O Boy! Chapter 23 - Grace Church, Stockton

When we first went to look at the parsonage at Grace Church I was heavy hearted. We had been told that the people at Grace were no happier to have us than we were to be moved. The Pastor Parish Committee felt that they had been given the run‑around by their superintendent, Don Getty, and the chairman quit before we even got there. Our predecessors, the Williamsons, had two loves: their dogs and the antique furniture that belonged to the church. I was unimpressed. The antiques were what mother would have called "Mid‑McKinley", huge and uneconomical space‑wise and except for the large dining table and chairs they were not even well‑designed. Besides I didn't feel like being a museum for other people's antiques.

When we moved in I had suggested to Bob that he have the movers take the heavy bedroom suite upstairs. But when Bob asked the movers to help him they promptly informed him that it would be totally impossible and illegal, etc., etc. I whispered to Bob, "We need an Uncle..." But Bob endeared himself to the movers by helping them on several things and they finally relented and helped him make the shift. I soon grew to love the house. Carl Williamson had brought the church almost to the brink of financial disaster so it was a godsend for the church to have someone like Bob to take hold of things. Carl had been guilty of using printed sermons of famous preachers without acknowledging that they were not his own, so a few people had thought he was a great preacher. But those in the know despised him for it.

Grace was a very special church. It had had some great history and had some interesting old‑timers. Originally a Southern Methodist Church, we were told that on the fourth of July during the Civil War, the Union sympathizers wanted the pastor to ring the church bell. When he refused, they brought up a small cannon pointed it at the steeple of the church and threatened to blow it off unless he complied. Fortunately he gave in.

As usual we found wonderful members of the congregation. Two widows of former members of the Conference, Iva Colliver and Clara Hay were grand women and very kind and helpful. There were other assets. One of our primary interests of course was Paul's schooling. He would enter 7th Grade at Webster and readily agreed to try a summer course in drama. The Logsdons took him in for the week before we were due to move and he was assigned the part of the title role in "The Ransom of Red Chief". When it came to a showdown the young teacher chickened out of actually presenting the final version, which was disappointing, but still it seemed like an auspicious start.

I could write a book about each of our 5 sons. But it wouldn't be wise or accurate. It would only be my point of view. 1972, the year we moved, was distinguished by two other major events‑‑the wedding of David and Priscilla Ellwood in Los Angeles, and Charles and Keiko's wedding which I have written about in Chapter 26. It was also the year that Mechi (Wolf‑ Rudiger) and Sibylle came to see us from Germany. Having three married sons re‑emphasized that our family was no longer a single unit but a collection of individual families. In January of 1973, Leah Sibylle was born. I was losing my interest in substitute teaching. Being in a larger city school environment made me feel that I no longer wanted to submit to the exigencies of whatever someone else's emergency produced.

And then in 1973 a new demand on my time appeared. I had a phone call from Alice Newhall from Berkeley saying that mother was ill and needed our attention. Bob and I went up immediately to discover that mother was really very sick indeed. After kissing her hello where she lay on the couch, I said, "Bobby, we've come to take care of you and we may have to take you back to Stockton with us‑‑if need be by ambulance." She wouldn't hear of such a thing.

But by mid‑afternoon she had deteriorated to the point where we called the ambulance anyway. I went in to her and said quietly but firmly, "Bobby, you won't like what I have to say, but we've called the ambulance and you are going with us to Stockton." She didn't protest at all. I had thought I would go with the ambulance so I could sit by her side but the attendant made me sit with the driver. I might just as well have driven with Bob except I could at least help the driver find our house.

Within 24 hours we realized that we were out of our depth and mother required hospitalization. It seemed as if she got worse and worse and was near death. Later we would laugh at the fact that, as I leaned over her bed, I heard her use the word "aint". It seemed so unlike mother who never used such a colloquialism normally. I knew she was delirious, and, as I listened to her feverish mutterings closely, I discovered she was saying, "there aint no joy in Mudville..." Obviously she was trying to reconstruct "Casey at the Bat". It seemed touching that even when Bobby was out of her head, struggling with her very life, she should be reciting poetry. Dr. Browne discovered she had an acute potassium imbalance which he could treat. But the hospital could only keep her 3 days and then we were told she must go to a convalescent home.

Luckily Hillhaven Convalescent Home was near us and we were able to get a bed for her there. She couldn't walk and she didn't even know us when she was admitted. But the administration there was extremely helpful and I learned a lot. As she recovered slowly they helped her to walk and they appreciated the fact that she was a good patient. As soon as she showed signs of improvement she became something of a favorite and within 6 weeks we were able to bring her home. It gave me a new opinion of what a good convalescent home could do. I went to see her every day and most days took an ice cream for her and her roommate since that was not on their menu. But other members of Grace Church also visited her. And I know this helped her recovery. Little by little she became more like the real Bobby again. Paul and Charlotte came out to see her and helped by letting us go off for a vacation. And they came the following year as well.

It seemed as if at the very time when the older boys were busy establishing themselves, I found myself with a lot more responsibility for Paul's early adolescence and for Bobby. We remember many sweet times when she was living with us, but I was aware that it was hard for Paul in some ways. She tended to be critical of some rather normal 8th grader ways, and I thought it was very much to Paul's credit that he was never rude to her. She would have liked to charm him and felt baffled when he drew within himself and she felt rebuffed.

I remember one especially happy evening when I played all of our recordings of Chopin's preludes (played by Arthur Rubinstein), and accompanied it with the comments that Dick Burrowes had written. She was in seventh heaven. She entered into things and was also discreet about withdrawing to her room.

