Death Was All Around Us

-written 3/9/24 to 5/10/24

Coming up with titles for blog pieces is a significant part of my writing process. Especially when my thoughts run deeper on an expression, I feel the title needs to somehow encapsulate the essence of my thoughts. Tonight, I’ve been listening to Band of Brothers episodes for the first time in a long while, while doing some other work and musing in the back of my mind on this piece. In one of the interspersed interviews with an aged veteran, as he described the war zone: he stated that “death was all around us.”

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This past winter I’ve been attempting to scan a lot of old photos and re-organize them into albums. I found an envelope in a “to be sorted” box of stuff (I hope I’m not the only one with a box or two of such things in closets) of additional photos from a trip taken to West Virginia the summer of 1978. I was fifteen years old and in between my freshman and sophomore year in high school.

I’ve long had other photos from this trip in one of my old albums, but this envelope contained photos my mother must have taken. My album had the pictures I had taken. Both my mother and I had our own Vivitar “block style” cameras with a built-in flash that took 110mm film.

I surely had this envelope of photos in this box from after my mother passed in 2001, when I cleaned out her house. I’m kind of surprised I didn’t study these photos more closely at the time. Surely I looked–at least glanced at–everything I decided to keep. These photos had been placed in a new envelope (not the original Fotomat development envelope) and labeled in my writing “Trip to West Virginia.”

Perhaps since I took a trip to Buckhannon, WV the summer of 2022 to explore my mother’s hometown for myself–for the first time since this single 1978 trip–I studied the photos more carefully because I had been to these places.

The trip of that summer of 1978 was significant to me for a number of reasons.

(Above and below) My father’s retirement (? or pre-award?…see further notes toward the end here) in 1977 from the Soil Conservation Service Department, Elkton, MD.

My father had retired in 1977 after 30 years of working for the Soil Conservation Service in Elkton, MD. He would have been 63 at that time and I recall hearing talk of “early retirement” since he had suffered his first heart attack in 1976. I was young, but as I understood and recalled it, he went back to work for about another nine months to a year in order to reach the 30 year mark and receive his pension. I could be recalling the reasoning wrong but I think I recall conversations in our home about medical leave, retirement benefits and such.

What I do recall is my father telling me in private, depressed conversations on more than one occasion that retirement would “kill him.” He spoke to me of his dread that being stuck at home with my mother all day long after retirement would be “the death of him.” That she would drive him to an “early grave.”

I was fifteen years old,
and that was a lot for a young girl
in that situation to hear and to bear…

But I was already acutely aware of my mother’s severe mental problems, and the stress it induced upon my father with his heart condition. Not only was I acutely aware of the situation, but apparently my father felt I was old enough to be a kind of confidant to his emotions and fears.

I state that fact without anger toward my father. I loved him deeply, and the bond I had with him I will always treasure. It’s what helped me survive, and it is what helped him survive. And regardless of whether a textbook would say it was unhealthy–it certainly was not psychologically healthy for him nor for me–for some reason in our family situation, it seemed to work.

Sure, I grew up in some ways before I should have and became deeply wired to be a “caretaker.” In a sense, I caretook my father emotionally and, toward the end, somewhat physically. Not that I ever needed to help with physical, personal care but I was acutely aware that he was not to do activities where he lifted his arms over his head too long, nor over-exert himself, nor shovel heavy snow. I made it a point to start running the lawnmower after his first heart attack, learning to wash dishes and help more in the house (my dad did all the housework, too), and to shovel snow.

I struggled to keep my temper toward my mother (for her behavior and tactics) and arguments as under control as I could manage (this time period of high school was quite challenging because I wanted to assert my own independence from her control and illness in increasing ways, which was entirely normal) so that my father would not get distressed at hearing us argue.

My father routinely put nitroglycerine tablets under his tongue to relieve angina pain, which would come on at times when my mother was upsetting him. I remember my father sitting a lot in front of the TV in his chair after retirement and I have good memories of watching shows with him. I recall in particular watching the Saturday Night Live skit where Jimmy Carter visited a nuclear power plant–something about boots. I was to the age of staying up late to watch the show–with Roseanne Rosannadanna and Mr. Bill.

