About the author
Lahuan Wetta Biography
I was born June 15, 1939 in a charity hospital in Shreveport, Louisiana. The big depression was still going on although I wasn’t aware of it then. We were very poor. I was raised on a farm in the small town of Rosepine, Louisiana. We had chickens, pigs, and one milk cow. We grew our own vegetables. When I was six years old, my dad was transferred from Fort Polk to Fort Sam Houston. We moved here in a small one-bedroom trailer. The next five years my dad, mother, brother, and I lived in this small trailer I graduated from Bonham grade school on St. Mary’s Street with high honors. I received awards for reading the most library books, team captain of the girl’s baseball team, and street patrol. We then moved and I attended Sam Houston junior high and high school. I met ex-husband when I was in the ninth grade. We started going steady from our first meeting. I was very happy and very much in love with my ex-husband then.
I was very athletic in high school. I was team captain, and then class leader of the whole PE class from 9th through 12th grades. I worked on the school paper as a reporter, and in my senior year, I participated in putting together our class annual. I won 1st place in Homemaking for sewing the best garment, which I wore in a style show. I was also head cashier in the school cafeteria. I worked all through junior high school and high school for my clothes and spending money. I did house cleaning, babysitting, and worked as a floor clerk, and up to cashier at Winn’s five and ten cents store. I went right into a full-time job as a keypunch operator at USAA insurance company after graduation.
I was just 14 when I met my ex-husband. I was just discovering boys and I responded to his attention. Soon, we were “going steady.” I am now aware that he controlled my behavior early on. There was no physical abuse in the beginning.
My ex-husband and I were married the same year I graduated in August of 1957. We were very happy, and I wanted to have a baby right away. It took us a while before I could get pregnant after I’d started seeing a doctor. When I did get pregnant I was so happy that I was having a baby. Just before my daughter was born in December of 1958, my ex-husband went to work for the electric company. It was soon after my daughter was born there was a problem beginning to develop with our marriage. But I didn’t see it as a problem then. Some of the guys would hang out after work at the bars, and my ex-husband started hanging out with them. That was to become the downfall of our marriage many years later. During the years that I was raising my baby, her father began to stay out after work more and more, and would come home drunk and abuse me. Some very bad things happened to me through those years of his drinking. It was those bad happenings that took away my love for him, and in the end destroyed our marriage. During those years, I went to marriage counseling, and tried to get my ex-husband to go with me, but he refused, saying that he didn’t need to go. I tried to get him to go to Alcoholics Anonymous by taking him to a meeting, and he walked out, slamming the door in front of everyone. I talked to a priest and friends for help to save our marriage. I thought by adopting another baby, since we couldn’t have any more of our own, that it would save our marriage, and he would stay home and stop drinking. I thought that if we had a baby that he could play ball with and do all those things that a father and son do together, that he would change. But he didn’t change. This made it harder for me. I now had two children to raise, and oversee their needs, and still deal with the same problems. The boy we adopted, Tim, was to suffer, because he lacked the love and attention from his dad that a boy needs. During these years that I was raising my two children, I believe that I was a good mother under the circumstances that I was faced with. The only thing I did wrong was not telling my daughter all the things her father was doing to me. Because now she treats me as though I am the villain, whereas in reality I am the victim. At that time that I was keeping her from knowing those bad happenings, I believed in my heart that I was doing right. I didn’t want her to know her father could be capable of doing such bad things.
Someday perhaps my daughter will let me talk to her about these very bad happenings, but as for now I wish for my grandchildren not to know.
While I was raising my daughter, I sewed almost all her clothes, and I would trim them in lace. People would tell me how pretty she looked, and this made me proud. I sewed her school uniforms and I even made her first prom dress. I sacrificed things that I wanted for myself for our home to send her to the school of her wishes, St. Gerard’s high school, against her father who wanted her to go to Sam Houston high school.
To attend St. Gerard’s high school there was a tuition required, which her father refused to pay. I sewed her Pep Squad uniforms, and attended football games just to see her march. I would persuade her father to go with me, but he was usually drunk at every game. I was so proud of my daughter when I would see her march, and even more proud of her achievements in high school. I always took interest in how she looked, and when she received compliments, I felt good, because I never got compliments of any kind from her dad.
When my first granddaughter was born, Shannon, I was so happy and proud, and then again when my second granddaughter, Jenna, was born. I gave all my love to my sweet and precious granddaughters, and they gave love back to me. This made me very happy since I had no happiness at home. I had revolved my life around my daughter’s family since there was no love at my home. My grandson, Brian, was not born until after the divorce from his grandfather. When I heard from friends that my daughter was going to have another baby, this made me proud, but at the same time very sad. Since my daughter has forbidden me to be with my granddaughters, I knew that I wouldn’t be able to witness my grandson’s birth, or be there to see his childhood achievements. Even though I have never touched him, I still hold him close to my heart.
