Frank's Niece!

[Ellen Stuttle]

ok...first things first.

I will listr the order of each family; you are right Ellen about my father and sibling. Except Nick's name was Harry, and Bill's name was John.

Aunt Agnes

Marnia (MiMi)

Lee

Marna (Dockey)

Connor (Connie)

She also had a baby girl named Denise born Feb 13th but died when she was 7 months old.

Margret...I know nothing about, right now anyway.

Elizabeth Aunt Bess)

Larry

Gil

Ellen

Denny

Danny

John (my dad)

Cathy

Conny

agnes died 1983

John died 1980 birthdate was Dec 29 1902

I don't know the rest.

My oldest adopted sister was my mom and her first husbands child.. She was not my dad's.

Continuing with piecing together who's who, and chronology.

Heller says that Dennis (Frank's father, Cathy's grandfather) "died in late December 1938, at the age of seventy-four [...]" (pg. 124).

That would make 1864 his birth year.

So:

Dennis, 1864-1938

Frank was born September 22, 1897 (died November 9, 1979).

John (Bill) was born December 29, 1902 (died 1980).

So Agnes and Margaret were born, in that order, at dates between June 1898 (allowing nine months after Frank's birth) and March 1902 (allowing nine months before John/Bill's birth).

Agnes died in 1983. Figuring that 1901 was the latest she could have been born, she was at minimum 81 when she died.

Children not mentioned before:

Agnes' child Lee

Was Lee a girl or boy?

Elizabeth's children Larry and Gil.

Do you know anything about them?

I haven't found a word about Margaret except her name in the list of children on pg. 84 of Barbara's book. Heller doesn't mention her.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

Here's an interesting tidbit I noticed because I was double-checking Frank's birthdate.

In the chronology at the start of 100 Voices are these dates:

1904 - May 3: [Rand's] Parents married

1905 - February 2 (January 20 on Julian calendar): [Rand] Born in St. Petersburg

May 3 - February 2

Anna was either already pregnant when she married, or she became so quickly afterward.

Ellen

[Ellen Stuttle]

Cathy,Your latest information about Eddie's Cigar Store and such like are giving me clues about something I've been wondering about, why there's no detailed mention of the rest of Frank's family besides Nick and Mimi and a little about Joe in Barbara's book.Maybe it was a bit too "raunchy," shall we say, to fit the picture of the relatives of Rand's husband.Ellen

It's wonderful, Duddy Kravitz meets Howard Roark, Tansky's Cigar & Soda opens in Galt's Gulch/

LOL. Yeah, that's just the sort of juxtaposition it conjures. Not "integrated" in proper O'ist style.

Ellen

[Cathy]

Ellen,

Never mind Neil, and what he thinks is or isn't likely because it would or wouldn't have happened in his family. LOL

You think it is likely that Aunt Alice would tell Cathy about Frank's sexuality and that Cathy's mother would tell her about Rand's alleged abortion?

-Neil Parille

Neil, it wasn't Aunt Alice...it was Aunt Agnes who told me, And it was Uncle Nick's. Aunt Agnes told me about the abortion to, and she did have one.~Cathy~

[Cathy]

ok...first things first.

I will listr the order of each family; you are right Ellen about my father and sibling. Except Nick's name was Harry, and Bill's name was John.

Aunt Agnes

Marnia (MiMi)

Lee

Marna (Dockey)

Connor (Connie)

She also had a baby girl named Denise born Feb 13th but died when she was 7 months old.

Margret...I know nothing about, right now anyway.

Elizabeth Aunt Bess)

Larry

Gil

Ellen

Denny

Danny

John (my dad)

Cathy

Conny

agnes died 1983

John died 1980 birthdate was Dec 29 1902

I don't know the rest.

My oldest adopted sister was my mom and her first husbands child.. She was not my dad's.

Continuing with piecing together who's who, and chronology.

Heller says that Dennis (Frank's father, Cathy's grandfather) "died in late December 1938, at the age of seventy-four [...]" (pg. 124).

That would make 1864 his birth year.

So:

Dennis, 1864-1938

Frank was born September 22, 1897 (died November 9, 1979).

John (Bill) was born December 29, 1902 (died 1980).

So Agnes and Margaret were born, in that order, at dates between June 1898 (allowing nine months after Frank's birth) and March 1902 (allowing nine months before John/Bill's birth).

Agnes died in 1983. Figuring that 1901 was the latest she could have been born, she was at minimum 81 when she died.

Children not mentioned before:

Agnes' child Lee

Was Lee a girl or boy?

Elizabeth's children Larry and Gil.

