For many years, my brothers and sisters and I were raised to believe that our mother was an only child. We had just one aunt, on my father’s side of the family. No aunts, uncles, or cousins on my mom’s side. But that was not true. My mother had a sister that was kept secret from us.

In August 2023, I began a journey to learn about who my mother’s sister was. It has been heartbreaking and deeply touching to learn about her life. I will share her story, and mine, with you, in 13 posts. You may download the entire booklet here or read post by post. The story will unfold over 12 posts. If you would like a print copy, please email liz@seattleplaygarden.org.

Dear Mother,

Thank you for the nice letter. Yet, Mother Dear did I get my pillowcase to embroider but not my thermos bottle. I don’t know why? I will write this every week until I do get it.

Daughter

Rose Ellen

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Families have secrets, and mine is no exception. Our family secret’s name is Rose Ellen Skeen.

For many years, my brothers and sisters and I were raised to believe that our mother was an only child. We had just one aunt, on my father’s side of the family. No aunts, uncles or cousins on my Mom’s side. The concept of an only child was very strange and something that felt exotic and interesting. Enmeshed in six older siblings and two younger, my child’s mind pondered how odd it must be to be an only child. I often thought that my mother must have been a lonely child, but she didn’t have to wear hand-me-downs and share everything – even our underwear was shared. But who did she play with? Did she get loads of attention or too much?

When I was a bit older, I wondered if she had lots and lots of kids of her own because she felt such a huge loss in not having a brother or sister. There are nine of us. Six girls and three boys easily divided into the three big kids, three middle, and three little. If I braved the question, “Why do we have so many kids?” Mom would snappily reply, “Which one do you think we could do without?!” That would quiet me down immediately, but I hear the retort differently now. She had “done without” her only sister. She could have told me the truth, but she didn’t. She had a sister, a big sister who we didn’t know existed. She was not an only child after all and it seems, her sister was taken from her. I was so curious about how she felt about this but could not find the courage or the words to ask and the message was clear. Don’t ask.

My aunt, Rose Ellen Skeen, was born on December 10, 1913 to my grandfather, Earl Donovan Skeen, “Papa Don” and my Grandmama, Ethel Frazier Haynes Skeen. Fourteen years later, in March 1928, my mother, Lou Ann Skeen was born. Lou Ann grew up and married Joel Bullard and they grew their family quickly to include the nine of us- nine babies in twelve years. My oldest brother arrived soon after they were married and another baby arrived most years after that until my youngest brother, James was born in January 1965. I was number seven or “the oldest of the three little kids.”

Papa Don and Grandmama came to live with us in 1968 when we bought a much larger house. It was just a few months later that my Papa Don died. Grandmama continued to live with us until her death in 1975. Our household was busy, as you would expect, but we sat down to dinner together every night, and most nights, Grandmama would join us. She was a lovely grandmother, always up for a game of cards, always dressed in beautiful clothing, hair done, matching jewelry and shoes. I loved being with her very much. She was always kind and talkative. She played Bridge with her friends, went to the senior center and wrote poetry. But she never let on what she must have had on her mind at all times.  We didn’t know all that she was keeping to herself.

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My siblings all have brief and incomplete memories of when we first learned of Rose Ellen and the circumstances of her life. My first awareness of my aunt came when my sister, Rosie, (the youngest of the three middle kids) questioned my father about mail coming to the house addressed to Rose Ellen Skeen. I remember this happening when we lived on Jefferson Boulevard, but Rosie says it was when we lived on Riverside Drive a few years later. In any case, I was about twelve years old. When Rosie asked my Dad, he told her matter-of-factly that Rose Ellen was our mother’s sister and that she lived in a nursing home and was well taken care of.  She recalls he told her that her birth was difficult. The umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck, and she suffered brain damage. There was no family meeting called to announce this revelation and, as far as I can remember, no one spoke about it much at all. I learned about her the way I learned most things, by overhearing comments by my sister, by gleaning that something “ominous” was going on, something scary and shameful.  We didn’t talk about it, not with each other and definitely not around the dinner table.

I don’t know what language my Dad would have used to describe Rose Ellen or how he explained why she was a secret. I was familiar with kids with disabilities even then. The family that lived next door to us had eight kids, who all went to private school, except for their brother, Kevin, who went to public school with us. We walked to school and home together and he came to play at our house often. We never really knew the other kids, but we knew Kevin. Kevin was a “special ed” kid, and I really enjoyed him.

