also been fearsome in the past now peeled away and he found a peace he had never known, as everybody experienced in the enchantment that was Forest Edge. Eventually he discovered the rhythm of the days, weeks, and seasons, the rewards of his prized squash garden that he planted in front of the barn, the enjoyment he gleaned from hunting for pheasant and wild turkey. Robert had made his own rifle range for target practice, set back in the woods in an open patch, near a towering sawdust pile created by loggers who purchased Agatha’s lumber. Content, he swore never to return to the city again.

  Robert Sr. had only one complaint; namely, that no job was to be found anywhere close to West Lebanon, or even far from it for that matter.

  In early 1959, almost exhausted of ideas, Agatha came up with a last-ditch suggestion that she proposed to Grandpa that went something along the lines of: “Why don’t we pay a visit to Mercy Hospital in Portland? I’m sure they’ve got an opening.”

  By this time, Grandpa had laid down the law about Ma’s driving. She had many talents, but the steering and operation of a two-ton hulk of fuel-powered machinery was not her area of expertise. Or at least that’s what she led her husband to believe. Everyone knew that Agatha could drive her red Farmall tractor like the best of them, but wanting to please her husband, she abided. Robert would not let Agatha drive, causing her to be dependent on him or others for transportation—including regular errands and emergencies. Nonetheless, there was no doubt about who was actually steering their course that winter day as Robert reversed the car down the ice-and snow-encrusted driveway and out onto what was then the entirely unpaved Barley Road, on their way to Portland.

  Years later when the county finally got around to paving, the stretch in front of Forest Edge would never be paved, which may or may not have had anything to do with the Armsteads being the only African Americans in the area. It was rather starkly obvious every time the winter-battered road was repaved. A superlative job was done all the way down the stone-walled Barley Road, past the meticulous Goth-white homestead, curving past open fields, and uninhabited groves, past the Amadons’ dairy farm, through the centuries-old cemetery, past the rolling hills where the Nadeaus’ horses blithely grazed, all the way to the end of the property line shared by the Heaths. Then, just at the edge of Agatha’s property line, by her open field, and the frog pond, before the string of two-acre parcels she bequeathed to her children—all of which was part of Forest Edge—the pavement suddenly ended.

  Nonetheless, snow and ice that January day did not deter the Armsteads from making it to the highway, traveling slowly and carefully, and then on toward Portland and Mercy Hospital, little suspecting what was awaiting them, much less the question they were asked after their abbreviated stories had been told: “Have you two ever thought of becoming foster parents?”

  The upshot was that everyone emerged a winner. A very pleased Robert Armstead was referred to a facility nearby where he was hired on as a custodian, based on the hospital’s recommendation, and Agatha, having never thought about being a foster parent, filled out an application, feeling perhaps that she was being called to serve. The following May, she received a phone call, and by summer, after falling in love with Sheree and Lori, a new chapter as a foster parent had begun.

  Privately, Ma’s grown children were bewildered that she would give up the newly conquered freedom she had worked so hard to establish at Forest Edge. But they said only, “Ma, those kids will keep you young,” and over the next couple years, as Sheree and Lori were embraced as members of the Armstead family, they did just that.

  Less than two years after she brought Sheree and Lori home, almost everyone tried to prevent Ma from even considering taking in a third foster child. That request had been put to her, in person, by Dorothy on September 19 when she paid Agatha and my sisters a visit, desperately explaining to Agatha how she refused a social worker’s plans to place me with, “an excellent, young childless Negro family.” She told Agatha of how she rejected Ms. Small’s plan, saying, “No, I want you to put Vicki with the girls!” Dorothy went on to explain how the social worker had been sympathetic of her feelings, but that they were going ahead with the adoptive placement for Vicki. An exasperated Dorothy continued to say that the Division of Child Welfare believed that Sheree and Lori should also have the security of an adoptive home, but had no definite plans at this time.

  Agatha wouldn’t hear anything from the naysayers after that visit. Dorothy continued to write to Agatha as one mother to another, thanking her for all she was doing for Sheree and Lori and begging her again and again to do one more heroic act—to reunite Vicki Lynn with her sisters. Due to Dorothy’s indefatigable insistence, the adoption with a Negro family never took place. Agatha and Dorothy collaborated tirelessly, even after the objections of another social worker, Ms. Hill, which were noted by Ms. Small, stating,

  It would not be wise to place Vicki with the Armsteads because of the extra physical strain on Mrs. Armstead of caring for and lifting a baby. She is fifty-six years old and has not been used to this kind of work. Mrs. Armstead is not asking that the baby be placed with her though Mrs. Rowell does say that the Armsteads are anxious to have Vicki. We have asked for administrative permission to place Vicki in adoption.

