Chapter 14….Next week I will take a short break from typing Chapter 15 and give you a sample of a poem by Miggy that can work nicely in a church #pageant/children’s #Christmas play. Hope you enjoy the short poem next week with attached suggestions. I’ll be back to Chapter 15 of Melissa Comes Home the following week. . By Diane Krentel Hodge

Chapter 14 of Melissa Comes Home

The “BIG MOVE’ was fast approaching.  With three babies to care firm our middle-aged strength was ebbing fast.  We knew we needed extra arms and legs to help us.

We remembered that particular quality of loving care given to Melissa at the home where she had resided for the first fifteen months of her life.  There were many dedicated workers on their staff from the Mennonite Service Corps.  A call to their central office in Indiana brought quick promise of help in our new venture.  After several visits from their director, a Mennonite couple was on their way to help us.

We really didn’t know what to expect.  We had been informed that they were young and just married.  He was a skilled carpenter.  She would be able to help us with the child-care routines.

It was a late afternoon in May when Marilyn and Butch were expected.  All was in readiness.  We spotted them hesitating at our precipitous driveway for a split second.  They roared up the steep hill and came to a screeching halt underneath the bedroom window through which we----Diane, Scubie and “nosy me” were observing them.

Theirs was not a horse-drawn black carriage, mind you, but a sleek Oldsmobile Cutlass with spoke wheels and racing stripes.   And even while we “ohed” and “ahed,” a slim blue-eyed youth in tight jeans and Western boots eased himself out of the front seat.  He stood there on the driveway right beneath us and ran his finger through his blond wavy hair and Scubie uttered one awful groan and swooned to the floor.

“This is worse that medieval torture.  Did you see him, Mom?  And he’s married.”  Another groan.  “I just can’t hack it.”

While she swooned on the floor,  Diane and I were satisfying our curiosity about his wife.  She seemed to be the perfect lady, neat, well groomed, and not one pale-brown hair out of place.   As they gathered some of their belongings in their arms and started toward the side door I thought I would faint myself.  Just to buy a little time, mind you.

For suddenly the gigantic adventure we were to embark on swept over me.  Here were two more strangers joining our ranks, sharing our meals, and tying up the bathroom.  I began to wonder if we were really in our right minds.

I ran down to let them in.  Awkward greetings were exchanged.   Butch was indeed a “Butch,” and Marilyn was just what she first appeared to be.  She gave gracious assent to most everything he said or did and smiled shyly in all the right places whenever he waxed humorous.

We were quite a motley crew at the dinner table.  Marilyn was painfully quiet, and Scubie was painfully talkative.  Butch just sat there and laughed heartily to fill up any conversational gaps he could find.  After the first week or so, we grew a bit more relaxed together.  We were not quite so anxious to establish our identities. 

Privacy was beginning to come at premium prices.  At nights I would wistfully dream of an uninterrupted portion of time alone with Paul, but it was not to be.  Everywhere we went, there was somebody--except in our big double bed.  We began to retire a little bit earlier, but even there we could hear the TV blaring, doors slamming, and the shower running at midnight!

Before we knew it, it was May!  But who had time to find the robin?  The “big move” was upon us!  And our humble assets had swollen to $87,000, enough to provide working capital and buy cribs and beds for our new family.

“How will we possibly manage to move all these things?”

There were ten rooms of furniture that had been donated to Melmark stored in a nearby garage.  There were all of our own possessions.  Which room in our “chateau” would receive which piece of furniture?  Where would we place our circular couch that we had just finished paying for?  Where would our piano go?  Which bedroom would we sleep in ?  Who would do the cooking?  And the laundry?

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The night before the big move, Bob and I used a black magic marker to letter thirty-five eight-inch-high numbers on white cardboard squares to place over the doorways leading into each room.  And we gaily volunteered to “run over to the chateau and tack them up so they would be ready for tomorrow.”

