“Hey, Mom, guess what? Melissa just took four whole steps!”
Now, in any ordinary household that would not have been so remarkable, for most children do eventually walk and usually well before the age of two. But our Melissa was ageless; which is to say, in a manner of speaking, that we didn’t keep her score by years. We simply tallied up her faits accompli and it didn’t matter a speck that she should have been walking long ago by most child-development standards.
Melissa was just beginning to get acquainted with Todd when Terry came to live with us. Terry was a month-old, dark-haired mongoloid, the fifth child of a young couple living in New Jersey who had heard about our venture through mutual friends.
Diane, Scubie and Steve were elated that at long last we finally had enough babies to go around. Now, the pressure to find a suitable place for Melmark plus workers was really on. Teenage help is great when you have it. But school, homework, piano lessons and numerous other distractions, such as Little League, basketball and boyfriends in the teenage world, tend to lure your assistants away.
It was an adjustment time for the entire family. Bob, who was attending Eastern Baptist College, took a part-time position in physical education in one of Pennsylvania’s largest private schools for the emotionally disturbed and the mentally handicapped. Once Melissa had opened his eyes to the new world, he had pursued it down every avenue. He picked up invaluable tidbits of learning from his exposure in the special world.
Kathy was in the process of completing her R.N. training at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. She and Dave were enjoying their first year of married love in a little apartment off 168th Street in New York City.
And we at home numbered nine around the table. Nine people living together, where five had been heretofore. It presented its problems. That we survived is only a tribute to our firm belief that very so0n--just around the corner was that rainbow’s end.
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“Scubie, your graduation picture is really terrific and thank you for it. But, the way you signed it.” I hesitated.
“You didn’t like it.” She stuck her lower lip out.
“Well, it seems to me that you could have thought of something a bit more suitable than ‘Melmark or BUST!’
“But that’s telling it like it is, Mom, you know that.”
I sighed, wondering which would happen first as I placed her picture on the piano next to Diane’s. Scubie grinned; she was very aware of her “family” status.
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Then suddenly a huge wave of happenings that had been building up for “dear know how long” dashed at our feet. We were swept along at a breathless pace.
To begin with, Andy called with the news that our “friend” of the pink chateau had seemingly undergone a change of heart and would accept an offer of $125,000 for the mansion and the surrounding twenty acres. (She was willing to subdivide the fifty acres, inasmuch as we did not need all that land.)
At the next board meeting Andy and all the appropriate papers were present. We signed an agreement to purchase the three-story French chateau in Newton Square, Pennsylvania. Andy was fully as excited as we were as he departed with our precious papers stashed in his briefcase and left for the city to procure the owner’s signature on the dotted line. He assured us that she would be in complete agreement with our offer.
After the board member left, Paul and I looked at each other.
“Tell me it’s true,” I begged.
“It’s true!”
“Don’t mock me, Paul. It’s been so long, I hardly have the faith left to think that we’ll actually get any house.”
“You heard Andy, didn’t you? Now, quit worrying!”
And then the phone rang. It was some lady with a pussy willow voice from some local real estate office. She had remembered that our home had been up for sale about a year ago and had subsequently been removed from the listings. However, she wondered if we were at all interested in selling it now.
“Mrs. Green,” Paul was making a valiant effort to curb his enthusiasm, “We are definitely interested. Just this minute we signed a purchase offer on a beautiful thirty-five-room home for Melmark in Newton Square. Your timing is priceless.”
He hung up. A family from Cincinnati was on the way over. We scurried through the house, setting things in order, telling each other that looking was one thing, buying was another, and not to get too excited. It probably wouldn’t happen this way and---hey, someone, go answer the front doorbell!
They came. They walked around with the realtor, opening our closet doors and peering into the basement. We strained our ears to catch any comments. But with Melissa jabbering, Terry noisily sucking her bottle, and Todd banging his head on the playpen, all conversation from below sounded like Russian-Chinese.
