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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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