Do you know anything about them?

I haven't found a word about Margaret except her name in the list of children on pg. 84 of Barbara's book. Heller doesn't mention her.

Ellen

I never met any of Aunt Agnes's children. By the time I moved into my father house her children where grown with families of their own. She talked about them a lot. Lee was her son. She talked About Aunt Bess's children to, and no, I never meet them either. ~Cathy~

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Another example is even more serious. Cathy asked several times so far why Rand did not stand up for her when she was a child who received brutal beatings and Rand knew about them. After all, Rand was a famous activist and, although she did not say it, I know some of the more Rand Myth people have thought it by now, Rand preached that initiation of force was sheer evil. So what could be a purer example of this sheer evil be than a small child being savagely beaten right under her nose, in her very family? As an adult, Cathy asked where was she? In her subconscious, she's been asking for almost half a century. It's a fair question, too. I would be asking the same damn thing in her shoes. Definitely not one of Rand's finer choices.

Michael, I have reviewed all of Cathy's posts to this point here and on SOLO and the closest I can get to her supporting your statement is her 89, 104 and 135. Did you get something off her Facebook page?

--Brant

I couldn't quite understand what she was writing about in 104

Brant,

Here's how I understand it, but I might have some things wrong. (And I hope Cathy corrects me if I do.)

Cathy has a twin sister, Conny. They were born in 1958 when her parents, John and Pauline, were up in the years. When the twins were very young her parents divorced and her mother later had a stroke.

John remarried. Enter the stepmother from hell. (I haven't found her name yet.) Cathy's stepmother made the evil stepmother in Cinderella look like a saint and she constantly beat the twins bad enough to leave bruises on them.

Frank was John's brother and Agnes was his sister. Uncle Frank and Aunt Agnes to the twins. When Frank would come around, he obviously brought "kooky Aunt Alice" (Ayn Rand) with him.

If I understand correctly, Agnes had started playing a game with the twins of drawing letters (and words?) on their backs. And Rand did it, too, probably when they were visiting at the same time. I imagine she watched Agnes do it and chimed in. Cathy thinks part of the reason they did this was to have an excuse to raise her and her sister's shirts and look at the bruises on their backs without letting them know.

Agnes got really pissed about the abuse one night and had a nasty falling out with Cathy's father. Cathy and her sister Conny listened to argument from another room and were happy and hopeful that this would change things for them, like maybe end the beatings. But this was the last time Agnes ever visited.

From in between the lines, I gather Cathy and Conny became little hell-raisers on their own. (Sorry, Cathy. I kinda know this culture from growing up in something similar, so I speculate. If I'm wrong, please correct me.) Cathy mentioned several times that she ran away and the police would bring her back. I gather it was more than once. Later, bouncing around foster homes, she ran away several times, too.

But before that, her father John got sick with cancer and started thinking of dumping the twins on Pauline, their biological mother. But Pauline had gotten ill with a stroke and had not recovered. Then she died. The girls were 13 and there went that plan out the window. As John was increasingly ill and weak, he finally turned the girls over to foster care. I don't know what happened to the evil stepmother during John's illness.

Cathy thinks the world of her aunt Agnes. From what I gather, Agnes was her main source of the family lore while she was young and still living with her father.

Now, after all these years, she remembers the drawing on the back games and knows her aunt Alice was aware of the beatings. And it hurts and pisses her off that her aunt stood by and did nothing. Even more so after she learned her aunt was a famous author. As icing on that cake, a promoter of reason, individual rights, etc.

I hope I got that right.

I didn't get any of this from her Facebook page. That is more devoted to her life and chit-chat and photos, etc., like a normal Facebook page is.

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

Cathy,Your latest information about Eddie's Cigar Store and such like are giving me clues about something I've been wondering about, why there's no detailed mention of the rest of Frank's family besides Nick and Mimi and a little about Joe in Barbara's book.

Maybe it was a bit too "raunchy," shall we say, to fit the picture of the relatives of Rand's husband.

Ellen

I have no idea. Did they mention anything about Margaret? I can not for the life of me remember her. I don't remember any visits from her, or Aunt Agnes saying much about her. Did she die young? Now I am also wondering if the reason my dad said he wasn't fond of Aunt Alice because she was Jewish, and didn't want me to know she was Atheist. Isn't a biography suppose to be about her whole life, or just parts they want people to know? BTW, it must have been Donahue that triggered the memory, if you didn't say Elizabeth. Whatever I'm glad it did lol. Does anyone on hear talk to Barbra? If she was Aunt Alice's friend...don't you think she would know about the family? Did Connie ever say that my grandparents ever found out about the abortion? ~Cathy~ sorry so many questions

Nothing about Margaret, except her name listed among Dennis's children in Barbara's book. Not even that in Heller's.

