From their experience came pain; and from their pain came purpose; and from their purpose came beauty.
J. Arcangel
In 1952, when I was three years old, my father sank into a deep depression. Perhaps he was overwhelmed by what he felt were the injustices of having two deaf children. Or perhaps it was the pressures at his church in Staunton. The church was certainly not paying him enough salary, $4,500, to make him feel at ease about his family expenses, especially since $1,000 of it went to Jonathan’s schooling at CID each year. With Dunbar at Davidson, David about to begin studies at Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia, and me slated to attend CID in a couple of years, finances must have weighed heavily on our father.
Father’s depression was further precipitated, however, by a chemical imbalance, though we wouldn’t know this until twenty-five years later. At that time doctors didn’t even understand there was such a thing as a chemical imbalance in the nervous system. Father’s depressions had occurred before, when he was in college. It would happen to him again in later life, a periodic psychological plague that had a physical cause.
On the advice of doctors in our community, Father was placed in Johns Hopkins Hospital, a major center for the treatment of depression. After a few months, my mother took him from the hospital to stay for six weeks in the home of friends in Pennsylvania to give her time to decide what to do next. My father’s brother Fred, now a medical doctor, then encouraged my father to stay with him and his family in Fayetteville, Arkansas, while he recovered.
During all of this, the people at my father’s church grew impatient and decided to get another minister. My mother, therefore, had to move out of the church manse in Staunton. It was a time of great upheaval for us and a time when we relied on my mother’s strength to hold the family together. Mother hired a moving van and moved us into her mother’s home in Springfield, Ohio. Along with all the other things on her mind, my mother kept herself busy by continuing to teach me.
The period after my father’s hospitalization was one of Mother’s hardest times. She simply had no idea what would become of us, but her Christian faith and her family’s love sustained her. During this time, she wrote a poem that reflected her mood. It read:
Where there is Faith.
There is Love.
Where there is Love.
There is Peace.
Where there is Peace.
There is God.
Where there is God.
There is no Need.
D.C.O. 1953
Small children are susceptible to tensions and upheavals in the family, and I was no exception. I was three when my mother and I moved into her mother’s house in Springfield. My Grandmother Cobolentz, who had been a widow for eight years, lived in a large house that my grandfather built in 1912. It was a duplex. Each side had two stories plus a full basement and attic. All the rooms were huge with high ceilings. I was frightened in the large house at night, and since the halls were lengthy and full of boxes of our things from Staunton, going from room to room meant a long, scary walk in the dark.
One evening my mother and I were in the bathroom, where I brushed my teeth and got ready for bed. I started alone for the bedroom. On the way in the darkness, I tripped and fell. Hearing me fall, my mother came running. Not knowing where I was, she fell on top of me, fracturing my leg.
Parents are always shocked and dismayed when their child decides to have a major trauma exactly when everything else is crashing down around their ears. I think it’s natural that little ones, feeling the tension around them, would decide to join in the action and add their little bit to the disaster. For the next six weeks in Springfield, my poor mother had to carry me and my heavy cast around. It must have made me twice as heavy as before.
My mother sometimes wrapped me up, put me in a baby carriage, and took me on long walks. I loved the railway station and watching the trains pull into town and out again. Once as we watched a switch engine, the engineer motioned for us to get on. These walks were filled with little adventures.
At the end of the six weeks, I went back to the hospital for my run-in with the diabolic doctor and his power saw. I didn’t believe my mother’s explanation that it was for removing the cast. I was convinced it was to remove my leg. I screamed and fought, my eyes closed. Without sound or sight, I felt the vibrations of the power saw buzzing up and down my leg. I was sure the doctor was working hard to cut my leg off. I was much relieved when the ordeal was over and a bit surprised that my limbs remained intact.
While my father was in Arkansas, living with his brother and fighting to recover from his depression, our life in Springfield was complicated. Through it all, I never questioned my father’s absence. Our family’s future looked bleak, but my mother continued to pray for her husband’s recovery and for blessings on her four sons. Mother kept up constant correspondence with my brothers and kept the family together as best she could. She knew that my father was a comparatively young man. In her heart, she felt God had important work for him to do.
She also wondered why she and my father had been given two sons who were then regarded as handicapped. The thought always came that perhaps God had chosen them as our parents because he knew they would respond to our needs with faith, love, and concern. She felt inadequate to deal with this situation on her own, but with God’s guidance and inspiration she was able to create the materials necessary to teach us. She learned that continuously asking “why” was unproductive, while asking “how” produced results. My mother had the combination of personality and potential to move on with what she saw as the business of her life.
My Uncle Fred, whose support and love were unwavering during my family’s difficult years, began encouraging my father to preach as a guest where needed in various rural churches. Mount Vernon Presbyterian Church, near Fayetteville, was one of these. The congregation was looking for a new pastor, and eventually they hired my father on a full-time basis. Gradually, he resumed his role as a pastor, and in 1953 we all moved to Pea Ridge, Arkansas, at the edge of the Ozarks. I was four years old.
Two years later, in the summer of 1955, my father’s depression fully lifted at last. I often wonder whether my father’s situation would have been eased by the treatments, medications, and therapies available today. But we had a treatment even more effective than these—the strength and faith of my mother. From this I learned that one needs to persevere in the face of problems. By having faith and relying on friends and family for support, we can overcome challenges that, at first, seem daunting.