Mail-Order Kid: An Orphan Train Rider's Story

by Marilyn June Coffey

  Teresa (left) and Dorothy Richards in the Hays Public Library. (Courtesy of Teresa Martin)

  •

  Several months passed before Doris discovered Teresa and Frenchy’s secret marriage. As planned, the Hays newspaper did not write up the marriage, but Russell’s newspaper did, and someone mentioned it to Doris. Infuriated not only about Teresa’s marriage but also about her deliberate secrecy, Doris confronted her mother. Earlier, when Teresa became a grandmother, Doris excitedly called her “Gross,” short for “Grossmütter” or Grandmother. Now Doris sobbed, “You aren’t my Gross anymore!” and yanked a fur coat, a gift from Frenchy, off her mother’s back and jumped up and down on it.

  Because of her daughter’s fury, Teresa lived separately from Frenchy the next six weeks, until Doris married Don. That July after the Crippens returned from their honeymoon and relocated to Lenore, Kansas, Teresa gathered her belongings and scurried to Frenchy’s upstairs apartment at 413 West Eighth Street.

  What a relief, being with Frenchy at last, after all that deception and the strain of bad feelings with Doris! Teresa could hardly contain herself. Frenchy wasn’t as handsome as Clark Gable, but almost. And he was such a character. Putting a cow in the classroom. Having a shotgun marriage. Just like him.

  Teresa’s warmth for Frenchy rushed to the surface. She felt certain this marriage, based on love instead of convenience, would be fulfilling, but she soon regretted her move. Living with Frenchy lacked the ease she had known when she lived with Doris. Oh, he let her do what she pleased, at least usually, but nothing could duplicate the bliss of being her own boss.

  Worse yet, Frenchy, such a boring drunk, found innumerable reasons to “hang one on.” He drank to celebrate the Yankees winning, and he drowned his sorrow when they lost. One day Teresa bought a pair of cheap shoes for $12. She didn’t realize they were made of straw until they fell apart in a rain storm later that day. When Frenchy heard, it drove him to drink to think Teresa bought shoes that lasted only one day.

  Dancing provided one more reason to drink. The Martins danced every Saturday, and Teresa usually enjoyed it. People often asked Frenchy to sing, for he sang beautifully. However, Frenchy’s drinking often drove them home early. Teresa hated being his handmaid, especially since she knew that in the morning he’d have a hair of the dog that bit him to launch his weekend drinking.

  •

  On July 30, 1954, Teresa, now forty-eight, completed the college education she had started ten years earlier. During that decade, she attended school as she could, not at all some semesters. Money was never a problem. She could easily pay the $8-an-hour tuition from her library salary. Finding time proved more difficult. Teresa almost gave up school until Stanley Dalton, the registrar, said, “If you stop taking just the courses you like, and take a few courses you don’t like, then you could graduate.”

  So Teresa earned a degree with a dual major in English and German and a minor in library science. She wished Sister Rosina could see how she’d set herself apart from her eighth-grade classmates, and this time, not with white stockings.

  Many in town including The Hays Daily News considered Teresa’s graduation unusual. Few older women went to college, and even fewer did so while working full-time. The newspaper published a feature on her accomplishment: “Grandmother of Four to be Graduated from Ft. Hays State.” The headline was true. Mildred and her husband, Jack, had produced three more children: Johnny, in 1949; Susie, 1951; and Bill, 1952.

  College administrators arranged for Teresa to march down the commencement aisle alone to make her unique achievement visible. This made her nervous. What if she stumbled? Her clammy hands stuck to the black robe and mortarboard she had donned. They certainly weren’t the most stylish garments she’d worn, but they were highly satisfying, for she looked like every other graduating senior.

  At home that night, Teresa remembered how proud she was to be “educated” when she graduated from eighth grade. How tiny her eighth-grade knowledge looked now! Even her baccalaureate seemed insufficient. She wished she had a library science major, but Fort Hays State didn’t offer one; Emporia College had a franchise on library science in Kansas.

  If I could just get a master’s degree. But where?