(I just tried to find the SNL skit on YouTube about President Carter visiting 3-Mile Island and though I could not locate it, it appears the actual event was April 1, 1979…just a bit over a month before my father died…no wonder that late night TV watching together sticks in my mind…)

My dad didn’t usually go for “all that stuff” but this one night he stayed up with me and I remember stealing a look over at him from time to time to see if he was laughing. The Slifers aren’t known as particularly demonstrative people, but I can recall my dad smirking and smiling. In my mind’s eye, it was kinda like the way his sister Doris smiled, or my grandmother, Orpha. My cousin told me that Grandmom Orpha enjoyed watching Sanford and Son–she really found it funny–which kind of surprised me!

But back to why this 1978 trip
was significant to me.

We never went on vacations. Ever, ever…never.

When my parents decided to take this trip, it sounded like the kind of travel vacations my “normal” friends always told me about. We had somehow bought a newer vehicle–it was a 1972 Plymouth Fury–and my father thought it would make the trip. My mother wanted to visit her hometown and had not been there in what sounded like many, many years. She wanted to go back.

I was born in 1963, and I wonder when the last time my mother had actually been in Buckhannon prior to that. There are no pictures from any trips my parents might have taken there, and I don’t think they ever traveled out of state except to Western Maryland. And I imagine that pattern was likely even before I was born. So if my grandfather–John Curry Linger–died in 1948 and was buried in Buckhannon, I’m thinking she may not have been there for thirty years.

I don’t know if she would have traveled there in 1955 for her brother Carter’s funeral. Whenever my mother spoke of this brother, she emphasized he was “big and fat and rolly-polly” and stated that he had died by falling off a rocking chair from a porch. Obtaining of his death certificate shows he died in a hospital. Other family say he was in jail/died in jail or something to that effect after a fight…or that while in jail they didn’t give him insulin.

Here are two pieces regarding that brother:

MEET CARTER LINGER

CARTER WAS PARTICULARLY “VIOLENT” TOWARD ME

Unlike being a tag-along of sorts
in 1978 at age fifteen,
when I went to Buckhannon in 2022
on my own (at age 59),
I was on the personal journey of a
fully-formed adult.

I wanted to discover more about my mother’s early life and I was (and am) especially curious about my mother’s diary notes that her brother Carter had been “very violent” with her in 1946, when he and two other siblings showed up on the campus of the University of West Virginia and withdrew my mother against her will.

In 2022 I got to see firsthand the notorious “Trans-Alleghany Lunatic Asylum” they took her to (video link is my own YouTube commentary).

I am still not finished my research, musings and writings on that event but spoiler alert: I have reason to piece together diary references in a way to suspect they wanted her to drop out and care for her ailing father.

She was the youngest of the ten–and she was a woman. Among the complaints the siblings wrote on her admission papers were statements that she was “too ambitious” and thought herself “too important.” Now of course, there was some other context to the statements (perhaps), but I must now wonder what really happened to her that she seemingly became the scapegoat of the entire Linger sibling group.

There’s just a lot of things I will never know for sure and questions I wish I would have asked my mother. But 16 and 30-year-olds aren’t capable of asking questions 60-year-olds might ask.

I remember these things
about the trip of 1978…

We went to the yearly Grimm-Slifer reunion in Rohrersville, Maryland and in 1978, after that, we drove out to visit Aunt Doris and Uncle George in Pittsburgh, PA.

From there, we went to Martinsburg, WV and visited my mother’s brother Roderick and his wife, Sarah Ruth. It was then I met my cousin Kathleen Linger for the only time I recall. I remember she was very good on the piano and I liked the idea that I had other cousins (on my mother’s side) in my general age range.

(Above) Sarah Ruth Linger, Kathleen Linger, Eileen Slifer, Rodney Slifer.