Maybe she died young.

She'd have to be more than a hundred if she's still alive, since she was older than your dad, who you say was born in 1902.

Wouldn't it be something if the reason there's no mention of her is because she ran away from home and became an adventuress?

Your grandmother died when Frank was about fifteen. Do you mean a step-grandma?

I'm sorry. I misremembered which of the Papurt girls told Heller about the abortion. It was Mimi not Connie.

EDIT : SORRY AGAIN. Eye troubles don't help.

Looks like it was MARNA - MW - not MIMI - MS - who was being interviewed and told Heller of the abortion. That also makes sense of the being a toddler, although it would probably date the abortion as the late 20s.

The references in Heller's book are slight:

pg. 128

At one point [this seems to have been during one of the times Mimi was staying with Ayn and Frank] he [Frank] told [Mimi] that he would have liked to have children but that "it wouldn't fit with Ayn." Mimi may already have known of her aunt's decision to have an abortion earlier in the 1930s, since Mimi's father, A. M. Papurt, had loaned O'Connor the money to pay for it. It is interesting to note that children do not figure much in Rand's fictional universe, with the exception of a few flashbacks and the character of eight-year-old Acia Dunaeva in We the Living, who behaves like a spoiled five-year-old. In homage to their philosopher-queen and her characters, some of her followers would also forgo having children.

The endnotes give these references:

For the phrase "it wouldn't fit with Ayn," a taped interview with Mimi conducted by Barbara February 18, 1983.

For the decision to have an abortion, Heller says:

Agnes Papurt told her daughter MW that she, [Marna], had been a toddler when this event took place, which would set it in the early 1930s (author interviews with [Marna], June 21, 2004, and December 21, 2005).

SCRATCH the part about Heller's missaddition.

Heller's addition can't be right about when Mimi was a toddler, not if Mimi was 20 in 1939, as Barbara says, but then Barbara has something off too, since she says Mimi was 16 at her grandfather's funeral.

But if Mimi was 20 in 1939, then she couldn't have been a toddler when the abortion happened, since that would place the abortion before Rand even came to America.

Something is off somewhere.

The only other reference to the abortion is in a passage pertaining to Ayn's and Frank's years in California on the ranch (1944-1951). I'll quote a two-paragraph part, since this also has material about Ayn's relationship with Marna.

pg. 181

O'Connor's niece Mimi Papurt, now married and called Mimi Sutton, hadn't made her way to California. But she and Rand wrote letters to each other. Mimi's father, A. M. Papurt, the man who had once loaned the O'Connor's money for an abortion, had died a few years earlier, leaving the young woman's mother and two younger sisters impoverished--so much so that the elder of the two, Marna, had quit high school to help support them. Mimi had been badgering Marna to finish school, and in the spring of 1946 she asked Rand for help in bringing Marna to Boston, where Mimi and her husband lived, to earn her highschool diploma. She and Frank agreed to pay fifty dollars a month, plus the cost of transportation from Ohio, plus school clothes.

The arrangement led to a misunderstanding. Marna had dropped out during the second semester of her junior year. To graduate, she had to complete three semesters. Rand was under the impression that the girl was supposed to graduate in one year. Marna re-entered school in April and finished her junior year in June. But she was forced to leave school again the following April, because Rand stopped sending money. The writer, who didn't understand, or wouldn't make allowances for, the traditional school-year calendar, was furious with Marna. "She said, 'You told me you'd finish,'" the niece recalled. Marna found a job with a traveling magician, whom she married, and eventually earned an equivalency diploma and attended college. But a strain developed on both sides.

[The strain didn't last long, as is said in a later passage.]

The references for the passage are letters from AR to Mimi, and Heller's June 21, 2004, interview of Marna.

Ellen

[Cathy]

Another example is even more serious. Cathy asked several times so far why Rand did not stand up for her when she was a child who received brutal beatings and Rand knew about them. After all, Rand was a famous activist and, although she did not say it, I know some of the more Rand Myth people have thought it by now, Rand preached that initiation of force was sheer evil. So what could be a purer example of this sheer evil be than a small child being savagely beaten right under her nose, in her very family? As an adult, Cathy asked where was she? In her subconscious, she's been asking for almost half a century. It's a fair question, too. I would be asking the same damn thing in her shoes. Definitely not one of Rand's finer choices.

Michael, I have reviewed all of Cathy's posts to this point here and on SOLO and the closest I can get to her supporting your statement is her 89, 104 and 135. Did you get something off her Facebook page?