  The only close schools offering graduate degrees in library science were Denver University and Emporia College in Emporia, Kansas. Emporia College, which had invited Teresa to study in its library school, was about two hundred miles away. That was closer to Hays than Denver, but how could she get there? She had no car and didn’t know how to drive. However, the Union Pacific stopped in Hays on its way to Denver, making transportation easy, so Teresa applied there.

  When Denver University accepted Teresa, she resigned from the Hays Public Library after having worked there for eighteen years. She was eager to leave even though she enjoyed working for Mrs. Richards, now her close friend. However, to Teresa’s dismay, Mrs. Richards let her teenage daughter “help out” in the library. The young woman busied herself in the children’s department, butted into Teresa’s business, and tattled every time Teresa waived a two-cent fine. Her nosiness nauseated Teresa, but she could not bear to mar her friendship with Mrs. Richards, so she never complained. Leaving the library solved that problem.

  Teresa had another reason to move to Denver: Frenchy. She longed to get away from him, especially from his drinking. Since he had to tend his cigarette machine business in Hays, he couldn’t move with her. Sorry that she had married him, she still was Catholic enough that she did not want to divorce him, but she wanted to put some distance between them. Three hundred miles seemed about right.

  Before Teresa’s last day of work, Ed Wilson, who had ridden the train to Hays about 1901, came into the library looking for her. Mr. Wilson, a rare tall orphan, received a lucky placement with the Wellbrooks in Victoria. They gave Ed an excellent education, making him one of the few New York orphans in Ellis County to earn a college degree. Now he worked in a Hays bank and dabbled in insurance, finance, and real estate.

  Highly respected for his intelligence, Mr. Wilson remained proud and aloof. He never came to the library and never spoke to Teresa, so his presence surprised her.

  “I hear you’ve resigned,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “I sure hate to see you leave. I never paid much attention to you, but I feel there’s a kind of bond between us.”

  Teresa understood what he meant. She, too, felt a bond with other New York orphans—Pete who died of Spanish flu, Mary Childs who’d ridden with her on the train, and, yes, even Mr. Wilson whose career she had followed so closely and with such pride.

  •

  In Denver, Teresa found a room on busy East Evans Avenue near the university. What a relief! That first quarter, she carried a full load of studies, worked part-time at the school, and occasionally took care of children for pin money.

  Denver University, unfortunately, turned out to be less than congenial. Students whose ample allowances enabled them to attend movies and plays that Teresa couldn’t afford intimidated her. Listening to them talk made her life seem paltry. Her sense of self-worth, never high, seemed to sink daily. Worse yet, Dr. Bailey, head of the library science department, seemed to dislike her. She could not imagine why. She had never done anything to him.

  Still, Denver felt distinctly better than Hays. No one in that huge city knew that her parents had given her to the Foundling. Her past hadn’t followed her. What a blessing!

  On the evening of November 17, 1954, Teresa, in her room, heard the phone ring downstairs.

  “It’s for you,” the landlady, Mrs. Dekker, called. “From Scotts Air Force Base.”

  That would be Doris, her husband is in the air force now! She must have delivered their baby!

  As Teresa raced downstairs, her foot caught between two banister slats, and she fell. She limped to the phone and watched her foot balloon as she heard Doris’s good news—a boy, Galen.

  When she hung up, Mrs. Dekker said, “I don’t want
you to call the doctor.”

  Afraid to anger her, Teresa agreed. She went to bed pleased about Doris’s news, but she slept poorly. Pain from every twist and turn kept her awake.

  The next day, scared to limp downstairs and face Mrs. Dekker, Teresa stayed in bed until a classmate, Martha, visited her. “Why aren’t you in school?”

  “Something’s wrong with my foot.” Teresa pulled the covers aside.

  “It looks awful! You’ve got to see a doctor.”

  “I can’t. I promised the landlady I wouldn’t.”

  “Nonsense.” Martha grabbed Teresa’s coat. “Here. Put this on. I’ll go with you.”

  With Martha as a shield, Teresa limped by Mrs. Dekker. The two visited a doctor who pronounced Teresa’s foot broken and put a cast on it.