There were times when she would get mixed up. She had the bedroom next to ours. There were five other doors that opened off the central hall including the bathroom door. Sometimes, by mistake, she would come into our bedroom instead of the bathroom. While Paul and Charlotte were staying at the house Charlotte put a sign on the bathroom door saying "BATHROOM". I later heard mother explaining to a guest that, "The doors in this house are really very confusing ‑‑ even my daughter‑in‑law had to put a sign on the bathroom door to keep from being mixed up." It would never occur to her that it had been for her own benefit.

By the time mother moved to Plymouth Square she had become a very important part of the Grace Church life. And I was always thankful that we were in a church that could really appreciate her. One of the happy times was her 90th birthday party, January 13, 1975. Molly and Paul Boerner came over early on Sunday morning. Bobby wore her new long silver dress to church. My heart was feeling very full when I happened to glance up in the balcony. I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw David, who had flown from Denver, Colorado as a surprise to be there. All the other boys and families, except Charles and Keiko, were there too. And there were special friends and some of Bro and Dossie's family. The only problem for me was that I was suffering from sciatica caused by a ruptured disk. But I took plenty of aspirin and thanks to generous help from church members we had a wonderful banquet in the social hall with speeches and jokes and congratulations from the President.

My condition worsened until I was forced to have back surgery on March 14. The day before I went to the hospital, mother phoned to say she was ill. The doctor forbade me to go near her and diagnosed her condition as bronchitis. She was transferred to the hospital floor at Plymouth Square after many phone calls back and forth. It was not a good time for the Countess to come see us. But she did anyway, arriving while I was still in the hospital.

Bob tried to look after me, entertain Mu (the countess), and visit Bobby at Plymouth Square. As Bobby's condition got worse I managed to have two last visits with her. I was able to be with her all morning the day she died. I had to lie down a lot, but it was a comfort to me just to have known what her last hours were like. On March 27, about a half hour after I got home, we had the phone call that she had died. My first reaction was one of relief, knowing that Bobby would never have wanted to continue a kind of vegetable existence. And the outpouring of love from members of the church and friends from all over was very comforting. Molly and I chuckled when a friend from Plymouth Square who came to the Memorial service, spoke of how much mother had helped her and quoted mother as saying, "Now, Honey..." We both knew mother would never have used that phrase.

It was so different from my feelings when my father had died. I knew that it was the way Bobby would have wanted it to be. And I found a deep kind of peace that at last she understood me. Of course she probably always understood me more than I wanted. But the sense of feeling known completely was a kind of affirmation of immortality. She had been a wonderful mother and friend and I would miss her for the rest of my life.

I had been offered a job teaching art and music appreciation at Humphreys College and after mother died I was able to take that on with much pleasure. The following September 4th Kathy Mondragon phoned me to say there was a good job at the Mental Health Services that she thought I should apply for. Kathy often shared what she was doing in creative job counseling and sometimes asked my advice. So I had jokingly said, "Why don't you find a job for me?" She showed me how to write a resume, and even though they had to stretch the rules of civil service to hire someone who had had a back operation, I started at French Camp as a technical clerk working for the Institute on Substance Abuse of the San Joaquin Mental Health Services.

I immediately hit it off well with my new 25 year old boss, Mary McAdams. Well, not immediately. The first morning she gave me something to type on an electric typewriter. I had said I was a good typist. But I had never graduated from a manual typewriter! The machine lurched, I was nervous. After 15 minutes Mary said, "I'm in a hurry so perhaps I'd better do that..." I went home thinking, "This will be a great time to adapt to electric typing and it will help Bob on his sermons too." So we went out and bought an IBM Selectric and both began adjusting to thinking electrically.

Mary was ambitious, stubborn, idealistic. She had been raised a Catholic and when she was an exchange student in Switzerland she had insisted on going to mass even when it meant missing weekend mountain excursions with her family. One day she decided to go into the mountains with her Swiss family. She wrote to her priest in America that she had found God in the mountains. He wrote back in such a wooden unforgiving spirit that she left the Catholic church. She studied other religions and ended up a devout practicing member of the Vedanta sect.

We had many discussions on religion, sex, life in general. She ate very little for lunch but liked to go to lunch with me on the lawn outside the hospital. We ate and talked under the trees. Then she would insist on walking for exercise. My leg problems bothered me so much by this time that I hated walking, but I tried not to let on and she was very good for me.

Mary had invented "The Institute on Substance Abuse". She had worked through the County and with the University of Pacific to get recognition for ex-alcoholics and ex-drug addicts who could take training as counselors to rehabilitate others. We had about 18 different county agencies to draw from and were in the process of training over a hundred counselors. There were required courses in the psychology of drug addiction, pharmacology, personal counseling skills, etc. and there were a variety of optional courses including Reality Therapy, Gestalt, Transactional Meditation, Biofeedback, Family Counseling, etc. Mary was able to get some of the best experts to teach classes and I was able to sit in on a number of courses as a part of my job. I was fascinated to learn more about all these different types of therapy as well as more about addiction itself. And I was respected for my personal skills in dealing with the people who came in to my office. I also worked hard. Mary drove herself and everyone around her. Her boss, Sandra Exelby, was an ex‑nun who was capable but frantic at Mary's impulsiveness and failure to communicate. I was able to bring order to the files and the office procedure which turned out to be a help to both of them.

When it was discovered that I could sketch, I was encouraged to make some drawings of the various drug centers. And one day I went to the State Hospital in Stockton to sketch. It was quite an experience to be on the locked‑in side of a mental hospital, free to observe and sketch. I wish I had kept copies of those sketches.

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