Globusz^® Publishing 

First, I cannot remember many events while living there at ISSCS. This is due to much drama and stress I lived with. You will understand this as you read this book. Although some of the details I cover may be seen as very dramatic, I did have many good times in the home. Unfortunately, the bad time left the branding mark in my memory and is easier to discuss than the good ones.

I simply cannot remember what happened and when exactly and how I ended up at ISSCS. I can only remember the day I was clinging to a ladies leg and crying because I was being given to another lady and a new place to live in. I was terrified and thought the world was coming to an end for me. I was a little boy two and a half years old with no memory before this very moment. I did learn the reason I was taken from my mother by the courts and placed in the home, till much later in life.

I was being introduced to Mrs. Ward of Washington Cottage in the village. She showed no interest in my problem or me and merely told another boy to take me into the cottage and show me around. She said in a stern voice to stop crying. I was to find out she was a very stern and harsh house parent. I was being transferred from Betsy Ross cottage across the yard from Washington cottage. This is the first memory I retained and do not even remember being placed in the home before this time.

Mrs. Ward told the state when interviewing for the position that she did not express any mother type features, just a teacher and a disciplinary housemother. The state hired her and to this day, thinks it was a terrible mistake. For all the time I was there, I never saw her show any emotion and concern for any of the sixteen children living under her care. We heard that children she had too many problems with and could not handle were sent to St. Charles home for boys in Illinois. This was for wayward and bad boys and more a jail than a home. That added to the fear of living with Mrs. Ward.

Mrs. Ward had her own bedroom and bathroom and lived there in the cottage. She was only gone on days off and assistance stepped in then. Her name was Miss Duyer and we were very happy to see here and sad when she left. She lived only about three blocks from the state home. We actually lived in a state of fear some of the time when Mrs. Ward was home. We never knew if we had done everything she wanted or not. Her forms of punishing children today would not be tolerated.

Occasionally Miss Duyer had me come over to her house and clean the weeds out of her flower garden. I like doing it for her and she always gave me a dollar or more for doing it. She liked me to sing for her, and guest at the cottage or her home. And again I always got a reward of some type for it. I liked her and so did all the other boys in the cottage.

Occasionally Mrs. Ward showed some type of thought that we had behaved ok. On the dinning room tables she always keep a white glass chicken candy dish. It sat in the middle of the table. If she had put some candy in then, it meant we had or were behaving ok. If it was empty, we never knew why and what to expect. We would sneak a peak inside when she was not looking to see if there was any candy or not. Most of the time there was none.

When eating a meal it was a concern that table manners were followed very closely. Mrs. Ward believed the very strict table manners by all the children. She also insisted that no food be left on the plate. I had a problem eating beef fat and more than once was made to sit and eat it no matter how long it took. She introduced me to cinnamon toast for the same reason. If I or any other boy had some toast left, she put sugar and cinnamon on it and we could eat it all much better.

There was much fear and concern about not making Mrs. Ward mad. She did have a bad temper at times. Some of the boys would tell on others to keep her from punishing them for something she said bad had happened. This meant sometimes telling a lie to her to protect themselves. It was possible to be punished for something one did not know about. She beat me on day with a broom until her temper cooled off. To this day I do not what made her mad and beat me. When she cooled down and stopped, she simply ignored me and walked away.

One time I wet my bed and was punished for that. She made me wear diapers around the house all day and had the other boys make fun of me. It was not a nice day. I do know that some of the boys didn't like it because it happened to them before. Sometimes she was not so harsh and merely made a boy go to bed earlier than the rest. She had no problem using a wooden paddle on a boy to punish him. The problem was she lost control of her temper sometimes when punishing a boy. If the boy cried, she sometimes really lost control and it took longer to cool her temper down.

One cannot discount some of the good things she did with the children. Every night at bedtime, she would read to help us go to sleep. She loved books about Jack Armstrong the all American boy. We were allowed to hear the radio shows of that period. I remember Amos and Andy, The Shadow, Superman and others. There was no television yet. I got to listen to special programs like the Longine, Whitnore and Dickson Tyconderosa classical music programs on the radio. I became a fan of classical music.

Mrs. Ward loved to play the piano and have the boys sing along. She also had us play the chopsticks (black shaped flat sticks) to help with the beat of the music. Some of the boys played hard too. In the school band I played the clarinet, but never at the cottage for her. I guess I had a special voice since I had to sing solo songs for her or Miss Duyer and their guest. I was given a nice apple sometime for doing a nice job of singing for the guest. I still remember the songs of the late thirties and forties we sang along with her on the piano.

At this point, I want to explain that my brother was living in a separate cottage under a nice married couple known as Art and Lucy. It was named Sherman Cottage. It was a long time before I even knew he was there! I had lost memory of him completely. A boy from that cottage told me about him. We did meet a few times but were kept apart by the homes policy at that time. I found later the policy was stopped and siblings were allowed to live in the same cottages. Even to this day, we have never sat down and talked about what happened to us while living in the home.

