E8. Grandma

A storm can terrify, or it can set you free. Lightning, thunder, and summer rain can offer comfort when one is unwelcome indoors. A sense of belonging can be built from safe spaces, safe creatures, and the ebb and flow of Mother Nature. 

Sadie shows how punishment became a system and how survival asked for cunning: Grandma held the line—she would not lie, but neither would she betray. Plates of food appeared at night, and by morning they were gone. It was care that shielded a child within the narrow space allowed.

We talk about what denial can do to a family’s memory. We suggest that children deserve trust long after adults revise the record. If you’ve ever found safety in a place instead of a person or been saved by one steady ally, this story will find you.

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Special Thanks to our supporters, who have made this podcast possible.

• Lucy Mathews Heegaard: Audio Engineer 
  • with music via Epidemic Sound
• Terry Gydesen: Photographer

• Polly Kellogg
• Kate Tillotson
• Dawn Charbonneau
• Jacob Wyatt
• Molly Tillotson
• Julian Bowers
• Wendy Horowitz
• Pat Farrell
• Lynette Tabert
• Laura Jensen
• People's Farm Collective
• Deborah Copperud of "Spock Talk" podcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:03

Welcome to the Sadie Green Story about an older adult looking back on her abusive childhood. It's a conversation between Sadie and myself, Pam Colby, her longtime friend. We are exploring how early trauma can affect a lifetime. Thanks for joining us. Hi, Pam. How are you today? I'm good, Sadie. Wow, here we are on episode eight. Isn't that something? It is. And what are we doing today?

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Well, I would like to talk about what supported me when I was still at home. I credit Mother Nature as being an intimate comfort in those days. And by nature I mean the wind, the trees, sunlight coming through the trees, the animals, not only domestic animals, but birds and chipmunks, minnows in the water, and of course grandma.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

Okay, so where are we gonna start?

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Let me start with a connection to a storm. Lightning dazzled across the sky, followed by crashes of thunder. A tremendous summer storm was splitting the heavens and soaking the earth at a time when Sue no longer lived inside the house, no matter what the weather. Like private fireworks. Rivers of rain washed down her face and naked body. But on this warm summer evening, he felt planted and part of something bigger than herself. The family was inside the gray house for the night. Sheltered by the pouring rain, she boldly laughed out loud, intoxicated by the power of the storm. Crawling through the fence, she lay belly down on the wet grass and felt raindrops pelt her skin like a massage. Her body seemed to sink into the soggy soil. If only she could wrap this earth around her like a blanket and bloom herself into a field of wild flowers. While drenching rain fell from above, she twined long wet grass through her fingers and moved her body to the pitching sound of thunder. Indestructible, blending more into a landscape than a people. Rain ran off her elbows when she sat up cross-legged on the grass and looked toward the house where yellow light shone in smudgy patches through the windows. She imagined she saw the back door open to reveal a silhouette, Ma, stepping out onto the broken steps. She imagined Ma calling to Sue, Come in, come in from the rain. But Sue pretended she couldn't hear Ma's call. She lay back flat on the ground instead, so still that Ma wouldn't even know her if she walked right by.

SPEAKER_02 3:25

I found that so telling that you had this energy of being so part of nature, laying there in the water. And at the same time that you're imagining that your mom is looking for you, that you're making it up in your head that she would care enough to get you out. And there was thunder as well.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

Yeah, crashing thunder, lightning.

SPEAKER_02 3:49

So it was dangerous. Your area around your house is a lot of trees. Something could have fallen on you.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

That did not occur to me. I was just so in the moment. You know, I yeah, danger just was not.

SPEAKER_02 4:04

But it is such a moment of telling how you became the landscape around you and were kind of one with it, even at the same time still being a little girl thinking, maybe my mom will look for me.

Nature’s Healing And Witness

SPEAKER_01 4:19

Yeah. Nature saved me. I was so connected to being out in the woods or being outside, the weather, the animals. And there is something really healing about that. I I remember sitting on the side of a swamp and watching the red-winged blackbirds and just being happy.

SPEAKER_02 4:44

Yeah, there's a part of that that isn't that scary, that you just feel the wonder of it all. I know we always talk about this, but it in my imagination, I also go back into your house and your father, your siblings, nobody was saying Sue's not in the house. What's going on out there?

