MY NEW
HOME
After the police and welfare people took my brothers
and I from our home, they took us to the welfare
office in Lake City, Florida where our case was
assigned to a lady who I only remember as Mrs. Davis, but I do remember that she was a very nice lady, she
even kept us at her house that night. then the next
morning she took us back to the welfare office. She
told Frank and I that she was going to take us to
Jacksonville, Florida (about eighty to ninety miles
from Lake City) to stay at a very nice place where
there were a lot of nice people and a lot of other
children that we could play with and that my younger
brother Wendell was going to stay with some very nice people in Lake City and that mama could come and get
us when they found her. Till this day I have only
seen my mother once, which was briefly about a month
after I was placed in the orphanage. I haven't seen
Wendell since. I have heard stories about him which I will write about in some of my other stories.
"Well, this is it" Mrs. Davis said, as we pulled into the front entrance way to the Childrens Home Society
in Jacksonville, Florida. "A pretty place, isn't it?" she ask. "Yes ma'am" I answered, and I meant it. As
she drove up the road leading to the offices and
dormitories, it was a beautiful place, well trimmed
azaleas on each side with flowers of all colors at
the base of them, a beautiful lawn with border grass
running along each side of the road. I never thought
to ask where were all the children Mrs. Davis had
told us about, but it wouldn't be long and I would
find out anyway. At the end of the road we came to a
circle with all of the buildings more or less
surrounding it. At the far side of the circle I
finally saw someone. A woman standing outside a
breezeway which ran between two buildings, she looked as though she was waiting for us."That is the head
matron here" Mrs. Davis said, then added "you'll like her".
Mrs. Davis parked by the curb in front of the
breezeway and we all got out of the car. After
exchanging a few words with Mrs. Davis the matron
commenced to tell us what fine looking boys we were,
that they had a lot of fine looking boys there and we were sure to make a lot of new friends. Mrs. Davis
was right, I liked her already.
We all went into the breezeway which was lined with
chairs along each side, I would find out later why.
The matron instructed Frank and I to have a seat,
that her and Mrs. Davis had some business to take
care of, or something to that effect. they
disappeared into a dining room that was at one end of the breezeway.I don't know why but Frank and I did
not say a single word to each other the whole time
they were gone. After a while they returned and Mrs.
Davis told us she had to go but that everything was
going to be allright, that we were in good hands and
that she would be back to see us as soon as she
could. The matron walked her to her car and she left. "I'll be back in just a minute, I have to get
something" the matron said as she passed us on her
way back into the dining room.
After a couple of minutes she returned and sat down
across from us on the other side of the breezeway. I
guess I didn't notice that the expression on her face had changed, and as I was soon to find out, so had
her attitude. "You are here because nobody else wants you, and the sooner you realize that the better off
you will be" she said. "Do you understand that?" she
went on. Frank and I both nodded our head yes,
beginning to cry a little. She continued, "We have
rules here and they all must be obeyed; you walk the
line and obey the rules and we'll get along just
fine, do you understand that?" again, a nod yes from
both of us, crying worse now. That certainly would
not be the last time I heard that phrase "walk the
line". She continued, "Rule number one, we will not
tolerate all this crying; DO YOU UNDERSTAND THAT",
she said, almost screaming. Frank and I both were
crying uncontrollably by then.
Suddenly in a flash she was across the breezeway and
had me by the hair pulling and snatching my head
first one way then the other. I swear I think she
picked me clean up off the chair. My crying got worse and much louder, then suddenly she hit me on top of
the head three or four times with a ping pong paddle
she had in her hand. It was then that I realized what it was she had gone to get. Well then I held it in to a whimper until I could stop crying completely. Why
she never said a word to Frank or layed a hand on him I will never know, perhaps because I was the oldest
and she wanted to make an example out of me. "Now
that we understand each other, I'll send for someone
to come and take you to your living quarters" she
said and went back into the dining room again. To
this day I still cannot cry no matter how bad I am
hurting inside unless I am alone. Mrs. Davis was
wrong about the matron, as was I. (I HATED HER).
After a while an older boy, probably sixteen or
seventeen walked into the breezeway, as he walked
past us, he said"I'll be back to get you little
bastards later", and he went on into the dining room
I assumed to find the matron. I think that was the
first time in my young life that I was ever called a
little bastard, but it certainly wouldn't be the last time. I found out later that this boy was one of the
orphans who lived there and had been there for a long time and he was somewhat of a "pet", so to speak.
When he returned he took us to the boys building as
it was referred to, all the while cursing us and
calling us all kinds of dirty names. He took us to
what I would call a utility room because there was a
huge utility sink in there. He filled the sink with
near scalding hot water, added several chemicals and
told us to undress and get into the sink, me first.
As I was trying to slowly get into the sink because
the water was so hot he pushed me in. He got this
brush and scrubbed me so hard with it that I was
literally bleeding in several places. When he was
done he put Frank through basically the same
procedure. This older man came in with some cloths
which he threw at us."Hope you got the little
bastards good and clean'' he said, and he left. The
cloths didn't fit but by now I was to scared to
complain about anything. The boy told us that was one of the house parents, alone with his wife and we was
to call them Mom and Pop.
The rest of the afternoon was fairly uneventful,
mainly because we were put on the front porch
standing up against a wall for what seemed like a
very long time. I still had not seen any other boys,
it was summer vacation and I knew they was not in
school. Finally here they came out in single file and we were lead back to the dining room where we had
supper and then lead back to the boys building. Pop
again told Frank and I to stay on the porch. All the
other boys went back inside and I did not see any of
them again that day.
After a while Pop came out and got us. In a weird
sort of way he seemed like a fairly good man, but he
sure cursed a lot and used thoose two phrases over
and over that I would hear thousands of times in
years to come; they were "walk the line" and "you
little bastards". He took us back inside and to the
sewing room where he gave us some more cloths that
didn't fit. Then he took us upstairs, at the top of
the stairs there was a room and there was that boy
again. "Take these two little bastards and put them
in one of the empty rooms for tonight" Pop said to
the boy, Then looked at us and said "and you two are
not to come out of that room until tomorrow morning", and then he went on back down stairs. After a few
choice curse words the boy took us down the hall to a room which had four beds in it. "You can sleep in any one you want; but if we hear a peep out of you, you
will be beat half to death" he said and he left.
I didn't remember if it was still daylight or dark
outside, I was to scared to care, I just wanted to
get into that bed in hopes that no one else would
bother me. The horrible threats and terrible names
continued on through the years but I don't think any
particular ones stuck in my memory like that first
day.
Frank and I both got into bed, we did not say a
single word to each other. I don't think I slept at
all or Frank either because I could hear him softly
crying all night, and every now and then I would hear the word mama. I am not ashamed to admit, I shed
quite a few silent tears that night myself.
I was soon to learn the definition of orphan and
orphanage, up to now I don't think I had ever heard
the words before, but it did not take long and I knew what they meant and what they stood for. That is when I discovered that MY NEW HOME was an ORPHANAGE HOME
and I was an ORPHAN.
Bobby "Wayne" Evers
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