--Brant

I couldn't quite understand what she was writing about in 104

Brant,

Here's how I understand it, but I might have some things wrong. (And I hope Cathy corrects me if I do.)

Cathy has a twin sister, Conny. They were born in 1958 when her parents, John and Pauline, were up in the years. When the twins were very young her parents divorced and her mother later had a stroke.

John remarried. Enter the stepmother from hell. (I haven't found her name yet.) Cathy's stepmother made the evil stepmother in Cinderella look like a saint and she constantly beat the twins bad enough to leave bruises on them.

Frank was John's brother and Agnes was his sister. Uncle Frank and Aunt Agnes to the twins. When Frank would come around, he obviously brought "kooky Aunt Alice" (Ayn Rand) with him.

If I understand correctly, Agnes had started playing a game with the twins of drawing letters (and words?) on their backs. And Rand did it, too, probably when they were visiting at the same time. I imagine she watched Agnes do it and chimed in. Cathy thinks part of the reason they did this was to have an excuse to raise her and her sister's shirts and look at the bruises on their backs without letting them know.

Agnes got really pissed about the abuse one night and had a nasty falling out with Cathy's father. Cathy and her sister Conny listened to argument from another room and were happy and hopeful that this would change things for them, like maybe end the beatings. But this was the last time Agnes ever visited.

From in between the lines, I gather Cathy and Conny became little hell-raisers on their own. (Sorry, Cathy. I kinda know this culture from growing up in something similar, so I speculate. If I'm wrong, please correct me.) Cathy mentioned several times that she ran away and the police would bring her back. I gather it was more than once. Later, bouncing around foster homes, she ran away several times, too.

But before that, her father John got sick with cancer and started thinking of dumping the twins on Pauline, their biological mother. But Pauline had gotten ill with a stroke and had not recovered. Then she died. The girls were 13 and there went that plan out the window. As John was increasingly ill and weak, he finally turned the girls over to foster care. I don't know what happened to the evil stepmother during John's illness.

Cathy thinks the world of her aunt Agnes. From what I gather, Agnes was her main source of the family lore while she was young and still living with her father.

Now, after all these years, she remembers the drawing on the back games and knows her aunt Alice was aware of the beatings. And it hurts and pisses her off that her aunt stood by and did nothing. Even more so after she learned her aunt was a famous author. As icing on that cake, a promoter of reason, individual rights, etc.

I hope I got that right.

I didn't get any of this from her Facebook page. That is more devoted to her life and chit-chat and photos, etc., like a normal Facebook page is.

Michael

On Solo and this site is the first time anyone other than my best friend since I was thirteen knows this much about my life back then. Susan Jane O'Connor was my step mother's name. You've got it right...of course there is much more. Yes I am angry about Aunt Alice...even if she didn't see the bruises, she knew because Aunt Agnes would have told her. My sister called at four this morning...she remembers (and now I do to) at my mother's funeral, someone gave my father a box of pictures of us living with my mother. They were everyday pictures and school pictures...much better years for us. The Monday after the funeral we had to go to school, my step mother made us take out this sloppy bag of garbage. We thought it was weird because my dad always took at the garbage. We went out and open the garbage lid to the trash can, and down at the bottom sat all those pictures. We had to dump that sloppy mess of garbage on our whole life and memories of our mother. It was the first time ever we walked to school in silence. Conny was very upset. Either she's going to back down (she is an O'Connor after all) or I can pull her through all this. I really think it would helps us both. ~Cathy~

[Cathy]

ok...first things first.

I will listr the order of each family; you are right Ellen about my father and sibling. Except Nick's name was Harry, and Bill's name was John.

Aunt Agnes

Marnia (MiMi)

Lee

Marna (Dockey)

Connor (Connie)

She also had a baby girl named Denise born Feb 13th but died when she was 7 months old.

Margret...I know nothing about, right now anyway.

Elizabeth Aunt Bess)

Larry

Gil

Ellen

Denny

Danny

John (my dad)

Cathy

Conny

agnes died 1983

John died 1980 birthdate was Dec 29 1902

I don't know the rest.

My oldest adopted sister was my mom and her first husbands child.. She was not my dad's.

Continuing with piecing together who's who, and chronology.

Heller says that Dennis (Frank's father, Cathy's grandfather) "died in late December 1938, at the age of seventy-four [...]" (pg. 124).

That would make 1864 his birth year.

So:

Dennis, 1864-1938

Frank was born September 22, 1897 (died November 9, 1979).

John (Bill) was born December 29, 1902 (died 1980).