  Agatha knew full well that the Taylors didn’t want to let me go, and it broke her heart when yet another social worker took her to visit me at Bertha’s house, something she’d promised Dorothy she would do. Agatha wrote to the Taylors, the Sawyers, and the Dunns, letting them know that she saw them as family to me and that they would be welcome to visit me in West Lebanon as often as they wanted.

  At Agatha’s suggestion, a neutral location was selected so that the Taylors could drop me off and say good-bye in private. A short while later, Agatha and the social worker arrived to take me to Forest Edge. The April snowstorm and my earsplitting cries made Agatha really wonder if the right decision had been made. But Dorothy Rowell and the State of Maine assured her that it was.

  I don’t know if Robert Sr. objected to taking in a third foster child, because within days of my arrival, the two of us were inseparable. I adored him, and he spoiled me rotten. I was a little older than two and a half years old, and even though there is no explanation for why I have such vivid early memories, I do. Like it was yesterday, I remember sitting on Grandpa’s big knee, him giving me a horsey ride at the red Formica kitchen table. I can remember his rhythmic cadence, and, most of all, I can still connect with feeling safe and loved. Agatha later explained that I was the childhood he never had as an orphan and that he was being given a second chance at fatherhood. When Grandpa had to go to work at the hospital, I knew he would return bearing gifts—toys donated and left behind at the children’s ward that he loved to bring home to me, especially the dolls.

  Agatha’s approach to my early education was to give me time to adapt naturally to my new surroundings. I developed attachments to others on my own—not only to Grandpa, but to my sisters and the Armstead grandchildren, whom I learned to call my cousins, as well as Agatha and Robert’s children, whom I referred to as aunts and uncles
due to our age difference. With strategies befitting a PhD in child psychology, Agatha also saw to it that I felt a sense of continuity with my former foster families, and she continued to arrange for the Taylor, Sawyer, and Dunn families to visit whenever possible. This familial architec ture was her way of instilling the idea of heritage in me, encouraging me to honor all my relationships, blood or not, and to maintain contact through correspondence and visits.

  My crib sat to the left of a crooked kitchen doorway. One day, just five or six months after I came to Forest Edge, a big white car pulled up and two men dressed in white got out of it. They took my Grandpa and never brought him back. I had lost three fathers in less than three years.

  No one told me at age two and a half that death was a consequence of illness. This mountain of a man, an imposing presence, strong and vital at sixty-three years old, a workingman, probably hadn’t been sick a day of his life. But as I got older I discovered, in an old bureau, his stainless steel hyperdermic needles and applicators for his diabetes and surgical clamps to tie off syringes, with which I tried in vain to cut out my paper dolls.

  The doctors told Ma there was nothing to worry about, but when she was sure that he had come down with pneumonia and showed no improvement, she called for an ambulance. This was not an easy process. For starters, there were no phone lines on Barley Road. One would have to head to the West Lebanon Post Office, twenty miles from the farm, to make a call.

  By the time the phone call was placed and the old hearselike ambulance finally roared down the dirt road, it was too late. Grandpa was near death. Although she was a God-fearing woman, I don’t know if Ma ever forgave those doctors for not diagnosing her husband properly. From then on, I was not allowed to walk anywhere without something on my feet. If I did attempt to do so, Agatha invariably asked, “Where are your shoes?” and answered before I could, “You’re going to catch your death, a cold,” reminding me, “Your Grandpa died of pneumonia, walking around barefoot.”

  Agatha Armstead, widowed at sixty, mourned in her very private way, quietly, led by prayerful meditation and her gardening, until a sufficient time period had passed and she announced to her family that she had a new undertaking to discuss. Instead of grieving for Grandpa’s absence, she was going to celebrate his life, every year in August with an elaborate cookout in posthumous honor of his birthday. Armsteads and Wootens and Kings would all come. In-laws and out-laws would all be invited. Better than any holiday or wedding or funeral, there would be food, laughter, softball, cards, good clean fun, music, and, of course, a mass conducted in one of the fields by a priest from our church.

  The preparations would be lavish. There was a stone fireplace nestled near a bank of mature pines on the property that would be perfect for grilling. But to properly barbecue, Ma knew she had to have the finest state-of-the-art outdoor rotisserie, something she could only afford if each of us did our part. “Everyone has to tow the line,” she stated matter-of-factly, for this dream of hers to come true.

  Sheree, Lori, and I nodded sincerely, pledging to help.

  During this time, grocery stores rewarded customers with S&H Green Stamps with every purchase. If you collected enough stamps, and pasted them in special books, you could earn gifts and prizes. My sisters and I knew one thing: to get that rotisserie, there were going to be a lot of Green Stamps to lick.

