Conversion

So I want to share with you some memories that happened around the same time.  Please forgive me if they are not in order, jump around a bit or don’t flow like usual.  Hey it’s been 25+years here and I know the memories are there.  They are just stuck on the floppy drive in my head.  I am still trying to give you a since of who I was then and what was going on around me about that time.  So here goes. 

After Oma died Momma tend to Grandpa.  He ate dinner with us every night, and constantly complained how bad the food was, while he steadily shoved it down.  I can still hear him saying, “This gravy tastes like wallpaper glue.”  Correcting me on my table manners, “When you put soup on your spoon, try not to ding the side of the bowl.”  I still think of this when I am nervous at the table.  Nothing was ever good enough for him.

Between the time Oma died when I was 7, and he married Barbara when I was about 12, Grandpa developed cancer.  Well not really.  The Dr.’s never did quite understand what it was, but they treated it as cancer with radiation. They found it during his routine yearly examine.  He had developed some kind of sack at the base of his Medulla Oblongata, or his brain stem.  He had a six inch scar down the back of his head and neck.  We called it his zipper.  The surgery left him with balance issues and he was unable to lift his head to see the stars.  Something he told me he greatly missed.  He had retired from sea life, at this point. I don’t think he could have ever gone back to sea, because of his balance issues, even if he had wanted to.  For the first time, since he was about 17, he was land locked.

The surgery changed him a lot.  So much so, that I don’t think my younger cousins, will recognize the man I have described in this blog.  After his surgery Grandpa was a much kinder man.  I don’t know that he ever beat Barbara, the way that he used to beat Oma.  His demeanor changed.  We used to say they had taken out his meanness with his surgery. 

Grandpa, Barbara, my parents and me all became very active in the Bethel community.  It was a small community outside of Logansport, way back in the woods and we began to attend the Bethel United Methodist Church.  Bethel church had a large congregation and lots of kids at the time.  It was here that both Grandpa, Barbara, and eventually Mom became members.

My best buddy at Bethel was Jennifer.  We used to sit behind my Mom and Dad in church.  We would just giggle.  Then Mom would do that thing, where her head rotated like an owl, her eyes would get huge, her eye brows lift, and she would give us this look of, “If you two don’t shut up.  I am going to beat you within an inch of your life when we get home.”  And then she would turn back around like everything was normal and fine. 

Jennifer was a year younger than me.  We helped put on Vacation Bible School.  I can still hear, “Jesus and you at Camp Can Do,” in my head as I write.  My favorite story to tell of her is that there is an old hymn called, “Bringing in the Sheaves.”  That’s it, some of you are humming it now.  I can hear you, Alto’s in the back.  We had no idea what a sheave was at that time.  So our brains changed it into something we recognized.  I brought in the sheep and Jennifer brought in the sheets.  When we realized this in church one day, we started just busted out laughing.  All I could see was Jesus getting the sheets off the line, just a humming that song. Oh still makes me smile today. 

In the summers made the rounds of Vacation Bible School (VBS).  One week I was at First Baptist, one week at First Methodist, and one week at Bethel.  It was at the VBS at First Baptist that I really heard about Hell for the first time.  The pastor had us hold up our hands, during prayer time, of those of us who were not saved.  I held up my hand.  I was not sure what he was talking about.  He asked those of us who had raised our hands, to stay for a moment before we went to our classes. We did and he explained that if we were not saved, we would go to hell and be burned for ever.  I think he gave us a little tract pamphlet and told us to go home and talk to our parents. 

I did and told my parents that I wanted to be saved.  They were overjoyed.  I now just had to decide if I was wanted to be Baptist like Mom or United Methodist like Dad.  If I went Baptist they would have to find a place to baptize me, as they had no dunking tub at the church.  I knew there was a nasty old pond outside with snakes, and I didn’t want that either.  In the Methodist church I would be sprinkled.  I liked that idea a whole lot better.

I joined Keatchie United Methodist Church the next first Sunday.  Hell seemed to be something that was really talked about more, and emphasized more in the Baptist churches that I attended, then in the Methodist ones.  Yes, from what I understood, Methodist believed in Hell and Satan, but they focused more on Jesus’ teaching.    There was also a lot less screaming, and hell fire and brimstone sermons in the Methodist Church.  I was sprinkled in the Methodist Church August 6^th, 1989.   

