Writing about this particular event in my life stirs memories of an event deeply rooted in darkness. However remember, as you read, that there is a light hidden in that darkness, a light for which the darkness could not put out.
My dad, for whom whose suicide I wrote in my previous post, had been my natural uncle. I was not to have known of my adoption. In those days, such things were kept secret, and I suppose intended as a shielding of events for which I was too young to handle.
In the town where I grew up, however, a neighborhood lady was aware of those events that were well publicized (even in a Philadelphia newspaper) in 1943. She told my friends and they could not keep that secret from me. I remember well that we were standing in a neighboring fruit orchard the day they told me that I'd been adopted. I kept that information, like a sealed envelope, in my heart until I was in high school. Many years later I would read of the events leading to my adoption in The Morning News on microfilm at the local library.
There was an old family heirloom in the bedroom of our home on Snyder Lane, second ward, Danville, Pa. It was 1943. My parents lived with my paternal grandparents behind what is now Shooters Bar. My natural father had tuberculosis and, as a result, was unemployed. I have been told that he was deeply effected by his inability to enter the military, find employment, and having lost his childhood friend in the war. Tuberculosis was incurable in those days.
My father with his dog about 1927
My older sister, Caroline, was born in 1940 and died of pneumonia that same year.
I have no memories of living in that house but I was to learn my father was a talented artist, woodworker and violinist. One of his artistic abilities was cartooning. I am told that, at some point, he had corresponded with Walt Disney.
Below is a photo of a framed pen and ink
I received from relatives in 1970.
Despite his potential as a gifted artist, my natural father was limited in achieving any possible financial success. On January 7, 1943, my brother Kenny was about to turn four years old. I was 22 months old, my sister had been ten days old.
I had been out of the house on this particular night as my mother's brother and his wife, Grace, were keeping me during the birth. Around midnight my father retrieved the family heirloom, a .32 caliber revolver, from a dresser drawer. He shot my mother as she sat tending the newborn in the upstairs bedroom of the quaint home. He shot her a second time, then turned the gun on sleeping Kenny. When the shots rang out, my grandparents ran from downstairs. As they entered the room my father fired at his dad, but missed him. He then turned the gun on himself, having received a gunshot wound to the shoulder. He was taken to Geisinger Hospital by ambulance, as was my mother and newborn sister. My brother, Kenny, had been shot through the chest. Dr. Schneider was called to the scene where Kenny died in his arms. My sister had been spared. My mother died two weeks later. However, before she passed, she had asked my (yet-future) adoptive mom: "Grace, will you take the girls?"
A photo of the house which has long been razed.
My brother Kenny.
Local newspaper clippings on microfilm.
My sister and I were adopted by my mother's brother, thus my last name became my mother's maiden name. I was now a Stetler.
Mom and Dad with my sister and me about 1945.
My father did not die, but was taken by ambulance to the Institution for the Criminally Insane in Waymart, Pa. He lived out the remainder of his life there, having died in 1964. My sister and I knew nothing of his whereabouts, nor did we even know our last (birth) name.
One summer day in 1970 my sister and I, for the first time, began to talk about our natural father. It was then we decided to try to locate his side of the family.
We started at the court house. The clerk had shown us all the papers and we learned of his whereabouts. Then my sister remembered that our neighbor, Mrs. Stahl, knew our cousins' last name: Yocum. Thus we looked them up in the phone book and soon were on our way to Northumberland. We first met Malcolm as he returned from an evening of fishing. We did not know what to say to him when, finally, my sister blurted "We're Lee's girls." His first words: "Ohhhh...I always knew you would come back." He led us into his house and introduced us to his wife, Lehna. After much exchange of information Malcolm and Lehna went into the attic. They came down with numbers of memorabilia that had belonged to my natural parents. Even as I write, I'm amazed at just how deeply they had felt for us, having saved all those things.
When my sister and I were growing up along the D&H Avenue and railroad in Riverside, many times we waved to the "man in the caboose" and he waved back. Malcolm said, "Do you remember waving to the man on the train when you were small? I was that man." We were flabbergasted. Malcolm said that one time we were playing outside. His train had stopped in front of our house. He said, "I wanted, in the worse way, to come and talk to you girls, but I knew I could not."
