Joella

Joella was born in Knoxville tennesee in 1942 and was,from my point of view,irrevocably insane.Whether from nature or nurture i cannot began to surmise and will leave thay up to your personal judgement.
That she was the child of an abusive Father has,i am sure,been well documented and that her Mother,Mary Jane,was a cold hearted uncaring mother (at least where joella was concerned)has also been well documented.
Joella's Mother was the daughter of a poor swiss immigrant father who came to this country from BellaZona Switzerland,to escape religeous persecution by the Catholic Church,himself being abused by a priest in that country and his parents sent him to live with an older sister in new york.
Mary Jane (Joella's Mother) was a life long sunday school teacher in Girard,being a member of the now defunct Girard Baptist Church.
Mary Jane married Ernest AAron Todd and they had five chidren,Ray,Ramon,Ruth,Joella and Glen.
When joella was 14 she reported to her Mother that her Father had been sexually abusing her at least since she was ten years old,it is my belief that her family never forgave her for making this public and that her Mother,Mary Jane actually hated her for it.From my 25 years of marriage to Joella,i can truthfuly vouch for the fact that her Mother did actually hate her and always considered her "BENEATH" the rest of her children,treating her with ridicule and scorn no matter what endeavor Joella attempted,Joella was always the pariah,the Todd family scape goat and never seemed to measure up to what that family considered to be a success.
I have never quiet figured out how Mary Jane could balance her super moral southern baptist out look on life and her "go to church every sunday to teach sunday school" life style with her treatment of Joella and her family,for again it is quiet well documented that she gained custody of Joella's youngest son Matthew and then let him run the streets at night to attend gay bars and eventually let him make an unsupervised trip to Tempe Arizona at the age of 14,where he (i am convinced) contracted the HIV virus and AIDS which did kill him at the age of 25,she did this above the loud protestations and begging and pleading by Joella not to let him make the trip,a trip i might add,was arranged by Ms. Bea Rinzic,a candidate for the sisterhood (nun)in the Catholic Church whom had moved to Tempe Arizona a year or 2 earlier and whom arranged the trip for Matt in order that a gay friend of hers could have a date,as no one out there would date him because he had the HIV virus.
Joella was surely wendsdays child,for her life was filled with woe,and nothing she ever attempted ever turned out right,Matt died on May the 9th 1994,it was Mothers Day of that year.
Mary Jane once told me that Ernest"s brother had a habit of taking Joella around town in a stroller (preambulator)when she was 2 years old,and one day she noticed blood in joella's diaper,did the visits stop?were her suspicions aroused?did she take joella to a doctor?to all of these questions i can answer with an emphatic NO! Where were her Motherly instincts?do i think that Mary Jane was that ignorant?no i most certainly do not,what i do think is that Mary Jane did not want to upset the family apple cart,and thus let Joella be the sacrifice to her ever present and all pervading greed.
The marvel of it all is that Joella was able to accomplish anything in life at all,but she did,as her many loyal friends can testify,among her many accomplishments are her life long devotion to the alabama state pta and her activities in Saint Patricks Catholic Church sodality,a church of which her Mother did not want her to join and indeed had a whole sermon preached at her Baptist Church on the evils of catholicism by her preacher the right reverand Carfrey.
That Joella could and did have a way to enfluence people is also a matter of record,she enfluenced a 1st luitanant of the u.s.army reserves to forge an official document,she convinced Mrs.Bessie Barrick to write and sign a letter to the VA regional office purporting to KNOW how a vet spent his money,she enfluenced a judge to arrest her ex husband for non payment of child support when all her children were 40 years old.
If these words offend anyone,i appologize,but all i say is a matter of public or private record and i can say in all sincerity, that i lived with Joella for 25 years and i feel that i know her better than anyone.
When i think of Joella's life,i am always reminded of a drawing i once saw when i was young,it depicted a peacock standing on a skull in the middle of a desert and it was captioned "ALL IS VANITY"

Story ID:	3201
Written by:	Bobby O'neill Mitchum (bio, contact, other stories)
Story type:	Family History
Location:	phenix city alabama u.s.a.
Year:	2007
Person:	joella