My marriage went from bad to worse with never a kind word spoken to me. My health began to fail. I talked with a close friend about what I should do. She said to me, “do you want to spend the rest of your life unhappy?” I gave this a lot of thought and then I went to talk to the pastor at my church. He told me that if the marriage has no love, it is at the point of being unbearable, then they should divorce. I then tried very hard, one more time, to make the marriage come alive again. I bought myself new clothes, cooked nice dinners, spoke only kind words, and played soft music with candlelight when he would come home from wherever he was, but everything went unnoticed without a single response. I knew then, it was time to separate, and this time for good. He told me by not saying a word that the love could not be rekindled.
After contacting a lawyer, he advised me not to tell my daughter about the divorce until after I moved out, since my ex-husband had threatened my life once before when I had left him temporarily. Every time I left my ex-husband was because of abuse to me. I did as my lawyer instructed me to do. I wanted the divorce to be a friendly divorce, but I found out immediately after moving out that he wasn’t going to be friendly about anything, and he also had turned my daughter unfriendly towards me.
The next morning, after friends helped me to move out, I called my daughter. She already knew of my leaving and was very bitter towards me. She would not listen to anything I had to say. She told me that I was no longer her mother, and I would never see Shannon or Jenna again.
I was also told that she didn’t like secrets. All the pain bestowed upon me all those years of not being able to be a grandmother to my grandchildren is because of the secret that I didn’t tell her about the divorce before I moved out. Oh! My God, I was divorcing her father, not her. A secret is kept sometimes to prevent harm to someone. And my lawyer thought it best for my protection to keep it quiet until after the move.
After my daughter had hung up on me that first morning without letting me say a thing, she called her great-grandmother Hennie at work and told her that she was no longer her grandmother because she helped me move out. My loving mother had nothing to do with the move at all, but was wrongly blamed. She also was condemned from seeing her great granddaughters. Over the following years to come both my mother and I would experience failing health and hospitalization because of this dishonor that was put upon us.
I tried calling my daughter several more times, but she hung up on me every time. I was grieving so bad, because I wanted to see my granddaughters. I went to see my priest again. He suggested writing a letter to her. I wrote two letters to my daughter, and the priest read both letters with his approval before I mailed them. I got no response. I had my priest call my daughter and talk to her personally. He called and then told me he could do no more to help me, and he gave me his blessing. I was told later by a parishioner that my daughter told my priest to go to hell and that was the reason he backed off from helping me.
I called my son-in-law at work, and pleaded with him to talk to my daughter to get her to talk to me, and he told me that he stayed out of her business, and let her do what she wanted to do. I tried everything I could to keep us a family, but my daughter wouldn’t even give me a chance to tell my side of the story. I’m sure there have been stories told by my ex-husband. And I’m also sure that they are untrue, because this family separation would not still be going on. I am not guilty of any wrong. I only wanted happiness for everyone.
After calling my son-in-law, I received a registered letter from my daughter threatening me that I should stop harassing her or her family, and stay away from her children. I wasn’t harassing - it was for love that I tried my best to keep us a family.
After receiving this letter from my daughter, I went on grieving so badly that in September 1988, I was put in the hospital by my doctor due to mental exhaustion from grief. I did get the professional help my daughter wanted me to get, but I don’t believe it was in the same manner she wanted for me.
Also, my daughter said that she had received two telephone calls at Christmas, one from her great-grandmother Hennie, and the other from her brother, Tim.
I did not tell them to make those calls. The Christmas presents I bought for my granddaughters were returned to me unopened. I cried and grieved so badly because my daughter wouldn’t let the children have the presents. My mother and my son Tim saw how badly I was hurting, and they were hurting for me too. So, because of the hurt we were feeling that Christmas is why they made those calls. Also, those two hang-ups were nothing compared to all the times that I was hung up on by my daughter.
My daughter also said in the letter to me that I was selfish and handled the divorce very cruelly. I took what my lawyer told me to take, and he handled the divorce, not I. I feel that this was said, because her father made it look that way. He didn’t want me to have anything, even after all the years that I contributed to the marriage through my job, decorating the home that he took no part in, keeping the home clean, washing and cooking, even though he wasn’t there most of the time to eat the meals. And even after all the abuse I went through, he wasn’t going to feel sorry for me, and leave me anything. I believe he succeeded in making everyone feel sorry for him, and I was never to tell the true side of the story.
My life is still filled with unhappiness that I live with every day, because my ex-husband and his mother have made me an outcast. I was not the villain. I was the victim. And I was deprived of sharing love and life with my grandchildren. My daughter has made it plain to me that she doesn’t need me, but someday she may. I pray that it won’t be too late. What she doesn’t see is that her children need their grandmother, and she is depriving them. She also has caused great suffering to her grandmother, because she was also deprived of her great-grandchildren that gave her great joy in her years that she had left.
I have never forsaken my precious grandchildren. I keep each one of them always in my heart and there is never a day that goes by that I don’t say “I love you with all my heart and soul.”