Cathy

Ellen, there were 2 visits that I couldn't remember where we were. Because I know around what age we were I thought we may have been with my mother. I thought that maybe my mother went to visit them or they meet on on the way to Arizona because I couldn't remember the surroundings. Then I flashed on the visitations at my dad's before he married my step mother. Those were where those 2 other visits were and not with my mother. They also were there after my father was married all 3 of them, when my dad went to St Louis for treatment. It was then they drew on our backs. She did know what was happening to us, and what she didn't see or hear Aunt Agnes told her. ~Cathy~ Ginny...this makes me know that she knew we ran away and everything we went through with my step mother(everything, not just the bruises). Cathy, From revised information you gave after your visit with Marna, I don't see how you could know that Aunt Alice and Uncle Frank knew about your step-mother's treatment of you and your sister. You changed the location and shrank the time period of the visits to your dad's from after his remarriage to before. I've bold-faced that part below. Ellen Also the things I remember after seeing Marna was both my aunts trying to teach us to play jax. I thought they were both teaching us, but really Aunt Alice was learning with us.

I just saw it - link. An attractive woman, imo, and she looks as sensitive and intelligent as I've been imagining her from your recollections. Ellen In my mind, she was our second mother. ~Cathy~

Ellen, there were 2 visits that I couldn't remember where we were. Because I know around what age we were I thought we may have been with my mother. I thought that maybe my mother went to visit them or they meet on on the way to Arizona because I couldn't remember the surroundings. Then I flashed on the visitations at my dad's before he married my step mother. Those were where those 2 other visits were and not with my mother. They also were there after my father was married all 3 of them, when my dad went to St Louis for treatment. It was then they drew on our backs. She did know what was happening to us, and what she didn't see or hear Aunt Agnes told her. ~Cathy~ Ginny...this makes me know that she knew we ran away and everything we went through with my step mother(everything, not just the bruises). Cathy, From revised information you gave after your visit with Marna, I don't see how you could know that Aunt Alice and Uncle Frank knew about your step-mother's treatment of you and your sister. You changed the location and shrank the time period of the visits to your dad's from after his remarriage to before. I've bold-faced that part below. Ellen

Yes I think "ayn" did have it right. She may have been thinking of Uncle Frank when she view children having to run away. I am happy to know "you made it out" ~Cathy~

Ginny...this makes me know that she knew we ran away and everything we went through with my step mother(everything, not just the bruises). Was this her first speech on children's rights? She was wrong...children didn't have rights...not in homes, courts, or government. Maybe I'm looking at her wrong. Maybe she was happy we ran away and felt the government wouldn't let her do anything to help us. Would you know if I could get juvenile records open if they are mine? I'd like to know what is in there. When you ran away at sixteen...did they catch you? I don't know how old you are...but I know when my uncles ran away, nothing was done to them. When I did...the police always caught me. I wasn't just put in foster home, I also was put in institutions (like prisons). What makes me angry about it, if I would have been an adult, I wouldn't be breaking the law. ~Cathy~

I just seen it...1974. I was 16...she knew, she left it up to the government, and basically said to run away. This just gives me more to think about now.

Posted Today, 06:12 PM Peter Taylor, on 23 Feb 2011 - 10:57 AM, said: Ayn advises children to run away as soon as they can? What an odd thing to think . . . and say! Semper cogitans fidele, Peter Taylor Arnold Baise on the old objectivism@wetheliving.com wrote in 2005: At her 1974 lecture at the Ford Hall Forum, Rand was asked about the rights of children. I have a recording of the question and answer session, so here is a verbatim transcript of her answer: Q: Do the rights of a child differ from the rights of an adult? A: Yes and no, from two different aspects. Yes [she meant No], in the sense that the child has the right to life, and liberty and the pursuit of happiness, except that all those rights are based on a man's rational knowledge and understanding. An infant cannot earn his own sustenance, nor can a child exercise his rights and know what the pursuit of happiness means, nor know what freedom is and how to use it. All human rights depend on his nature as a rational being. Therefore the child has to wait until he has developed his mind and acquired enough knowledge to be able to come into full independent exercise of his rights. While he is a child, he has to be supported by his parents. Neither he nor I nor you nor Nature gives him any choice about it, or rather none of us can do anything because this is a fact of nature. Proclaiming some kind of right of childhood isn't going to create those rights. Rights are a concept based on reality. Therefore a parent would not have the right to starve his child, to neglect him, to injure him physically or to kill him. There the government has to protect the child just like any other citizen. But the child cannot claim for himself the rights of an adult, simply because he is not able, he is not competent to exercise them. He has to depend on his parents, and if he doesn't like them, then run away from home as early as you can earn your living, if the government will permit it. I just read this...when did she say this????? ~Cathy~

Hmmmm...maybe she did teach us something after all...or knew what we were doing. ~Cathy~ p.s. when did she say this?