Once, I asked my Mom why she didn’t tell us about her sister and she replied, “It’s not my story to tell.” How could her sister not be her story? My sisters were all over my story. She didn’t come close to suggesting I ask my Grandmama. Another time, I asked my mom why Rose Ellen couldn’t come and live with us, like my grandparents did, and she said, “She’s happy living where she is. She has a home, and it would only upset her. She wouldn’t want to live with us.”  Mom explained that she, herself, had never lived with Rose Ellen. When she was born, Rose Ellen was fourteen years old and living in a “home.” The message to me was clear: Do not ask about Rose Ellen and I didn’t. I thought it was strange that the neighbor boy, Kevin, was treated so differently than his siblings but at least he got to live at home with them. Decades went by, my grandparents died, my parents passed away, and still we never talked about Rose Ellen.

During the brief period when we “found out” about her, she was living in a nursing home just a few miles from our house and my Grandmama was quietly taking my mother to visit her regularly. None of my siblings went on those visits. We were not included in her life in any way.

My Mom was truly a close-to-perfect mother and role model for me. My older siblings remember her with long painted nails while the mom of my childhood was covered in poison ivy and bee stings, long hair down to her waist that she wore up in a bun, always reading mysteries and collecting things off the ground. She was principled about a lot of things and could get pretty exasperated with all of us at times. But she listened to me and I loved making her smile.  She was kind and always looking for ways to help others. Yet she refused to talk about her “feeble-minded” sister Rose Ellen. When I was in high school, my mother went back to school to renew her teaching certificate. She took a job as a middle school special education teacher. During her training, I went along with her as she volunteered at Logan Center, a school for children with disabilities. In the car on the way home one day, she explained to me that the little boy I had played with had been very ill with a virus and suffered brain damage. I wanted to ask her about Rose Ellen then, but I didn’t. Years later, I studied Speech and Hearing Sciences and began my career as a Speech-Language Pathologist, working with children with disabilities and their parents. Still there was no mention of Rose Ellen. I didn’t ask and apparently neither did any of my siblings. I stored Rose Ellen deep, deep down and only thought about her now and then.

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I have worked in the field of disability since 1983, in clinics, hospitals, public schools and now as the founder of the Seattle PlayGarden where thousands of kids have attended summer camp and preschool. I have grown close to many families and their children over the past forty years who, like my grandparents, have a child with disabilities. To say that I love my work is an understatement. I can’t imagine life without the kids and young adults that I am so very fond of. I consider myself to be one of the lucky ones whose life’s work is her greatest pleasure, lucky to have so many loving and delightful disabled people in my daily life. The challenges are real, but the rewards are deep.  My mom and I talked about my work often. We had long telephone calls, and she was always very interested to hear about my own kids, her grandchildren, and my “work kids.” We talked “kids”, a lot. But, sadly, my mother, who gave me eight siblings, could not talk about her only sister, and, even worse, I never asked again.

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A Reawakening

On August 10, 2023, I put my headphones in, put leashes on the dogs, and pressed play on an episode of the podcast, Fresh Air. That day’s show featured an interview with the Pulitzer Prize winner, Jennifer Senior and her cover story in The Atlantic Magazine: “The Ones We Sent Away: I thought my mother was an only child. I was wrong.” Senior tells the story of her Aunt Adele, who was institutionalized at the tender age of 21 months because of an intellectual and developmental disability. Senior found out about her aunt when she was twelve, believing until then that her mother was an only child.

Thoughts of Rose Ellen, my mom, and my grandparents came in a rush. This was my mother’s story. My family’s story. My story. How did I ever forget about Rose Ellen? It had been decades since I gave her a thought. I was about the same age as Senior when I found out about my aunt. Her account is riveting. Reading her story compelled me to find out as much as I could about my lost and institutionalized aunt.

As I listened, questions swirled in my head. Who was Rose Ellen? What did she like to do? Did she look like my mom? Where exactly did she live and with who? At what age was she removed from her home? How was she treated? What exactly were her disabilities? Why was she kept a secret from us?

Why did we all silently agree to erase her from our lives? Why has she been totally left out of our family lore and history? What were the circumstances of her life? What was her daily life like? Was she, as my mother said, “happy where she was”? What was institutional life like for her and for my grandparents? I needed to know what it was like for my grandparents to raise a child with a disability and how they coped with giving her up.

Rose Ellen was deprived of her family even after my grandparents died and even after the stigma of disability had lessened in America. She is not buried alongside her parents and sister, and there is no mention of her in my mother’s obituary. She is not listed on the Family Address List, along with our departed family members. Not one of us made note of her absence. Her erasure was total and complete.

Next Up: Remembering Rose Ellen: Part 2: Unraveling the Story