a new pattern of behavior that afforded less and less time with his wife and daughter. It seemed to Helen that her husband was always away, searching for something. Helen confided in Uncle Si that she felt like she had an exciting lover to meet occasionally for dates but not a husband. Uncle Si was not pleased with what he saw in Wesley’s behavior. Wesley had developed a reputation as being a highly excitable Tomcat, always on the prowl for mates. No, Uncle Si’s women deserved better.
In 1949 Helen’s father moved from California to Kennydale, Washington, and he invited Helen and little Judith to live with him. Helen agreed. She thought it was time to leave Vader, try something new. By now Helen’s husband had severed all contact with her.
Helen’s father, according to gossip, was doing well financially. Maybe he could help Helen with Judith’s upbringing and offer her opportunities that were not available in Vader. Uncle Si, she reasoned, was getting on in age and perhaps it was time to bless him with some well-deserved quiet in the home.
Judith’s first memories of her life originate in her grandfather’s home, a new rambler, in Kennydale, a suburb of Seattle. Even at Judith’s young age, she understood the significance of living in the first home on the block with a television set. She sat, motionless, enthralled, watching her favorite shows in black and white: Wanda Wanda and Howdy Doody.
Five-year-old Judith entered kindergarten and her mother got a job, again with Boeing, at the Renton plant where she hand-painted numbers on airplanes.
Life was good for Judith in grandfather’s house. They enjoyed modern appliances and indoor plumbing. Grandfather’s new wife prepared hearty meals of store-bought food. Frequently they shared meals with interesting guests seated all around the table. The adults showered affection upon the only child in the group, little Judith, in an attempt to fill in for her absent father. The adults indulged little Judith by laughing at her antics and listening intently whenever she interrupted the adults.
Grandfather owned a beautiful, shiny, black car. Judith and her mother enjoyed a fantastic new sense of freedom and great fortune as they traveled about the busy Seattle area by car, always driven safely by grandfather.
In 1950 Helen had saved enough money from her earnings to make a down payment and purchase a small home in Renton, very near the Boeing plant at which she worked. She could walk to work and save bus fare. Home ownership for a single, young woman in the 1950’s was unusual. However, Helen was determined to forge ahead and do whatever necessary to secure a sense of stability for herself and Judith. Helen and Judith left grandfather in Kennydale and moved into their new home. For a brief time, mother and daughter lived alone together, without any men. Helen worked a full schedule at Boeing, managed all of the household chores, cared for Judith, and tended a small garden in the back yard. Naturally, she grew potatoes like she had at Uncle Si’s place. Evening entertainment for the two was curling up together on the sofa, in pajamas, watching television and munching on bite-size pieces of raw potato.
With no other people in the house, Judith began to receive undiluted attention from her mother. “No” was not a word that Judith recognized. Helen dropped what she was doing to play with Judith, giving in to her demands. Judith had no rules to abide by in the home. She could freely jump on the furniture, spill food on the floor, and get into her mother’s things with no consequences. In a generation when “spare the rod, spoil the child” was advocated as good parenting wisdom, Helen chose to throw out the rod.
In June of l950 President Harry Truman authorized General Douglas MacArthur to send U.S. military support to South Korea. The Korean War had begun. Wesley Mawson re-enlisted as soon as he heard the news. He was going to be a soldier again.
On September 2nd of the same year, Sgt.Wesley Mawson stepped on a land mine near Seoul, Korea. His body was decimated, leaving scant remains to send home to his parents in Utah. Judith would not know until she was a sixty-one-year-old woman, while doing a genealogy search on the internet, that her grandfather, Wesley’s father, desperate to end the sickening grief he had felt after losing his son, walked out to the barn behind his house in Utah and fatally shot himself in the head on the two-year anniversary of Wesley’s death.
Judith became a six-year-old fatherless child and Helen a 24-year-old widow. Immediately, without contemplation, Uncle Si decided it was time to sell his home and land in Vader and, shortly thereafter, he moved in with Helen and Judith in the little home in Renton.
Judith seemed upset when she was told that her father had been killed in the war, but having only interacted with him for about six months out of her six years of life, she did not have any memories of her father that she could cling to. Helen gave Judith a wallet size, black and white, head and shoulders photo of Wesley—the only tangible evidence to Judith that she had ever had a father. She only knew that she had suffered some kind of loss and that her mother seemed to be sad. The mutual loss worked to reinforce the bond between mother and daughter.
When Uncle Si moved in, Helen transferred Judith out of her small bedroom and into Helen’s bedroom to allow Uncle Si his own room. Judith and Helen had to walk through Uncle Si’s bedroom, however, to access the tiny bathroom. Quarters were close but they moved around each other with respect for one another’s privacy.
The trio was together again.
In 1952, when Judith was eight years old, a group of boys from the neighborhood coaxed her into the little playhouse that had lived up to its name thus far—a cute little house that Judith played in. The playhouse was only steps from the house in her back yard. Having successfully isolated Judith from view of her mother and Uncle Si, the bigger, older boys shoved Judith down on the floor and quickly stripped her clothing off from the waist down. They slapped her across the face repeatedly and threatened her with serious injury if she cried out. The boys pressed her firmly down, arms above her head, yanking her legs apart, as they each attempted penis insertion. Penetration was not possible, and this disappointment enraged the boys who slapped and punched Judith even more violently. Having their goal of gang rape foiled, the boys ran off, leaving a beaten, shocked, eight-year-old lying on the floor of her beloved playhouse, naked on her bottom half.
When Helen discovered what had happened, she rushed Judith to a doctor who examined her and confirmed that her hymen was still intact. Good news, Helen thought. Meanwhile, Uncle Si smashed the playhouse with a heavy sledgehammer, swing after angry swing, until it was a pile of disarrayed pieces of lumber. Judith’s physical wounds healed quickly. The actual memory of the attack was sent away to a distant corner of her brain where it would be repressed.
Judith was not disturbed by the memory of the assault from the neighborhood boys, however, she was disturbed about her lovely little playhouse being destroyed. One day she marched out to the back yard to discover that her playhouse was gone. Demolished. Her mother and Uncle Si gave no explanation. Judith wondered for the next fifty-four years why her playhouse had inexplicably fallen down.
And so, with one vicious attack to Judith’s body and soul, a course that would take her through a series of tragic happenings was set.
Uncle Si, now in his eighties, spent most of his time sitting at the kitchen table in their house. The table and chairs were l950’s diner-style with chrome framework and red vinyl seat covers. A toaster—the kind that opened up in the middle for placement of bread—resided in the center of the table. Uncle Si prepared himself toast at the table throughout the day. Dressed in either denim overalls or jeans with suspenders and a cotton shirt, the toothless Uncle Si sat for hours at the kitchen table chewing tobacco and spitting into a coffee can on the floor near his feet. He was bald with a white goatee beard that hung long and thin from his chin. Wire frame glasses anchored over the top of his large ears and balanced on his strong, pointed nose. Unfortunately, Uncle Si’s declining health prevented him from doing household chores or helping in the garden, but Helen and Judith weren’t concerned. Uncle Si was never a burden. His energy and humor sparked laughter and warmth in the home.
Judith would always remember her mother carrying in potatoes from the garden in the back yard. The garden had one, large, signature, yellow sunflower each year that rose up so high, Judith had to look up toward the sky to get a good look at it. Judith stomped up the back porch and through the screen door that opened into the kitchen,