I know right?

Ellen Ellen, I found out through Marna that Aunt Agnes died in 1983...I didn't know she was alive all those years. When we didn't hear from them all that time, we assumed they were all dead. Connie was Aunt Agnes's youngest daughter. She is the one that was named after the O'Connor's before my sister Conny came along. I found out through Marna that Aunt Agnes was moving into an apartment in Il. when she died of a heart attack. Did you see her picture on find a grave...I put that on there. I also put the picture of St James church that all the O'Connor children were baptized at in Lorain. Marna told me Connie (her sister) died last year...I was a year to late looks like Ive been a little to late all my life. ~Cathy~

Yes...the night before the was a big argument between her and my step mother about how she treated me and my sister. When we got up for school the next morning there was a note on the table. We knew she wouldn't come back or be allowed back ~Cathy~

Yes, we were with my mom and step dad until we were eight. My mother got sick then my father came and got us. We lived with my father and step mother until we were thirteen, when my mother died. At thirteen we went into foster care...later we found our father who was still married to the step-witch lol. Its funny, but I can see her walking into a room with that thing on the end of her cigarette (and she always had it)...when she smoked, that cigarette would look a mile long to me ~Cathy~ I need to explain this better...at 8 my mom got sick. my dad came and got us. From 8 thru 13 we lived with my father and step mother waiting for our mother to get well and come get us. She died when we were 13. We knew there was nothing left for us to wait on at my fathers, so we ran away...a lot! Finally and thankfully, my dad took us and dropped us off at the detention home. After that we went into foster care. I got married at 17, conny got married at 18. We found our dad and Conny had him attend her wedding. We tried to have a relationship with our father....that did not go so well. Hope I cleared things up a bit. ~Cathy~

Aunt Agnes was always there until we were 12 or 13 when we got up that morning for school and she was gone. But Marna gave me a picture of her. ~Cathy~

Yes, we were with my mom and step dad until we were eight. My mother got sick then my father came and got us. We lived with my father and step mother until we were thirteen, when my mother died. At thirteen we went into foster care...later we found our father who was still married to the step-witch lol. Its funny, but I can see her walking into a room with that thing on the end of her cigarette (and she always had it)...when she smoked, that cigarette would look a mile long to me ~Cathy~ I need to explain this better...at 8 my mom got sick. my dad came and got us. From 8 thru 13 we lived with my father and step mother waiting for our mother to get well and come get us. She died when we were 13. We knew there was nothing left for us to wait on at my fathers, so we ran away...a lot! Finally and thankfully, my dad took us and dropped us off at the detention home. After that we went into foster care. I got married at 17, conny got married at 18. We found our dad and Conny had him attend her wedding. We tried to have a relationship with our father....that did go so well. Hope I cleared things up a bit. ~Cathy~

Yes Ginny, the one that mailed pictures to Conny was our step father ~Cathy~

Cathy, several questions: Were your sister and you in separate foster homes? Did you learn of your step-father's death at the time? If so, how? Was your mother's side of the family able to track you, just not the O'Connor side? Did you and/or your sister ever try to contact the O'Connors? Also, I've forgotten if you've ever mentioned anything about your maternal grandparents and when they died. Did they have any role in your childhood? Ellen HI Ellen, Yes, we were in separate foster homes when my step father died...this was not my father. We didn't find out he died until much much later...then we found out he died not long after he sent the pictures. We were in our mid twenties by the time we found our mother's side of the family. We found them...they tried to find us and couldn't. No, me and Conny did not try to find the O'Connor side, other than my dad. Conny did have my father in her wedding when she was eighteen...I did not. When we were adults, we did try to have a relationship with our father...it was hard to do because of our step mother. Last time I remember seeing my father, me and Conny were both there. My step mother said something mean to us, and I said something mean back. She hit me and I sent her flying! She or her family did not call me to let me know my father died, we were 21. Both sides of my grand parents died before we were born. ~Cathy~