We parked the car in front of the empty mansion.  Etched against the moonlit sky in dark foreboding lines, the chateau stood waiting.  We walked over the macadam driveway toward the side door.  It was full of potholes.

My fingers shook trying to fit the key in the lock.  Paul was back home packing the dishes in barrels and taking down drapes and pictures.  I wished I had thought twice before I had so bravely offered my services for this particular project.

The side door swung open.  We inched along the back hall groping for the light switch.  Past the walk-in safe-the heavy black iron door ajar--we crept past the butler’s pantry and, at long last, a lone naked bulb responded to the switch.  It glared at us hostilely from the high ceiling. 

“Whew!” Some better!”

“The other switch is on that far dinning room wall, Mom.”  I refused to leave my little light spot.

“Oh, come on.  What are going to do when we get to the third floor?”

“Scream? Faint?”  I began to toy with both ideas.

We pussyfooted through the dining room to the center hall and switched on the crystal chandelier.   Gone were the splendid Oriental rugs which had padded the stairs.  Only the dark-brown mural of Cupid and Psyched smiled at us bemusedly from the walls.  

I was getting braver.  Poking my head around the door of a small sewing room, I discovered another gigantic wall mirror.

“Will you look at this beauty?  What a fantastic mirror and what a perfectly magnificent gilt frame.”

A ten-by-fourteen-foot mirror in a little sewing room struck me as a bit ostentatious, but I was duly impressed.  We managed to finish our work on the second floor without incident.

I stopped short at the carpeted stairs leading to no-man’s land on the third floor.

“Bob, I have a great idea!”

“What?”

“Let’s wait till tomorrow.  I’ll be here way before the van arrives and I’ll tack the rest of the numbers up, OK?”

Bob was instantly cooperative.  We departed with no small dispatch, leaving some house lights brightly burning.

“Oh , well, looks kind of lived-in now.”

And we both heaved a sigh of relief as we let ourselves in the car and promptly locked both doors after us. 

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May there never be another moving day!  

That it dawned at all was its first mistake.  That Bob and Steve managed to wedge the roof of the rented moving van under a railroad bridge on the way to our home was the second mistake.  And to be quite candid, my assignment in the center hall as director of traffic was the third.  

“Take that to room No. 18,  No, wait a minute, better put that on the third floor in No. 31---I think we could use that for Steve’s bedroom.  Oh dear, could you stay here for a sec-----I’ll go and find Paul.”

But then, moving into a French chateau costing $155,000 on one’s forty-fifth birthday was a heady experience.  I was a bit rattled.  Here we were, our own private worlds totally upended and blithely hanging the clammy reality of a $75,000 mortgage around our necks.  We must be a little mad!

Just about collapsing time, women arrived from various nearby churches looking like angels of mercy with hot coffee, sandwiches, and all kinds of calorie-laden cakes.  That they did this every Saturday all through the summer will be forever to their credit.

Finally, the long hard day was over.  We gathered around the solid oak table in the servant’s dining room and wearily snacked and nibbled at the leftover goodies.

The next day, Sunday, there would be no more moving, but the next Saturday promised a repeat performance.  The garage filled with ten rooms of donated furniture was still bulging at the seams.  

Those who had the strength and good sense, climbed the stairs and went to bed.  Diane and Scubie slept on the second floor to watch over our three babies.  Paul and I wandered aimlessly from room to room in a state of shock.

“We’re here! We’re really here at last!”

“Well, it isn’t what it’s going to be someday, but it surely is a start.”  For the odds and end of our furniture looked lost in those spacious high-ceilinged rooms.  And the dark painted walls and heavy gold drapes added dismal overtones.  The contemporary circular couch was obviously ill at ease in its new surroundings.  

Up on the third floor, we surveyed the length of what someday would be our combination living-dining room. It was almost forty-six feet long and boasted arched ceilings twelve feet high and dormer windows looking out on every side. 

Tonight we simply dragged some pieces of furniture together, grouped them around a portable TV and a nine-by-twelve-foot rug, and that was “home” for the next several months.

