All Mommies and Daddies Are Deaf

All Mommies and Daddies Are Deaf

Inside the house, Cathy believed, all mommies and daddies were deaf and used their hands to talk.  Outside, they could all hear and used their voices to communicate.  It wasn’t that hard for the 4 year old to figure out. 

When they were inside, she would sit and watch her parents and their friends signing to each other.  Their fingers flowed smoothly from one picture in the air to another.  Cathy was spellbound by not only the beauty but the rapid movements, the clicks and snaps of the fingers and the mouths.  No one said anything. 

Sometimes Cathy wanted to be deaf and sign too.  She would drag her little brother, Mikey, away from what he was doing and make him sit across from her.  They would make movements with their hands.  When they did this, the adults would look over and smile indulgently. 

            It was different outside.  Cathy’s parents used their mouths to talk to her anytime they wanted to communicate.  They never used their hands to talk when they were outside.  They used their mouths to all the relatives, friends and neighbors. 

That’s how it is in everybody’s house, the little girl thought.

 

Once in a while, she would notice her mother or father using a hand to say something.  That didn’t happen often because they didn’t lift their hands like they usually did inside.  The hand would remain at the side, moving very slightly.  It was like a secret and no one else was supposed to guess.

There was a parade through town one hot summer day.  Cathy, Mikey and their parents stood alongside Main Street watching the high school band march down the street.  Cathy’s Uncle Tom stood next to her.  They’d come across Uncle Tom and Aunt Mary just before the parade started and now they were all together. 

This was one of the days that Cathy noticed her father make a very small sign to her mother.  Cathy copied it as best as she could.

Suddenly, Uncle Tom asked sharply, “What are you doing?  Stop that!”

Cathy dropped her hand, embarrassed that she’d been caught.  Her parents looked over and their faces went red.  She wondered what was wrong with using her hands outside.  She put her hands behind her back so she wouldn’t forget not to use them.  She watched the next band beginning to march by and quickly became caught up in the celebration again.

 

Growing Up Deaf In Years Gone By

The experiences of a Deaf child in the '30s and '40s was very different from today in a few different ways.  I can't speak to how Deaf children fare nowadays because there are no other Deaf members in our family anymore.  This, though, is what it was like then.

 

 

DAD

 

My dad was born in 1929 to Irish immigrants from County Sligo.  He used to think that he was the 5th child out of 6 but in middle age, he learned that there had been another sibling before he was born.  He was shocked, especially that no one had told him.  I think deaf members of the family don't get to learn about a lot of family secrets.  It's very easy to whisper and a little more troublesome to write it out or act it out (if the family doesn't sign).

My Irish grandparents came to this country sometime before WWI.  My knowledge of family history on my dad's side is very sketchy but a lot of details have become clear thanks to my cousin Joanne’s research for Ancestry.  My grandparents both helped their siblings come to NY once they’d become established here.  Grandma Molly worked first as a housemaid.  My grandfather spent many of his growing years near the shore and once here, I’m not sure how he was employed. 

When I knew my grandfather, he was already blind and there are varying stories about how that happened.  My dad believed it was because his father looked at the sun during an eclipse.  My mother guessed he’d had a bottle of rubbing alcohol during Prohibition when he couldn’t get a drink elsewhere.  My Aunt Bea, Dad’s sister, said no to both, he had glaucoma.  And Joanne said from her records it seems he got bad hooch (not rubbing alcohol) during Prohibition. 

My dad wasn’t sure why he was deaf.  He remembered being told that he had an operation and the doctor cut through a nerve in his neck.  That can't be but I'm guessing it must have been a mastoidectomy gone wrong.  I'm sure my grandparents didn't have much in the way of money and good medical care for the poor in the Depression was probably almost non-existent.

My dad's family made up home signs to communicate with him.  They tried to include him as much as was possible, which is a lot more than other hearing families of the time did with their deaf members.  When he was old enough, he was sent out of the city to the state supported school for the deaf in White Plains, NY.  There, he got involved in drama, football, and even the band!  He didn't grow up feeling ashamed to be deaf or to use sign language.  That's a good thing.