About the same time in my life my favorite thing to do, was to go camping and fishing with my parents.  We took my friend Courtney once, but she was not too keen on it.  My Grandpa had about 200 acres down the old Bogle road, where he had grown up on the old family home place.  That land is now all owned by Dow Chemical. 

Mom, Dad and I had started out years before fishing.  There were two ponds on that property, a little pond and a much larger one.  We would borrow Grandpa’s little green aluminum boat and paddle out to the middle of the pond.  Daddy’s job was to put worm on Mom and I’s hooks, and to untangle us when our lines got crossed.  Poor Daddy, I don’t think he ever really got any fishing done.  I never could jab those little worms, so I just wrapped them around the hook and the Brim would just suck them right off.  So I learned to poke them, just a little bit.  Oh I was heartbroken when I found out worms cannot breath under water, and that I had been killing them.  I have yet to go back fishing after that. 

Camping kind of naturally came out of that.  We were working class poor, and Daddy worked all the damn time, so the idea of a vacation, that lasted more than a weekend, was a real luxury to us.  I think I took a handful of those during my school years.  What we did do a lot was go camping.  We mostly liked North Toledo Bend State Park out of Zwolle.  It is a beautiful park and in those days it was cheap and close for us.  We would go several times a year.   Sometimes we would even take Grandpa’s bass boat out.  It was a beautiful dark blue with a glitter finish.  Some of my best memories are of camping with my parents.  My parents spoiled me with the gift of their time.  I encourage you to do the same thing with your kids if you can. 

Daddy would often leave before dawn and come home late after dark.  It was nothing for him to work 60 to 80 hours a week, sometimes for months at a time. Daddy worked in the oil fields as a pipeline supervisor.  But a lot of the time he was on some type of machinery, whether it was dozer or a trackhoe.  Hell he can run them all.  He used to take me on location with him sometimes.   He would put me in the space behind the seat of the trackhoe, and it would go boingy, boingy, boingy and just bounce me up and down. 

He would come home and he had worked so hard he had sweated salt rings onto his shirt.  I always wanted to kiss him when he first came home, even if he was dirty.  He smelled like dirt, and diesel and oil.  Even today those smells excite me and make me think of home. 

Daddy is not an uneducated man.  He was raised on the Dairy at Keatchie, went to Longstreet High School and then went to Louisiana Tech in Ruston.  He was working on his degree in Animal Husbandry when he ran out of money.  He had wanted to be a vet, but there was not a vet school in Louisiana at that time. 

He left Louisiana, and bounced around for a while, traveling to New Orleans, and then Kansas, and finally after that and went to Houston.  His first job there was working as a rigger, for Brown and Root Construction.  He was working on the tops of buildings that were being constructed, walking those huge steel beams.   Brown and Root lead him to work in the oil field and he’s been doing it ever since.  He’s gone from being a hand and running equipment, to pipeline supervisor, to basically being a company man now.  His job is to sit in the air conditioned truck and make sure everyone is doing their job correctly.  The last 10 or 15 years he has had to travel for work going to Oklahoma, Ohio, and South Texas.  But as a child, I was lucky he had work where he was home every night. 

 

Ilsa

 

My first memories

So I’ve taken you forward, now I want to take you backwards in my life.  I set out to let you know what happened to me during my marriage to Mike, to tell you things I didn’t answer in my “Prodigal Daughter” articles, and forward from the end of those articles until now.  I think I am done talking about that part of my life for a while.  I want to talk about my early life.  I hope you will enjoy it.

I covered my birth, Mom’s surgery, and Beau leaving in Hello Ilsa, Goodbye Beau.  My first memories are not of my Mom but are of Oma.

I was a loved and adored child by all those in my life.  I was welcomed in the same pomp and circumstance that most babies are in this culture. I was a cute and precocious child, ever the entertainer.  I remember jumping on the top of tables to sing and dance.  Putting a straw pot cover for a plant, on my head and dancing about.  Tucking a pair of pliers under my neck and pretending to be the doctor, and was ready to give Oma a shot. 

