No. 97 - Daddy Issues

Part 2 of exploring graphic memoir world

Dad = Cool

Mom = Hot

Dearest readers,

I’m dipping my toes back into my graphic memoir, now provisionally (or perhaps definitely) called The Mother Lode. This is Part Two. If you’d like to see Part One, it’s right here.

The manuscript for the memoir was completed and went through a developmental edit with Jill Margo and Andrew Templeton. Then it languished for four years. What follows is not what the graphic memoir will look like… it’s just me being reinspired by the material.

With all the artwork, photos and documents I have for this post, it’s sure to be too long for email. Please either click on the “post too long for email” link when you reach the bottom, or click on the title of this post to read it on the Substack platform.

Thanks!

Ink on paper, 22 x 30 inches, 2020

I didn’t know my father, apart from meeting him two or three times when I was a teenager—the first time when I was around fifteen, I think. Consequently I don’t know a lot about his relationship with my mother, apart from the juicy bits I heard over the years, the photos I saw, and the feeling I got from everything I gleaned.

I understood that he was smart, funny, and charismatic—but not the best guy to be married to. He was a womanizer: he couldn’t keep it in his pants. He lost his job at Canada Dry due to something nefarious… had he stolen from them? I’m not sure. I don’t even know what his job was. One phrase I remember is that he “had no conscience”. He apparently brought another woman to the hospital to visit my mother when she’d just given birth so that tracks, as they say.

From a 2023 sketchbook

My grandmother appears to have liked him—he must have been charming indeed. While retouching this photo I noticed that his hand is around her wrist, as though she was grabbing for his beer bottle and he was stopping her. My grandmother didn’t drink.

Behold:

My parents were married in June, 1956. I can only imagine what my mother’s hopes and dreams might have been. She was twenty-four years old. I don’t know how they met, or how long they’d been together when they married. If I was told these things, I’ve long ago forgotten. Now I’ll never know.

Weirdly, my mother always said that my father “had yellow eyes”. Hello?

My mother’s given name was Lois Ottine, but she went by Tena.

My brother Nels was born in March 1957. Were they happy with their wee family, for a time? Or were they just doing what they thought they were supposed to do, and hoping for the best? How long before it fell apart?

As mentioned in my last post, my mother and father separated after Nels was born and my mother went to live with her sister Betty and family in Québec. My mother saved several letters from my father during that time, including this humdinger that pretty much says it all:

(Note: the letters are transcribed at the end of the post for easier readability)

Good to know he made an effort—but apparently drinking and taking out other women didn’t work, lol. He did go on to work in logging camps, and continued to write my mother letters pleading to get back together. Eventually his efforts paid off.

Here’s part of a letter from my mother’s sister Elsie, on the topic of “Ron L.” She calls my mother Tenit, for “Tenit the Peanut”.

She surely did take him back, but they split again two months before my birth in May 1960. In 1965, it appears that she contacted a lawyer (perhaps his?) to petition for divorce:

They didn’t officially divorce until 1978:

There’s a letter from my Aunt Betty from January 1960 where she asks if my mother’s “nerves are any better”. I don’t know if my father up and left, if my mother kicked him out, or if they came to an agreement that it just wasn’t going to work. Somehow I have a feeling that it probably wasn’t a gentle agreement.

I can only imagine what my mother must have been going through, pregnant with her second child as her marriage was disintegrating for the second time. Back then, apart from being traumatic, divorce was… not cool. There was a real stigma around it, which I felt as a child. It was shameful to be from a broken home. It doesn’t sound like much now, but back then it made us lesser than, tainted.

From a 2023 sketchbook

I may not have known all the details, but the weight of these events imbued my childhood. My father was a stranger to me, a name in a story that took place before I was born. Foreign to me, yet essential to my existence. A question mark.

I didn’t miss him because I didn’t know him, but I did feel him.

---

In the next installment of Feed the Monster:

• Meeting my father for the first time in the midst of teen angst supreme

• Meeting my half-sister and half-brother, my father’s children from his next relationship

  Thanks for reading!