He didn't have a great life though.  He never wanted to talk about his childhood.  My mother told me there was a lot of drinking and violence going on around him, in his own family and in the neighborhood.  I think he just wanted to forget about it.  Anytime I asked him about it, he'd just say it was all over and in the past.

 

DAD DOESN’T TALK ABOUT IT

 

I don't know if all dads keep things to themselves but mine did.  I know a few basic facts about his childhood but very little else.  My mother says he's been through some really rough times but I could never get him to open up about it.  I only asked once or twice.  My dad said “I don't want to talk about it, too many bad memories and that was that.”

My dad's next oldest brother, Thomas,  was just over a year older.  The two brothers used to go just about everywhere together, especially to the movies.  My uncle would make motions like he was using one of those big old fashioned film cameras and my dad would immediately understand.

They lived in Harlem and then in the Bronx when they were kids, in the 1930s.  My mom said once there was a driveby shooting with gangsters.  Uncle Thomas heard the car coming, grabbed my father and pushed him down into the entrance of a candy store.  Mom said that dad could hear the pow pow pow sounds from the gun.  Neither of them were hurt.  I don't know if that story is true because, by the time Mom told me, I'd learned it was useless to ask my dad anything about his growing years.

Mom tells me that the oldest brother, John,  and my grandfather  both had bad drinking problems and that they fought tooth and nail almost all the time.  That has to be rough on a kid, especially when you can't hear and you don't know why there's all this violence.

I can remember my dad fighting with Uncle John and it upset me very much.  That particular uncle was my favorite.  I didn't realize he had a problem with alcohol.  All I knew was that he made up a song just for me, would take my brother and me walking to the store, and just generally was a lot of fun to be around.  I think they fought over the drinking and the fact that my mother's family didn't like his toughness...Dad didn't talk about it.

 I remember one big blow-out between my parents and my uncle.  He was to babysit my brother and me while my parents went to the movies.  When they got home, they found him passed out on the sofa.  His cigarette had fallen out of his hand and was smoldering.  My parents were furious.  They felt my uncle put our lives in danger.  There could’ve been a fire.

MOM

 

My mom was a full term baby but she was so tiny, she could fit into the palm of a neighbor's hand.  Mrs. Clock, who was my grandmother's close friend for years and years, often liked to tell the story of how she could hold my newborn mom is just one hand.  Babies born in 1930 were just tinier than they are now, that's for sure!

My mom was the youngest of six, four brothers and two sisters -- just like my dad's family.  In his family, the two girls came first and then the four boys.  In my mom's family, it was the other way around.  My mom and her sister were the two youngest -- and the only deaf members of the family.

When my grandma married my grandfather, she didn't know there was a history of deafness in his family.  I read in her diary that if she'd known, she wouldn't have married him.  She deeply grieved the fact that both her daughters were deaf.  My aunt was born deaf but my mom can remember listening to the radio and dancing to the music.  She lost the rest of her hearing before she was 4.  The youngest of the 4 brothers became his sisters' interpreter (I called "Uncle Bone Squisher" because of his tight hugs) but eventually they had to be sent away to school.

The family wasn't wealthy by any means but I guess they were as refined as they could be, thanks to my grandmother.  Her family had been in the U.S. since the Revolutionary War -- well, even before then in one branch of the family.  That member of the family was smuggled out of France in an empty wine cask by his two brothers.  The young man was a Protestant in Huguenot France and his brothers wanted to save his life.  Descendants of his fought in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, and my great-grandfather was a light housekeeper.  I always thought that was so cool.

My grandfather immigrated from Norway sometime before WWI.  I have a picture of my grandparents when they were very young, posing on the beach at Coney Island.  I can't imagine how it was my grandmother fell in love with him but ... something like that must have happened.  He was a stern, cold man that scared me.  I didn't like to be near him.

Although he was never violent with me, I must have sensed something that made me uneasy.  After my grandmother died, I found her diary and read it.  My grandfather used to beat his family and I felt sick to my stomach at the description of him pounding my mother's head against the wall.  My grandfather would attack grandma and my uncles would jump him to stop it ... it sounds awful.