Angie was my best friend at that time.  She was my cousin, born two months after me.  Many of my pictures at this age include her in them.  Grandpa would later pit us against each other, making us compete against each other.   He would give us a dollar for every A on our report card.  His way of motivating us I guess.   He would say things like, “Well Angie got all A’s this semester and you only got 3.  You need to do better next time.” 

In Kindergarten I was devastated that she would not play with me.  I remember just balling.   Angie, and Sean, who I will talk about in Starting School, were my only friends.  Angie was from a little different socio-economic class then I was.  She was a bit more middle class and I was just working poor.  She gravitate more towards those of her own kind, nothing wrong with that.  She would become a cheerleader and one of the popular kids.  Although we are still family, we are not friends like when we were kids.  She is now a grown woman, a teacher , and has children of her own.  I recently saw her at a family function and was so please that she sat next to me.  We visit with each other on Facebook and share our lives, but I don’t think we will ever be that close again. 

I grew up literally next door to Oma and Grandpa.  They had moved Mom’s trailer next to them after the surgery.  Mom, Dad, Me, Oma and Grandpa all shared about a 5 acre spread in Logansport.  It was big enough for two houses and a large garden.  I have early memories of falling asleep in Oma’s house and waking up in my own bed.  I would start crying, because I didn’t know where I was. I spent lots of time with Oma and Grandpa.  I often wonder if my first language was not German.  I believe Oma spoke it to me a lot as I grew up.  I still understand more then I speak.  Angie and the other cousins visited occasionally, but as far as I know never spent the night.  Knowing what Grandpa did to me, I am very grateful for that.  I hope he never got any other grandchild other then me. 

I have an early memory of Oma taking me from her house to Mom’s house and telling me I was going to start sleeping at my own house.  I was screaming and crying I kept calling Oma my mother.   By the time Oma got me in the house, she had to calm me down and tell me, “I am not your Mother.  I am your Oma.”  Mom says this conversation never took place either, but she could not hear us, as we were in the hall and she was in the kitchen.  My little girl brain did not understand that Oma was not my mother.  I thought that my mother was my big sister.  Sorry but a lot of my early memories of my Mom,  are of her going out and “looking for a new daddy” for me.  I used to go up to strange men and ask them if they wanted to be my Daddy. 

I could read long before I went to kindergarten, by about age 3 or 4 I think.  Oma would read me the books, and then tell me to read them back to her.  I am still big about books and parents reading to their kids.  Grandpa imparted his wisdom on things like the stars, gardening, and his world travels.  He was a Merchant Marine, that’s how he met Oma you know.  He was often at sea, but in the summer time, me, Momma, Oma and him, would all travel in his motor home aka RV.  He sold Chase refrigerated doors.  These are the doors you see in the grocery store, that are made of vinyl, and seal in the cold air in the meat and frozen food areas.  They are usually split down the middle and have clear windows in them.  I traveled 7 southern states, before I was 5. 

Three of my early memories happened in that motor home.  The first is of my mother.  We had been driving all night.  We pulled over, parked and slept.  I remember awaking in the dark to the sound of  ocean waves crashing against the shore.  My mother was lying beside me in bed.  We had arrived at Biloxi Beach and we spent the day there swimming.  My next early memory is of sitting at Oma’s feet, crocheting and singing “On the road again.”  I was maybe 3 or 4. 

The third memory is I believe of Grandpa attacking me.  I believe he attacked me at least twice.  Once about 2 ½ and other time about age 4 or 5.  I believe he would attack me in my sleep.  I believe these two times I woke up during the attacks.  I have this memory of just him and me alone in the motor home, on a trip by ourselves.  My mother says it never happened, but I remember him telling me this story of us being on a trip in Mississippi.  He told me he could not get me to quit screaming.  That I screamed from Mississippi, until he put me pack in Oma’s arms here in Louisiana.  I remember part of this.  I was sitting in the big chair up front, and every time I looked at him I started screaming and crying.  I believe he attacked me on this trip and this was my reaction. 

Oma made one more trip to German before she died, in the early 1980’s.  I know there has been talk, from family members, over the years that many believe Oma would never come home.  That she would just stay in Germany, now that her children were grown.  That finally, she could be free of Grandpa.  Whatever her reasons, whether she came back for me or us grandkids, or for Mom, or for other reasons she came back. 

