(Mother
by Steve Str ass er
She can still remember all
too clearly the most desolate
days of her childhood, when
she and her mother would
stand waiting by the side of the
road.
The bus would finally roll
into view, just as it had time
after time before. It would
coast to a stop again. The
folding doors would clatter
open again, and she would
climb the three steps and sit
alone again, while her mother
told the bus driver where to
deposit her.
Then the bus would carry
her away from home again, out
into the rolling sandy plains of
the Nebraska panhandle, taking
her to another aunt, or
grandmother, or anyone else
who could afford to support
her for awhile.
Her stepfather had 12
mouths to feed, but there was
no construction work for him
in Oshkosh. There wasn't much
work of any kind, and there
wasn't enough money go
anywhere else.
So Joan Wooten spent much
of her childhood living off the
charity of relatives. Now, years
later, she has six children of
her own. Her husband has
deserted their home, and she
has been forced to accept
welfare for seven of the last 14
years to keep her family
together.
Keeping her family together
is Joan's main goal in life. She
remembers a childhood spent
bouncing from relative to
relative, and today she speaks
vx m"
V;"
J 6 -
1 1 ..
4
'
Tommy 6, Chris 3,
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 15,
"1 s
v
inPunnnw
HHHE4S0H!H
with finality. "I will not let
that happen to my children."
Joan Wooten left home for
good and came to Lincoln for
the first time when she was 22.
She did not come alone. She
had a 2-year-old son with her,
fathered by a man from
. California who "went back
before he knew I was
pregnant." She never saw the
man again.
She had a job lined up in
Lincoln at St. Elizabeth's
Hospital. But it fell through,
"probably when I told them I
was alone with my child." The
hospital suggested putting her
son up for adoption, but she
would have none of that. Two
days before she was to start she
was told the opening had been
filled.
So Joan got a Christmas
rush job, wrapping packages at
a department store. She spent
that 19S6 Christmas with her
son in their windowless
basement apartment. She had
no money to spare, but her
sister bought some badly
needed clothes for the young
child's gift.
After the holidays she
was no longer needed at the
department store, so her main
source of income became a
monthly Aid to Dependent
Children (ADC) welfare check
of $83.00.
During the next three years
Joan kept herself and her son
alive with the money she
scraped together from welfare,
babysitting, and an
unprofitable three months as a
beautician after the State
Rehabilitation Service sent her
to school. She received the
necessary training, but she
found it impossible to break
even financially as a beauty
operator.
She also earned a little
money doing part-time work
for a restaurant on 56th St.
"Whenever they were
overworked in the kitchen on a
v
- :
and Herb 7
1971 LINCOLN, NEBRASKA VOL. 94 NO. 62
busy night they would knock
on-my door and I'd help.'
fn early I960, the pressures
of staying alive in a city, while
caring for her son, overcame
her. "I was working nights,
sleeping days, and not getting
anywhere," she remembers. .
Depressed and tired,, she
took her son and moved to a
farmhouse 15 miles north of
Lincoln. Her new home was
only about a mile from where
her parents now live. "They
were worried about me," she
realizes today. "They wanted
me near them.-"
Soon after retreating from
the loneliness of her struggle in
the city, she met a Lincoln
construction worker at a
girlfriend's birthday party. She
married him 14 days later,
despite the tragic similarities
that would later threaten to
develop between her own
family and the one she had
been raised in.
During the next five years
she followed her husband to
construction jobs around
Nebraska: in Fremont, York,
and North Platte. She gave
birth to three more sons.
But construction is an
erratic occupation for the head
of a growing family, so in 1965
the family moved to Denver,
where Joan's husband found a
job with a luggage company.
It was in Denver that their
marriage began to disintegrate .
Joan's mother-in-law and
brother-in-law moved in with
them. Joan was pregnant with
her fifth child, and her in-laws
brought with them only added
pressure. As she puts it, "I was
becoming very nervous and
upset around them."
She talked her husband into
moving back to Lincoln, but
there was no work in Lincoln.
"He drank a lot, and he
wrecked cars and all that," she
admits. "I was stubborn and
wanted my own way. I wanted
to stay in Lincoln." Her
, , .
I 8
J '
t I in n J
Kevin 10, and Julie, 4
-9 '
CM- "
3?:..
(I
H 1
The Welfare family
husband went back to Denver
alone, and moved to Kansas
City alone a few months later.
In 1966 Joan filed for
divorce. The grounds were
extreme mental cruelty, but
"you don't really need a
charge," she explains. "You
just give a lawyer your
money." But her husband
insisted he did not want a
divorce, so the proceedings
were dropped.
He came home for Easter in
March, 1967, and after an
uneventful visit with his
family, including his new baby
daughter, he went back to
Kansas City. He never came
back to his family; He left her
pregnant with her sixth child.
Joan had worked hard ever
since, and with the help of
welfare checks (ADC . is now
$260.00 per month) has
accomplished her main goal.
She has kept her family.
Welfare paid her way to
Lincoln's Manpower Training
school and she got her high
school diploma in 1967. Her
transient childhood had left
her with only an eighth grade
education.
But the diploma did not end
her problems. She developed
cervical cancer just before
graduation. In November a
resident doctor in the St.
Elizabeth's hospital clinic
which handled welfare patients
told her an operation would be
necessary. She had it scheduled
for her Christmas vacation.
That was the start of her
most trying and dangerous
welfare experience. Christmas
vacation came, but she got no
call from the hospital.
L, -
Joan and
3- , Sv
So Joan called them. She
was told her doctor had
decided not to operate until
she lost some weight. And for
the next three months "that
was all they told me whenever
I called them."
Finally, one Sunday in
March, she' called her
girlfriend's obstetrician. He
examined and tested her on
Wednesday even though the
welfare clinic had told him
their similar test had shown
Joan to be normal.
This time the test showed
cancer in a dangerously
advanced stage, and Joan was
operated on ten days later.
When "she was released from
the University Hospital in
Omaha one week later the
obstetrician told her to come
back for an examination every
three months for the next year.
When Joan told him welfare
would not cover post -operative
expenses: "he told me to
forget about the bill. He said,
'don't go back to that county
clinic'."
After her operation she
began work as a community
organizer for the Lincoln
Action Program, an
organization promoting the
cause of low income and
minority people in the area.
Turn to Page 8
Photos by
Gail Folda
Chris
TO
