Mom never explained to me why her father wanted to have the girls stay in the town rather than in the dorms. It certainly increased the stress she felt, the oldest, the responsible semi-adult in the household that wasn't really her house, with her mother hours away. But at least she was in a town she loved, surrounded by supportive people who did what they could to help alleviate the strain, but none of whom had close ties to the sometime-resident family.
To me, it reads like a recipe for disaster. With my grandfather so ill, why not stay in their house in Baltimore? The advantage of attending the church schools from Sept-early June, then decamping back for holidays & summer vacation, seems (to me) whacky.
The second year, when Mom was a senior, her father's condition became past her help & he moved in with a Bryn Athyn family, was tended to by Miss Phoebe Bostock, the community nurse.
Mom always dodged answering who cared for her & Aunt Betty. All I know is that my grandfather died after Mom graduated, but before Aunt Betty. I know that between my grandfather's death & the Crash, they lost the Baltimore house & moved, with their mother, from Bryn Athyn to Philadelphia, to their maternal grandfather's Methodist home. No cards, no dancing, no music, no fun.
It feels to me, looking back at that time & all that was never discussed, the myriad emotions & heartbreaks she experienced, that Mom had to have suffered from PTSD for the rest of her life. She went from an idyllic childhood up to her mid-teens, then to the trauma of caring for her father & being the adult & being burdened with guilt at his death, then the trauma of moving from the warmth & support of Bryn Athyn to a cold Methodist household where the "thou shalt nots" were enforced.
It's the sort of thing I'd love to discuss with my older sibs, who had longer with Mom, who knew Gran. But we are not a "talk about things" type family. I tried to get them to at least write down their different memories of stories Mom had shared, stories of their own with Mom, but it got nowhere. The one thing I gleaned - from Peter - was that he described Gran as "the most evil person I ever met." Think of experiencing that, on top of all Mom went through - so much confusion, tragedy, radical change, loss & chronic despair.
PTSD - explains so much. Will forever wrap my arms around the young girl, the adult, the older woman, the elderly lady who would ~ praise be ~ be freed in her late 80s to open up about believing it was her duty to turn a blind eye to what was right in front of her, to deny feelings within her, to sacrifice what was best for her to keep everything confrontation-free for everyone else.
