5.2.5: My Father's Death

 

 

My Father’s Death

Fortunately, we had to face reality on leaving River Oaks. On her feet from eight to five, Pat worked in the Biochemistry Lab and carried a heavy course load without a black cook and only Elsie May Watson, a skinny 16 year old black school girl who charged 25 cents an hour for house cleaning (Pat alienated several of the neighbors in Veterans Village by giving Elsie May 35 cents an hour)

My father visited us in Munnerlyn Village and was in obvious poor health; he had lost a lot of weight and had diarrhea, a condition that was impossible to conceal in the tiny, one
bathroom, unsound-proofed Dallas Huts comprising Munnerlyn Village. I attributed it to inadequate diet and increased consumption of cigarettes and beer subsequent to my mother's
death. He was in and out of the hospital several times with intestinal problems and jaundice, but without a definitive diagnosis.

Eventually, in the Fall of 1948, he was scheduled for exploratory abdominal surgery. We drove to Fort Worth, where I dropped Pat off at her parent's place and I drove on to Wichita
Falls, to be with my father before and after his surgery. I sat in the lounge off the operating room for much longer than the estimated duration of the surgery. The surgeon's expression when he finally appeared confirmed my suspicions that all was not well. He said, "your father has cancer of the colon; it has spread to his liver and all through his abdomen. I just tied off the transverse colon and connected the ascending colon to the descending colon and left the transverse colon in place. He has about six months to live."

Although I was not too surprised, it was a load. After talking briefly to my father in his room, I went to the nearest cafe for a cup of coffee. I lit a cigarette and, after the first drag, raised the cup for a drink. Just as it reached my lips, I had the urge to sneeze. Rather than blow coffee all over the counter, I suppressed the sneeze and "slipped" a lumbosacral vertebral disc. Almost passing out at every movement, I somehow managed to walk back to the hospital, up the steps and to my father's room.

I told his private nurse what had happened and asked her to get a doctor for me. My father's surgeon and an orthopedist appeared almost immediately (the nurse had put me on the bed in the next room). The orthopedist confirmed my diagnosis and said, "don't tell the Medical Association, but I'm going to do a chiropractic manipulation to get the disc back in place. It'll hurt like hell, but you'll feel better when it's over." He turned me over on my side, put one of my knees over his shoulder and did something to my back with both hands. He was right; it did hurt like hell and I did feel better afterward.

After a day or two in the hospital, I called Mrs. Page, Marjorie’s mother. She came to the hospital and took me to the Page residence. Every move was torture, getting into and out of
the car. Once inside, she asked me if I would like some lunch; I said, "no, just some ice cream that I'll eat from the top of the refrigerator." That eliminated the agony of slowly easing myself into a chair and out of it when I had finished eating. While I was eating the ice cream, either Mr. or Mrs. Page asked me a question and when I turned my head to answer, I fainted from the excruciating pain.

Somehow the Pages got me into the bed in what had been Marjorie's bedroom. I stayed there several days except for occasional EXPEDITIONS to the bathroom for essential body functions. It would take an interminable time to get out of the bed, make my way to the bathroom, carefully lower myself on to the toilet, and try to relax the proper sphincters. Several times my efforts resulted in such intense pain that I would faint and falloff the commode. Mrs Page would hear me fall and come help me back to the bed. She finally said, "I don't like
emptying bed pans, but you're too heavy for me to carry, so use a bed pan until you can make it to the toilet and back to bed." I doubt I ever told Mrs Page how much I appreciated her taking care of me when I really needed it.

After about a week I was well enough to travel. Pat came up and drove me to Fort Worth and then to College Station. I spent most of both trips lying down as best I could in the back seat.
It was difficult for both of us; Pat was never a long distance driver and I couldn't get into a position that wasn't painful.

We made several trips to Wichita Falls as my father wasted away. Somewhere along the line he married one of his nurses, who I realized at the time knew he was terminal. She kept him
virtually free from pain through her connections with sources of morphine, for which I was grateful. On one of the trips, I sold the house for him; he split half (our mother's half) between all
the children, our share was about $600 each. I threw a rod in our 1946 Hudson on the way back to College Station and the replacement engine cost $800. That took care of my inheritance; the new wife's lawyer drew up a new will, leaving everything to her and she wouldn't even give me my father's railroad watch.

I was notified of my father's death while I was taking my last final exam in the course work leading to my MS. We drove to Wichita Falls for the funeral. I was a spectator; the grief
stricken new wife of a year or so, along with her grown children from a previous marriage, occupied the mourner's bench. Pat, my brother and I sat in the next row. After the funeral, Pat, my brother, and I had a couple of beers at a tavern and we drove back to College Station to finish up the last details, like the Oral, for the Master's Degree. The latter was a snap; George Potter
and Richard Turk were real nice and Sewell Hopkins handled the Exam masterfully. He did sock it to me with a couple of questions at the end to which I could only respond "I don't know". I'm sure he was just letting me know that I did not know everything.

I was appointed an Instructor my second year in Graduate School and had several courses of my own, including the lectures. One was HUMAN ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY, a two semester required course for all Physical Education majors, i.e. varsity athletes. My best student was Wally Moon, who subsequently was National League Rookie of the Year (beating out Hank Aaron) with the St. Louis Cardinals and National League All Star Left Fielder for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Wally was actually interested in learning anatomy and physiology-- most of the other "jocks" just wanted to get a passing grade. One even offered me a full set of golf clubs and a leather bag he had won for a C in the course if he didn't have to take any of the exams. I just laughed at him, even though I didn't own a set of golf clubs, let alone a leather bag.

All the jocks were proud of their athletic ability and thought they could do any sport better than a college teacher. I had been playing handball for years and none of them had played
the game before coming to A&M. I LOVED whipping their butts on the handball court-- that was a blow to their ego that got their attention so I could get through to a few in the classroom.
Incidentally, none of them ever beat me at handball, even though they were all much superior to me athletically.

One afternoon George Potter entered the Comparative Anatomy Lab where I had a lab section going-- he was accompanied by an elderly man to whom he introduced me. He was Dr. S. H. Warner, Head of the Biology Department at Sam Houston State Teachers College in Huntsville, Texas. He was in the market for someone to teach Comparative Anatomy and George Potter was Mr. Comparative Anatomy in Texas. Dr. Potter recommended me and, after talking for a while, Dr. Warner offered me the job as an Assistant Professor of Biology. I told him I was very interested, but I would have to discuss it with my wife.

I thought Pat might not want to go to Huntsville-- I was REALLY wrong on that score. She welcomed the opportunity to quit working and didn't care at all that my salary would not equal our combined salaries at A&M. The appointment was to begin September 1st and since they also wanted me to teach Embryology, we spent the summer at A&M so I could take Embryology and we would have an income. I accepted the position at $300 a month, but was soon notified that the State Legislature had authorized raises that brought my salary to $380. We could live with that-- we bought a 1950 Plymouth, the first new car we had owned, and carried everything we owned in it to Huntsville.