The Put Down That Changed My Life

Note from author:  This is a rewrite of a story I wrote in 1977 and I just found it again in a box of paper I was sorting through. DES

“How can you get a job? You can’t do anything but scrub floors.”  That statement was made to me by my then husband in 1966, and although he meant it as just another put-down it changed my life.  The part that really hurt, of course, was that his statement was essentially true.

              We had eloped during our Christmas break of my junior year and his senior year in Mora (MN) High School.  I was barely 16 years old and he 18.  Our “love” I now know was based on physical attraction and the desire to be grown up before our time. After all, the goal of most high school girls at that time and place was to get married, be a housewife and raise a perfect family!  The cries of our parents that we were too young and it wouldn’t last made us more determined, we were "madly in love," so we began our married life as children playing house—living with my parents and going back to finish out the school year. My husband had planned to go to into the US Air Force after graduation and I was going with him!

 

Teenagers in Love

Our wedding reception in January 1956

 

From the very beginning our marital existence was as stormy as our year of “going steady” had been.  He did not change from what I thought was demanding, moody and obstinate, and I was still a kid in my parents' home and didn't know the first thing about being a wife.    I went back to school and finished my junior year and by the end of the school year I was three months pregnant.  My sister and brother-in-law came to visit in June and they said that if my husband would come to Wyoming he could likely get a job with the same company my brother in law worked for, Conoco Oil, which would be much more lucrative than the Air Force. So we packed all of our belongings in the back of a 1947 Chevrolet coupe and followed them "home" to the oil fields of Wyoming.

Once there I very quickly came to the realization that I was 750 miles from my parents, and  mother and daddy were no longer there to run to with my problems.  I had to start growing up—fast!  I cried a lot and my husband—who was probably equally as overwhelmed by his new responsibilities—was unsympathetic.  At least I had my sister, and without her I probably would not have survived. Our first home was a single-wide 33' trailer house with a lean-to for the living room and our address was the Conoco employee trailer park. Not necessarily the home of my dreams!

In Wyoming at 16 and 18--and me pregnant

Our first baby girl was born in December of 1956 when I had just turned 17, and our son came along 11 months later, a week before I turned 18.   They were both beautiful and healthy and I loved them both so much but caring for two babies was overwhelming for me who had never even changed a diaper before.   I tried to be a good Mom but at times I felt trapped in a dark tunnel with no light on either end.  I could not go backward and become my parents' little girl again and I saw no hope for a better future.  In the meantime I tried to put on a good public front  and act "normal." I got involved in church and community activities with my sister and her friends who were all much older than me.

Two Beautiful Babies in Two Years

Easter 1958

 

When my adulthood dawned (age 21 at that time) I already had five years behind me of being a housewife and mother and our third child was on the way.  I was definitely disillusioned with our circumstances,yet I could see no way out or any way to care of myself and my children alone.  In August of 1961 our youngest child and second daughter was born which made it even more impossible to leave the marriage.  I am not saying it was all bad--we had some good times too--but in my mind the bad times usually won out.

A new baby sister in 1961

Life went on in this pattern for another eight years. We moved a couple of times due to transfers, but for me it was always the same.  I stayed involved in church and community  but inside I felt like a non-person.  My only escape was the world of books, and I became an avid member of the Doubleday “Book of the Month” club.

             A major point of contention between my husband and me was always money.  According to him, he earned it and I spent it.  He constantly reminded me that I was not contributing to the family income, as if keeping his home and taking care of his children was not really "work."

 

The family in 1965

During one of these money disputes--the baby was in first grade then and we were living in Frannie, Wyoming-- I offered to go out and find a job.  It was then that my husband made the fateful statement, “What kind of job would you get? You don’t know how to do anything but scrub floors.”   I was so hurt and angry that I became determined to find a job if it killed me; anything but scrubbing floors that is!

I began thinking about what career I would have chosen if I had not trapped myself in this “marriage tunnel” at age 16.  Journalism had always fascinated me and I loved to write.  I decided to  write a letter to our nearest newspaper, a semi-weekly publication called the Powell Tribune.  I wrote ta letter to the editor. saying that I had always had a desire to get into a newspaper career and if he would give me a chance I would take any kind of position he could offer me.  I waited and waited but I didn’t receive an answer to my letter.  I was disappointed but not really surprised, and meanwhile I took my first outside job ever as a cashier behind the candy counter at the Powell Ben Franklin store.