SPEAKER_01 5:03

Yeah, it was a way of life. It was just the way it was. If anything was said, I was not aware of it.

SPEAKER_02 5:09

This might be another example where your mom would be like she's crazy, she's out there in this, even though she wouldn't let you in. It's that constant mixed.

Introducing Grandma’s World

SPEAKER_01 5:19

I would love to know how a sibling felt in those days when that was happening. I do think they've been told a whole nother story. I don't know how close they are to those memories, but they were there. They know on some level, they certainly know that this happened.

SPEAKER_02 5:39

I really appreciate you sharing that.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

Yeah, I can still feel that.

SPEAKER_02 5:43

Yeah. And what are you gonna do next?

SPEAKER_00 5:47

I would like to introduce my grandmother. Pink asphalt siding was on top of this hill.

Family Roots And Sparrow Lake

Joyful Meals And Belonging

The Barrel Punishment Begins

Surviving Heat And Isolation

Escape To Grandma’s And Secrecy

SPEAKER_01 5:58

And the way to get up to the hill was driving up this really steep, rutted driveway through a forest of trees. And let me read a little about what I wrote back in the day. Sue loved Grandma's house, with its sunny bay windows that looked down the other side of the hill, toward Sparrow Lake. There was a stone wall out front, perfect for sitting on to eat watermelon wedges, and where gardens of tulips floated color across the gravel yard. Sue loved listening to Grandma tell about herself when she was young and growing up, like in a different world, but still connected in a way that was more personal than any book or magazine she read. In fact, it was probably Grandma and her stories that kept Sue from doing something really crazy, like walking out in front of one of those big trucks that barreled down the highway. Grandma said her family traveled up from Iowa in a covered wagon. Her mama worked as a midwife, and in those days, part of helping other women have their babies was to stay at the woman's house for a few days after the baby's birth, not to care for the baby, but to do the household chores so the new mom could focus on the little one herself. This meant the midwife cooked for the family, turned the butter, cleaned the house, hauled water, and so on. Her mother died when she was still a girl, so she learned at a young age how to be responsible, how to cook and clean and take care of the others. As Grandma grew up past 14, she started doing the same kind of support her mom did before her. When she was almost 20, she went to help a woman in the next county, and that woman's husband had a hired hand named Henry. Grandma and Henry took a liking to each other, and before long they went to barn dances together, with a chaperone, of course. They saw wood together at the sawmill down the road, and on Sundays, after church, they rode horses around the lake. In 1924, Grandma and Henry got married. They homesteaded on Sparrow Lake. They cut down trees, pulled stumps out of the ground with workhorses, they seeded crops, with the help of neighbors, they built the barn, the house they built themselves, and then they had two children. The first was Sue's father, Warren, the second, his only sister, Dora. Both kids would eventually marry into the same Montana family. Grandpa Henry wrote poetry. Grandma saved all of his poems and photos, and told Sue, later, how he used to smile and call himself Henry Wadsworth Shortfellow, because his build was short and round. And all those photos Grandma kept, Henry wore bib overalls. Sue didn't have much time to know her Grandpa Henry. He died when she was only five. But she did remember riding at his back and squealing with delight when he pretended he was her Shetland pony. Grandpa Henry came from a large family. After he died, all those relatives still came to visit Grandma, bringing their floppy hats and long bamboo fishing poles with them. One by one, or in groups, they disappeared down Grandma's Hill to Sparrow Lake. Early evening brought them back up again, carrying buckets full of sunfish. There was Joe and Gladys, George and May, and Susan liked them all. To her they all seemed large and round and friendly with each other. Then all those fish were laid out one by one on newspapers and cleaned. Huge cast iron fry pans were pulled down from their hooks and settled on the stove to heat. Slabs of homemade butter bribed in the pans to welcome freshly filleted and flowered sunnies. And all this time, great aunts and uncles filled the tiny house with loud laughing and talked like they hadn't seen each other in ages. When the fish bones were finally cleared away, the dishes done, and tea towels hung behind the stove to dry, the supper table became a card table, and big laughs and knee slapping went on till late at night. Then, still clapping each other on