So Agnes and Margaret were born, in that order, at dates between June 1898 (allowing nine months after Frank's birth) and March 1902 (allowing nine months before John/Bill's birth).

Agnes died in 1983. Figuring that 1901 was the latest she could have been born, she was at minimum 81 when she died.

Children not mentioned before:

Agnes' child Lee

Was Lee a girl or boy?

Elizabeth's children Larry and Gil.

Do you know anything about them?

I haven't found a word about Margaret except her name in the list of children on pg. 84 of Barbara's book. Heller doesn't mention her.

Ellen

I never met any of Aunt Agnes's children. By the time I moved into my father house her children where grown with families of their own. She talked about them a lot. Lee was her son. She talked About Aunt Bess's children to, and no, I never meet them either. ~Cathy~

BTW Aunt Agnes told me her father (my grandfather) was buried Christmas eve. Do you know if I have this right? And if I have Harry (nick) getting his nick name Nick Carter when he was in the service right also. Also Aunt Agnes told my Uncle Nick died from Tuberculosis...anybody know? ~Cathy~

[Brant Gaede]

Well, we don't know just what Ayn and Frank knew and experienced regarding what happened to the twins based on the face value of what Cathy has told us. But the step-mother did it and her father didn't stop it.

SOLO will no longer be a friendly place for you Cathy, not after all you've posted here. The guy who runs it hates OL and James Valliant is not a witness to anything whatsoever apropos. He only wants to attack the Brandens.

--Brant

[Ellen Stuttle]

BTW Aunt Agnes told me her father (my grandfather) was buried Christmas eve. Do you know if I have this right? And if I have Harry (nick) getting his nick name Nick Carter when he was in the service right also. Also Aunt Agnes told my Uncle Nick died from Tuberculosis...anybody know? ~Cathy~

I don't find a date for your grandfather's funeral, just "late December."

Nick had lung troubles from the war. Here's what Barbara says :

pg. 193

It was in the mid-forties that Nick became seriously ill. He had been hospitalized a number of times with lung trouble, which had become more severe over the years since he was gassed in World War I. Ayn and Frank invited him to come to California and live with them until he became well. He did so, and for several months Frank cared tenderly for his beloved brother. But shortly after his return to New York, Nick entered theVeterans Hospital in Saranac, where he died. [....]

I vaguely recall hearing or reading that Nick took the name "Nick Carter" as a professional name when he was working as a journalist, but I don't find a statement that that is why he took the name, only that he did.

He's described in his first appearance in Heller's book (pg. 67) as:

[...] Harry, who called himself Nick Carter and found occasional work as a newspaper reporter.

Ellen

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Brant,

There's an element I didn't say, but Cathy has mentioned a couple of times. Her Aunt Agnes was married to a Jewish man. Since Ayn Rand was from Jewish people, this was a point of rapport within an Irish Catholic situation. Cathy stated somewhere that she believes Agnes's husband was the one who loaned Rand money for her abortion since this would be totally against the nature of the Catholic people.

I have no reason to doubt that Rand knew about the beatings from Agnes or from playing the game with the kids (if she did). If Agnes told the family about Aunt Alice having an affair, why would she be silent on something like this? It's inconsistent to imagine she would be.

I'm sure Cathy's memory will settle after a while and she will be able to give her best considered recollection.

Why didn't Rand do anything? I think she was looking at a bigger view than family and that's where her attention went. You have to choose your battles, so to speak. But the people left out and left behind can resent it, especially when there is something deeply unfair and hurtful involved.

People are human beings, not just premises.

Anyway, I don't think this detracts from Rand as a whole. Not at all. It's ugly, but it's understandable if you try to look at it through Rand's eyes. And I certainly don't think she ever condoned or agreed with the beatings. She just didn't do anything about them other than talk to Agnes and Frank, maybe. It's just one more facet to a complex fascinating human being.

I want the truth with Rand, not the myth.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

I don't agree with your analysis enough to endorse it, Michael, but in the situation described Ayn may have considered Agnes the go to responsible follow up person in the situation. Agnes, of course, was subsequently blown out. These days you pick up the phone and call Child Protective Services--who can be real bitches--while in those days it was more in house. We can speculate that domestic issues were contrary to Ayn's artificial reality where she viewed her friends and acquaintances hierarchically, with her and Nathaniel at the heroic top. No real room for children there, and not much for adults either.

--Brant

just how much truth do you want and need?--it can be taken down to microscopic level--the only thing important here so far is Cathy taking care of a painful past--Barbara spiked the Rand-myth business without spiking Rand

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

just how much truth do you want and need?