Driving fifty miles round trip to and from work and keeping up with three kids and the house was a challenge.  My job at Ben Franklin wasn’t exciting but I was determined to stick with it, just to “show” my husband if nothing else.  After about three months I came home from work one afternoon and my son said, “The editor of the Powell Tribune called and wants you to call him back.”  I remembered the letter I had written months back and, not daring to hope, I dialed the phone with trembling fingers. The editor was out, the voice on the other end reported, and the suspense within me mounted.   When he finally did call back I was almost bursting!

             The editor apologized for not answering my letter earlier, and he explained that it had become buried on his desk and he just found it again. Yes, he did need help and would I mind coming in to talk to him about it?   Would I mind--? I was ecstatic!
              During our interview we both laid it on the line. I told him I had no formal experience but I wanted to learn.  He said he had been trying to cover all of the writing duties by himself and he was swamped.  The budget did not allow for a full time reporter but he did need a person to write feature stories of local interest on a contract basis.  For me that would be ideal, because I could write at home and still keep my day job. Yes, I would love to try it!
             My first assignment was to do a story about a calcium plant at Frannie where we lived.  I contacted the plant manager and was granted a tour and an interview and I spent hours and hours writing and rewriting the story which I turned in with apprehension.  There were flaws but the editor apparently saw a hidden talent shining through. He printed my story after some “blue penciling” and there it was in the next issue of the Powell Tribune.   Whew! He  then gave me a couple of books and some pointers on newspaper writing style and sent me on a second assignment  to cover a woman who had a driftwood and bottle hobby shop in her basement. The next issue carried the story unedited and with my own by-line. I was in heaven!
               I wrote several more features and the editor began getting favorable comments on my work. He started asking me to cover a meeting now and then or a special event to help him out, and before long I had quit my cashier job and was a regular at the newspaper office on press days.  I enrolled in some courses at Northwest Community College in Powell and for the first time in my adult life I began to feel as if I were a real person. I became a full-fledged reporter and feature writer, and I was overjoyed when two of my features received first and second place awards at the Wyoming Press Convention after my first year on the job.

One of the Press Awards was for this article on the Japanese Internment

 

The atmosphere at home, however, was becoming steadily worse. My husband was resentful of my new-found career and the attention I was devoting to it. He was unhappy when I had to leave the house to cover a night-time news event or attend a class. He was jealous of my business contacts and the recognition I was getting in the community.  I tried counselling through my minister, my doctor and a psychologist but my husband wouldn’t participate as "I was the one who had the problem, not him."

            Then the straw that broke the camel’s back, and the second time that one of his comments caused a change in my life.  When I told him excitedly about winning the press awards he said, “Well, there must not have been too much competition!” 
             Finally, after 14 years of a marriage that should never have happened, I faced the fact that our home would always be a virtual war zone and I filed for divorce.  It was not an easy step to take, but at least now I knew that I had the choice to take that step and I did have some skills to be able to support myself.  Now, at least, I could see a light at the end of that tunnel I had entered at age 16.
             I would never advocate divorce as a solution to marital discord except as a last resort.  It is never easy, and even harder on the children than it is on the parents I believe, but I know without a doubt that my entry into the job market in Powell gave me the courage to end a marriage that was bad from the start and that I was convinced would not get better.
            After the divorce I decided to move out of the town that my ex-husband lived in and I applied for a reporter job at the daily Fort Morgan Times in Colorado where my sister then lived.  I was hired as a reporter, photographer and feature writer on the recommendation of my former boss.   I will always be grateful to a young newspaper editor in Powell, Wyoming who gave me the chance to prove myself.   
         Of course a lot more has happened in my life since this story ends in 1970 but that is for another day. After all, It has taken me over 40 years to write this one!  Remember that it is strictly from my prospective and I am sure that my former husband would have his own side to tell. He was a good man but we just were not good for each other and we did become friends again later in life.  Sadly, he passed away in 2010 and that is why I felt I could share my story now.