  Teresa tried to think ill of no one, but she did wish her landlady would break her foot, be forced to climb a flight of stairs, and lie in bed twenty-four hours with her ankle throbbing. How could she be so cruel?

  Learning to walk on her cast was not that difficult. Once she got used to walking on it, she moved around almost as freely as usual. Why she even danced on it when she went back to Hays to visit Frenchy!

  Weeks later, Teresa found the courage to ask Mrs. Dekker why she didn’t want her to see a doctor.

  “I was afraid you would sue me,” the landlady said.

  Teresa laughed. “Unfortunately, I’m too kind hearted to be the suing kind.”

  •

  At the end of the second quarter, Dr. Bailey tried to block Teresa’s “A” in an audio-visual course taught by another faculty member. “She doesn’t deserve an A,” he said.

  Teresa knew she was no audio-visual expert, but she crammed to earn that grade. Finally, to her relief, Dr. Bailey let the grade stand, but their disagreement unsettled her, especially when her counselor, Dr. Post, told her Dr. Bailey didn’t like her.

  “Go to another library school,” Dr. Post said. “Bailey will never let you pass here.”

  However, Teresa refused to quit. Why should she? Dr. Bailey may not think she was graduate-level material, but others did. Teresa had done exceptionally well during her library practice at Colorado State Library, so well that after she finished her practice, the library director hired her full-time. A short while later, the director reluctantly let Teresa go when the state cut library funds, but she recommended Teresa to Mercy Hospital for a full-time job as medical librarian, a field she never considered.

  “I don’t know a thing about medical literature,” Teresa said at her interview, but Mercy Hospital hired her as a full-time faculty member. Her monthly salary was only $150, a sizable drop in pay from the $300 a month she received from the Colorado State Library. Still, being a medical librarian pleased her—such a prestigious job, as important as any job she could hope to land with a master’s degree.

  Despite Teresa’s successes in the field, her relationship with Dr. Bailey deteriorated. In his catalog class, he humiliated her so often she crumbled whenever he looked her way. He unnerved her so she couldn’t settle into her desk without spilling books or dropping her pencil.

  Teresa dreaded final exams, scheduled for spring. Her final would be in cataloging, an exam designed to test everything she knew about the subject. She had no reason to fear the test for she’d earned B’s in all her catalog courses, both in Hays and at Denver University. However, the exam—a verbal one—would be given by several professors, including Dr. Bailey.

  On exam day, Teresa’s digestion flared up, so she ate no breakfast. She knew she needed to eat, but food seemed unappetizing. Finally, she ate a few peanuts, which seemed to settle her stomach.

  When she walked into the exam room, she felt a tickle in her throat. Ignoring it, she talked to herself, trying to lift her spirits as she waited for the exam to begin. Remember, Teresa, you’ve studied diligently. You know quite a bit about cataloging. You will do okay. Because she reminded herself that several teachers—not just Dr. Bailey—would question her, she wasn’t prepared for Dr. Bailey to ask the first question.

  He did, saying, “What is the purpose of the card catalog?”

  Teresa, to her surprise, blanked. She knew she knew the answer. However, facing Dr. Bailey, her knowledge disappeared. Had she ever heard of such a thing as the purpose of a card catalog? Not that she could remember.

  Unable to answer that first question, she stiffened. Other teachers posed more questions, but she bungled her answers.

  When the questions stopped, she fled the room in tears. In the hall, she remembered that the purpose of the card catalog was to serve as the index to the holdings in the library. Of course. Other answers also became obvious as she crossed the campus.

  Shaken, she stopped to eat at an East Evans Avenue restaurant; those peanuts had not been enough. After lunch, she went to her room and packed her suitcase. Planning to visit Frenchy and Doris in Hays, she returned to East Evans Avenue to wait for the bus. As she stood at the bus stop, her stomach churning, she blacked out, falling on top of a garbage can. When she revived, she lay in the back room of a nearby drugstore under the gaze of a concerned pharmacist who took her to Saint Luke’s Hospital. Doctors told her she was suffering from “complete exhaustion” and recommended bed rest.