Brant,

Enough to keep people from intimidating a person of goodwill who is coming out of a long-closed shell.

But that's kind of a silly question to me.

It's like asking how much health do you want and need?

EDIT: Maybe you're right. Maybe I've got too much truth and need some lies to help balance it out. (See how silly that sounds?)

Michael

[Ellen Stuttle]

Cathy,

There's more about both Nick and Mimi in both Barbara's and Heller's books. If you get farther into using a computer, you could search both books on Googlebooks search.

Sorry again for mixing up - twice - which of the three sisters told Heller about the abortion (see my post 307). Heller can be hard to track with the way she puts things into the middle of a different context, and then you have to go to the endnotes to figure out who's saying what. She was talking about Mimi when she mentioned the abortion in passing, but then, carefully looking at the endnote, I finally noticed that it was MW (Marna Wolf) whose interview she cited as the source.

Ellen

[PDS]

... the posters on this site are invariably interesting, well-read, and mostly recovering Rand aficionados.

David,

Bullcrap.

Most still are Rand aficionados. Just not fanatics.

And most are not recovering from anything. They just have a place to talk as they honestly think instead of being peer pressured into a party line.

I grant you some folks fit your description. Part of my own transformation from a Randroid-like jerk to a drug addict, then to a reasoned position might look like I am "recovering." But I am "recovered," both from the cult thinking and from the drugs. I have been for years. That's far more precise.

I fully agree that most are "invariably interesting" and "well-read." If you have any more praise of OL members, I will most certainly agree with it.

Michael

What's with the hypersensitivity on this thread?

When I say, in jest, that I am a recovering golfer, it means I used to be an avid golfer and now have put the sport in perspective, so to speak.

And, by the way, I beg to differ about people on this site not "recovering" from anything. My impression is that we are all, in one sense, are "recovering" from our experience with Ayn Rand's writings and Ayn Rand the person, whether it be some version of Orange Hair Syndrome, or your reference to Randroids, or the PARC Wars, as you call them. That is actually one of the more amazing things about Ayn Rand: you can't touch the grail without getting some form of a shock to your system.

Virtually everybody who posts on this site has some version of this story to tell, and given your fondness of the role of "story" in virtually all elements of life, it should be no mystery that this is one of the reasons people enjoy this site, i.e., they are sharing their post-Rand "story" with one another.

[Mark]

Perhaps some people here never had anything from which to recover.

PDS can speak for himself. He cannot possibly speak for everybody here (as he starts by doing), or "virtually" everybody (as he ends by doing) either.

Though if MSK allows these sorts of statements to stand uncontested they’ll become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Only recovering alcoholics need apply.

[Cathy]

Well, we don't know just what Ayn and Frank knew and experienced regarding what happened to the twins based on the face value of what Cathy has told us. But the step-mother did it and her father didn't stop it.

SOLO will no longer be a friendly place for you Cathy, not after all you've posted here. The guy who runs it hates OL and James Valliant is not a witness to anything whatsoever apropos. He only wants to attack the Brandens.

--Brant

I don't understand what the big deal is if everyone already knew of the abortion and affair. My first book is coming today, so maybe I will start understanding what the big fuss is over. Im not just upset that they left us there with that crazy woman. Im also just as upset that they let us waste away in the foster care system. From 13 to 18 where the hell where they? I got married at 17 to lose the O'Connor name, my sister soon after she turned 18, that's how bitter we entered into adulthood. Maybe (In those days)you couldn't do much about the abuse in a household, But when the state takes over, where is the family then???? I know they didn't talk after the falling out, but what did they do, just forget about us? Aunt Alice had money, she could have gotten a lawyer or something. But yet they took in Peikoof that wasn't even a relative! I am not angry about Piekoff, or maybe I am, I just don't know yet. I just talked to my sister, she reminded me when we were in 3rd grade, we were taken down to the principals office. The teacher Ms Manzo made us pull up our sleeves and pull down our socks while the principal, Mr Marks examined us, then we were sent back to class. we were totally embarrassed because we had known he seen the bruises and welts, that we received the night before, and thought if my step-mother found out we would pay to the death. It was either a day later or two, a man came and took us to Howard Johnsons and bought us ice cream. He was asking us questions, but we were so happy to have ice cream (my step mother never allowed us to have anything like that)that we concentrated on the ice cream more than the questions. But we (me and Conny) both acted like our life was ok, because we were afraid to tell the truth for fear of my step mother finding out. We didn't know the man was from Children Services and was there to help us. So there is a record somewhere. I sure hope their procedures of interviewing children about their abuse have change, because after the interview those children have to go back to the abusers. When you are abused, you don't trust anybody, for all we knew this was a set up from my step mother to make sure we didn't talk. So why didn't my aunts and uncle care enough to find out about us after the falling out? Aunt Alice could have hire a lawyer...or maybe they thought she killed us by then. To me, their view on things were, they saved Peikoff with out much work, and it publicly looked good, to much work for us, to much ugly publicity...so let them fend for their selves. That would have been around 67/68 and according to OL she was well known then...yes I am angry...very! ~Cathy~

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

What's with the hypersensitivity on this thread?

