Carol Smith

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BIOGRAPHY OF CAROL JEAN SMITH

I was born during the last years of World War II on September 3, 1942. At the time, my parents, "Art" and Milly" Smith were 34 and 28 respectively. They had been married for eight years before I was born as their first child. My father had been in Art School there, and my mother's employment is not known. My father was never in any military service. They lived in a "flat" which means to occupy the entire up or downstairs of a home. My mother grew up in Detroit while my father was from a small town in Michigan, Cheboygan.

During the post-war period, the United States experienced phenomenal growth. The automobile industry, housing boom, and rise in defense spending due to the "Cold War" were part of the reason for the increasing wealth of the middle class. Major corporations grew larger, and workers found their own lives changing. Industrialization impacted annual wages, long-term employment and a disappearing class distinction. Farmers and others moved west as farming became a big business with the family farmers unable to compete.

Our family moved to Royal Oak, Michigan at about the time that I started school in 1947. At the time I had one sister, Linda Kay, who was born in 1946. Later on, Lawrence Arthur, was born in 1948 and Judith Ann, was born in 1950.

Our move into the suburbs was aided by developers building look alike homes, using the techniques of mass production. It was the American dream to own your own home. Home loans were easily available, so we moved into what was known as "a story and a half" home with two bedrooms, and one bathroom. I think the price of the house was $9,600. My parents lived there until all four children were grown and on our own. Along the way, Dad added 2 bedrooms in the attic for us 3 girls, and my brother had his room next to my parents. Dad also finished the basement into a recreation room for more space. The home was about 900 square feet. It had a nice fenced backyard. The older neighbors next door, last name was Marino, owned two lots, with the one next to us always planted with vegetables and grapes.

Our house was a short walk to downtown Royal Oak proper. The trouble was that we had to walk past a cemetery with a huge black wrought iron fence. As the two lane road had been built through the cemetery there were tombstones on both sides of the road. To make it worse, huge Oak trees were everywhere, making it dark and shady all day. Most of the time we ran fast until we reached the end of the fence and came out into the sunshine. This also was the way home from my high school, George A. Dondero. I hated it walking home then, too. We always laughed that we might see ghosts, and hoped never to see a funeral going into the cemetery, or not have a friend to walk with.

The town was small, with only a few stores. There was a family grocery store, a hardware store, a pharmacy and a funeral home. Most were brick, older buildings. Some large, older homes were built around the town proper. There were a few "mom and pop" convenience stores at that time perhaps a mile or two away. There also was a bowling alley close by. Most main streets were two lanes, one for each way. Nearby was also a golf course, called Red Run, which probably the new middle class and executives played. Much of the town had empty lots and open lands nearby that hadn't been built up yet. We even had a pond where some kids went looking for tad poles, and to splash around in during the summer heat.

My father worked at a factory in Detroit, about a 45 minute drive each way from Royal Oak. It was called Bower Roller Bearing. He met a fellow there with the last name of Smith also, who lived a couple streets away, so they shared a ride. He retired from there after 30 or so years at 65. My mother was a full time housekeeper. She was sick frequently, having a tubal pregnancy, and bowel resection. She also was very nervous and said her mother was the same way. It wasn't until I was 12 or 13 years old that she went to work at a J.C. Penney store and worked there many years without illness that I recall. I don't think she had been a happy wife and mother, although my parents never divorced. Perhaps she was depressed as the doctor gave her Valium or Xanax. Her mother had worked in a government job as she was a divorcee. Jennie always seemed harsh and angry to me. Jennie still lived in Detroit and died at 60, of a stroke in 1953, the same year that her ex-husband, Glenn died from a heart attack. Art Smith died in the 1970's after a doctor's surgical sutures broke open in his abdomen. "It was just a biopsy" and the results negative for cancer. But in those days, they did made an incision to make a biopsy. No needle biopsies then. He died in two weeks, 6 months after retiring. My, mother, Milly died in 1996 from a ruptured aortic aneurysm. She was almost 82. She had COPD breathing problems and was a poor surgical risk. My life continued. After marriage, to Robert Proctor at age 18, I had two children. Tracilyn Joy and Robert R. Proctor. I went to college in my 30's and became a registered nurse. I was plagued by reoccurring depression from post partum depression after my daughter was born in 1961. Later, I developed what I call, basic depression bouts. I would have anxiety attacks, causing me to feel afraid of heights almost passing out once at Niagra Falls, to claustrophobia, and unable to breathe. This caused me to avoid elevators, drive in lanes at restaurants, and crowds in shopping malls. My basic depression would come on during stress filled times, like unexpected family happenings or perceived failure on my part to live up to my idea of success. One time I had to take a leave of absense at work for a month because two stressors were occurring. I learned over many years that the signs of crying, lethargia, withdrawal, hopelessness meant I had to see the doctor for an antidepressant. Usually it took two weeks to a month to wake up feeling like it was the first day of Spring and all was well. The ongoing saga of my emotions has never disappeared and I know it didn't help my marriage, which ended in divorce, when I met a woman who became my life partner. Nor my ability to raise the children. My daughter finds herself in much the same place that I have been living, with some worse PTSD symptoms arising. Her daughter, who married and has three daughters has bi-polar depression. My son married had a daughter, and addicted to alcohol, died of a self inflicted gun shot at 41. His daughter has some symptoms of recurrent depression also. With all this, I have to admit my mother, though undiagnosed with "depression" certainly had all the signs and symptoms, as did her mother Jennie Baltz. One thing I have learned, and hopefully my daughter too, is that "You gotta stay on your meds!"

Sources

• First hand personal recollections are from Carol Smith, as told to her by her parents while growing up. Other sources quoted about World War II and around that time were taken randomly from articles in Wikipedia about the War, for interest in the era.

Biography

This biography was auto-generated by a GEDCOM import. It's a rough draft and needs to be edited.

Birth

Birth:

User ID: 56A749A5-DE58-4C4C-9C58-19BD4BDD1A8A

Record ID Number: MH:IF2

Date: 3 SEP 1942

Place: Detroit, MI

Record ID Number

Record ID Number: MH:I2

User ID

User ID: 493AF37A-3A7E-4F1D-90DD-2E9D7A10958A

UPD

UPD 05 AUG 2011 14:00:31 GMT-8

Residence

Residence:

User ID: F2899136-64B5-4A74-A007-F3A5E9BC419F

Record ID Number: MH:IF3

Physical Description

Physical Description:

User ID: 27AFBBD0-7B35-466F-84CA-956AC4FC59D2

Record ID Number: MH:IF15292

Note

Note: Carol Jean joined Marcia (Marty)Leach in Holy Union in Cathedral City Ca. January 28, 1989 by Rev. Ronald Gee, pastor of Palm Springs Metropolitan Community Church. Same sex marriages were not legal in 1989, and now in 2011 they are legal only in 6 States Iowa, New York, Rhode Island, Maine, Massachusettes, and ???

Sources

Acknowledgments

Thank you to Carol Smith for creating WikiTree profile Smith-50787 through the import of Baltz Heritage Family Tree.ged on Aug 31, 2013. Click to the Changes page for the details of edits by Carol and others.