When we finally slipped our weary bodies between the clean sheets, we sighed a huge inaudible prayer of thanksgiving.  Long before the “Amen” part was reached, we had fallen off to a dreamless sleep.

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The publicity from the Good Housekeeping article gave us unprecedented national exposure.  It was almost as though Melmark had received the giant Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.

Letters flooded in from parents seeking admission for their children, from teenagers looking for a job that would give “soul satisfaction as well as monetary reward,” and from those who just wanted to give us a boost, a prayer and a dollar or two from their food money.  Eighteen hundred letters in all!

Long ago we had dreamed of perhaps “twenty” children the first year, but we were literally swamped by phone calls and personal inquiries.;  What had innocently started as strictly a family affair now grew like Topsy, unpredictably and in all directions.  

We all cooked and ate and worked together: family, staff and babies, all summer long.  It was small wonder that our own family relationships were a bit strained.  

Paul was great!  He was a compulsive worker, and probably always will be.   Melmark was tackled as if there never would be another tomorrow.  This undertaking, in addition to his regular job, placed exhausting demands upon him.

“But everything is going to be strictly first-cabin for our new family,” he said.  “They will not live like second-class citizen here!”  Administratively he ran a “tight ship’ and knew at all times where Melmark was heading.

“If we are ever to succeed in this venture, we will have found the best home for handicapped children anywhere.”

And so , we started to redecorate.  We decided to carpet the floors for our babies to creep on.  So rolls of Ozite in all kinds of happy colors were ordered.  Paul watched the carpet-layer, carefully asked questions, and listened to their suggestions; and that was the last Ozite carpet professionally laid.  He did the rest himself on his knees, taping and cutting and pounding until I thought his back and legs would give out.  He was stiff and aching every night for weeks.  But the job got done.

Fifteen-year-old Steve’s six-foot-three frame jounced all summer long on the hard seat of a tractor mower as he cut grass and tamed the wilderness of undergrowth that was making its way toward the chateau.

Trees were trimmed, hedges cut back, and Melmark gradually assumed a well-care-for appearance. 

Our daughter-in-law Kathy, newly graduated from Columbia arrived with David in the middle of June looking like a modernized reincarnation of Florence Nightingale with her long dark hair, sky-blue eyes, and freshly starched uniform.  She had a head full of ideas waiting to be tried out.  Melmark received the full impact of her postgrad fervor. It wasn’t only the nursing duties; it was scheduling, menus, training, medications, ordering of cribs, picking out uniforms for our child-care workers.  And before long, her new husband and our first son, David, began to feel that perhaps he was taking second place. 

One hot midnight Paul and I quietly left the big house otto take a dip in the pool by ourselves.  It was stifling.  The air hung heavy and damp and our babies were peppered with prickly heat, Melissa worst of any.  She perspired just like a regular Krentel!

Down the steps through the formal gardens we ducked under the flowering hawthornes, hesitating just a minute to hear the frogs “kerplunk” into the goldfish pond as they heard our steps in the grass.  

Kerplunk!  Kerplunk!  Just two out gadding tonight!

We swung back the iron gate and went down another set of granite steps leading to the cool pool.  In the dim light at the shallow end we made out a lone figure sitting on the green wooden bench.

“Well, Dave!  Great!  Are you going in swimming? Where’s Kath?”  Dad called.

“No, I’m not going in now!  And my sweet wife Kathy is doing tonight what she does most every night, either making out schedules or new menus.”

“Oh, I’m sorry---I didn’t know,” I murmured. “I would have helped if I had seen her.”

“She’s upstairs sprawled on our bedroom floor with Diane and Scubie----cookbooks all over the joint.  It’s menu night tonight!”

“Dave, I’m sorry.”  What was there to say?

“Oh, don’t be.  Kathy loves it.  It’s just me, and I guess I’ll get over it.  You know how it is when you feel sorry for yourself.”