David,

Not hypersensitive.

I'm just a graduate of the 12 steps.

Twice.

But not quite orthodox. I no longer buy into the idea that an addict is forever diseased and forever recovering.

Nor do I see OL as an antidote against Rand, which is what the phrase "recovering Rand aficionados" implies to some.

OL is a promotion of her ideas--and others--through intelligent discussion and Socratic dialectic learning exchanges.

But there's no emotional load on saying that (like hypersensitivity).

I'm just keeping it precise since there are many, many people out there who like to resonate with the worst possible interpretation of the words you used. They would be more than glad to characterize OL as an anti-Objectivism site. And they would interpret my silence as acquiescence.

It isn't and I don't.

The need for sensitivity to precision comes with the territory of occupying an independent space within a polemic realm. I would not need to do this if I were an engaged warrior on one side or the other.

Seeking wisdom instead of corpses does not make one a "recovering Rand aficionado" in any interpretation of the phrase.

Michael

[caroljane]

... the posters on this site are invariably interesting, well-read, and mostly recovering Rand aficionados.

David,

Bullcrap.

Most still are Rand aficionados. Just not fanatics.

And most are not recovering from anything. They just have a place to talk as they honestly think instead of being peer pressured into a party line.

I grant you some folks fit your description. Part of my own transformation from a Randroid-like jerk to a drug addict, then to a reasoned position might look like I am "recovering." But I am "recovered," both from the cult thinking and from the drugs. I have been for years. That's far more precise.

I fully agree that most are "invariably interesting" and "well-read." If you have any more praise of OL members, I will most certainly agree with it.

Michael

What's with the hypersensitivity on this thread?

When I say, in jest, that I am a recovering golfer, it means I used to be an avid golfer and now have put the sport in perspective, so to speak.

And, by the way, I beg to differ about people on this site not "recovering" from anything. My impression is that we are all, in one sense, are "recovering" from our experience with Ayn Rand's writings and Ayn Rand the person, whether it be some version of Orange Hair Syndrome, or your reference to Randroids, or the PARC Wars, as you call them. That is actually one of the more amazing things about Ayn Rand: you can't touch the grail without getting some form of a shock to your system.

Virtually everybody who posts on this site has some version of this story to tell, and given your fondness of the role of "story" in virtually all elements of life, it should be no mystery that this is one of the reasons people enjoy this site, i.e., they are sharing their post-Rand "story" with one another.

Hear, hear.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Cathy,

I'm not sure Ayn and Frank "took in" Peikoff. I think he paid his way all along, but I'm only guessing. I never got the impression he was financed by them or lived with them.

Rand did leave her entire inheritance to him.

According to a quip that ran among the excommunicated apostates from the original "Collective" (the original group of young people who used to gather around her), Peikoff became her heir because he was the last man standing.

btw - Your point about being angry they did not look you and your sister up while in government foster care is well taken.

Michael

[KacyRay]

Anyone want to place bets on whether the Objectivist Orthodoxy will reject Cathy's entire version of events and possibly even refuse to acknowledge who she really is if these unflattering implications about Rand's turning a blind eye to this sort of dysfunctionalism and abuse in her own (extended) family are substantiated?

It wouldn't surprise me if, within a very short period of time, she begins getting called a fraud, sock, and every other name in the book.

In fact, I'd be willing to bet that she gets accused of "gratuitous smears against Ayn Rand's character" by many of the self-appointed guardians of her image.

[Cathy]

Cathy,

I'm not sure Ayn and Frank "took in" Peikoff. I think he paid his way all along, but I'm only guessing. I never got the impression he was financed by them or lived with them.

Rand did leave her entire inheritance to him.

According to a quip that ran among the excommunicated apostates from the original "Collective" (the original group of young people who used to gather around her), Peikoff became her heir because he was the last man standing.

btw - Your point about being angry they did not look you and your sister up while in government foster care is well taken.

Michael

Thank You!

