Chapter 7    Grandma – Germany –

Escape Torture, Embrace Prosperity & Paradise    written 1/16/22 

          When we moved to Middletown I was 15; there were 4 bedrooms. Instead of giving me my own room, which anyone would desire, Mom kept one room EMPTY rather than let me have it. Situated in between her room & mine, it was as plain as could be & unless the door was closed you could see into it from the middle floor {split level house had 3 levels} so it wasn’t a great room, but it was a room.

          Her excuse why I could not have it, shoved into a bunk bed with an 8 yr old? It was ‘for Grandma’ she said. How often did Grandma stay with us? Twice in my lifetime for a month.

         Upon her visit to Middletown, occupying that precious room, she sort of ‘cracked up’ almost crying & said she could not stand how Mom & I were & demanded a reconciliation, & forced us to face one another give a hug & tell us we loved one another.

          For me the touch of Mommy Fearest was an ordeal. How would you like to hug someone you know hates you & wants you dead?

          We both went through the motions – Mom had to obey her Mom, me—what else could I do?

          But did it help? Was it what was needed? Of course not.

          What was needed was for Grandma to check into the situation, ask some questions & see why the cold silence. Why would two people not speak to each other?

          And so, Grandma was looking at the surface of things – that we were silent. But she pulled the same stunt the rest of the adults did – ignore the elephant in the room. As I explained before, I had a Dad who supposedly loved me, who was deserted. I begged to live with him since age 10 – I said I felt suicidal – but he insisted I had to stay with Mom. It’s a long story told elsewhere. There was Auntie Ara, Mom’s sister, who could have figuredwhat was what, but she sided with Mom. And my Uncle, who knew the truth, only once in our lifetime said one sentence to support me, that Mom did not do right by me, but nothing else to anyone else. So no one – not one human in my life – alleviated her abuse, some added to it. {That includes counselors at school she fooled, & I had no way of defending myself, I simply could not articulate the situation.}

I shall channel, first my Mother God. What was the rhyme or reason behind Grandma’s forced reconciliation?

          MG: {Mother God} You were ‘at war’ with your Mother, but it was she who assaulted you, you explained elsewhere how she made a pact with your brother & another soul to help her ‘control’ you – which meant demoralize you, make you a pauper.

          You reacted as any human, after multiple assaults you stopped trying to be nice. She only spoke in the negative, between that there was silence. One could ask why? You explained before it was to do with Dad. The rage she had for him was turned on you.

          Grandma was a witness to hostility, she wanted it stopped. Go ahead & ask her why.

          ME: Grandma what was it about?

          GRANDMA: I saw & felt the coldness & it was an icy wind blowing through the house; I wanted it stopped for my own comfort. No, I did not question you or her, no, I did not dig deep. Yes I knew Regina was some sort of a psychopath, she was my child.

          I was the one who told you she was like that from day one. She had to have control over things, & if not, there was revenge. She tried to break up your Aunt & Uncle by paying a girl to seduce him. She said she would ‘fix her up like a doll’ with a new wardrobe & accessories. Except it didn’t work & Uncle Henry hated her from then on in.

          ME: Did you have any idea that Mom was abusing me & her reasons for it? Did you suspect but chose to ignore it anyway?

          GRANDMA: Of course I suspected there was more to the drama. It’s obvious there were reasons. But I chose not to dig for my mental safety, just wanted to read my Russian newspaper & dream of other places, help with the dinner, bear out my time in the Circus until I could escape & go back to the paradise of North Salem {her daughter Dagmar & Uncle Henry.}

          ME: OK so now you’re in Heaven & you must tell the truth. Aren’t you sorry you didn’t help me? My sore point is that none of the adults helped. That adds salt to the wounds. Weren’t you being selfish?

          GRANDMA: I wasn’t a firebrand like you. I was a nice person, but that was it. I was more worried about the boy next door trying to feel your breasts than the pain in your heart. I was shallow, like 99% of all people; I was not a saint, a healer, a do-gooder or activist. I wanted to be left alone & live without conflict, at least in my old age.

          ME: On Grandma’s side I can imagine why she wanted no drama. Her eight brothers were killed by the Bolsheviks {the fought with the Czar, Bolsheviks were Communists} & her husband was assassinated in their own home. They fled to Germany, were displaced persons & lived in a camp, & were lucky to passage to America. So that’s enough stress for one lifetime. But does one’s own past pains make them impervious to those of others?

          GRANDMA: I’m sorry I didn’t help, but I wasn’t capable.

