3rd. Grade

Child Abuse 1954
My third-grade teacher was Miss. Anderson, and the principal of the school was Mrs. Anderson. I don’t believe they were related, but they both did get to know me pretty well. I wasn’t really a bad kid more of a confused kid with little guidance. I think even at that age I was trying to figure out just who I was and how I fit into the world. I remain on that quest.
It was a regular practice for the first, second and third graders to spend a half hour after lunch recess each day on the gymnasium floor lying on mats, probably just to calm us down and give the teachers a break.My best friend at that time was a boy by the name of Chet Lowmeyer. Although we weren’t supposed to be talking during our rest time, Chet and I would use this time to kid around and share secrets. Chet, like me, was a pretty rough kid, but unlike me Chet was good student, and quite around most of the kids. I think it was fair to say that Howard Hooser and I were Chet’s only friends.
Butch and I wore our hair in a crew cut, Dad cut our hair and there was little harm that could be done to a crew cut with electric clippers. Chet’s hair was long and combed back like a man would wear. He looked like a young James Dean, in the movie Giant. Of course, I didn’t know who James Dean was at that time, but as I remember Chet even carried himself like James Dean did in Giant before he discovered oil on his land. Kind of shy and sheepish but observing everything. Chet carried mystery with him.Chet lived out in the country off Staley Road near the rail road tracks; I would have to say his family was poorer than ours. Chet and his little brother would walk home from school with us and sometimes I’d go out to his house for the afternoon after school. His mom was real nice, a pretty lady with long black hair, and real red lips. The Lowmeyer’s had small livestock and I would happily help Chet with his chores and we would run in the fields next to their house. Today we would call their house a shanty or a shack; they got their water from a well and they had no indoor plumbing. There was an abandoned pickup truck in the side yard that we would play in shooting out the windows with our fingers at the bad guys as we sped down the highway.
Mrs. Lowmeyer always made sure that I headed home before Chet’s dad got home. She explained that he worked hard and didn’t want a bunch of kids around the house when he got home. He wanted the place quite after a hard days work.
On this particular day, on the gym floor, Chet wasn’t kidding around, in fact he was acting quite serious, sheepish.
“Kobie, does your dad hit you?” Chet asked me in a low whisper.
“Once when Butch and I were bad, he hit us with a belt.” I told him.
“No, I mean does he hit you with his fist or his hand?” Chet asked.
“No… why does your dad hit you with his fist?” I asked.“Sometimes,” he turned his head away and was silent, and then he turned back. “Sometimes he hits my mom and when I try to stop him he hits me.”
“Why does he hit your mom?” I asked.
“He comes home from work and drinks beer. Then sometimes he gets in an argument with my mom and gets mad and hits her. She cries but he keeps hitting her, because she’s crying. I get in between them and try to stop him and he hits me.”“Does he hurt you?”Chet looked around the room to make sure that nobody was looking and raised his shirt above his pants to show me his side. I saw he was bruised badly. He unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it down to expose his shoulder and upper arm. He was bruised there as well. He pulled his shirt back up, buttoned it up and slid back down. He laid there on his mat looking me in my eyes.
I hurt for Chet; I didn’t know what to say. We lay there looking at each other, neither of us knowing what to say or what to do. His eyes looked like a dog that had been beaten by his master for something but didn’t know why. Ten-year-old boys shouldn’t have to deal with problems like this. A tear showed in Chet’s eye.
The bell rang and we were told to go back to our classroom. As I was rolling up my mat Chet leaned over and said, “Don’t tell anybody Kobe, promise.”
“I won’t, I promise.”
Several days later I was pulled out of class and taken to the principal’s office. Waiting there was Mrs. Anderson, dad, Butch and Chet’s little brother, Alan.
Mrs. Anderson spoke first. “Alan tells me the reason he has bruises on his arms and back is that when he walks home from school The Grinkmeyer Gang has been beating on him. Mr. Grinkmeyer, The Grinkmeyer Gang is how some of the children referred to your two boys.”
“Boys, is this true, have you been hitting Alan?” Dad asked.
I didn’t know what to say, I knew we hadn’t hit Alan and I had a pretty good idea as to who had, but I made a promised to Chet and I intended to keep it.
“We never touched Alan, he walks home from school with us some days, but we never touched him,” Butch told Dad and Mrs. Anderson.“Is that true Kobe?” Dad asked me.
“Dad, like Butch said we never touched Alan.”
“My boys said they never touched this boy, so as far as I’m concerned that’s the end of it,” Dad said to Mrs. Anderson in a stern voice.
“Alan, if these two boys didn’t hit you who did?” Mrs. Anderson asked Alan.
Alan was eight years old, he was confused, he was ashamed, and he was scared. He didn’t answer Mrs. Anderson; he stood looking at the floor.
“Alan, I ask your question who hit you.” Mrs. Anderson asked again.
Tears started to come to Alan eyes and he started to tremble. He wasn’t going to answer Mrs. Anderson’s question, he couldn’t. Alan knew if he did tell the beating that he had taken would be nothing compared to the beating he would get. As far as Alan was concerned it was The Grinkmeyer Gang that had done this to him.“OK you boys can go back to your classrooms and Mr. Grinkmeyer I’m sorry that I ask you to come in,” said Mrs. Anderson.
I went back to Miss. Anderson’s classroom and wanted to tell Chet what had happened but before I could he was pulled out of the classroom.
That afternoon Chet and Alan walk home from school with Butch and me. Chet told us that he told Mrs. Anderson how he and Alan had gotten the bruises. He said he was afraid to go home, he was afraid of what is dad would do to him and Alan if he found out that he had told. He explained that Mrs. Anderson had assured him that she would turn it over to the proper authorities and he and Alan would be OK. Chet wasn’t convinced, both Chet and Alan were very scared of what might happen that night.
Chet and Alan weren’t in school the next day or the rest of the week. It wasn’t until the next Monday at Chet and Alan showed back up in school. As we lay on our mats, Chet told me that the police had come that night and put is dad in handcuffs and hauled him away in the back of a police car. He told me that his mother was real mad at the police and that she screamed and cried to leave him alone, that he had done nothing wrong. They all had gone to stay with Chet’s grandmother through the weekend and they didn’t know how long they would be able to stay in their house because if their dad stayed in jail they couldn’t pay their bills.
Chet was in school for about two more weeks and then he didn’t come back. I didn’t see Chet Lowmeyer again until I entered seventh-grade and went to Edison Junior High School. He told me that his parents had gotten a divorce and is dad had moved to Chicago and his mom had married another man, who didn’t hit him or Alan. Chet had new friends and I had new friends so we didn’t see much of each other.
At ten I knew why people hit each other when they got mad; I hit my brother and other kids. But at ten I couldn’t imagine why a dad would hit his sons.What kind of man abuses his kids or allows them to be abused by anyone else? Can a kid or should a kid love a father who allows these kind of things happen? When the kid’s father is old and dying what kind of feeling should the kid feel for his father who allowed him to be abused? Where does a kid keep his feelings for the rest of his life?