(Above) I’m trying to arrange these photos according to where they were taken…I am “guessing” this last one was possibly at my Uncle Roderick’s because I’m wearing a different shirt (different day of trip) and from the furniture and the dog. But I am not sure…in the photos with Uncle Robert in WV, I am wearing a different outfit. Oh but wait…I had on yet another shirt at Roderick’s…just saw that photo. Maybe this was at Aunt Ruth’s?

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I think we also visited Aunt Ruth and “Uncle Jack” — we seemed to take our time and stop in to homes we normally never went to, and I may have the exact sequence wrong. But I do think that Pittsburg was prior to Martinsburg, and from there we drove to Buckhannon. Also, at some point we went to where my mother’s brother Robert lived which I “think” was somewhere in Weston.

Perhaps this is TMI, but I assume adults are reading this and understand many facts of life and this is one of my most specific recollections about that trip…I remember it was hot and the long car rides were both exciting for me and personally uncomfortable. I was a teenage girl, and I specifically remember that I had my period; I used to get very severe cramps and sickness and take Motrin. I remember I was having to ask for a lot of stops. And I recall we stayed at some motels, too.

I also recall that before going to Pittsburgh we had visited my Grandmother Orpha in the Farhney-Keedy home and she was working on one of her “crazy quilts.” I was interested in how she was putting the patchwork together and she took the time to show me her method of attaching random shaped fabric pieces to a sheet square backing and the type of stitchwork used. She then showed me how to embroider the “Crow’s Foot” top stitching over the seams. I may have had some fabric given me and taken it to work on during the remainder of the trip. That fall of 1978, there was a six-week teacher’s strike and I made an entire quilt during my time at home.

But back to this trip…

I was a John Denver fan (of course) and I recall as we got into the mountains my mother singing “Take Me Home Country Roads” in her typical, seeming melodramatic fashion, with voice cracking. But I now understand more how she must have felt. I simply could not appreciate it at the time. Actually, I was probably singing too, given that I liked that song and thought it was exciting to be in such a different place with bigger mountains than I’d even seen before and closer-up.

I think that summer my mother was in one of her better spells, actually. The next photo shows (I’m fairly sure) my mother with a puzzle completed. I “think” she and I worked on this after returning from this trip. We never did puzzles, and I’m not sure how we got this one. It appears to be of a church/mountain scene. Perhaps we bought it on the trip. I remember thinking to myself along these lines…“Maybe things are going to be more normal here going forward. Mom and I are doing a puzzle, and she seems ‘better.’ We just took a first family ‘vacation,’ and my father is retired. I’m in high school, and there’s a lot of new things in life…”

But because of all the constant goings-on and changeability, everything always still felt odd and unpredictable. We went to the cemetery at the Reger Chapel on Brushyfork Road, and then we visited some people that were neighbors or others she had known years ago. I don’t know who they were, but they were all nice to me.

(Above and Below)

1978 photos from the Reger Chapel church and cemetery on Brushyfork Road in Buckhannon, WV.

I believe we went to the site where their home stood (or had stood) but when I went in 2022, I was unable to locate where that might have been. The house was torn down in the later 70’s or 80’s I believe, according to another cousin, and I have some photos he had sent me from his visit there (somewhere).

(Above) 1978 photo of one of the Linger homeplaces?

Here is a photo of the Brushyfork Linger homeplace from an older album…

(Below) First three photos as I recall were the same first day we were there. I’m wearing same shirt. We went to the cemetery first and then drove to what I “think” was a former neighbor’s house or people that would have recalled the Linger family on Brushyfork Road. I recall being taken inside to sit and talk and visit. Here I’m playing with a puppy apparently and was photographed on their porch. It all seemed and felt so normal to me–as in, my “family” was traveling and visiting people “like normal people do.”

Here begins photos with Uncle Robert, perhaps the next day. I remember driving somewhere else to see them…again…I “think” I recall hearing we were going to Weston. But I am unsure where they lived…

(Above) My mother’s brother, Uncle Robert, and his grandson, Tommy (on right). I do not know who the woman is, whether Robert’s wife or after his divorce and someone else. We went to his property, I think near Weston?