Ilsa

What she left behind

Oma’s life was not a beautiful fairy tale that ends happily ever after.  This woman, who had survived so much, was about to have to survive a lot more, from a man who she thought would be her savior. 

Grandpa tells me many years later that Oma had escaped back to Germany with the kids.  Mom and her brother must have been little, as Grandpa says she was speaking, but Mom has no memory of it.  Grandpa says, “It took me a while to find them, and bring them back.  When I did the kids could not speak English anymore.  It took me a month to beat the German out of them.”

I talked with my mother recently.  She said her first memory is of Grandpa beating Oma.  Oma then walked into the kitchen, with all her children and turned on the gas.  I don’t know what or who stopped her.  I’ve been in that place of abuse where you think you have no way out.  Now remember this is in the late 1950’s there was no national discussion on domestic abuse, no shelters for battered women.  She had lived a very difficult life with two kids in Germany.  I do not think she could imagine trying again with four.  She had run away and he had found her.  No place was safe for her or her kids.  She was trapped.  For this woman who had survived so much, death, at that moment, seemed like her only way out. 

The fact that Grandpa beat Oma and molested the kids was not a well known fact in the community, and had never been talked about publicly.  Nor was the fact that he would often leave and go to sea and leave Oma with no money.  No money, no groceries, nothing.  It was another way to control her.  Had it not been for a family friend, who let her borrow the money to buy things like food and shoes, they would not have survived.  Everyone knew my Grandfather was an ass.  Everyone, but my father Jeff, was afraid of him.  Grandpa was a big man and no one ever stood up to him.  I think few outside the family understood that he was mentally and emotionally abusive at all times.  James Parker was nothing but a bully. 

When I was in my early teens my Grandfather remarried to a woman named Barbara.  She, for the most part, was a nice lady.  She was a great baker.  Before she would marry my Grandfather he had to convert to Christianity.  My Grandfather was a long avowed atheist.  Oh what men will do for some pussy! Grandpa converted.  It was all a lie.  He never spoke of his new found faith or of Jesus.  To this day, I believe it was all an act.  I believe he died an atheist. 

We, Grandpa, Barbara, my parents and I, were active in a local church.  My mother came out when I was 19 and began to tell those around her about the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of my Grandfather.  It split the family down the middle.  Most of the church and the community did not believe either, because he was well respected in the community.  He was seen as a self made man.  Barbara believed for 24 hours, until Grandpa convinced her otherwise.  I have refused to speak to her since then.  But I understand.  She chose to believe her husband, rather than her step-daughter.  My mother is messed up because of what my Grandfather did to her.  You cannot convince me otherwise.  I was in the room with her when she confronted him.  I was there when he admitted to what he had done. 

It was not until the last few years, and having lived with Mike, that I began to understand the depth of Grandpa’s disease.  He was a pedophile.  I remember being little and hiding in the closet, for whatever reason, and there was this trunk.  Oma caught me in it one time and was very shocked an upset at what I had found.  Turns out it was a trunk full of porn.  I must have got in there so frequently she put a trunk with my toys next to it.  My Grandfather worked on many Merchant Marine ships in the Orient.  I wonder now if he chose Asian assignments so that he might have ready access to children involved in the Asian sex trade. I wonder now if he married Oma just to have access to her kids.  And then there are my own impressions.

They begin to surface in dreams.  In these dreams I was trying to tell myself I had been raped by my Grandfather.  I did not believe them, at first.  Then I remembered something that had happened the first time I ever made love.  Mike and I were getting ready, he climbs on top of me and for about 2 or 3 seconds I wanted to freak out.  I wanted to claw Mike’s eyes out and all I could think of was my Grandfather.  I wanted to get away.  I pushed it down and rejected it.  Mike and I finished, and I did not think about it again for many years.  I mentioned it to no one.

It has taken some years, but I now believe, despite my mother threatening him, that he did indeed attack me.  I believe at least twice, before the age of five.  Before I could form real memories of the abuse, understand or tell.  I knew my mother had been assaulted.  I have never asked her for details.  Because I just cannot deal with that. I don’t want that in my head.  My councilor and I were able to recover the memory from when I was two using a self induced semi- hypnotic stat.  The details, of which, I shared with my mother.  She was shocked that my details matched hers.  I believe both times, that I know of, I was attacked in my sleep.  Both times I woke up.  I don’t know how many more times I was attacted, and did not wake up. When I was 5 I had surgery on my urethra.  I was told it was too small and I kept getting Urinary Tract Infections from too many bubble baths.  I wonder now if it is because I was being molested.