My mother and my aunt were sent to Lexington School for the Deaf.  At that time, the school followed the oral method. It meant that the deaf children were not allowed to use their hands and were forced to speak and lipread only.  Their teaching methods and the advice they gave my mom's family probably stigmatized the girls and messed up their thinking for almost a lifetime.

LEXINGTON

I know a little bit more about Mom's education and childhood because she was more willingly to talk about her experiences with me.  Some of the stories she told me are just awful but I'm glad she shared them.

She and her older sister were sent to Lexington School for the Deaf when she was around kindergarten age.  I'm thinking that would be the mid 1930s.  Look magazine did a spread on Lexington and took pictures of students trying to learn speech.  There were a couple of pictures of my mom, a beautiful platinum blonde child with her hands on some kind of instrument that vibrated.  There was another picture of her with headphones over her ears.

I thought it was pretty cool that my mom and aunt would be in a magazine like Look and it looked like they were having fun -- but I found out that it wasn't fun and games.  It was very boring and tedious for mom.  Hour after hour, day after day she had to put her hands and fingers on the throats and lips of hearing teachers to try and learn how to make sounds.  Day after day and hour after hour, she had to practice saying the same word over and over until she got it right.

Ball ball ball ball ball ball ball ball ball ball ball ball ball ball ball ball.

Definitely not fun!

Why would someone subject a child to that kind of torture?  It all has to do with how hearing educators thought deaf kids should be taught.

Some of the earliest schools for the deaf recognized the importance of sign language.  It was so much easier to teach the kids -- it makes sense, right?  And these kids would become literate as they grew up and some became teachers themselves -- wonderful role models!  A deaf community and culture grew -- kind of like when immigrants arrived from Ireland and Germany and Eastern Europe.  The immigrants settled into neighborhoods, had a common language and culture and mores.  It's the same with the deaf community.  At the same time, the communities interact with the larger population.  No big deal right?

Lexington School came into existence well over 100 years ago.  It was in New York City and has relocated since my mom went there.  Unlike the earliest schools, Lexington didn't use sign language for instruction.  By then, there was a new theory of education, called oralism, and it was strongly supported by Alexander Graham Bell, whose wife & mother were deaf or hard of hearing.  The idea was that using sign language would prevent a  deaf child from learning how to speak.  That would be a horrible thing because, after all, most of the world is hearing.

That's why my mom wasn't allowed to learn sign language and that's why she had to sit for hours repeating sounds and words that made no sense to her.  Not only was she not allowed to sign, she also wasn't allowed to gesture -- even naturally, like to point at something.

Mom told me that she was sitting at the dinner table and wanted some butter.  Everyone's faces were turned away as the kids were forced to mouth words to each other.  She reached out to touch her neighbor's shoulder so that she could get her attention -- and the counselor smacked her for it.  Mom learned it was wrong to gesture like that ... what she was supposed to do was nod her head up and down until she got someone's attention and then ask for what she wanted.  I would like to know what the difference is between jigging up and down like a bobble head doll and tapping someone on the shoulder.  I guess the difference was that the hands were just verboten.

The girls (Lexington was for girls only after one of the primary ages -- the boys were sent to another school) learned that using their hands to communicate was dirty and shameful and not to be done in public.  Mom tells me that she and her sister used to go to the bathroom to "talk" (sign) and that they had to hurry so they wouldn't be caught.  They weren't the only kids to do that, either.  The girls learned their natural language from each other in the small lavatories. It was the Big Secret.

The counselors and teachers were always preaching to my grandmother and family that they absolutely should not sign, not ever ever and they should immediately prevent the girls from using their hands.  Grandma & family got warned:  if you let the girls use their hands, they will never learn to speak.  They will never be able to get along in the hearing world.

Since those days, Lexington's changed.  Now they use total communication -- sign language and lip reading/speech reading skills.  They didn't change soon enough for my mom and aunt.  To the end of her life, my mother was not comfortable signing in public.  At my father’s memorial service, she chose to use her voice to speak instead of signing.  She never was comfortable signing with me, too, and that was sad.

