The Ely miner., 1943-04-08
By KATHLEEN NORRIS
GIT USED to be the boys who
sowed the wild oats and
L the girls who STAYED
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i OOED W NC Tic OOyS VIII
sowed the wild oats and
L the girls who stayed
home" writes a heartbroken
mother from a suburb near To-
ledo. ''But in these days it
seems to be the other way! My
boys, now "a and 20, both in the
services, have been the comfort
and pride of my life. Their sis
ter, now 16, has given her father
and me infinite cause for anxiety
and is now in real trouble.
''We live in a college town;
Betty Lou was not fourteen
when she came in to breakfast one
morning bedraggled and exhausted,
having danced all night at the coun-
try club and various night clubs. She
had been drinking and was In con-
dition to horrify anyone who loved
her. Only her father and I were
home, and we did what we could.
We reminded her, after she had had
coffee, bath and some hours of
sleep, that hers is comfortable,
hospitable home, that we have al
ways tried to give her every advan-
tage, and that our hopes for her had
been bitterly shaken by her be-
havior. I was obliged to tell her
that hereafter when she told me she
wanted to stay with a school friend
I would telephone that friend to
check on the matter. But both Joe
and regarded this as the reckless
ness of defiant child, and while we
watched her carefully, we did not
take this first outbreak too seriously.
Now I know that it was by no means
an isolated instance.
"That Christmas we took all the
children east to my mothers place,
and there was dance among the
cousins to which I permitted Betty
Lou to go; she had her first formal
evening dress and was much petted
and praised. At the end of the eve
ming she and a boy of Il disap-
peared; next morning, after night
of horror for us, they were found at
a Baltimore hotel; the boy asleep in
a chair in the lobby, Betty-Lou and
another girl, a girl they had picked
up at some night club, asleep up
stairs.
Expelled From School.
"When we came back we tried
boarding-schoo but last November,
in her third half-term there, she was
quietly dropped for repeatedly break
ing bounds and disappearing for
hours at a time.
'This Christmas-time her be-
havior was so reckless that night
after night her father and I lay
awake waiting to hear her return
from various entertainments, some
! times at two or three o'clock, and
sometimes in a state that showed us
she had been drinking. Threats are
no use; we cannot seem to reach
her soul or heart at all. Yet ours is
good home, and we have always
tried to keep about her decent and
developing influences.
Last night a young marine, 20
years old, called on my husband and
me and said that he was willing
to marry our daughter if we wished
it. Betty-Lou was at a movie with
some young friends; we could only
gather, from this young mans talk,
that he felt obliged to make this
suggestion. When Betty-Lou came
in she denied everything. said that
the boy was romancing, and that
she wouldn't marry him under any
circumstances. But his serious,
apologetic manner made terrible
impression on both Joe and myself.
Now, what are we to do? Here
is this girl, not yet II, who knows
neither law nor affection, who is as
hard as flint, and who is going to go
her own way no matter what we do.