They left within the half-hour. We were utterly cast down.
“Mr. Alexander Graham Bell, thank you for inventing the telephone, that blessed invention around which our life seems to revolve.” It rang again just one solid hour after they had left. The realtor had a check for $1,000 on their desk as down payment on our house. The family wanted a ninety-day occupancy clause and a mortgage contingency-and the offer was happily near our asking price.
We signed the agreement at four o’clock that afternoon. Just one day, God, and look what You’ve done! I cannot even locate my next breath. I have been so untrusting at times, how can I ever thank You enough for this Saturday.
We waited with bated breath for Andy’s call. He had left the offer of purchase with Mrs. T. and she would sign it in the next few days. Sunday passed, followed by Monday, and then finally it was Tuesday.
Andy came to the house that evening and by the look on his face and the paper in his had, we knew.
“Women!” And then he cast an apologetic look at me. “She want $30,000 more of the deal is off.”
“But, Andy, this house is sold! We have to move in ninety days!”
“You aren’t serious, are you?”
“We couldn’t be more in earnest,” Paul assured him
“Right after you left, a realtor called to show a family from Cincinnati through. They liked it well enough to give us a down payment and there is a ninety-day occupancy clause in our agreement and that’s about the size of it.”
Andy sat there looking somewhat stunned.
“But,---but, the other agreement was not signed by both parties yet.” He was kind of softly sputtering.
“ Don’t worry, Andy.” Paul put his arm on his shoulder. “We’re sure God has this home in mind for Melmark. He can provide another $30,000. We are certain that the house is worth it. We’ll poll the board and I’ll let you know, Andy.”
Paul was even then reaching for the phone. All the board members were in complete agreement. Just two short days later, we had the revised purchase offer signed by both parties with a ninety-day occupancy agreement as well.
The suspense had been almost unbearable, but the relief was just as debilitating. If we drank, I supposed we’d have gotten drunk. The end result was the same in either case. We were reeling with joy!
Now there were only two big hurdles left to be scaled before we could move in. There was a zoning meeting that would decide whether the neighborhood would “tolerate” us, and then a mortgage commitment to be sought.
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I had never been to a zoning meeting before. The long bare-walled room at the Township Building in Newtown Square was lined with folding chairs and rancid with the smell of stale cigars. It was already filling up with strange people---not one of whom I could recognize.
“What are they all here for?” I whispered to Paul.
“They are our neighbors.” His answer turned my blood to ice water. I fully expected them to take up placards and start marching around the room. “Mental institutions have an adverse effect on real estate prices.” “We don’t need non-profit corporations, we need someone who’ll help pay our taxes.” “Do you want your child playing with children like these?”
But if they had any signs, I couldn’t spot them.
Near the front we sat alongside our lawyer, “By”. Always he was a quiet tower of strength and always, he was there when we needed him.
“By” had his little briefcase on the floor right by him, and Paul had his rolled-up plans. I had nothing but absolute panic. As I tried to size up the men who sat behind the wooden table in front of us all, they exchanged secret bits of intrigue, writing something mysterious on papers on the desk, and I wondered how we’d start this meeting off. A hymn? Reading of the Bible? A salute to the flag?
The banging of the gavel seemed to be what they were waiting for. Everyone stopped talking and I froze.
Talking with God eased my tension somewhat. They’re going to hear our appeal first. O dear God, what will all these neighbors do? Don’t let them protest. Help them to really listen to us!
“By,” our lawyer, presented everyone behind the table with a copy of some important-looking documents and talked about our plans and motivations for establishing a home for mentally handicapped children. The men asked many questions about the future. What were our qualifications? Our staffing? And then Paul was called upon as president of the home. His enthusiasm and drive belied his forty-five years, in spite of the fact that his head was almost bald. And then it was over. Paul sat down.
“Are there any questions from the floor?”
