After I graduated from H.S., I moved the 90 miles to my grandma’s place to take care of her. My grandpa had died the year I was 15, and I promised him when I was old enough, and could make money, I’d move in with gram and take care of her. Gram lived at a “lake place”. Grandpa had bought some land years before, and put a trailer on the land. Later, he built a house around the trailer adding a living room, bathroom, utility room. Gram was happy there, and we, my cousins and myself, loved to go visit gram in summers. She had an old bunkhouse too, that grandpa had put beds in for all of us when we came to visit. We had the lake for entertainment.

That fall of 1964, when I was 18, I took a job in Flint, Michigan as a telephone operator, working Information. The job paid well, but I was not one to sit all day in a chair. Sometimes I’d get antsy on my shift. But the money helped with things I was getting fixed for gram. I put a new roof on the house, I repainted the inside of the house, and I got her new curtains. I kept the place mowed, and pretty soon, we had a pretty sharp looking “lake resort” house.

Next door to us was a two-story house. Several windows faced our side of the house. An older couple had built it a few years back. The man had a heart attack and passed away and his wife put the house up for sale. That’s when Wally and Iris moved in with their 5 kids. Four girls and one boy. They aged from ten years old to four years old. They mentioned they had a retarded daughter that was in a “home” in upper Michigan, around Marquette.

I didn’t care much for the family. On mornings in winter when I was going outside to warm my car up, I’d see those kids running around outside in the frigid cold without coats on. I always wondered how they kept from getting pneumonia in the harsh Michigan winters.

One day, Sarah, the 10 year old came over to our house and asked if we had any sugar. Her mom needed it to make something for supper. Gram, having the heart that she had, naturally poured out a cup to give to Sarah. Sarah stood there a few more minutes then said, “I wish Andrea could play with me today outside.” “Who’s Andrea?” My gram asked. “My sister”, she replied. We knew there was not a child there named Andrea and this sort of threw my gram and me for a loop when Sarah said that. I said, “Where is Andrea at?” She said, “Oh, she’s around.” And out the door she went with the sugar.

Gram and I discussed this conversation with Sarah and decided she was making up a sister she wished she had. We knew Sarah was the oldest in that house. Wally worked not far from the phone company I worked with and one day he came and asked if he could ride to work with me, that his car was broke down and he didn’t have a way to get the 22 miles to work. I dropped him off on my way to my job. He was waiting for me when I got off my shift eight hours later. He asked if I had time to stop by a grocery store on the way and I said sure. I sat in the car while he went inside. I couldn’t help but notice the two 6-packs of pop he had nor the two big bunches of bananas that were sticking out of the bag.

This became a way of life with Wally riding to work with me daily. He asked if he could ride with me and he’d split the gas with me. I said ok. And often I’d stop by the grocery store on my way home for him. And every time he always bought bananas and the pop. I was surprised at how many bananas they ate, and I commented to my gram about how many he always bought.

One morning I went to start my car to warm it up and I glanced over at Wally’s house. Something caught my eye in the one window upstairs. I would have sworn I saw the curtain move. I mentioned it to my grandmother, as we knew that window was in a room the kids never used, or at least that’s what we were told. A few mornings after when I started my car up, I again noticed the window curtain and this time I KNEW it moved. Thus began a ritual every morning when I went outside, I was always glancing at that window curtain. But I never saw anyone. Yet I would see it move ever so slightly.

Sarah continued to stop by to borrow things once in a while…….and on one of her visits, I asked who was playing in the upstairs room with the curtain. She stared at me and said, “NOBODY”. I knew better. I knew kids or someone was in that room.

I went to work one day alone. Wally and Iris had asked my grandma if she would watch the kids while they had to go to town to do some ” things.” Gram said yes. It was only supposed to be about two hours, and it was on a Saturday. I will never forget that night for the rest of my life when I got home. I walked into the house to find gram sitting on the couch, bawling like a baby. I thought someone had died in our family the way she was acting. She tried to tell me but I had to wait for her to calm down to understand what she was saying.

And this is what she told me………

All five kids were downstairs playing games and watching t.v. when gram heard a “clunking” noise coming from the stairway. She said it was very loud and it sort of surprised her. What she saw shocked her. A little girl, in a whole body cast, both legs and arms was trying to get down the stairs. Gram said Sarah looked up and said, “Andrea, you BETTER get back upstairs.” My gram could not believe it. Gram said she had dirty straggly hair, matted against her head, and the cast was filthy. Andrea came downstairs and said, “Hello Mrs. Woodward.” Gram asked her who she was and how did she know her name. Andrea then began to tell a story that I will never forget…..and I hope you don’t either.

She was almost 12 years old. Her mother and father had not wanted a baby when she was born. Her mother was mean, very mean. Her father was working a lot and not at home often. Andrea could not read very well and her mother harped and harped on her over it. Andrea told of the beatings, the hair pulling, the screaming and then being locked in a room, with one small window.. She told of never being to eat with the other children at supper time. She was fed in the room, she had a portable pot to use in the room. While she was telling this to my gram, Sarah was screaming at her to SHUT HER MOUTH. Sarah kept screaming, “You KNOW you’re gonna get it when Mom gets home if you don’t SHUT UP.”

Gram told her to go on……..and then she told of the day that her mother became enraged with her when she came downstairs and wanted to eat supper with the rest of the family. Iris chased her back up the stairs, they got into a horrible fight at the top of the stairs and Iris pushed Andrea down the stairs. She broke both legs and both arms in that fall. As Andrea got closer to my grandmother, my grandma stared in shock as she saw a maggot crawl out from under the cast on her one arm. Her arms were so thin, the cast had become loose on her body. The sight was pitiful was what gram said.

Andrea told gram how her mother told everyone that she was in a home. She said her “home” was that room. She told of how she would watch me go out every morning to start my car up and how I’d look up at the window. She was always scared I would see her, so she always ducked back. But she knew our names from hearing the family mention us.

While Sarah was screaming at her to shut up, that she knew she was going to “get it” when their parents got home, Andrea told my gram she’d like to see a doctor but they wouldn’t take her. It made my gram sick. Andrea said she always wanted to meet us, and at suppertime, when they brought her pop and bananas, she’d sit and watch our house out the window.

Gram sat there, crying her heart out when I said, “I’m calling the police.” I did. I explained that there was a severe case of a child being abused next door to us and someone needed to get out there and get that little girl out of that house and to a doctor. Within half an hour, there were squad cars all over the place. I stood at the door and watched as officers carried little Andrea to a waiting police car. I watched as each child was brought out of the house and put into cars. And I watched when they brought out Wally and Iris.

They never came back. The house was put up for sale and another family moved in a few months later. But I found out from the local sheriff department that Andrea and all the other five children were put into foster homes. Wally and Iris were arrested. All these years later, when I see child abuse cases on television, and see the laws they have today to protect these children, I always think of little Andrea. I’ve always wondered how her life turned out. I will never know but I do know anyplace else would have been better than the horrible treatment that child was receiving at home.

Since then, I have always watched windows to see if a curtain ever moves….always remembering Andrea. I thank God I did not see what my grandmother did. My grandmother never got over that day and the site she saw. I don’t think anyone would.

Child abuse is happening more than we know in this country and around the world. What many of us don’t know is what goes on behind closed doors. But if I ever suspect a child is being hurt or abused, I will do what I have to do. The little people in this world can’t speak out and stand up for themselves. Sometimes….we have to.

Sharon Bryant 1946@bellsouth.net