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There simply was no time for warm, personal family relationships.  We were like ships passing each other in the night.  Diane would often stop me in the halls long enough to push a wisp of hair out of my eyes and touch my shoulder.  Her face was filled with emotion too deep for me to hear.  

I was beyond listening range anyway that first summer. All that remained was ceases, never ending activity.  For no sooner had we more cribs than they were filled with more babies.  Then we needed more staff, and so it went.  More diapers meant someone to be the laundress.  More meals called for a person to cook; more letters---a need for a full time typist; more phone calls--someone to answer the phone.

The price we paid was exhausted patience and frazzled nerves.  There were no doors that were solid enough , no rooms where the sound of voices did not penetrate, no little spot where just two people could be alone, no hiding place anywhere those long hot summer months.

Chapter 13 The banging of the gavel seemed to be what they were waiting for. Everyone stopped talking and I froze.

“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!”

Chapter 12 All the “open doors” had slammed in our faces, and now we were almost afraid to reach out to turn any shiny new knobs that popped into view.

We scoured the papers religiously, and through a real estate ad in the Sunday Bulletin we made contact with a charming Irishman.

“Call me Andy!”

The second place he showed us was THE PINK CHATEAU!

“It’s not listed on the market, yet.  However, I think that this retirement home will soon be going out of business.  The couple who own it have a highly successful nursing home in the city, and that occupies most of their attention.  Let’s drive around it and tramp through the grounds.  Maybe they’ll show us through. 

I shall describe it to you.  I’m not long on architecture, so this is strictly from the kitchen.  The front doorway looked a bit blank-faced to me.  There was no shrubbery to speak of,  not a bush to soften the stucco, just a very rutty driveway doing a huge figure eight directly in front of the house.  On the steeply pitched roof, bedecked by many gabled windows on the third floor, long fingers of melted tar caressed the green-gray slate roof and then hid behind the sagging shutters.

There was a walking garden to one  side with tick-tack-toe paths crisscrossing under hand-holding linden trees.  Nestling alongside this peaceful retreat was a forlorn tennis court which had not heard “ 15-love” for many a year.  Beyond the erstwhile formal gardens, which were flanked on all sides by sturdy granite walls and wide slate steps there  was a breathtaking thirty-by-fifty-foot swimming pool.  Seven of eight steps running the entire width of the pool brought you neck-deep in the water.  The concrete pool was chipped and the surrounding patio slates in a state of upheaval.  But the setting was superb.  At one end of the pool, an impressive gray rock wall towered; at the other end two low-hanging pink dogwoods trees bowed their heads.  Then a precipitous drop-off prompted you to look beyond.  And there was the view!

Dogwood trees and fat bushes stumbled their way down the hill interlaced by horse trails and ending abruptly in the sparkling Crum Creek.  One of the few “clean” creeks left. Crum Creek boasted some fat and lively brook trout.

Across the valley dotting the opposite hillside sprawled the homes of suburbia-two fireplace, two cars, two dogs and one horse!

We knocked at the big front door.  I reached out to stroke the brass swan’s neck doorknobs.  Just standing there I felt a bit elegant. When the door swung open, Andy turned on his Irish charm.   Within minutes, we were on the other side of the door.  

A breathtaking crystal chandelier, at least five feet in diameter, hung in the circle of the gently ascending stairway.  I could not tear my eyes away.

When I did, I spotted my open mouth in the full-length mirror monopolizing one complete wall.

“Carried over from, France,” I heard someone murmur.

As we walked from room to room on cushiony Oriental rugs of every hue and design, it was apparent that changes were taking place.  The furniture had been shoved into one corner of the ballroom; mattresses and bed springs made a unique playhouse, wheelchairs served as
automobiles,” and the forty-six foot paint-peeled ballroom was their drag strip.

Yet, underneath this outer crust was the unmistakable charm of a handsome mansion.

And it was tailored to fit our needs.  An elevator, two fire escapes, emergency lighting and exit sign, handrails in the wide halls, and even a  commercial stove in the in the kitchen.  And each bedroom boasted a bathroom of its own.