(it had been obvious that the family kept track of us)
When my sister and I were growing up along the D&H Avenue and railroad in Riverside, many times we waved to the "man in the caboose" and he waved back. Malcolm said, "Do you remember waving to the man on the train when you were small? I was that man." We were flabbergasted. Malcolm said that one time we were playing outside. His train had stopped in front of our house. He said, "I wanted, in the worse way, to come and talk to you girls, but I knew I could not."
(it had been obvious that the family kept track of us)
Among the treasures we went home with one proved to be life-changing: my father's Old Scofield Bible. Anxiously, I leafed through the pages and discovered many verses he'd underlined for which I believe provided some clues as to his mental thoughts. But most revealing was, in his own handwriting, the words: "I have accepted Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior. Have you?" He had signed and dated, even with the hour, his declaration. I had yet to discover this same Jesus for which a spark had been lit in my spirit early in my life and I had longed to know how to connect with God.
I cannot explain the why's and wherefore's as to my father's act that dreadful night in January. All I know is that his mind had obviously snapped. What I do know, however, is that God has promised eternal life to those who receive Him as Savior. Therefore, when we become his children, He never un-adopts us despite the sin nature with which all mankind is born. He tells us in John 1:12: "But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God...."
After high school I met and married my husband, Lawrence, when Otis Redding was "Sittin' at the dock of the Bay" wastin' time.
Two years later on February 6, 1963, our first baby was born. We named her Valerie Susan. She weighed 2 pounds, 1 ounce. In those days the doctors could not do much for a seven month baby and our Valerie lived less than an hour. I went home empty-handed and with a broken heart when the song, "Shake Me I Rattle, Squeeze me I Cry" was popular. I was overwhelmed with grief. Spring had not arrived yet, thus I was pretty much home bound. But my mother-in-law did something that I'd never forgotten and for which was the perfect therapy for me at the time. She brought me a big box of old Aurand family photos and I spent hours looking at my husband's maternal family members at all stages of their lives.
Another spring had passed and the following December our first son was born. It was 1964. Motherly instincts apparently stirred a void in my heart and for the first time I felt a need to find my "real" father. My husband agreed. After we learned of his whereabouts we made the drive to Waymart. By then we had two sons.
It was a hot summer day when we pulled up in front of the institution. The place was more like a prison or fortress sitting on a hill. While our sons and I had waited in the car, my husband went inside. When he came out he told me that my father had died in 1964. I was stunned. The clerk had even recalled the day he had arrived at the prison by ambulance. Lawrence then handed me a piece of yellow-lined paper. Scribbled on it was simply: "Harvey L. Beyer." That's all. The clerk said it was Harvey who claimed my father's body. I said to my husband, "For all we know this man might live in California." It had seemed to me that we could never find him and I wondered if the pieces of the puzzle of my life would ever come together. I was yet to discover that he was my father's uncle, then living in Bryn Mawr, Pa. We had learned that Harvey L. Beyer was retired as President of Edgcomb Steel in Philadelphia, later succeeded by his son.
Later we drove to Bryn Mawr and, after being greeted by a maid, we met Harvey and Nanette, his wife. I am told Nan was a relative of the Hershey chocolate family, however, I cannot verify that information. Whatever be the case, we learned that day that Harvey, not wanting my father to be buried in "pauper's field," claimed his body and provided for his burial at Oddfellows Cemetery in Danville.
Over the years we received further information on my natural family. I have in my possession a letter that had been sent to Harvey L Beyer in 1964. It is a very sad tale of Jay Adam's visit, after having just returned from the war, to see his cousin, Lee, in Waymart. One part of the account deeply stabs my heart: "When it came time to leave, we walked together with the orderly into the corridor leading to the elevators--I turned to walk with the guard--after shaking Lee's hand--as I was waiting for the guard to unlock the gate--I turned and looked back and Lee was standing watching me and the tears were streaming down his face--I will never forget it...." Jay had already determined that he would never go back. He had written that he felt he had opened wounds from an outside world that my father was trying desperately to forget.
Though we didn't know she was our grandmother, I still remember Mom and Dad taking my sister and me, as pre-schoolers, to visit "the old lady in the alley" who lived in the little house dwarfed by the big maple tree and her lush flower garden where hollyhocks danced along the rustic fence. I remember Grandmother plucking a lovely pink bleeding heart and instructing: "Here's a pair of earrings, here's a pair of sandals, and, look we have a pair of bunnies."
