|
Chapter Five: 0-2
I took up bowling to get out of the house and have some fun. I tried to get Cyril to go but he wouldn't, so I went alone, and I was pretty good at it. Then I joined a mixed league. THATS WHEN I MET BUD. It was love at first glance. He reminded me of Pop-pop. It took two years to get divorced and Bud and I were married three days after my divorce became final. We bought a miniature gray poodle and named him Oliver. He was adorable and the kids loved him. I didn't know what happiness WAS until I married Bud and found out what happiness WASN'T! It turned out to be a really rocky marriage. He was drinking LONG hours after work and when I got pregnant with Chris he was NEVER home. Cyril had a housekeeper when I left him to run the house. Her name was Ray. She was homely as sin but a very nice decent woman. He paid her $35.00 a week plus room and board. BOY WHAT A BARGAIN SHE WAS! He had always been cheap but this was really pushing it. Ray liked me better than Cyril, and I kept in touch with her after she quit a few years later. We were married in the Methodist church in North Long Branch. Tink and Tony Britton (and Susie) stood up with us. Then we went to the Colinade Restaurant in the Mall to have dinner. I worked there as a hostess. One part of it was like a cafeteria and then it had a very nice high-class dinning room on the other side. I think we went to NY for a day or two but I can't remember. We had and apartment on Westwood Ave, in Long Branch. Then we bought (or thought we did) a beautiful lot out in Belmar Ave, out where Edwards tire place is. We were going to build there, BUT Amy Hamlin (a real estate broker) went to the owners and offered them more money than we did. We had an oral contract with them for $2500 and offered them $3000. Since we didn't have a paper contract, we lost the lot. By this time we rented a duplex in Farmingdale so we would be close to the lot when Bud started to build. Barbara and her husband Corky lived in the other half of the house. She had two sets of twins and two other daughters and two more that she gave away. I liked her and felt sorry for her because Corky was never home. He worked for Hoffman-Koos as a furniture deliveryman. He wasn't home much, and he also was running around with a married woman from Long Branch. Corky and Bud became drinking buddies and spent their time at the OASIS bar in Asbury Park, which was across the street from Chris' fathers shop. He spent 5 hours a day in the bar and three hours at the shop (they were the daytime hours). Then from work he'd go there and stay until 9 or 10 PM. That's where he met Cess who had fast order business, CHICKEN DELIGHT. THEY became best friends and remained so until he died. I worked at Monmouth Lanes behind the counter and went out to different schools with movies and slides to promote bowling. It was a nice job that I enjoyed but the pay wasn't much. Bud father was very jealous and would come to the bowling alley and try and make trouble. The night of the Xmas party there, he came in drunk and started a fight. The police were called and they told him to get out and stay out. He kept calling me on the phone and threatening to kill me when I came out. The Long Branch Police came and got me and took me to the Garfield Grant hotel for the night. WE fought all the time because he wouldn't come home. One day I had a bad automobile accident on 18, which is now 195. I had gone home to find that more than half the furniture and the dog was gone and I was furious. I was driving over to Joe Santoros (he had a pool company and Bud was working with him) when the car in front of me decided to make a left hand turn into that trailer Park without using ANY directional. The right side of my left bumper hit the back left of this car. My car rolled over three times and settled on all four wheels. All the dust and dirt from the floor settled on my clean hair and pale yellow dress. The ambulance came and took me to Jersey Shore Hospital where I sat for 4 hours. I finally borrowed 10 cents from a nurse and called Tink, and Tony came and took me home to Farmingdale. Bud had left me MY two twin beds, MY dinning room set, MY couch, took our bed (which is now Chris guest bed), and Oliver our miniature gray poodle. I had a Nash Rambler at the time, which was a good thing, because any other car in THAT accident would have had the roof ripped off. The body of that car was like a one-piece molded body (most roofs then were separate from the rest of the body). Tink stayed with me that night. The next day Tink and I rode down to Pt. Pleasant looking for Bud and he was at the house that he secretly was buying from DR. Gardner's girlfriend. Price $21,000. It now would sell for over $700,000 it was on a lagoon. When Bud was finally tracked down and told what had happened he came back to Farmingdale and told me he had bought a house in Point Pleasant. He took me down there. It was a cute house on a lagoon two small bedrooms (he finished off the upstairs into another big bed room for the girls.). We had some really good times there. Linda and Sally loved it. It would have been a great place for Susie and her friends too, but she seldom came. I got pregnant with Chris. The before night Chris was born he came home really drunk. Sally and Linda were there and I had to call Cyril to get him to come down to Pt. Pleasant and pick up the kids. Then he started beating me up and I called the police, who came. He broke one cops jaw and anothers shoulder so they arrested him. He spent the night in jail, came home and went out again only to come home at 10PM. At 11PM I went into labor and had to BEG him to drive me to the hospital. He did but just dropped me off at the front door and went home. I went in and Christopher Ross was born at 12:20 am on October 4th, 1965 (a Monday morning). After having three girls I couldn't believe I had a boy. Bud father showed up an hour later. I was just coming out of the anesthesia. We named you Christopher Ross after Cess Ross, who was his fathers best friend and a dear friend of mine. Tink and Cess are Chris Godparents. The day I brought Chris home there was an eviction notice nailed to the door giving us 30 days to vacate. Bud had not been paying the $108.00 a month mortgage and had broken the contract by doing so. He had been loaning money to some of his friends and not paying his x-wife or our bills even though he was bringing home $900.00 a week clear. That was very good money in the 60's. THAT's when I decided to leave him, but had no place to go. He continued to drink heavy and take it out on me, so in April 1966 I left him (Chris was 8 months old). I couldn't have a dog so I gave him to some friends who I knew would give him a good home. They had him 17 years, and then they had to put him down. I stayed in that apt for 6 months until Bud came by in day (drunk) and pushed my 75-year-old sitter into a doorframe because she wouldn't let him in. She hit her head on the doorframe and that fall broke her glasses and hearing aid. I had gone to the mall to buy some more diapers and when I got back home Cora (Bud's ex-wife was there watching Chris.). The police had taken him down to City hall. The next day I was asked to move AGAIN!! Bud was all-apologetic as usual. I found a real nice three bedroom apt. in North Long Branch on Calvert Avenue. It was on the second floor and old school friends of mind lived on the first. Bud moved in with the furniture, vowing to make amends and start anew. It went on like that for over a year. Chris and I went to Mississippi to visit Marion and Jack Jordan for 10 days. While we were gone Bud took up with Barbara, (Corky had left her and married his girlfriend) and she was out to find some sucker to feed and cloth her kids and herself. So I had to take him to court for support. I got awarded $125.00 a week, but of course never got it. He was in and out of court every month. We were forced to move AGAIN as he did not pay MY rent but he did pay Barbara's. I got a job working as a barmaid at the Turf Club in Oceanport. I found Chris a great sitter in "MOM" Taylor and her daughters Suzanne and Debbie. They adored him. We moved to Westwood Ave at Tivoli Gardens. It was really nice. It had one bedroom (with twin beds) and a sleeper sofa so I could have the kids on weekends, and of course I saw them several times a week. I had to take Bud to court every other month for $119 a week for child support. There were MANY days and nights that I considered suicide but then my new son would have been given to the state for caring. I just couldn't do it. It was sad. I lost 45 pounds. Chris was about 6 months old. I ate canned string beans for three days. My life went on like that for years. ...Next |
| T h e L o v e l y L o i s S t o r y A Biography of Lois Eleanor White |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| Lois and Bud |