[Cathy]

Anyone want to place bets on whether the Objectivist Orthodoxy will reject Cathy's entire version of events and possibly even refuse to acknowledge who she really is if these unflattering implications about Rand's turning a blind eye to this sort of dysfunctionalism and abuse in her own (extended) family are substantiated?

It wouldn't surprise me if, within a very short period of time, she begins getting called a fraud, sock, and every other name in the book.

In fact, I'd be willing to bet that she gets accused of "gratuitous smears against Ayn Rand's character" by many of the self-appointed guardians of her image.

I have all the documents to prove who I am, If they don't believe what happened to me and my sister, I am sure we could get a judge to open juvenile records and children service's records. I didn't mean to make it unflattering to Aunt Alice, but for Ayn Rand I am, because they are 2 different people to me and it is the ugly truth...

[Brant Gaede]

Well, we don't know just what Ayn and Frank knew and experienced regarding what happened to the twins based on the face value of what Cathy has told us. But the step-mother did it and her father didn't stop it.

SOLO will no longer be a friendly place for you Cathy, not after all you've posted here. The guy who runs it hates OL and James Valliant is not a witness to anything whatsoever apropos. He only wants to attack the Brandens.

--Brant

I don't understand what the big deal is if everyone already knew of the abortion and affair. My first book is coming today, so maybe I will start understanding what the big fuss is over. Im not just upset that they left us there with that crazy woman. Im also just as upset that they let us waste away in the foster care system. From 13 to 18 where the hell where they? I got married at 17 to lose the O'Connor name, my sister soon after she turned 18, that's how bitter we entered into adulthood. Maybe (In those days)you couldn't do much about the abuse in a household, But when the state takes over, where is the family then???? I know they didn't talk after the falling out, but what did they do, just forget about us? Aunt Alice had money, she could have gotten a lawyer or something. But yet they took in Peikoof that wasn't even a relative! I am not angry about Piekoff, or maybe I am, I just don't know yet. I just talked to my sister, she reminded me when we were in 3rd grade, we were taken down to the principals office. The teacher Ms Manzo made us pull up our sleeves and pull down our socks while the principal, Mr Marks examined us, then we were sent back to class. we were totally embarrassed because we had known he seen the bruises and welts, that we received the night before, and thought if my step-mother found out we would pay to the death. It was either a day later or two, a man came and took us to Howard Johnsons and bought us ice cream. He was asking us questions, but we were so happy to have ice cream (my step mother never allowed us to have anything like that)that we concentrated on the ice cream more than the questions. But we (me and Conny) both acted like our life was ok, because we were afraid to tell the truth for fear of my step mother finding out. We didn't know the man was from Children Services and was there to help us. So there is a record somewhere. I sure hope their procedures of interviewing children about their abuse have change, because after the interview those children have to go back to the abusers. When you are abused, you don't trust anybody, for all we knew this was a set up from my step mother to make sure we didn't talk. So why didn't my aunts and uncle care enough to find out about us after the falling out? Aunt Alice could have hire a lawyer...or maybe they thought she killed us by then. To me, their view on things were, they saved Peikoff with out much work, and it publicly looked good, to much work for us, to much ugly publicity...so let them fend for their selves. That would have been around 67/68 and according to OL she was well known then...yes I am angry...very! ~Cathy~

If you knew more about "Peikoof"--love your typo--you'd know he was completely out of the loop on this. As for Ayn, it was always no time for children, really, respecting her life choices. Regardless, they couldn't have busted you and your sister out of foster care without assuming custody and there is no way they'd have done that. These were already elderly people and it could have easily been no better than foster care for you girls. (I'm assuming foster care was X while you may not remember X but Y instead.) They couldn't even have found out what was going on with you in foster care. You are obviously a normal, maternal woman, with your kids and all. Barbara Branden once said, "There was nothing maternal about Ayn Rand." Ayn and Frank were more like she the man he the woman rather than the common idea of a married couple--in a way more like two men living together. With Nathaniel Ayn got to be more the woman than she could with Frank.

Anyway, it's appear that you and your sister are "the last of the O'Connors" because they ran out of testosterone, which seems to explain a lot about Frank and his not rescuing you. Nathaniel Branden used to say to his therapy groups, "No one is coming to rescue you." Some wag replied, "But that's not true, Nathaniel, you came." "Yes, but I came to tell you no one is coming." You need to pat yourself on the back more for getting on with your life and being so strong. Here's an inexpensive little exercise he once taught me: Stand in front of the bathroom or large mirror, breathe deeply, and say "My name is _________ ___________ and I am enough." Repeat ten times, a deep breath each. It works because it's true--usually painfully true. (Some people might change or modify their names.)

--Brant

I found out I was too much