
A Street Corner Crusade
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Donora is southeast of Pittsburgh about an hour's drive. It was
a steel town, like most of the small communities tucked into the
valley along Pennsylvania's Monongahela River. (father) McLaughlin
worked at a steel mill for five years or so and spent perhaps 10
years on and off working for the railroad, but his children and
relatives remember him being out of work much of the time.
He was short and heavy-set, maybe 200 pounds, and he presided over
a house full of pills and guns. He threatened (mother)'s sisters
more than once when they came to call, once meeting them with a
rifle at the top of the steps. "Git," he said, and the sisters got.
When they wanted to bring the family food and clothing, they often
had to leave their bundles at the bottom of the stairs.
He was quick with cutting words and quicker still with the stick
that leaned against the refrigerator in the kitchen. He was at once
secretive and vocal, choosing when he spoke to bad-mouth everybody
and everything. He eventually came up with a catch-all explanation
of human behavior: "It's the people."
DAD IS A VERY SMART PERSON, AND HE WOULD KNOW
JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING FROM THE PAST. WE WOULD BE WATCHING TELEVISION
ABOUT A WAR MOVIE AND DAD WOULD TELL US THINGS THE PERSON ON TELEVISION
WOULDN'T MENTION, OR BEFORE THE PERSON ON THE TELEVISION WOULD SAY
ANYTHING ABOUT IT. DAD WOULD KNOW ABOUT MOVIE STARS, AND THE DATES.
DAD WOULD TELL US, TRY TO REMEMBER PEOPLE, PLACES AND DATES IN THE
PAST.
(mother) was a small woman, strangely immature. Like a teen-ager,
even as a grown woman. Giddy, sometimes, and given to jumping around
and carrying on. She and (father) didn't get along at all. She tried
to divorce him once, but he begged and pleaded, and she took him
back. She told Paul and Paula that (father) was not their father.
DAD AND MOM WOULD FIGHT ALL THE TIME AND WOULD
CALL EACH OTHER NAMES. I HEARD DAD TOLD MOM TO GO TO HER LOVER,
OR MOM WOULD SAY SOMETHING LIKE, WHY DON'T YOU GO TO YOUR GIRLFRIEND?
"Mom just can't say no to a man who wants her bad enough and has
had intercourse with quite a few men, some of whom I saw in action,"
(father) wrote to Paula in 1972.
(father)'s letter had a conspiratorial tone. "Am finding out from
what little I overhear and from question here and there that mom
has been telling people I was the one that mistreated both of you,"
he wrote. "Keep quite about this until I get more data to be positive...Best
to keep quiet and find out all you can and then remember all she
tells you. Ask sly questions and maybe you will get the truth from
her."
(father) said, "She tried to kill both of you and make it look
like a accident and put the blame on me - and it almost worked."
"They fought all the time," Paula McLaughlin says. "He was constantly
beating my mother up and everything, but when he was working is
when the abuse started to us. The minute he walked out that door
to go to work, Paul and I would get so scared. We knew she was going
to do it. She did it every day.
(father) would stand at the stove, glaring at Paul and Paula and
flicking the gas burner on and off, on and off. Her mouth would
form the silent words of warning, "You wait."
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