My Autistic Life — 03
Labels have consequences.
Because I was a “retard”, my father had me sterilized.
By the time I was four, it was clear that I was “different”.
My father was an only child. My grandmother was in her 30’s when he was born. This was unusual for rural Texas in the 1930’s.
Plus, she was a married woman. Had been, since she was 21. So, she had come to think of herself as “barren”.
However, she came from a HUGE family. Her mother, born on a farm in New Braunfels Texas in the late 19th century and married off to an immigrant German farmer. Her mother, had started having babies at 16 and had her last at 52.
Twenty two pregnancies in 36 years. Nineteen live births. Sixteen who survived childhood on the farm. Fourteen still living when I was born.
My grandmother came from a big family and she was the oldest girl. She had her fill of taking care of babies and children while she was a child and a teen. She wasn’t that unhappy at the idea of being childless, but my father’s arrival she considered a great blessing. Even though he came during the Great Depression.
What this meant for me, was that I had a LOT of second cousins who were my age. My grandmother’s youngest sister, was born only one…
