In September 1960, I woke up one morning with six hungry
babies and just 75 cents in my pocket. Their father was gone.
The boys ranged from three months to seven years; their sister
was two. Their Dad had never been much more than a
presence they feared. Whenever they heard his tires crunch on
the gravel driveway they would scramble to hide under their
beds. He did manage to leave 15 dollars a week to buy
groceries. Now that he had decided to leave, there would be no
more beatings, but no food either. If there was a welfare system
in effect in southern Indiana at that time, I certainly knew nothing
about it.
I scrubbed the kids until they looked brand new and then put on
my best homemade dress. I loaded them into the rusty old 51
Chevy and drove off to find a job. The seven of us went to every
factory, store and restaurant in our small town. No luck.
The kids stayed, crammed into the car and tried to be quiet
while I tried to convince whomever would listen that I was willing
to learn or do anything. I had to have a job. Still no luck.
The last place we went to, just a few miles out of town, was an
old Root Beer Barrel drive-in that had been converted to a truck
stop. It was called the Big Wheel. An old lady named Granny
owned the place and she peeked out of the window from time to
time at all those kids. She needed someone on the graveyard
shift, 11 at night until seven in the morning.
She paid 65 cents an hour and I could start that night. I raced
home and called the teenager down the street that baby-sat for
people. I bargained with her to come and sleep on my sofa for a
dollar a night. She could arrive with her pajamas on and the
kids would already be asleep. This seemed like a good
arrangement to her, so we made a deal. That night when and
the little ones and I knelt to say our prayers we all thanked God
for finding Mommy a job.
And so I started at the Big Wheel. When I got home in the
mornings I woke the baby-sitter up and sent her home with one
dollar of my tip money-fully half of what I averaged every night.
As the weeks went by, heating bills added another strain to my
meager wage. The tires on the old Chevy had the consistency
of penny balloons and began to leak. I had to fill them with air
on the way to work and again every morning before I could go
home. One bleak fall morning, I dragged myself to the car to go
home and found four tires in the back seat. New tires! There
was no note, no nothing, just those beautiful brand new tires.
Had angels taken up residence in Indiana? I wondered.
I made a deal with the owner of the local service station. In
exchange for his mounting the new tires, I would clean up his
office. I remember it took me a lot longer to scrub his floor than
it did for him to do the tires.
I was now working six nights instead of five and it still wasn't
enough. Christmas was coming and I knew there would be no
money for toys for the kids. I found a can of red paint and
started repairing and painting some old toys. Then I hid them in
the basement so there would be something for Santa to deliver
on Christmas morning. Clothes were a worry too. I was sewing
patches on top of patches on the boys pants and soon they
would be too far gone to repair.
On Christmas Eve the usual customers were drinking coffee in
the Big Wheel. These were the truckers, Les, Frank, and Jim,
and a state trooper named Joe. A few musicians were hanging
around after a gig at the Legion and were dropping nickels in the
pinball machine. The regulars all just sat around and talked
through the wee hours of the morning and then left to get home
before the sun came up.
When it was time for me to go home at seven o'clock on
Christmas morning I hurried to the car. I was hoping the kids
wouldn't wake up before I managed to get home and get the
presents from the basement and place them under the tree.
(We had cut down a small cedar tree by the side of the road
down by the dump.)
It was still dark and I couldn't see much, but there appeared to
be some dark shadows in the car-or was that just a trick of the
night? Something certainly looked different, but it was hard to
tell what.
When I reached the car I peered warily into one of the side
windows. Then my jaw dropped in amazement. My old battered
Chevy was full to the top with boxes of all shapes and sizes.
I quickly opened the driver's side door, scrambled inside and
kneeled in the front facing the back seat. Reaching back, I
pulled off the lid of the top box. Inside was a whole case of little
blue jeans, sizes 2-10! I looked inside another box: It was full of
shirts to go with the jeans. Then I peeked inside some of the
other boxes: There were candy and nuts and bananas and bags
of groceries. There was an enormous ham for baking, and
canned vegetables and potatoes. There was pudding and Jell-
O and cookies, pie filling and flour. There was a whole bag of
laundry supplies and cleaning items. And there were five toy
trucks and one beautiful little doll.
As I drove back through empty streets as the sun slowly rose on
the most amazing Christmas Day of my life, I was sobbing with
gratitude. And I will never forget the joy on the faces of my little
ones that precious morning.
Yes, there were angels in Indiana that long-ago December. And
they all hung out at the Big Wheel truck stop.
I BELIEVE IN ANGELS! They live next door, around the corner,
work in your office, patrol your neighborhood, call you at
midnight to hear you laugh and listen to you cry, teach your
children, and you see them everyday without even knowing it!.