In Honor of Francis

When I read the article published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, July 15, 2005, I felt someone had opened a door for me. Like most other survivors or family members, there aren’t many people we can share our stories with that would even remotely understand the pain and horror. Thank you, thank you to the heavens and back for opening up that door!

My mother, Frances, had her lobotomy at about 45 years old in an effort by my father and the “doctors” to control her behavior. Of course in those days, (about 1968) there were few treatments and the patient really had no say in the matter of their well being, especially women. The family, in this case her husband, could make that horrific decision, based on a doctors promise to him that she would be a more “sedate” and agreeable wife and partner.

Mom of course, suffered the terrible effects of all of those chemicals that they pumped into her over the years and the electric shock treatments, another barbaric procedure.

My mother was an incredible survivor from a childhood of poverty, incest and beatings by her father and brother(s). Her mother talked her into marrying my father, their paperboy, because he seemed decent and would get her out of the dangerous life she and her mother lived. Her mother was trying to save her only daughter. Frances did not want to leave her dear mother, knowing she would now be the only female in the house for them to victimize, but she obeyed and even thought her mother knew what was good for her.

My father was certainly a good provider, worked hard, served in the WWII and surely suffered in his own life. He was also a controlling man with a “loud” temper. He surely believed that all the treatments and finally the psychosurgery was the only way to stop her depression and OCD behavior. I believe he even thought she would not remember the horror of her childhood. Of course, that is what she remembered most!

I loved my mother so, and taking care of her was an honor.

Frances recently passed away, July 23, 2005 after 10 years in a nursing home near my house. I spent 6 or 7 days a week helping to care for her in her little private room, which was her world with her stuffed animals and her “baby Barbara” doll. She was a good caretaker of her little world. She also lived in a world of dementia, probably caused by the surgery, a world of fear, anxiety and hallucinations. The most frequent question she would ask me was, “Have you heard how my mother is?” She so wanted to be with the loving mother that had died too young, when Frances was only 26 years old and her mother 52. She missed her and grieved for her so.

My pain of watching her suffer and knowing what a horrible surgery the lobotomy and it’s aftermath left, was nothing compared to her living her life in hell on this earth. I miss her very much and know she is at peace with her mother, free of all that hurt them.

I wrote the following for her about 5 years prior to her death and published it in her memorial card:

IN HONOR OF FRANCES

THE UNPLANNED JOURNEY……DEMENTIA

We do not all “grow old gracefully”. We do not all wisk off on trips or work in the garden or head the Auxiliary fund raiser at church.

Some of us take an unplanned journey, one of fear and confusion, with only occasional glimpses of our familiar self.

It seems a new person, frightened and foreign to us lives in our body with our memories.

As we go further down this fragmented path, we have fewer moments with that familiar person.

We all end our journey the same, totally restored, with peace and joy, for eternity.

Love, Barbara