Deaf Lives in Contrast: Two Women's Stories

Silent World

Silent World Mary V. Rivers To all my loved ones: My dear husband Bruce Monty, Darrell, Clay, Patricia, and Bruce Jr. K 3 Preface I remember clearly sitting in the doctor’s office and hearing her tell me that my little boy could not hear anything, that he was deaf. I also remember hearing her say that she could do nothing to help him. This was a great shock to me, and it made me very angry. How could she be so cruel, to interfere with the happy life my husband and three handsome little boys led? Monty was three, Darrell was two, and Clay was only fourteen months old. Clay was a healthy looking baby. He had a round face and very alert green eyes and a reddish curl of hair on the top of his head. He was an adorable baby. They were all very handsome little boys. Now this doctor was telling me that Clay was deaf. I couldn’t believe this was happening to me. I had read about it happening to other people, but not to me. Clay’s deafness was invisible, and I knew nothing about his silent world. I imagined it was like living in a large glass bubble, seeing everything and hearing nothing. I felt like he lived in one world and I lived in another. From that point on, instead of being resentful, I realized that I must study his every movement in order to try and understand what each meant. I had to face reality, because Clay’s deafness was mine to conquer with much strength and courage. I prayed to God to please show me the way. I knew nothing of this deaf world and it scared me. 4 Mary V. Rivers Acknowledgments I would like to thank Miss Leela Middleton for her help, encouragement , guidance, sympathy, and understanding in helping me with this manuscript. Miss Middleton is a retired teacher who taught first grade for forty-five years at the Many Elementary School in Many, Louisiana. Over the years, she taught 1,700 first-grade children, including my husband Bruce H. Rivers Sr. I would like to thank Ivey Pittle Wallace, editor of Gallaudet University Press, for giving me hope and encouraging me not to give up trying to get my manuscript published. I would like to thank Professor Brenda Brueggemann for all her hard work in helping me to get my story published. I want to thank my husband, Bruce, for his patience while I spent long hours in front of my computer, and my children for believing in me and encouraging me to write this story. Chapter 1. My Beginnings I was born on a windy March day in 1933, to Cajun parents. For those of you who are not familiar with the term, Cajuns are a group of people in southern Louisiana and Texas who are descendants of French Canadian settlers, who were called Acadians. The Acadian region included New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The term “Cajun” came from “Acadian.” Cajuns maintain a unique culture that has many Acadian French characteristics. Today most Cajuns speak both English and French, but there are still some old timers who speak only French. Neither one of my parents could speak English. Like many people in our area, we spoke only Cajun French. My mother’s name was Marie Octavie Devillier, and my father’s name was Marcel Fontenot. I was the youngest of eight children: five girls and three boys. The oldest was Vorence. We called him Slim because he was a tall man. I regret to say that Slim passed away in 2002. That leaves my other two brothers, Lawrence and Jean. My oldest sister is Gladyes, followed by Murdis, Gert, and Rose. They named me Mary Virgin Fontenot. Everyone in the family called me Vir until Bruce’s Aunt Zula started calling me Mary. She said that I looked more like a Mary, and I have been going by the name of Mary ever since. Silent World 5 My father was involved in bootlegging, making and selling illegal homemade whiskey. That was common in the late 1930s. Times were hard, and one day he just walked out, leaving behind his wife, a new baby, and one son dying with pneumonia in a crib. I guess you could say we were dirt poor. The house I was born in had huge cracks, and my mother...