Post #62 – Women’s Memoir Writing, ScrapMoir – Matilda Butler and Kendra Bonnett
by Bettyann Schmidt,
Women’s Memoirs Scrapbooking Blogger
It took me a long time to not judge myself through someone else’s eyes. ~ Sally Field
Who Has Made You Believe?
In 1973, my ex formed his own band, and began recording an album of original music, most of which was written by his brother. Eventually someone who mattered heard them and offered a contract, front money, and a list of clubs to be played after some initial recordings. It was what we’d been waiting for. The big break.
Their first record was played on the FM rock station in Nashville between David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” and John Denver’s “Rocky Mountain High.” They packed up and hit the road. The band’s drummer would be leaving his young wife, Karen, and their child, Nichole, just as the others were leaving their families. I invited Karen and Nichole to come stay with me and my children.
That invitation set in motion one of two profound changes to my future life.
Karen was about ten years younger than me, and her daughter was my youngest boy’s age. The band had spent the advance money on new equipment and travel expenses, so we were essentially broke. The clubs paid the group for their appearances, and we’d get checks. At first. Then the checks stopped. Things weren’t going so well on the road.
When my husband called, there was always bad news. Some of the clubs weren’t paying what they’d signed up for. The van broke down and cost a lot to repair. The group members were arguing among themselves, heated arguments that would finally break them apart and put an end to the whole venture.
All Karen and I knew is that we had to support ourselves. Karen got a job as a waitress at a good restaurant, and I kept all the kids. In the evenings, she’d come home with pockets full of tip money for me to buy groceries with the next day. She also brought home take out food for her and me. When the kids were asleep in bed, we’d eat, watch TV, and talk.
Karen had grown up Catholic in New Jersey, just like I had in Cincinnati. Catholic school, the whole works. We could stay up most of the night trading stories, and we became close friends.
One evening, Karen opened a kitchen cabinet and a dish came flying out which almost smacked her in the face. She yelled, “That was stupid, putting it in there like that,” and I reacted quickly with a tearful, “I’m so sorry.” I was crushed that I’d caused something to almost hurt her.
Karen’s eyes curiously held my own for a few seconds, and she finally said, “It was just an accident. You didn’t do anything really bad or anything. Why do you always act like this?” I didn’t know what she was talking about, and I told her so.
“You just assumed I was calling you stupid. I said it was a stupid thing to do. There’s a difference. You can’t take criticism. It’s because you don’t have any self-esteem.”
I was dumbstruck. No one had ever spoken to me like this. I’d been criticized, yes, all of my life. But no one said I reacted to it incorrectly. And, definitely, no one had ever said I had no self-esteem. I didn’t know what to say.
She went on to tell me she heard how my husband put me down and had wanted to say something but didn’t. She said, “He wants you to feel like you’re not as smart as him or as talented as him, and you just believe him.”
I wanted to say he was smarter than me and more talented than me, but I didn’t think she wanted to hear that, so I didn’t say anything.
That night Karen tried to make me understand that I was intelligent and capable of almost anything I wanted to do, that I had gifts all my own. I wanted to believe her, but it was hard. I’d been married to a man who’d belittled me for over ten years, and I saw myself through his eyes finally.
It’s hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head. ~ Sally Kempton, Esquire, 1970.
My mind, however, couldn’t dismiss Karen’s words that night. They kept coming back to me. I’d recall them some nights right before I fell asleep, or when I was watching my children play, when I was in the kitchen cooking.
Anyone who ever gave you confidence, you owe them a lot. ~Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, 1958, spoken by the character Holly Golightly
Do You Remember the First Open Door?
Five years later. The band came back home, everyone went their own way, and Karen and her daughter went back home to New Jersey. We bought an old house in an old neighborhood, and when Eric entered kindergarten I decided it was time for me to go back to work.
I landed a job quickly at Vanderbilt Medical Center as a secretary. It wasn’t exactly what I wanted, but one of the reasons I took the job was the campus. It reminded me of home, living close to the University of Cincinnati. I’ve always loved college campuses and felt at home there because of where I grew up.
I worked in the Department of Radiology and Radiological Sciences, chaired by A. Everette James, Jr., a young, energetic visionary. He is still known in medical circles for his extraordinary leadership in putting together one of the world’s foremost radiological science centers. He wooed the most talented doctors and scientists from the four corners of the globe. He was unstoppable.
Within a year he was running an unprecedented division of academic medicine, admired and spoken of in the major journals. Medical students wanted residencies in radiology, and Everette James’s department was the word on the streets.