We felt the hot fever of excitement burning again.  

Dear God, let it be the right one this time, please.  We’ve waited so long.

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Our board of directors traipsed through it with us the following week.  They were unanimous in their approval.  It would require much “spit and polish,” but it was a good solid home built on seven inches of concrete under the first floor alone.

The basement was a huge cavern with sturdy pillars of bricks and all kinds of mysterious wine cellars.  We were thoroughly intrigued by all the possibilities. 

Then the nerve-tingling business of trying to make an offer of purchase that would be acceptable to the owner.  Ten years earlier $128,000 had been the purchase price of the mansion and fifty acres of surrounding countryside.  but maybe, just maybe, she’d be sympathetic to our cause.  

Andy called that night to say that we had an appointment the net day with the owner at her nursing home in the city.  She was interested!

The woman, a raven-haired, self-assured woman, smiled at us briskly.  The kind of smile that has a definite beginning and a definite ending.  Her dark eyes had little part of this friendliness.  Amenities were quickly dispensed with.  Andy was at his best, trying so very hard for us.

But it was cold, hard business all the way.  For the first few minutes, she seemed to address all her conversation to me.  I deferred comment.  Soon she changed her conservational direction. 

The clipped voice went on about the marvelous location and adaptability of the “Chateau.”  She said that she had already passed up an offer of $300,000 for it.  I gulped and looked at my shoes.  Andy and Paul talked on.

God, I prayed, You softened Pharaoh’s heart and got your people out of Egypt.  Can you melt her heart, please and get us into that chateau?

We might as well have been planning a haven for emotionally disturbed angora cats, judging by the little interest she displayed in our project.

We left, with nothing apparently gained except the fact that she really loved that chateau and wasn’t at this moment absolutely sure that she wanted to sell it.  And I could hardly blame her.

**********************************************************

At our next board meeting, we voted to have an official appraisal made of the pink chateau.  It would cost us $300 and this would be one of our fist big expense items.  

Our cash position was not impressive.  With the first batch of dollars that had been raised and, counting on the promise of the $10,000 when we signed the purchase agreement we might be able to squeeze together $25,000

*****************************************************

Suddenly it was the month of Christmas again.  There had been such a dryness, such an appalling lack of forward Melmark motion that we were almost “doorknob shy.”  All the “open doors” had slammed in our faces, and now we were almost afraid to reach out to turn any shiny new knobs that popped into view.  We might  be left holding in the whole door in our hands.

But the day before Christmas dawned, and things did a right-about-face.  Paul and Bob had driven to the Berwyn post office to check our Melmark Box No. 146.  There just might be some further replies to our appeal letter--people bursting with Christmas spirit---maybe!

There were two letters!

“Read it, read it!”  They begged as they burst into the kitchen and handed me the first long white envelope.  Then, they turned away so I would not be blinded by the light in their eyes.

One contained a check for $2000 from a foundation in Nebraska.  I jumped up and yelled--this was our biggest check yet.

“The other one_ read the other one!” they coaxed, faces wreathed in huge grins.  In it was a personal check from a woman in Delaware for $25,000.  I laughed ---I cried---I ran through the house like a banshee.  Melissa took one look at me and covered up her eyes, howling loud and long.

Bob swooped her up in his big arms and trailed after me drunkenly.  Then we all fell to our knees around the big double bed and prayed together. Our voices were soggy with happy tears and the words indistinct.  but I kind of think God understood every single word.  

Now, at long last, we could afford to put a reasonable down payment on some of these places we were looking at.  It amazes me now, as I look back that we had the audacity---or was it faith?---to house hunt with as little cash in our jeans as we had!  The next few days saw increased giving and by the end of the year our asset were $55,000.  What a miracle!  It was unbelievable!

*********************************************************

Jan, the young mother who had typed our eighty letters to foundations, now performed a simple and loving act of faith.  The day after Christmas she brought us our very first student, her own mongoloid baby son, Todd.  this act of complete trust in us was of inestimable value right at this time of beginnings.  

