Summer Camp Stories (part I) .....

I was sent to sleep-away camp every year that I lived with my uncle and his wife.  When I was younger, it would be for two weeks at a time; as I got older, it was for four weeks.  Although, as a rule, I usually enjoyed being out of the house for a while, my uncle's wife did at one point -- in one of her usual fits of frustration -- tell me that the primary reason for sending me was so that she wouldn't have to deal with me.  I wasn't surprised to hear that, but it still stung.

Regardless, off to camp I went.

In 1969, my uncle and his wife decided to take a month-long trip to Wales while my younger brother (who was, temporarily, living at home) and I were away at camp.  I don't know where he was sent, but I went to a local Girl Scout camp.  Unfortunately, in her narrow-focused desire to be free of me, my uncle's wife neglected to notice that the camp didn't offer four-week sessions.  Instead, the sessions were two weeks in length, and the counselors told me I was required to go home the weekend between. 

Oops.

I actually didn't mind heading off to summer camp, as it let me escape the abuse from my uncle's wife.

Sent away -- again (part II) .....

The driving distance from our house to the school was approximately six hours.  It took about half that time to fly, and by midday we'd landed in Waterville, Maine (population ~18,000).  From there, we drove a rental car to the school, which was located in North Vassalboro.  Though just 10 minutes outside the "city," it was an extremely rural area, home to numerous dairy farms and had a population of just over 2,600.

Having grown up first in a small city, then in a suburban community, I was upset to find myself in what I perceived to be the middle of nowhere.  The school, itself, was a disappointment.  Unlike the nice Canadian school I'd toured, this facility had an enormous main building, but it was shabby and in need of maintenance.  My assigned dorm room was large, but run-down, and from the moment I set foot on campus, I felt like I didn't belong.  I didn't want to be there, but it was what I'd chosen (based only on a directory description) and this was to be my prison "home" for the next nine months.

Oak Grove-Coburn School -- closed in 1989; now the site of the Maine Criminal Justice Academy.

Sent away -- again (part I).....

Sometime during my sophomore year of high school, I made a suggestion to my uncle.  Having met with my guidance counselor and counted my credits, I realized that I would have enough credits -- though just barely -- to graduate one year early.  My uncle's response was a quick and firm "no."  Since I had skipped first grade, I was already one of the youngest students in my grade, and graduating early meant that I'd be just two months past my 15th birthday.  He thought that I was simply too young and too immature.

Later during the school year, I made another suggestion -- that I be allowed to finish my last two years at boarding school.  I'd met a girl at "fat camp" the summer before who attended boarding school and said she enjoyed not living at home.  Again, my suggestion was rejected.  During the brief time that my younger brother lived at home (between discharge from the juvenile psychiatric facility and being remanded to the adult psychiatric hospital [at the age of 14]), my uncle and his wife had placed him in a nearby boarding school.  He'd lasted only a couple months before being expelled.  Since boarding school tuition is non-refundable, my thrifty uncle had lost quite a bit of money with that venture.

That didn't stop me from asking again, several more times that year.  However, each time I was told that boarding school was not a possibility.

No graduating early, no boarding school, no getting out of the house anytime soon.

What the "experts" decided .....

In preparation for my (as yet unsuccessful) quest to have my adoption annulled, I decided to request a copy of the records from my second adoption, so I filled out the form, had it notarized, and mailed it off to the Department of Families and Children.  Soon afterwards, I received an e-mail from one of the employees of the "Adoption Search Unit" with the following information:

The application for adoption states the following:

[Grandfather], sole surviving legal guardian of [me], a minor child, desires to place said [me] for adoption with [uncle] and [uncle's wife].  And whereas [uncle] is the natural uncle of said child and thereby a blood relative descendent from a common ancestor not more than three generations removed from said child.  That the court approve a certain adoption agreement between [grandfather] the surviving legal guardian, [uncle] and [uncle's wife], the proposed adoptive parents of said child, to adopt said [me], which agreement is dated 12/28/67 at [city, state].

The record indicates that you were placed with maternal aunt and uncle on 11/9/67.  Your grandmother's burial per her death certificate was 11/6/67 in [cemetery] in [city, state].

The follow-up letter, which didn't provide much information beyond what I'd already learned.

One of two .....

As I posted earlier, upon my arrival I was informed that I was now "one of four" kids and, therefore, not entitled to anything other than what everyone else had.  However, the reality was that there weren't four kids living at home at that point.  My uncle's daughter had left for college that Fall, and once she was no longer a permanent resident, my uncle and his wife opted to send their Down Syndrome son to an institution in a city two hours away.  Their daughter had been his primary care-giver, much more so than his parents, and he was too much trouble(?), too difficult(?), too time-consuming(?) for them to handle without her.  They never told me the real reason, and I never asked.  He lived at the institution full-time, coming home only every other weekend, until he moved to an adult group home several years later.

 

Therefore, the only other child living at home was my younger brother.  Recall that he was both my biological brother (adopted at the age of three months) and, soon, my adoptive brother as well.

 

 

 

Fish out of water .....

I'd lived my entire life in cities; first San Francisco, then a small city in the Midwest.  My uncle, however, lived in a New England suburb.  Despite its size (pop. ~15,000), it was far more cosmopolitan than the city where I'd been living (pop. ~600,000).  Its location, approximately one hour outside New York City, meant that many of its residents worked in "the city" and, in fact, many were (and still are) at least semi-famous:  novelists, actors, politicians.  One of my classmates-to-be was a child model and had, by 6th grade, already appeared in several magazines.

It was vastly different from what I was used to.

My uncle's wife .....

It's necessary at this point to re-introduce my uncle and his wife.  He was the oh-so-perfect older brother to my irresponsible, flighty mother.  His wife was equally perfect, at least in her own eyes.  They met in college -- he, an engineering student; she, in the school of pharmacy.  They married shortly after graduation and, within a year, had their first child.  Four years later, their second child was born.

 

As a girl, my uncle's wife had been stricken with rheumatic fever and though it was fatal for her older sister, she survived -- but with a permanently weakened heart.  She had been raised by her mother, a strict, unforgiving Southern Baptist, and a stepfather who reportedly had sexually abused her.  As her mother's only surviving child, she no doubt felt pressured to excel academically -- and she did.