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THE LETTERS

1). From my father to my mother:

Sept 17th, 1958

Dearest Tena:

Tena, I’m sorry I haven’t written sooner. I haven’t even got a legitimate excuse. I didn’t won’t [sic] to write until I had something to write about.

I’ve had two jobs here in Van(couver) but both times I’ve been let go within a couple of days because I didn’t tell them about this trouble I was in. Still if I tell them about it beforehand they won’t even talk to me about work. But I’ve got to do something pretty soon or go nuts.

Tena I’ve done a lot of thinking the last couple of months, and I’m not happy here at all without you and Nels. I didn’t really know for a long time what I really wanted, either that or I just didn’t care about anyone but myself. Or anyone else’s feelings. Especially yours Tena. But I’ve tried drinking and taking out other women and nothing works. I still think only about you and Nels.

I sincerelly [sic] hope that I didn’t find this out too late. I know that you loved me Tena, and I know now that I love you, I think I always did Tena, but for some twisted reason didn’t won’t [sic] to admit it or let it show. Maybe if I thought that if I could convince myself that I didn’t love you it would give me some kind of excuse for some of the things that I did. I’m pretty mixed up Tena, but I know one thing for sure, I’m not at all happy without you and Nels.

I hope I’ve grown up as much as I’ve wanted to, because it was quiet [sic] apperant [sic] that I needed too [sic].

One reason this letter was a long time coming was that I wanted to be sure about this before I ruined your life and Nels’ any more than I already have. Thinking back myself I can’t find even one logical reason for the way I acted or for the way I treated you and Nels. And a lot of other people.

But I do love you and Nels and hope you both feel the same way about me. Though I didn’t give either of you much of a chance. Especially Nels who I didn’t even give a chance to get to know me.

I won’t [sic] to hear from you Tena and let me know where I stand with you. I’d like to come to Montreal and see if I could find work there. You could advise me on that. If not that I’m going to go to work in a logging camp or anything that I can get, even a mine, as soon as I hear from you. But anything I do from now on I wont [sic] it to be for you and Nels. To get back together, and eventually have a home and a decent and happy life for us.

I started drawing unemployment insurance 3 weeks ago. $23.00 a week, and it’s hard to live on.

The bills are in pretty rough shape right now, but as soon as I get to work or find out what I’m going to do I’ll get them in shape again and eventually paid. At least there are no new ones lately.

I wish that I had of [sic] listened to you Tena, we could have been happy, settled and free of bills now. But I hope you’ll give me the chance to do it now. We’ll be starting all over again but it can still be done.

If you think that there’s any chance of me getting work there I’d like to get away from this part of the country. So please let me know as soon as possible.

I feel much better now that I’ve finally written this. It’s really not so hard to face yourself and admit your [sic] wrong. It makes me feel much better.

I hope to hear from you soon Tena, and I do love you very much.

If there’s anything you won’t [sic] to know Tena I’ll let you know in a return letter.

All my love to you and Nels

Ron

(over)

My address is

1825 Robson St.

Bsmt. Suite

Vancouver

Don’t forget to let me know how you and Nels are and how things are going. I’m fine physically.

Love Ron

2). From my Aunt Elsie to my mother (first two pages)

Dear Tenit

Thanks for your last letter and sorry I didn’t answer right away. I had good intentions & you know what road is paved with good intentions. I’m on my way there.

I guess Mom wrote & said I wouldn’t have anything to do with Ron L. Well maybe I’ve got rocks in my head but Mom said she had been forgiving all her life & my idea is maybe if she hadn’t forgiven so easy the first time there wouldn’t have been a next time. Your decision is your own Tena & when you make it I’ll surely abide by you, I certainly had no intentions of never speaking to him again if you intend to go back to him & from all sources that seems to be the way the wind blows.

I must say this & dismiss it as coming from a fuddy dud but don’t take anything but the best & go back on your terms if that’s your decision, don’t take second best. For a gal with looks and a figure like yours certainly doesn’t have to. Well I’ll get off my soapbox and get on with the letter.