‘’We borrowed a crib, moved Melissa over, and Melmark had begun!

Todd, twenty-two-months old, was a charming smile-b0x in the daytime but a yowler at night.  He sounded exactly like an angry little pussy cat on the back fence.  Melissa disliked him at first sight.  She covered her eyes and backed away from him.  He was to be avoided at all costs. 

Todd delighted in waking up at four in the morning. It was then that Paul and I would look at each other in our big double bed and wonder what in the world we were getting into.

We set up a playpen in the farthest corner of the dining room which, incidentally, was the farthest distance from us.  Then at his first cry, instead of waiting until the whole household was awake and crabby, I picked him up, changed his diaper, and groggily plopped him in his playpen where he played happily but noisily until we got up. It took some doing for me to adjust to two babies at age forty-four.  I felt more and more like Sarah every day.  

"The Pink Chateau"......better known as Melmark

Chapter 11 We took the “Mel” for Melissa and the “mar” from baby Martha and used the “K” from our last name. It added up to “Melmark”, and the more we said it the more it sounded just right......

If we did start a home, wouldn’t we only take mongoloids like Melissa?”  That was Steve.

“And we sure don’t want the old ones---right, Dad? Or the real crazy ones? You know what I mean?”

The children all were full of questions about this great new venture.  Would we live in the same house with the retarded children?  Who would do all the cooking?  (I hoped they weren’t thinking of me.)  Would Daddy stop working? Who would pay the college tuition? Unnamed fears skulking in the attics of our adult minds were given flesh and bone by our children’s young and open minds.  How would we get enough money together to buy a bigger house?  And who would help us?

Some of our church friends thought that we were beginning to dabble in social problems and intimated that perhaps we had better leave this kind of burden to the liberal Christians.  After all. the” liberals” thought their good works would transport them straight into the heavenly kingdom, and we “Evangelicals” knew better than that.

James had put it rather succinctly” Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone.”

Then one dear man asked whether or not we were planning to “evangelize” the mentally retarded? And, if so, why bother? 
Didn’t we realize that these ”holy innocents” were safe under the atonement anyway?

Why waste our time and talents in this way?  And round and round it went, and whether it would have won out-----had we been guided solely by our saintly advisers------I do not know.

**************************************************

“You know what I wonder, Dad?”

“No telling!”

David was on his back on the living room floor, all six feet and two inches of him.  Melissa was sprawled on his tummy, contentedly sucking her thumb.  Paul was trying to finish the newspaper-----always a struggle in our busy household.  I was idly producing an organ background for their conversation or, to be perfectly accurate, I was playing softly so I wouldn’t miss anything.

“I wonder how come there aren’t more Christian homes for retarded kids? Actually, Christians are the ones who should care more than anybody else.”

“You’re right.  But most Christians shy away from activity that isn’t strictly church-oriented.”

“Yeah, but how come?  Jesus didn’t do like that.”

“He sure didn’t.  He even warned against seeing your brother naked, cold or hungry and saying to him, ‘Depart in peace, be warmed and filled.’”

“Then why?”

“ Well, perhaps some church people purposely avoid any involvement in social problems and de-emphasize good works so as not to muddy up their theologically correct position that man is save by grace, through faith, and not of himself, lest any man should boast.”

“ But, that isn’t the total picture, is it, Dad?”

“No, we have overreacted and let the pendulum swing too far in the other direction by stressing faith alone and forgetting about works completely.”

“So, in a sense, both views are off-balance.  We need to demonstrate our faith in God by our good works. Right?”

“Right! But, don’t forget, Dave, that many of our very first hospitals here in America, and other charitable agencies such as orphanage and homes for the aged were founded by dedicated Christians.  

Christians who actually did put their faith to work.”

“But that’s no excuse now for us to hide behind.”  I  interrupted , able to keep quiet no longer.  “I mean, when we are faced with a need we should try to help.”