(Below) More photos with Uncle Robert

On to the three photos my mother (and I)
took on that trip in 1978 that I most want to comment on.

As I studied these photos, I took special note of the following three:

1. There is a photo of me on a porch swing with my father. This may actually be the last photo ever taken of my father and I posed together. I am not sure who the woman is, included in the photo. It was someone we stopped in to visit in Buckhannon…

2. There is a photo I took at my Uncle Robert’s where I asked my dad to pose for a trick photo–I believe the boy’s name is Tommy and he was visiting and the grandson of Robert. My father didn’t seem too enthusiastic for this, but he did it for me. He looks very weary and old in this photo.

3. But the most interesting photo in some ways is that of me and my father walking through the cemetery together. I don’t know if my mother intended to get us in, or if it was inadvertent. But I studied this photo and it kind of triggered some memories from that day. I can’t say for certain, but I have a vague sense/memory that as my mother was off looking at various graves (perhaps too long or something) that my father and I did what we often did. We walked around together, separately, and had a conversation.

You see, one didn’t really have a normal conversation with my mother.

And perhaps the conversation that’s faintly coming back to me from that day, with my father, was also not normal. In fact, no….no….it was not a normal conversation.

I think as my dad and I walked around looking at tombstones, he may have said to me, “That will soon be me…six feet under.”

I believe my father–in his last year or so of life–believed he wasn’t going to live much longer and he kept saying things to me of that nature. This of course would worry me, but I also recall he may have said things like I just needed to prepare myself for that reality. I don’t know if he used those words, but in retrospect I get the sense that his communications were of a mixture of a hopeless, tired, depressed, realist and he was both dumping his emotions and thoughts on me and possibly trying to prepare me for what he viewed as imminently inevitable.

This was August 1978,
and he was dead by May 1979.

My father once told me
(and I’ll never forget this one):
“And to think I survived WWII
to come home to THIS.”

Among the albums photos around 1978 were the following ones with my father in a suit and another receiving an award. This gray herring bone suit is very familiar to me–it is the one he often wore to church. I don’t know which suit my father was buried in, but it could well have been this one. He did not own many suits nor fancy clothing, and the nice suit he has on in the photo where he is receiving an award is not typical or familial to me.

I cannot recall if they may have bought a suit for the occasion, or perhaps he borrowed one. In my mind, it would easily be possible and familiar that I overheard arguments and my father’s disgust at not having a decent suit to wear. I don’t know. For many years my father had only two front top teeth and some bottom ones. He needed dentures but we could not afford it. It embarrassed him, and he did not smile often but sometimes, I would see him break into a laugh and see his teeth.

As I now recall, upon his retirement there must have been some lump sum taken, or partial lump sum…those phrase come to mind. Because after he retired, there was money to buy him dentures. You can see the difference in his mouth area if you compare to the photo with his hunting buddy where he is broadly smiling/laughing in a way I seldom saw. I’m thinking maybe that is also how they bought the 1972 Plymouth.

My father used to tell me that when he died he wanted to be buried in his army uniform. Actually it was probably in this context he made the comment about coming back from WWII to “THIS.” At barely sixteen during the funeral arrangement time I attempt to loudly and boldly insist he be buried in his uniform. That did not happen. Whether it no longer would have fit his body, or whether my mother wouldn’t have it, I do not know. I have the wool uniform in a closet box, with moth balls, along with his pins and various medals.

Concerning his retirement in 1977, I recall going to a very fancy award dinner. I’m thinking the more formal photo was taken that night. And the more I study the first two photos of him receiving an award outdoors, he appears to not have dentures then. So the photo below must have been taken a different time. I am now wondering if they made sure he had his dentures prior to the award dinner. You can tell a lot by studying the shapes of his mouth/smile regarding whether he had a full set of teeth.

It is because my father compared his life situation at that point as being worse than when he was a soldier in Europe that when I heard the phrase tonight while watching Band of Brothers that became the title of this blog piece, I knew it was the perfect summary.

Death indeed WAS all around us that day…and my father was battle-weary.