Perhaps one of the most terrifying punishments we faced from Mrs. Ward was the bedroom punishment. The steel beds were in two rows with the three at the end. If a boy did real badly according to Mrs. Ward he was stripped naked and dragged up and down between the beds and banged against them. Two boys at a time would grip his ankle and drag him. Every boy had to take turns dragging the boy up and down the isle. If Mrs. Ward though it was not enough, she would let it continue until she was satisfied the boy was punished enough. I was lucky never to have to be dragged like that. I hated having to do it to another boy.

Mrs. Ward had several ways to punish bad boys. She had the boys in the cottage line up in a straight row with their legs spread apart. The first boy was given a ping-pong paddle. The boy being punished had to crawl between his legs and the boy spanked his behind hard with the paddle. The paddle was passed down the line for each boy to spank the boy crawling all the way to the end. This left Mrs. Ward guiltless. And it left all the guilt on the boys in the cottage.

Another was to have two bad boys stand back to back. She would grab their hair and pull their heads forward. Then with great strength pull their heads up-right and bang the back of their heads together. I have never figured out how she managed to do any of these things without getting in trouble. It was known she was this type of women by quite a few people in the home. I am sure many boys living under Mrs. Ward still suffer from PTS and I am one of them.

There were other forms Mrs. Ward used to punish bad boys. I am only going to add this last one. She would have the bad boy lay on their bed with their hands behind them and have them have their lips on the metal bars at the foot of the bed. They would have to stay that way for hours. Keep in mind that Mrs. Ward's version of what a bad boy was could be hard to determine under today’s standards. Many times, the boy or boys being punished were not sure of how bad she had found them. Today, I see her as a very disturbed woman!

One must keep in mind that Mrs. Ward was not the usual type of housemother in this home. I do not know of any other one like her. It was my misfortune to have lived under her in Washington cottage from 1942 to 1951. From what I know, all the other house parents, either single or married, treated the children with as much love and parental care as they could. I never was able to find out what happened to her later.

One of the most embarrassing things to happen to any boy was to get ringworm. They had their heads shaved and had to wear a white cap. Some of the boys would make fun of them and Mrs. Ward treated them like contaminated children not worthy of touching and being close to. It as very bad to have caught ringworm: I was lucky not too. Imagine not scratching your scalp if it itched and being afraid it might be ringworm!

To live in the village in a cottage like Washington and under a lady like Mrs. Ward, meant you were still under the age of puberty. One morning I woke up with a strange puddle of fluid in my sheets. I was really scared and did not know what it was. I tried to keep it from Mrs. Ward, but another boy told her about it. She checked it out and told me to change the sheets and tell her if it happened again. One month later I was transferred to the older boys row. I had reach puberty! I still did not understand that or have any ideas of sexuality. That would change rapidly.

While living in Washington cottage, several family members on both sides were allowed to come and visit me. Both grandmothers on both sides visited. My Grandmother on my father’s side always brought me home made Italian cookies. She did not want to see Richard due to the fact that he had no Italian heritage. Usually it was a large box of them. They didn't last long with sixteen boys sharing them! My mother was allowed to visit only two times that I could remember. What was strange is that I didn't recognize her the first time. She managed to see Richard and that went better than meeting me.

Richard and I were allowed to go and visit our Uncle and Aunt Laskey in Indiana and see their family. They lived in Shererville just over the Illinois border in Indiana. I think I drove them crazy because I had this bad habit of asking how much things cost! This family did try to adopt us but could not qualify due to finances. We actually traveled back and forth without any adults going along.

After leaving the home to our foster family, Richard kept in touch with this family for quite a few years. Finally he never heard from them again. I had lost touch with them as soon as we left the home. Over time I was able to travel back to Mendota to visit my brother Richard and the Hochstatter family and high school friends.

One event I can remember: it was when I was walking home to Washington cottage one day in 1945. I heard lots of car horns and church bells ringing and people running around very excited. I did not know what was happening. Then I was told the war was over! My question was: What War? In a short time I found out all about it from friends and house parents. I was only eight years old at that time. Another time, we were sent home and told to hurry because of a coming storm. It got very dark and later I heard a tornado had touched down close by. Some things I never liked about living at Normal were the weather. Hated the cold winters and hot and humid summers. Love living in Hawaii now!

The spiritual care of the children was well taken care of. Chaplains came on Sunday and held services in the auditorium at the school for the protestant children. A priest and some nuns came and held mass in a small chapel in the administration building. The nuns did Sunday school in a classroom at the school. I remember waiting in the priest car to ride with him to the school. The cars in those days had the old button starters on the dashboards. Once we found by pushing the button the starter would move the car forward. Fortunately we only pushed enough to move it a few feet since we were afraid the priest would get mad it his car was moved too far. We did not know about a reverse gear and how to get it into reverse. I just never got into the religion aspect very much and only attended because I was baptized Catholic due to my father being one and the home required me to attend. I don't even remember if my brother attended mass on Sunday!