“Yes, but let’s be honest.  We wouldn’t be talking about starting up a home for retarded children if God hadn’t given us our Melissa.” Paul quietly folded up his newspaper.

“But, somewhere,” I objected, “there must be other Christian parents with ‘Melissa problems’ too.  What are they doing?”

Well, I certainly do not think that God is leading every parent of every retarded child to open up a home.”

“It’s a good thing.”  I laughed.  “We’d be out of business before we opened our front doors.”

*************************************************************

The month after Christmas we decided to take the first big step.

We set about recruiting four men to serve with us on our board of directors.  Each one who consented to help filled a special need.  We found Charles, a doctor to interview and screen admissions and advise us medically; “By,” a lawyer to keep us legally untangled; Ben, well-qualified in the field of special education; and Walter, a former president of a church-sponsored group of nursing homes.

Then came the big day, February 2, 1965, when we met in Philadelphia in our lawyer’s office and went through all the business intricacies that are necessary for the formation of a nonprofit, tax-exempt corporation. And we officially recorded for all the world to see, the name that had been on our tongues and in our minds for the past few weeks.  We took the “Mel” for Melissa and the “mar” from baby Martha and used the “K” from our last name.  It added up to “Melmark”, and the more we said it the more it sounded just right.

“Now what?”

“We raise some money.”

“But how?”

“We’ll begin by telling all our friends what we are planning to do, and maybe, just maybe, they will help us to get started.”

Paul’s voice trailed off and we started running down a list of friends and acquaintances.  How many had “hidden treasure” that they might share with us?

We mailed fifty letter to fifty of our friends.  They proved that they cared, too, by contributing over $7,000 in crumbled dollar bills and checks of various denominations.  We were ecstatic!  Now, at least we had a modest downpayment. 

Then we started house-hunting.  We wanted a large old mansion that would house fifty or so special children.  Day after day, I scouted with various and sundry realtors, looking for suitable properties that we could afford.  And day after day ended in frustration!  Either litigation, staggering asking prices, or zoning were the names of the stumbling blocks.

*******************************************************

That May, Paul and I took a breather!  We headed west for Phoenix, Arizona, to attend the National Lime Convention.  It was  fairyland.  Golf, swimming a sight-seeing soon erased all worries from our minds.  

Relaxing in the sun and sharing our project with the wives of Pau’s colleagues., I was amazed at their worried concern.  “You mean, at your age, you’re about to throw all your security overboard and run this tremendous financial risk?”

Well, perhaps it appeared foolhardy from the outside looking in.  To us , it was quite simple.  Melmark was ours to do.  No burden, nothing noble about it, no sacrifice--it was just”our thing”!

Even after our return, suntanned and rested, we noted a peculiar lull in Melmark’s forward motion. The money trickled in painfully slow, no suitable house seemed within reach and suddenly quite abruptly, there was not even a recognizable”maybe.......if” on our horizon. We were somewhat in a state of despair. 

I was well onto ten o’clock one fall evening when I gingerly opened to door into Melissa’s room.  She sat huddled in the dark, head pressed against the crib slats, sucking her thumb, and kicking her legs listlessly against the sides.

The moment she heard me, she uttered a delighted gasp and scrambled to her feet.  I laughed and swooped her high in the air, kissing her again and again.

I am so fiercely in love with this child of my heart, like none that went before. What savage passion reaches out to protect her---to shield her?

Nothing would suffice but a rock together in the old maple rocker with Melissa cuddled in my arms. 

I sang, but there were no words.   Just a tune that roamed at will.  Her low-keyed monotone joined mine and together we hummed-off-key and sadly dissonant.

The flesh of her arm is firm and hard.  I wonder, is she indeed so far from normal?  Is there such a big difference after all?

A passing train whistled in the distance and the sound of a quick autumn rain splattered noisily on the old green lawn umbrella down on the patio underneath the window.  I whispered little funnies in her ear to make the giggles come, and then, for no reason at all, a tear raced down my nose to drop on Melissa’s upturned face.  She stretched a plump had up to touch my cheek.