I had hated my Grandfather from the time I could remember.  Every time I was around him, he made me want to vomit.  In fact it was Texas, my beloved dog, who gave me the first clue that he was not a good man.  Texas refused to leave me when Grandpa and I were outside, often standing between us.  Dogs know if you only listen.  I shared my feelings with my family who told me, “You must love him!  He is your Grandfather and deserves your love and respect.”  I was taught to negate any instincts and feelings I had in order to tow the family line and pretend all things were normal. 

My hope, in you reading this part of the story, is that if you were attacked you understand you are not alone.  My other hope is that when a child comes to you with such feelings you never, ever tell them to ignore them.  That you trust those feelings and understand that something is wrong.  That you will not insist that they must do what is right, when everything tells them it is wrong. 

There were moments when my Grandfather was a wonderful man.  He taught me about the stars, gardening, talked with me about his voyages to exotic places and started me on a love of science.  He even helped me stand up to a bully once.  I wept so much at his funeral that I was almost asked to leave.  I fainted at his coffin.  After my mom came out, I refused to speak to him, or see him.  I am told he died calling my name.  Now as my Oma had the same name I am not sure which one of us he was calling.  I am happy to say that my Grandfather is currently in Hell, serving a sentence for all the things he did to us.  He can no longer hurt anyone!

Oma died August 20, 1983.  Thirty-two years ago to the day of this writing.  She was 57.  She spent the last year of her life fighting Multiple Myeloma.  By the time they found it, she was already in the advance stages of the disease.  It metastasized to her bones.  The end was not pretty and made me an advocate of euthanasia.  She remained married to my Grandfather until her death.  I was not allowed to attend her funeral.  I was only 7.  I understand it was so packed that the men stood outside to let the women and children have a place to sit. A woman who had gone from knowing no one in the community, to a community that overflowed with love for her. 

Oma’s life and her death has had a transformative affect on my life.  When I was 11 I began doing genealogy and research on my family. I doubt I would have gone looking for answers about my family if she had been alive. I would begin in my late teens collecting stories about her.  The story I have just told you, of Oma’s life, has taken the last 25+ years to piece together.  I am constantly learning new things about her.

At first there were only rumors that Oma had been in a camp.  I could not understand as she was not Jewish.  I did not know that more the Jews went to the camps.  At first I thought it was because she did not look like an Aryan, you know blond hair and blue eyes.  Oma had brown hair and green eyes.  Then I believed she was in one of Stalin’s camps, but now it seems she was in a German labor camp outside of Danzig. I’ve been trying to put her life back together and understand it in the context of history. She left behind a hand written account of her survival during the war in Poland.  From which I borrowed heavily for this article.  A copy of that article is on file at The National Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. 

What I remember of her life is very little.  She was warm, kind and gracious.  She was a gifted hostess and cook.  I remember singing with her, crocheting and knitting with her, cooking with her and lavish Christmases at her home.  I remember her stanch patriotism and how proud she was to be an American.  I remember the unconditional love she gave me.  Something I am eternally grateful for.  I remember thinking in my little girl mind that she was my mother.  My first memories are not of my own mother but of her.  She has colored the way in which I see reality. 

It is odd now that I would become the caretaker of her history and her story.  My younger cousins come to me and ask me to tell them her story and my memories of her.  I am honored to do so.  Her story has left behind a legacy of courage, and bravery in the face of adversity.  To never give up hope, to never surrender and to keep going even where there may be no end in sight. 

Three of her four children are still alive.  She has seven grandchildren and several great-grandchildren.  We are scattered thru out Texas and Louisiana and see each other for weddings, funerals and share our lives with one another on Facebook.  We retain good ties with our family in Germany and my mother even went to visit some years back. 

For many years I wanted to write a book about her life.  I was going to entitle it, “What she left behind.”  Although not a book, I am happy to have finally shared her story with the world in these articles. 