A heady excitement permeated the offices and the halls daily. This was the era of “publish or perish,” and there was plenty in our department to write about.
We secured one of the first MRI machines which had an entire room built for it. Our doctors were writing journal articles by the boatload.
I wanted to be part of that excitement, not just a behind-the-scenes secretary. So I found something outstanding I could do. I’d noticed something not working that I could fix.
Almost every time a file was needed, it couldn’t be found. I’d seen Dr. James’s secretary nervously flipping through tons of files on a daily basis while he waited not patiently. He was a man on the go. He wanted files at his fingertips.
To make matters more involved, he’d brought all of his files from Hopkins which took up a good part of his private office.
One morning I asked the secretary what I could do to help with the filing problem. Red-faced, she opened her bottom desk drawer which revealed a large stack of files. She did not know how to file, had never been taught. She was merely a gorgeous woman sitting at the front desk to the chief’s inner sanctum.
I spent weeks organizing every file in the department, including Dr. James’ Hopkins files. When I was finished, I typed up a thick file index and put it into a folder. It included every file and every cross-reference anyone would need. I presented it to the office manager, who gave it to Dr. James. He personally came to thank me. I’d gotten his attention. It was a well-planned step. I had a deeper motive.
Shortly after taking the secretary job, I began looking at the positions posted on the walls weekly, all of the positions throughout the Vanderbilt campus. When I noticed that my own department was looking for an editorial assistant, I got excited. What if….
Those two words became my mantra, “What if.”
I recalled Karen’s motivating talks five years earlier. I prayed no one would get that position too quickly. I needed time.
I had also started taking classes soon after taking the job and had completed several , one in medical terminology and another in anatomy, and a journalism class at Tennessee State University. It wasn’t easy taking care of the home and four children, working, plus taking classes, but I knew it would prove worth it.
I’d worked right out of high school at Cincinnati General as a stenographer and took English comp courses in the evenings at Xavier University, so I felt I had something at least to show despite the degree requirement posted for the editorial position.
Spirit can walk, spirit can swim, spirit can climb, spirit can crawl. There is no terrain you cannot overcome. ~ Terri Guillemets
Finally Finding My Gift
I was afraid that day I walked into the department chairman’s office and felt his eyes scrutinize me. The office manager said I needed to approach him directly if I had any chance of getting the job I wanted.
He invited me to have a seat on the leather sofa facing his monstrous executive desk. I’d practiced my words, and surprisingly I spoke with more confidence than I’d expected.
After I briefly went over my education, I told him how much I wanted the position and felt I was capable of handling it. I remember his eyes as I held his gaze. Penetrating, judging. I believe he was measuring the cost of believing in me.
I stated I’d do the job for thirty days, and if he wasn’t happy, I’d be glad to move back down to secretary. He smiled at those words. And then he said, “Okay. Let’s see what you can do.”
I floated on those words the rest of the day, as I prepared to move into the library where the editorial office was then located. Later, as I proved my worth, I was given a private office. It’s hard to describe how much I loved that job. I can tell you how much I learned, though.
Dr. James, besides being a doctor of medicine, also held a law degree. One of the books published during my time working for him, was Legal Medicine With Special Reference to Diagnostic Imaging, which included chapters by 25 experts in the field.
I coordinated all of the manuscripts and images, and I even got to index the book. I’d never enjoyed work so much in my life.
I learned a lot about law, especially in the chapter, Forensic Medicine, which I found fascinating. I didn’t know at the time that I was learning valuable information for a career in court reporting which came four years later.
Those five historic Vanderbilt years as editorial assistant to Dr. Everette James’, the many associates and collaborators he introduced me to, all of the staff of experts in the department who I helped publish, that whole experience taught me to believe in myself. I’d become a career woman who excelled at something all my own.
I would never go back to the old me. My career broke my marriage to an insecure man and paved the road for a very contrasted new life.
Never dull your shine for somebody else. ~ Tyra Banks
In 1980, I moved up to Assistant Editor for Vanderbilt’s Peabody Journal of Education, and from there to freelance court reporter for the State of Tennessee. This last position is the one that made it possible to support myself as a single mom.
How To Find Who Your Teachers Were
What are you good at? There is something you excel at, your special gift.
Once you find your gift, what you are good at, you will be able to recognize your teachers. Someone in your past has influenced you to become who you are. Write about those people and how they helped you.
You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. ~ Dr. Seuss
Let us know how this post has inspired you to search for and identify your mentors, your teachers.
Bettyann Schmidt
Be sure to join me on my blog:
Journey2f.blogspot.com
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