“It’s been too long, baby, since we’ve rocked like this slowlike, taking all the time in the world! Mommy and Daddy get so busy!  I’ll bet sometimes you wonder where their strong arms are.  But listen, my love, here is a secret for you;  Wait and see and we will show you something--something---just for you!”

************************************************************

During this time of feeble beginnings, a most astonishing thing happened.  We had gone to pick up a chair we had purchased from friends who were moving to Florida when out of the blue, they announced that they would like to donated the entire contents of their ten-room house--Beds, chairs, mattresses , tables, draperies, TV sets, piano ---to help us get started.  We were overwhelmed.  This was a giant step forward.

During the next two weeks there was another offer of a lovely couch for Melmark.

“How thoughtful of you to think of us,” I murmured, wondering where to put three couches, but unwilling to turn away any offer of help for our home.

*************************************************************

Another phone call came from our helpful dry-cleaning man who had cleaned and stored all the drapes and curtains that had been given to Melmark.  He now needed this storage space and wondered if we could give him any idea how soon we could pick them up.  He would be glad to deliver them just about anywhere.

“Could I call you back in a few day?”  I hedged. Shuffling aimlessly through the correspondence on my desk, I noted with dismay that a bridal shower to which I had been invited (RSVP) had been over and done with a week before.  I picked up the phone, dialed the number, and began to apologize profusely.  To explain my scatterbrained condition, I briefly mentioned my curtain dilemma. 

Whereupon, my friend’s spacious third-floor storage was proffered without hesitation.  

Like, what can I say, God?

And there was other encouraging news, too.

We now had receive our official Tax Exemption Certificate from the IRS.

It was then that we thought about seeking financial aid from foundations. 

“You’ll be lucky if you get one answer from one hundred appeals.”

“You have to know someone on their board.”

“They receive thousands of letters from projects just as worthy as yours.”   These were the comments people were tossing about.

We went to work, however, and sent out eighty letters to eighty different foundations all over the United States.  The names and addresses were there in on big directory.  It seemed somewhat like an Aladdin’s lamp to us.  There were the names of the directors, the trustees, their assets----who could ask for anything more?  Now, God all You have to do is to touch their hearts when they read our letter.

One of the women we had met through my Good Housekeeping article and also the mother of a mongoloid child, typed all eighty letters for us.  When we sent them on their way, it was with fear and trembling an a great deal of faith.

Two days later, our telephone rang.  It was the director of a local foundation.  She asked all kinds of questions.  Before she hung up an hour later she promised us $10,000 as soon as we signed a purchase agreement on a piece of property.  This was tremendous!  “Why, they’ll be pounding on our door soon!” I told Paul elatedly.

Well, it didn’t happen quite that way.  But, we did discover how many wonderful people there are in the most unlikely places who are really searching for ways to help others.  We were especially touched by letters received from directors of three separate foundations.  Each rejected our appeal as far as their organizations were concerned because of geographical location, but each director enclose his own personal check “ just to help out a little.”  There were three checks and each check was for $100.

Although progress seemed turtle-slow to us ( in the area of fund-raising), we followed every lead given us, wrote letter, and then waited for the indomitable mailman. And waiting was a virtue foreign to both of us.

I decided to invest a little time in learning something about mental retardation.  A newspaper announcement had whetted my appetite.  A two-week workshop in mental retardation was offered to professionals and nonprofessionals at a nearby school for handicapped children.  I decided I was a professional ( well-almost) since I was going to help run a home for mentally handicapped children.

I copied everything down in my little notebook, whether or not I completely understood it. By the end of ten days , I felt like an expert.  At long last I could list all the categories and classifications of the subjects of which I was ignorant either totally or partially.

Had it no been for the help of Elizabeth who commuted each day from Philadelphia, mothering, cooking, and cleaning right along with me, I would not have had a minute to spare to do any of these things.  I will ever be grateful to her faithfulness and good cooking.