the back, the aunts and uncles filed out. The screen door slammed behind them as they crossed the moonlit gravel yard to the boujar. The boujar was a one-room wooden building with a rounded roof of corrugated tin, with little windows that opened inside at an angle, and faded linoleum floors covered haphazardly with rugs. The room smelled musty, like the stuffing in old quilts. At one time this room was bunkhouse to a hired hand. Now it housed double beds with ornate bedsteads lined up next to each other, so there was barely room to walk between. A roll-up desk took up a corner at the foot of one bed, while a pot-bellied, heater stove stood in the other corner. Now that Grandma lived alone on the hill, the boujar was only used for company, except if June and Sue played house and there as little girls. And then again, long after company was gone, when Sue at twelve or thirteen would sneak in from the woods to find food on plates that Grandma set out for her. Now I'd like to tell about a time that might have been the first time I ran away to Grandma's. It was the hottest time of summer, before bailing season, when Ma came up with yet another punishment for Sue. Pa owned a bright yellow elevator that during hay season carried bales of hay, like an assembly line, up from the hay wagons to the haymow above. He'd lean the top end of the elevator high against the barn's open haymow door, like a big ladder, and angle out the lower end of the elevator onto a large, heavy barrel made of half-inch solid iron. When not in use, this barrel tipped upside down like a hard round table, sat out by the corral. Following Ma's orders, Sue crossed the yard with her one morning and stood beside that barrel. She watched Ma with elbows bent and both hands spread, pushing hard against the barrel until it tipped slowly over on its side. On further orders, Sue crouched down inside the empty circle. Ma pushed again until the barrel fell back down. Then there was only darkness. Early mornings were not so bad under the barrel. It was the sultry sun of afternoon, heating the barrel hot enough to sizzle spit on top that made it hellish. Clawing at the dirt with both hands, Sue dug tunnels underneath the barrel edge and put her mouth close to the ground to breathe in air. Everything in her existence reduced down to the single effort to breathe in cool, fresh air. The barrel grew too hot to touch, so she huddled in a ball on arms and knees, with her face anchored to the ground and stayed alert so not to accidentally fall against the side. When she sat up, sweat ran down her forehead, dripped off her eyelashes, and made salty water on her tongue. The barrel treatment went on until hay season, but the day it finally ended was when Sue managed an escape. When the family trailed off to the swimming hole one hot late afternoon, Sue crouched inside the barrel, acted on a plan. First, she took her clothes off and layered them as thick as possible between her bare back and the barrel roof. Then she stood on hands and feet, with her knees bent and pushed up with her legs until she finally got the angle and the weight distribution right and rolled the barrel off her. Looking to see that nobody was near, she quickly put on her clothes and ran across the road, over the ditch, and up the hill to Grandma's house. Monpa caught on real fast when Sue started running off to Grandma's. And it was no time before the sound of Pa's red pickup was heard driving up the hill. He'd stepped down from the running board, slammed the truck door shut behind him, and walked slowly toward the house to ask his mother where his daughter was. Grandma met him at the door. She always said she could not lie and say Sue was not there, if in fact she really was. But Pa had to find her on his own. And he would, downstairs in the square little potato cellar, or behind the four by eight sheet of plywood leaning up against the wall. He'd take her home. Abuse continued. So Sue and Grandma worked out another system. They never talked about it. They simply went about it quietly. After dark, Sue crept up to the boujar, slipped inside the door, and there, like a miracle, she found food on a plate. It might be apples with sliced cheese on brown bread, or fresh baked ginger snaps. Sue ate the food and in the morning disappeared into the woods again. Grandma came and took the empty plate away. This way, she never actually saw Sue. And when Pa came up the hill, she said so, honestly, and Pa believed her and he went away.

SPEAKER_02 16:24

Hearing that was so intense, and my first question is, did the rest of the family know that you were under this barrel?

SPEAKER_01 16:33

They certainly knew. Uh there were uh siblings around uh people outside. Yes, I'm sure. Of course, yes.

SPEAKER_02 16:43

And they had to see. She had these games with you. How did she tell you that you were going to be punished, or was it just follow me?