  One of my favorite visitors of this early era was the inimitable Mrs. Esther “Bird” Doliber. Once a beauty queen crowned Miss Waltham, Massachusetts, back in the 1920s—“Oh, yes, she was a looker,” Agatha told me more than once—Esther “Bird” and her husband, Ross Doliber, shared quite a family history. Mr. Doliber had grown up on our farm, formerly a dairy farm, as a child, insisting that Forest Edge was a slice of Eden. Mr. Doliber was proud of his history and one day told his wife they were taking a summer drive down memory lane, and she was not at all happy about it. Mrs. Doliber was still fuming when her husband recognized Forest Edge, and the two stopped to ask Agatha if she would mind letting them look around. It didn’t take long for Ma to invite them in to “take a load off.” Nor did it take long for me to introduce myself to this regal lady.

  Years later, Mrs. Doliber sent me a letter describing that day. “The car had hardly stopped in the yard when you came right up to me as I was getting out of the car,” she wrote. “It made such an impression on me that somehow I felt a kindred spirit with you—the dear little girl that you were.” I had the same feeling throughout their visit that spring day. I had a new friend. The only unhappy note was that much too quickly it was time for Mrs. Doliber to leave.

  A lifelong aversion to separations, no matter how short they promised to be, had already begun, particularly after what had happened to Grandpa. Just the prospect of saying good-bye filled me with worry, sometimes even making it hard for me to breathe. As though in reverse, on that occasion, rather than acknowledging that it was time for Mrs. Doliber to go, I took off running, not sure where or why, through the woodshed, up the stairs, and into the adjoining kitchen. Perched on my knees at the red Formica table, with paper and crayons, I began to frantically draw, soon producing a series of four images, each in its own square. Perhaps, since it was before I had the ability to write full sentences, I was trying to tell her that I was going to miss her, that she made me feel happy, and that I hoped she would come back soon.

  Back outside I ran, dashing through the woodshed, past our artesian well, nearly tripping over myself, and I handed my drawing to Mrs. Doliber. “This is for you,” I said breathlessly, and then added, “because I love you.”

  She gently grasped the drawing, studied it carefully, her eyes widening with interest as was a habit she had, “For me?” she asked, then finally said, “Thank you.”

  At Christmas, Mrs. Doliber, a published poetess, sent a season’s greetings card to Agatha and enclosed a poem she penned describing that day and receiving a drawing from me.

  THE GIFT

  We drove around to the old farm

  Where we used to go in the summer with the children

  We were just wondering who lived there now.

  We stopped in the yard, and a little child

  Came to us from the house, clutching a piece of paper

  On which were drawn crude child sketches

  And she laid them in my hand and said,

  “This is for you because I love you.”

  She had never seen me before—her skin

  Was darker than mine, not of my race,

  That little girl—

  But the faith and trust that I loved her too

  And would cherish her gift shone

  In that little face like a precious pearl

  Like the Christmas of long ago, God said,

  “This is for you, because I love you,”

  And He gave us a tiny gift, crudely cradled.

  No one had seen Him before, and He had not seen us,

  But from that moment all mankind was one people:

  And He grew and taught and suffered and died and said:

  “This is for you because I love you.”

  This piece of paper with its crude sketches

  From the hand of a little child who said,

  “This is for you, because I love you.”

  I shall cherish to remind me of what Love really is.

  (John 13:34—A new commandment I give unto you, that ye shall love one another as I have loved you).

  BY ESTHER BIRD DOLIBER, WALTHAM, MASS.

  Agatha was as moved as I was. To prove it, she put the poem on display, atop her baby grand piano, next to a vase of pussy willows she had cut from our pond. Agatha wanted me to understand that it was possible at any age to make an impression on a person, that it was never too late to learn how to love. Mrs. Doliber had given me a taste of the transformational power of art, something that would become a lasting theme in my life. For that gift, I was forever indebted to Mrs. Doliber and stayed in touch with her and her family, namely her grandson, Peter Doliber, from t
hat day forward.

  Agatha continued in her determination to find the best education possible for me and my sisters. Following the annual cookout in Maine in August 1963, she insisted that she be granted permission to move my sisters and me to 2 Elm Street in Dorchester, Massachusetts, where she had raised her own nine surviving children, so that I could be enrolled in a local Head Start program at the ages of four and five, with the promise of returning me to Maine each spring. Permission was granted, and so I watched her Steinway roll off of a moving truck and into a new beginning.

  Like many children who grapple with instabilities in their home and family lives, I depended on my early observational powers for stability, as a way to give me a desperately needed connection—not just to other human beings but to all that was certain and tangible: things, events, actions, and, most of all, to the ultimate Mother, who became a close personal friend, Nature herself. I became a self-appointed devotee to everything Mother Nature and her protégée, Agatha Armstead, could teach me at the real-life school of Forest Edge.