Ilsa

My Grandmother, the spy

What happens to her between October of 1945 and December of 1953 I know very little of.  I must give my thanks at this point to the National Archives and what becomes the CIA.  I’ve spent a lot to time trying to research history surrounding her story on-line.  I was Googling trying to find any Armanski’s and trying to find any history on the name, other than the fact is seems to be another name for Armenian. I don’t understand.  There are very few Armanski’s, maybe 20 – 30 or so left worldwide. I have tried to contact some to them.  It is my guess that Oma’s father, Conrad, must have had brothers.  I am beginning to believe the name is made up.  That the family name is originally Arman and they added –ski to make it more Polish.  Maybe to work?  I don’t know and what’s worse is no one at this point can tell me. 

So one night I am just Googling away and I Google Oma’s name, “Ilse Armanski,” for shits and giggles because I know it is not there. I am shocked to find that a file exists on her in the National Archives.  That it is a file by an agent, in what is to eventually became the CIA.  Now there had been rumors in the family that Oma was a spy and that she was later blacklisted.  It made no sense.  How could she have become an American citizen then?  I sent away for the file.

What I received I did not expect.  There were over 200 pages of documents on my Grandmother, her family, her children, and the fathers of her children.  I was floored.   But I am ever grateful for that agent.  He presented me with a 6 month window of her life, during those mystery years, that I would have otherwise not have known.

The family is alive and intact, but life is very hard.  They have resettled in Bremen, Germany.  Why there I don’t know.  During these years Oma gives birth to two little boys, both with different American Servicemen fathers.  What these men promised her, I don’t know.  Both had families back in the states.  Soldiers having children with German women seems to have been a problem for the US government.  The Americans issue statements that tell these women that just because they have had children by Americans they have no rights to anything.  The agent reports Oma going on base frequently.  She goes to one of the fathers to beg for money to feed her child.  He slaps her and berates her. 

The agent reports that Conrad is a communist.  He does not work.  Now if that is because he is too old, hurt in some way or unable to find work I don’t know.  Conrad tells his girls one day, “Get back out there.”  I think, but as of yet cannot confirm, Conrad was pimping his girls out.  I asked Grandpa one time, what Oma did after the war to survive.  He simply said, “She did what she had to.”  It always made me wonder if she was a sex worker.  I can understand.  She had few skills and was a woman with kids to feed.  You do what you have to.  My other question is where did she learn English?  Did she learn it in school?  Did she just pick it up?  She had to have known enough to get on base and communicate with these men.  And my Grandfather’s German was rudimentary at best. 

It is during this time that she meets a man who turns out to be an agent of the Czechoslovakian government.  I don’t know what he says to her, but she ends up going with him for three days.  She later says she is taken into Czechoslovakia, and taken before a high ranking man.  He asks her to steal a Starscope, which is a precursor to our modern day Night Vision.  The then gives her money and sends her home.  She arrives home, spends the money and never, it seems, tries to acquire the Starscope.   She uses the money to buy coats for her family, shoes for her children, and I believe her first camera.  She begins to take pictures of her family, for the first time since the war.  The agent assigned to report on her states that she does not have the mental capacity or the necessary connections to steal the Starscope. 

At some point the plot is revealed and she is taken into custody.  She must write a full confession of all the events that occurred.  It even makes “Der Spiegel,” the local newspaper.  They make her sound like a fool.  I believe she did not have the connections, but she also didn’t have the heart.

Oma meets my Grandfather, James “Buddy” Parker, at a party in January of 1954.   He is a Merchant Marine.  They are married a few days later. My mother and her twin are born nine months later.  I asked my Grandfather one time where they were conceived.  He says, “On our honeymoon, cruising on a boat off the coast of Italy.”    They go back to Germany where he leaves her.  He arranges passage for her on a ship back to his home in Corpus Christi, Texas.  She arrives in America knowing no one but her husband.  It is probable one of the first times she is truly alone. 

At some point during all this they begin to understand that getting her two other boys out of Germany is going to be difficult.  So they remain with her family in Bremen.  It takes them almost a year.  They finally have to have the Lutheran Church step in and help them. 

They do a little state hoping, going back to Grandpa’s home in Louisiana, then Washington state, and then finally back to North Western Louisiana to stay. 

Ilsa