My sister and I could not have known, as we skipped along her slate sidewalk, those terrible events that had taken place in 1943 behind Shooter's Bar.
Visit my website to view more photos and a bit more about how my life turned out: http://bleedingheart.homestead.com
Note: If you are reading this and you have information about The Institution for the Criminally Insane in Waymart around this time period or any information about my father, please contact me. Any information helps resolve the many questions of those left behind in such circumstances.
I cannot explain the why's and wherefore's as to my father's act that dreadful night in January. All I know is that his mind had obviously snapped. What I do know, however, is that God has promised eternal life to those who receive Him as Savior. Therefore, when we become his children, He never un-adopts us despite the sin nature with which all mankind is born. He tells us in John 1:12: "But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God...."
After high school I met and married my husband, Lawrence, when Otis Redding was "Sittin' at the dock of the Bay" wastin' time.
Two years later on February 6, 1963, our first baby was born. We named her Valerie Susan. She weighed 2 pounds, 1 ounce. In those days the doctors could not do much for a seven month baby and our Valerie lived less than an hour. I went home empty-handed and with a broken heart when the song, "Shake Me I Rattle, Squeeze me I Cry" was popular. I was overwhelmed with grief. Spring had not arrived yet, thus I was pretty much home bound. But my mother-in-law did something that I'd never forgotten and for which was the perfect therapy for me at the time. She brought me a big box of old Aurand family photos and I spent hours looking at my husband's maternal family members at all stages of their lives.
Another spring had passed and the following December our first son was born. It was 1964. Motherly instincts apparently stirred a void in my heart and for the first time I felt a need to find my "real" father. My husband agreed. After we learned of his whereabouts we made the drive to Waymart. By then we had two sons.
It was a hot summer day when we pulled up in front of the institution. The place was more like a prison or fortress sitting on a hill. While our sons and I had waited in the car, my husband went inside. When he came out he told me that my father had died in 1964. I was stunned. The clerk had even recalled the day he had arrived at the prison by ambulance. Lawrence then handed me a piece of yellow-lined paper. Scribbled on it was simply: "Harvey L. Beyer." That's all. The clerk said it was Harvey who claimed my father's body. I said to my husband, "For all we know this man might live in California." It had seemed to me that we could never find him and I wondered if the pieces of the puzzle of my life would ever come together. I was yet to discover that he was my father's uncle, then living in Bryn Mawr, Pa. We had learned that Harvey L. Beyer was retired as President of Edgcomb Steel in Philadelphia, later succeeded by his son.
Later we drove to Bryn Mawr and, after being greeted by a maid, we met Harvey and Nanette, his wife. I am told Nan was a relative of the Hershey chocolate family, however, I cannot verify that information. Whatever be the case, we learned that day that Harvey, not wanting my father to be buried in "pauper's field," claimed his body and provided for his burial at Oddfellows Cemetery in Danville.
Over the years we received further information on my natural family. I have in my possession a letter that had been sent to Harvey L Beyer in 1964. It is a very sad tale of Jay Adam's visit, after having just returned from the war, to see his cousin, Lee, in Waymart. One part of the account deeply stabs my heart: "When it came time to leave, we walked together with the orderly into the corridor leading to the elevators--I turned to walk with the guard--after shaking Lee's hand--as I was waiting for the guard to unlock the gate--I turned and looked back and Lee was standing watching me and the tears were streaming down his face--I will never forget it...." Jay had already determined that he would never go back. He had written that he felt he had opened wounds from an outside world that my father was trying desperately to forget.
Though we didn't know she was our grandmother, I still remember Mom and Dad taking my sister and me, as pre-schoolers, to visit "the old lady in the alley" who lived in the little house dwarfed by the big maple tree and her lush flower garden where hollyhocks danced along the rustic fence. I remember Grandmother plucking a lovely pink bleeding heart and instructing: "Here's a pair of earrings, here's a pair of sandals, and, look we have a pair of bunnies."
My sister and I could not have known, as we skipped along her slate sidewalk, those terrible events that had taken place in 1943 behind Shooter's Bar.
Visit my website to view more photos and a bit more about how my life turned out: http://bleedingheart.homestead.com
Note: If you are reading this and you have information about The Institution for the Criminally Insane in Waymart around this time period or any information about my father, please contact me. Any information helps resolve the many questions of those left behind in such circumstances.
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