The male half of an attractive couple way in the back stood to his feet and said, “ I am certain that most of our quest have been answered, Mr Township Manager. We would just like to wish Mr. and Mrs. Krentel good success in this new venture.”
And when everything was all official, they came forward to shake our hands and offer their own particular words of encouragement. We left the Township Hall on a very happy, hysterical note.
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The mortgage commitment was handled so smoothly by God that I doubt whether, in this cynical era in which we live, the bare, unvarnished truth will be received by most people. Nevertheless, let me share with you what happened the following Sunday.
There was a man in our church who was an enigma to all who saw him--a curious mixture of shrewdness and generosity that resisted any pigeonholing. At his place of business he was once mistaken for the janitor, and this gave him such great delight that he did not correct their mistake.
I knew him well enough to say, “Good morning, Clarence. How is Jane?” And my husband knew him somewhat better, having differed with him here and there in church affairs, but still and all maintaining a pleasant, albeit kidding, relationship with him.
One thing about Clarence, though, you never knew when he was joshing or when he was serious. But no matter; it happened like this:
One Sunday morning, Clarence overtook Paul and me as we were walking through the church parking lot to get to our car.
“Need any mortgage money?” he asked. His blue eyes twinkled in his weather-beaten face.
“Like about $75,000!” Paul laughed.
Clarence owned much property her, there and everywhere and had been a previous owner of the very parcel of land with our pink chateau on it. He was cognizant of any and all land transactions.
“Glad to lend it to you, if it will help any.”
That we did not jump up and down will be forever a mark of our complete poise and emotional stability.
“ Clarence, that’s very kind of you.” We were deeply touched.
“Fifteen years. Five and a half percent suit you?”
“Great. Clarence, just great!”
And just like that, we had our zoning permission and our mortgage commitment. But still we needed $30,000 more before June 17.
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So very much had happened and in such a short time that we felt again the need of communicating to those who had helped us, to those who were interested in Melissa.
I telephoned Betty Frank, features editor at Good Housekeeping. Since my fist article had appeared, we had corresponded and even lunched together in New York. At this very special time, I felt I had scaled the “ivory towers.” I shook hands with Editor Wade Nichols and Managing Editor Jack Danby. Their warm reception was a source of amazement to me. They were so “reachable.”
“Cannot possibly!”
“We are opening a home for handicapped children in Newton Square and just last week we signed an agreement of purchase on a thirty-five room mansion on twenty acres of land.
“Absolutely fantastic!” Say, why don’t you write a letter to the editors and we’ll publish it in our letters column. Trey to keep it short, though.
“Right? I’ll get it off to you right away. We are so very excited, we can hardly sleep at night.”
But because my shutoff valve sometimes turns slowly, I wound up with 1,800 words which I sent off with two pictures, one of Melissa blowing out two candles on her birthday cake; the other, a picture of our chateau, looking a bit like something out of Gone with the Wind.
And then a few weeks later, Betty Frank called me. I wrote down the words while they still zinged through my mind.
“Hey, you’re a writer! I guess we didn’t make a mistake after all.” It was music to my ears. I wished she would say it again.
I choked out, “Why, thank you!” and it sounded like the right thing to say.
Then the details spilled out. They were planning to inaugurate a new series called “Followup,” featuring the “wonderful things that happen to people after their stories have appeared in Good Housekeeping.” And my letter would be the first in the series. It would commence with the June issue and probably be on the newsstands around the middle of May. I could not contain my excitement.
“Do you know what that will mean to us?”
Then I told her that we were planning to move in our “chateau” on the 27th of May-my forty-fifth birthday. She asked me if we were sure enough of this particular house to print the picture that I had enclosed.
“God will give it to us, I know. Print it!”
The timing was priceless. How could we have hoped to get national exposure for our home a week or two before we moved in? Years later when someone asked us who our public relations man was, we said,
If it wouldn’t sound sacrilegious, we’s say it was----God!”
If it wouldn’t sound sacrilegious, we’s say it was----God!”