  Lying in her hospital bed day after day, Teresa found ample time to reflect. She knew stress exhausted her. Dr. Bailey was the obvious source of stress, but his hatred alone hadn’t put her in the hospital. No, what put her here was a series of stresses, his included. Another was lack of sleep; she slept fitfully before her final exam. Then she not only carried a full-time load of graduate credits at Denver University but also worked full-time at a new job in Mercy Hospital. On top of that, she worked part-time caring for children.

  That part-time work helped her financially before she got her job, so she felt obligated to those mothers. She couldn’t just leave them in the lurch. Maybe she should stop babysitting; the mothers surely had other help now. Teresa felt she could not drop her new job at Mercy. That would be financial ruin. Besides, she liked the Mercy job. No, she must change her relationship with Denver University if she didn’t want to faint on top of another garbage can.

  Perhaps she should relinquish her ambition to have a master’s degree. She didn’t really need an M.A. now since she’d landed as good a librarian job as any master’s degree could get her. Giving up the degree would please Dr. Bailey, and he would stop harassing her. She knew he didn’t think she was master’s degree material, so if she gave up that goal, she still could take a few more courses here and there, as time passed. Surely, he wouldn’t mind that.

  The thought of pulling back at Denver University saddened Teresa. After all, she’d accomplished so many goals: learning High German as a child; finding housekeeping jobs; supporting her family through the Depression; learning library skills; learning to type; graduating from high school and then from college. She was not a quitter. The very idea made her squirm.

  Still, if she gave up her goal of getting a master’s degree, she could concentrate on her new job at Mercy with its emphasis on medical literature. She’d have time to study and learn about that unknown field, a goal perhaps more important than a master’s.

  During Teresa’s several-week stay in the hospital, she became convinced this was the realistic course of action. She knew it partly because of her deep sense of satisfaction when she imagined never coming into conflict with Dr. Bailey again. Never.

  •

  The following school year, 1955–56, Teresa continued to study at Denver University but only part-time. Dr. Bailey gave her no grief. To learn about medical literature for her new position, she took physiology and medical terminology courses at the University of Colorado’s extension campus in Denver. She performed well in her classes and felt comfortable at Mercy Hospital.

  Then someone knocked on her door.

  She opened it to see Frenchy’s slender body and bright smile, a sight she never expected to see in Denver. Suspicion tempered her joy.
“What are you doing here?”

  Frenchy said he had sold his cigarette machines, traded in his old Buick Roadmaster for a newer one, and driven to Denver. “I just want to be with you.”

  Despite her tiny room, she agreed to let him live with her. He was, after all, her husband, but she knew how weak he was. He never could resist a snoot full. She prayed she wasn’t making a mistake.

  At home, Teresa decided to spoil Frenchy; she let him have his way 98 percent of the time. She enjoyed making him happy, and she needed little in return. She had her own friends, doing research for doctors satisfied her, and at night she read a lot, studied, or crocheted. Later, after they purchased a TV, Frenchy watched it, especially the Westerns. Sometimes Teresa looked at Gunsmoke with him, sitting by his side, crocheting little favors for the doctors during commercials.

  Except for the TV, Frenchy couldn’t stand noise, so Teresa kept their home quiet. But oddly enough, after a few drinks Frenchy became voluble himself, filling the silent air with the sound of his voice. At such times, Teresa despaired.

  When Frenchy didn’t drink too much, he and Teresa got along unusually well. Teresa looked forward to those times, even though they were fleeting; they refreshed her like ice-cold milk in a tin mug.

  She and Frenchy had little in common except they both loved to dance. They went to dances almost every week, twice a week sometimes, cavorting to songs like “Alexander’s Rag Time Band” and the “St. Louis Blues,” pieces Teresa relished. She and Frenchy also loved to waltz, especially the Viennese waltz. Frenchy still danced magnificently, his body moving like a lithe, lean cat. Sometimes Teresa wondered if she married him so she could claim him as her dancing partner.