SPEAKER_01 16:51

It would be follow me. Sometimes she would tell me if you don't find that shirt in ten minutes something in particular, but what I can remember now is just acting out things. And I did steal food, so that would be another reason for punishment. Most of it was around clothing and crazy things that I couldn't do anything about. But I remember burying a pink jump rope once because she would hit me with that, and it was a silicone long jump rope that was really awful. And I remember burying it. We had a lot of chickens and ducks and geese, and that is often what was fed to the family. And then my brothers generally would need to bury the remains. And honest to God, one day when a brother is burying, he finds the jump rope. I was punished for things that I did. But of course, in my mind now there's reasons why I did that. I would steal from the freezer, I would steal food from the kitchen.

SPEAKER_02 18:06

The other question I have about the barrel is this wasn't just a one-day thing. You would get up in the morning and she'd send you back. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

Uh I don't recall if it was like day after day consecutive, but it was multiple times. All times of the day.

SPEAKER_02 18:23

And literally trying to breathe in the heat and stay away from the iron sides. What about your grandmother? Do you think she knew about the amount of abuse going on?

Calculated Harm And Memory

SPEAKER_01 18:34

I don't really know. I remember her telling me when I was young, several of us kids were at grandma's while the parents went somewhere. They came back, and one of us kids, or somehow, there was an extension cord that had been pulled out of the wall and was, I don't know if it was broken, but it was flawed. And immediately it was my fault. And grandma told me later, she said there there was no way that they knew who did that. But clearly they thought it was me.

SPEAKER_02 19:09

So that was just a representation of how it was. What when something went wrong, you were to blame.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

That's how it seemed. Even after I was long gone, that one time when I had that visit with my father where he came out to the car, 15 years after I was gone, somebody's piggy bank had been money had been taken out of it, and he said, You did that too.

SPEAKER_02 19:34

So he really believed all your mother's lies over the years, and maybe that was how he made himself feel better about what had happened. Was unearthing the memory of the barrel something that was just always there, or was it again a process of going back into that scary place?

SPEAKER_01 19:53

I didn't feel the emotional part of it this time, and I haven't read it for a long time until just now. But it's always been a memory, and it's a memory I know that my siblings witnessed. I do wonder if I assumed people knew more than they really did, but I know my siblings witnessed that barrel.

Adaptation, Endurance, And Voice

SPEAKER_02 20:16

I have a question about do you think your mother was calculating enough to know that when she rolled it off you at the end of the day that you would still be alive?

SPEAKER_01 20:28

Or was there a way to check, look in if you were breathing in there or No, it was really this heavy, round, really thick barrel. There's no way to look into it. I don't know, that seems extreme to me. What seems extreme? She would think possibly I would die under there.

SPEAKER_02 20:48

But you easily could have uh dehydration and heat.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

I I actually actually haven't considered that. Um it was so hot. It was so hot.

SPEAKER_02 21:01

And you were malnourished. It does for me uh make me go how advanced was her thinking about how long you could live under there.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

I think she was calculating, certainly, when it came to me. The whole game was a calculation. And it's possible that she was more secretive about it than I was aware of. I do believe in the end that she wished I was dead. I did feel that. And as an adult, I do think you have to believe people when they're young. You know, as we grow older, we learn denial and we learn all these ways to cover up things and see things differently. And of course we have our own angle. But I I trust myself that that was a possibility because I really believed that at the time.

SPEAKER_02 21:54

Yeah, I believe that it was a possibility as well. I guess the other question I would have is do you remember how your mind worked while you were under there were you how you got through the hours?

SPEAKER_01 22:08

Boy that is a good question. You know I daydreamed I don't know what I thought of. You know, again it was a way of life. People adjust. We're animals. We just adjust. I remember just breathing in that air. I didn't sit upright for long because that's when it would be hottest. It wasn't always hot.

SPEAKER_02 22:29

I just remember when it was hot for me, I have a lot of feelings towards your mother just hearing that and it's just sad how dangerous people can be.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

And how many people live with that actually. Violent, yeah. Yeah. I'm not unique in that way. No, no. I just feel one reason I wanna do this is I feel fortunate enough to be able to tell it. Somehow I was lucky enough or had enough love in the beginning or there's some reason that I am able to tell it. But people live in all kinds of awful conditions. And we adapt. We endure animals endure and you endured. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 23:21

Thank you Sadie.

SPEAKER_01 23:22

Thank you Pamela