MR & MRS SPENCER TRACY

 Speaking of fame, though, my mom had an encounter with a "famous" hearing person when she was at school...sort of. 

The actor Spencer Tracy and his wife had a deaf son.  This was news to me when Mom told me the story.  Wow, someone I'd heard of and seen in the movies had a deaf kid!  Later, I found out that Lon Chaney Senior’s parents were Deaf—and he was a Coda like me.   That must have been so cool, so exciting to have the Tracys at Mom’s school.

Mom shrugged and looked annoyed.

I asked, did you see the son?  How did they communicate with him?

They talked, Mom answered.  That's why she was annoyed.  The Tracys very much supported the oral method of communication -- lipreading and speech training.  No sign language, bad bad signs!  They didn't help us, Mom explained.

How painful to feel betrayed by “Father Flanagan” played by Spencer Tracy in Boys Town.  Father Flanagan was the champion of less fortunate children.  Mom, my aunt and the other girls at the school hoped that somehow he and Mrs. Tracy would save them from repressive teaching tactics but were sorely disappointed.

From the stories she's told me, Mom didn't take any sh*t from anyone when she was younger.  She used to stick up for her sister (older by 2 years) all the time at school.  I don't mean that she was aggressive.  She just was much more assertive then.  She told me she quit school before she was 16.  She just told Grandma something to the effect of -- I'm not going back there.  She was sick and tired of saying "ball ball ball" every day.  She wasn't learning anything and why go back?  She wanted to go and get a job.

In those days, deaf women were mainly seamstresses and key punch operators.  The men were machinists and printers.  My mom got a job as a key punch operator.  She could have been an artist if that had been a possibility then.  She had a very keen eye and drew some beautiful portraits with charcoal and also with light pastels.

She was very popular with the boys and dated frequently -- even hearing boys.  That surprised me.  "How did you communicate?" I asked her.  Her speech was okay, I mean, I could understand her.  Most hearing people could not.

She told me she'd just talk and do her best to lipread.

As a kid, I thought it was pretty brave of her to go out with hearing boys.  What if the boy made fun of her behind her back?  She'd never know.  What if he spread gossip about her with his hearing friends?  She wouldn't know.

Mom went on dates with these boys for the experience of going out.  When she was a teenager, "going steady" was rare.  Girls and boys went out in groups and didn't date exclusively.  She might go out with 4 different boys on Fridays during the month.

"This is how you get to know what people are like," she explained to me.

Mom was feisty enough that the boys she dated never tried anything funny with her.

I don't know if she stood up to her own dad.  That's been a difficult subject to broach.  I know from reading my grandmother's diary that my grandfather was physically abusive to his family.  He beat my grandmother and he'd get into fights with his sons when they came to their mother's defense.  My mom told me that he'd beat her head against the wall.  I wanted to know why he would do something so mean but I could tell how painful it was for her to talk about and she probably didn't know why anyway.

She dated deaf boys too and met my dad one of two ways:  one story is that  my Aunt Bea (Dad’s older sister) saw her on a train.  They both got off the same stop and went to the NY State School for the Deaf, where Dad had attended.   There was some kind of rally going there and Aunt Bea was going to support Dad.  Aunt Bea persuaded Dad to ask her out, telling him: she could be “the one”. 

Second way:  they were on a blind date...not that he was her date.  She was supposed to go on a double date with her blind date and my dad was going along with his date.  Afterwards, my parents both went to the train station together.  My dad was going in one direction, to the Bronx, and my mom in the other, to Long Island.  He decided to see her home safely and then go on home himself. The rest as they say is history. 

 

A Little About Deaf Culture

 

The Deaf community is tight knit, welcome only to a select few of hearing people: their own children, interpreters and other advocates.  Their culture is warm and filled with humor.  Where did the culture originate?  In schools for the Deaf, the students tend to be isolated from their parents and families for most of the year and form close, life long bonds.  Friendships become primary relationships, continuing into adulthood.  Social clubs and other organizations for the Deaf are as important, if not more than, family life. 

