I’m really not sure where to start....
I’m 52 years old, have four children and five grandchildren. I was married for 17 years and have now been divorced for 18 years. The only good thing to come out of my marriage is my children. Even after all these years, I still have a number of self-confidence issues because of the way my ex-husband treated me. Fortunately, my daughters are much stronger than I and I pity any man who tries to dominate them in any way. To my grandchildren, find a partner to share your life, but do not let them dominate you and take away your self-confidence, self-respect, and/or independence. And most importantly, NEVER let them lay a hand on you in anger.
I was 16 and a junior in high school when I met my husband. My best friend was madly in love with him, but always became tongue-tied when he was around. So, she was always sending me to give him messages. He was not interested in her and I really didn’t know how to tell her without hurting her feelings. Unfortunately, she was even more hurt when she found out that I’d fallen in love with him while delivering all her messages. Of course, what the hell does a 16 year old really know about love? Just two months before my 17th birthday, I conceived my daughter, Carol. Then, just six days after my 17th birthday, on Thanksgiving Day 1974, I married Allen Rodgers, after obtaining a court order giving me permission to do so, since I was not yet of legal age to marriage without parental consent, which my father refused to give and my mother was unable to give because of illness. Needless to say, my family was not in the least bit supportive. So, none of my family attended my wedding. If I’d had any sense at all, my wedding ceremony would have warned me that I should probably have said, “I don’t”. Of course, at that age, I had no sense.
In those days, 17 year old pregnant girls were not allowed to attend public school and my father made sure my high school because aware of the fact that I was expecting; so I was advised that I would have to transfer to a “school for pregnant girls”. Unfortunately, the closest “school for pregnant girls” was too far away for me to attend, since no school bus was provided and I did not have transportation. So, now I was a 17 year old, married, pregnant, drop-out.
Allen, turned 18 a month after we were married and left for basic training in the Air Force. By May 1975, he was sent to Tech School to train in Fire Fighting, at Chanute Air Force Base in Rantoul, Illinois. Two weeks later, I arrived, eight months pregnant. Carol Lea Rodgers was born on Father’s Day, two weeks to the day after my arrival in Illinois, making her father a father for the first time on Father’s Day.