WOW Daunce, you come from a very big family! You don't have any brothers or sisters? I don't know what I would do without my sister. Yes my mother owned the Mecca Nursing Home in Media Ohio. It was always my home away from home. She was very successful in business...just not in marriages. She married my step father who was an alcoholic, but he was very good to us. But because my mother died when we were young, he went through all her money and our trust founds. My mother worked all her life for us and he drank it up in a few years. Before my step father died, he mailed my sister pictures of my mother, he died when we were fifteen. There's a lot I would have like to asked him also. A few years ago, me and my husband talked about moving to Canada. I even looked up a work visa for us. I wish we would have done it...now its impossible. You Canadians sure now how to have fun it sounds like! ~Cathy~

I am finding out, its never to late for anything...thx. ~Cathy~

Fascinating. My parents were remarkable. As I have explained before, whenever I would ask what a word meant, my father. or, my mother would say. "That's a good question, let's go look it up." We would then go to the unabridged dictionary that was in the dining room on a wooden device that my father built. It kept the dictionary open so you would simply go to the first letter and explore our language. Their methodology was so not threatening and so explorative that I never realized that my upbringing was so different from my contemporaries. I was blessed and never realized that I was to have great parents. A... You had great parents...I liked their open book policy most, in more ways than it implies ~Cathy~

lol...since I have been on here, I use the dictionary more than I ever did all through school! Hey...I'm getting free therapy and free education...thx ~Cathy~

LOL! See...that's why I like all of you, even tho I have to use a dictionary most of the time. I have taken myself back to the beginning...I was born to two very good people. Even tho they were to old to have children...that was the first mistake. Even tho my parents were divorce they were still good parents. My mother and father never talked bad about each other to us. I only seen one disagreement between them when I was five...my dad grab my mother's arms...and I remember it like it was yesterday. I even know what I was wearing...so I know how that does traumatize a child. I wonder sometimes where my life would have been if my mother hadn't have gotten sick and died...or my dad wouldn't have married the evil woman from hell. But what's strange to me, is my mother never told us about Aunt Alice either. I wonder if my parents were in agreement on hiding this from us...and why? Was Aunt Alice so radical back in the sixties? I think I was lucky to a point...for eight years I did have a solid foundation, even tho I came from divorce parents. I never had to sit and wait for my father on visiting day who wouldn't show up...my father always came to get us. My mother was a registered nurse and owned a nursing home...while my father was a professional poker player who was very good at it. My mother was out going and out spoken, my father was very calm and not expressive. I have both of their traits and nothing in between. I am out spoken when it comes to my family, my house and my money. I pay all the bills and run the household, like my mother. I am a very good poker player, but I avoid any confrontations anyway I can and I have a hard time expressing myself, like my father. It is so much easier for me to write it than talk it. Either it was predisposed in our DNA or we learned it young to not talk about things. My father didn't know half of what my step mother did. When he was diagnosed with cancer and was in the hospital, my step mother came home and told us we gave my father cancer. She beat us for it and we were put on stools in the corner all night long. We never told our father...we never told anybody...that's the O'Connor trait I hate. Uncle Frank was the same way. Uncle Frank would have never told anybody about the affair...it was Aunt Alice who told Aunt Agnes about it. If Uncle Frank started drinking heavily, I thinks its because he couldn't talk to anybody and kept everything to himself, while Aunt Alice had everyone to talk to. Yes, I still do wish they were still here, I have a lot to ask and a lot to say...now. ~Cathy~

LOL!

Happy Birthday Michael! Hope you have a great day!

LOL! Ginny your funny! Yeah, this forum is like free therapy...you all are my shrink ~Cathy~ p.s. thx

Ginny, I hear what your saying, and I think I already had the private pity party way back when. That's the reason my life got so out of hand. I am not the same person I was when I left my father's house and never will be again. I did try to think of other things when memories would pop in my head...and then it just triggered more memories. I think they are memories I should have and I shouldn't run from them. From the outside looking in we were a normal Catholic family, where everyone knew my Aunt had a great mind and was a great philosopher. You say the ending wont be different, but it already is different...I know now I'm not weak like my father, I am not fake like my aunt and I'm not evil like my step mother. I see them all for who they really are. They didn't want anyone to know about Uncle Frank's drinking or Aunt Alice's affair or the twins that were being abused and abandon....typical O'Connor style, but its all out now. I have to smile somewhat, they thought all their secrets would go to the grave with them...again, typical O'Connor style. ~Cathy~