Many hearing people are uncomfortable with ongoing eye contact and look away after a few seconds.  Deaf people lock eyes with the ones they’re communicating with.  Continued eye contact is an important way that Deaf people feel trust, as if they can see a person’s true character.  When one looks away too frequently, Deaf people become wary.  It’s as if hearing people are acting sneaky by not looking the Deaf person in the eye.

With each other, field of vision includes the face as well as the signing hands.  Cues are given through facial expression.  Expressions adds meaning and emotion to the message.  We use these cues too when we’re speaking but we are not as outwardly expressive as Deaf people.

Humor is important and very much appreciated among the Deaf community.  They especially love poking humor at themselves.  One example of such a story is about the distraught hearing father of a Deaf college student who wrote:  “Need money.  I cut neck.”  The alarmed dad went straight away to an administrator at Gallaudet.  The son was located on campus and came to the administrator’s office.  The father saw that his son seemed fine and demanded to know the meaning of the note.  The administrator voiced the son’s response: “I need money.  I’m broke.”  The sign for broke is a cupped hand smacked against the neck.  American Sign Language does not translate well into English and Deaf people find the story hilarious.

My dad was a natural story teller and loved a good joke.  When I learned sign language I was able to make a Reader’s Digest joke visual for him and he loved it.  A doctor told his patient she needed to take milk baths.  She called the milkman (yes, the joke is that old) and asked him to deliver several gallons of milk.  The milkman asked, “Will that be pasteurized?” and the woman’s answer was, “No, just up to my neck will be fine.”  Signed, the story became a big hit at the club.

Another story I shared with my father was about the salesman walking into a Texas hotel bar for a beer.  He was surprised at the size of his beer stein.  The bartender said, “We do everything big here in Texas.”

The salesman ordered a burger to go along with another beer.  He was delivered a platter with the biggest burger he’d ever seen.  The bun was ginormous and it looked like an entire pound of cheese had melted on this burger.  And the server said, “Oh, we do everything big here in Texas.”

After those two huge steins, the man had to relieve himself and asked the bartender for directions.  The bartender gave a convoluted set of directions, ending with “and then turn right.”  The salesman tried to remember all the directions as he went looking for the bathroom.  His need grew frantic.  Finally, he turned left and rushed through the door. 

He fell into the hotel pool.  Thrashing around, he screamed “Don’t flush it!  Don’t flush it!”

The joke is sort of funny but when it’s told in ASL complete with accompanying facial expressions, it became a huge hit.  Whenever my parents would go to the club or other gathering, the other Deaf folks would beg my Dad to tell that story.

We all use idioms and the Deaf have their own imaginative signs not meant to be taken seriously.  We say, “What did you do over the weekend?”  The Deaf walk their fingers over their heads, creating their own pun.  What did you do over the week/weak end?

We say, “You missed the boat.”  In sign language, a departing train speeds off into the distance.  The translation is “train go sorry.”

The sign for donkey is an open hand, thumb touching temple, and flapping the fingers forward.  It creates a visual of the donkey with floppy ears.  A humorous idiom Deaf people use is to stick the thumb in the ear instead of the temple.  The literal translation is “donkey ears” but the actual meaning is “I’m so deaf, my ears stubbornly refuse to hear you.”  It can either be used in a joking manner or in a disagreement.

Deaf people are very sociable and inquisitive.  Hearing people sometimes find them imposing with their “nosiness”.  They become offended when a Deaf person asks a personal question like “How much do you make a week?”  Hearing people can feel the Deaf are invasive; the Deaf can feel hearing people are evasive.

They are usually late.  My parents were the exception.  They were always on time for an event.  We’d have to wait for everyone else to show up.  I’m not sure why there is a “deaf time” but tardiness is acceptable in the community.  On the other hand, at the end of the event the Deaf are always last to leave.  They are eager for the contact and a lot of information is shared back and forth.  It’s called the “Deaf grapevine”.  They leave only when the custodian chases them out and then congregate in the parking lot for an extra hour.  When we had Deaf guests who got up to leave and go home, I always knew it would be almost a whole hour before they finally got out the door!

Maybe continued...