Unbecoming a Lady by Therese Oneill

Author:Therese Oneill
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: S&S/Simon Element
Published: 2024-03-05T00:00:00+00:00

Carrie wrote: “This my only child was peculiar. She was the result of a drunken father and a distracted mother. The curse of heredity is one of the most heart-breaking results of the saloon.”

Carrie believed her daughter was born with mental deficiencies, though she wasn’t clear about what they were. There was a prevailing school of thought in the nineteenth century regarding prenatal influences. (Here we are well to remember the majority of medical practices in the nineteenth century were based on thoughts, hunches, and a general mistrust of frequent bathing.)

“Prenatal influence” was the belief that a baby is heavily affected by its mother’s emotional state when in utero. Mothers were advised to keep serene pictures on the walls of their bedrooms, remain cheerful, and keep a distance from ugly people. It went without saying that you should pick only a healthy person to be your child’s other parent.

But when Carrie had a child with Charles Gloyd, she believed she had failed to practice any of those precautions. She knew, before the child was born, that her husband’s alcoholism had stunted Charlien’s life. In fact, alcohol had even more evil designs on Carrie’s baby girl.

It was the ill constitution given to her by her drunken father, Carrie believed, that caused Charlien to develop an abscess inside her cheek as a small child. Soon, the skin rotted away, leaving Charlien’s jaw exposed to the bone. A possible tetanus infection then resulted, with the child’s jaw being clenched shut, unmoving, for eight years.

Carrie sent her Charlien around the country for medical help, often alone, since Carrie had to stay and run the motel the family depended on for food and shelter. Charlien endured suffering beyond reason; just as her father had performed the barbaric medicine of the era, Charlien was the recipient of it.

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