          ME: What you did was put a band aid on a wound that was festering, that needed air. You didn’t help heal it, not a word. You didn’t even comfort me against her, you just wanted that fake truce.

         {Is this how women where men are abusing the children, they just let it go, let it be? Sometimes they don’t see it but they suspect, & instead of digging they turn their back. So abuse goes on & on.}

          She mentioned the boy who was trying to feel my breasts. When we moved to that home there was a neighbor with a boy a year younger than me. Being horny like all young males he tried to get to know me. There was a small tree behind our house; he climbed it to see inside my bedroom window. I caught him one day looking outside – that was before I knew him. Somehow we met.

          Yes, we had a garage & yes, we were there alone, Grandma was in the bottom living room where there was a door to it. Every time the boy & I dallied he tried to feel my breasts. And over & over again she opened the door exclaiming,

          “What are you two doing in there?”

          Hanky panky, of course. Old women have been through the deal again & again. Young people think they invented sex but it was old hat right after Adam & Eve.

{A pet peeve of mine on that is the elders of our society are obsessed with preventing sex. Let teens do what they do. OK, pregnancies occur. In Matriarchal days it didn’t matter. Look at the Mosuos in China, a Matriarchal society, where the males visit the female – then go home in the morning. It’s called ‘Walk-in marriage.’ If any child is born, it stays with the Mom’s family. The men are not the leaders of the family but they do have 2^nd place. To me, this system works. But here it’s convoluted & so, everyone is up to their gills when a female is on the road to sex because the system is hard on her. It forces marriage from guys who don’t want it – & many women are abandoned, alone, left to poverty – as what do you expect? A woman having a child/children but also having to work full time to support them? How could that be? That’s why our Patriarchal society is filled with orphanages, that’s why the old days of England, the streets were full of ‘waifs,’ thousands of homeless kids, begging, stealing, suffering in the streets.

I just might add here that affection & sex is healing/ comforting. In a Matriarchal setting as described, there is no punishment for affection & sex – It is taken as a natural, inevitable process – the man leaves in the morning, the children are cared for – no poverty, no waifs in the street.

Grandma’s Early Life

I only knew Grandma as an older lady & she acted the part. Her hair was always in a bun – not because she wanted to look like Grandma Moses but because she had Asian hair to her waist, thick like that, & a bun works. But coupled with the kind of dowdy clothes she wore, she wasn’t a Grandma you take to a posh restaurant & walk in proudly. When she was young she was I am guessing, {she told me she wore tight skirts in the Edwardian era, so tight they split & Grandpa yelled at her for that} attractive & glamorous, but now she looked like a ‘Babushka,’ older women in Eastern Europe who gain weight, wear ugly clothes & a kerchief over their heads. Never do they wear anything stylish or glamorous nor do they ever show their bodies – it’s tradition to look like this. My Aunt Ara once complained of this, that she sometimes wished Grandma would make herself more appealing like the neighbor lady they had. {She dressed smart & her husband made a serious pass at me when I was 14 – already mentioned elsewhere. In the car he was sitting to my right, he got a hardon & put my hand on it, Uncle Henry was driving, he could see it, his wife & Aunt Ara were in the back. Henry said nothing, I did nothing, nothing was ever said……}

This is how she met Grandpa – Vincas Bytautas {so she became Bytautiene}. He wanted to be a doctor, but when he attended medical school in Poland, the guys looked down on him for being Lithuanian – as Poles had this pride thing where they were ‘superior’ – yes, they had more educational opportunities. {One time under Vytautas the Great King we conquered Poland, then we were ‘mightier’, but now Poland was bigger & ‘better’ than us}. So that made him quit medical school. Thin skin I guess.

During the WWI he joined the Red Cross & drove a truck into Russia. His second wife was with him – the first had died. They met Grandma Luba at a medical facility. The wife was pregnant & died in child birth {not sure what happened to that child} & he & Luba thereafter got married, his third wife.

Luba then moved to Lithuania & adjusted to a new language & country {She was great at our language & foods – many flour & potato dishes, like ‘Kugelis’ *Uncle Henry’s fave, it’s finely grated potatoes which turn into ‘mush’ in a casserole with bits of bacon* & Raviolis with meat or cheese – but the Russian culture remained close to her heart. I learned Russian words from her. She never learned one word of English. Not sure what she achieved with the German language while they were there about 5 years {Mom & Dad were OK with it, he read to me from ‘Grimm’s fairy tales in German & translated it into Lithuanian – he also read to us from advanced Lithuanian story books.}

By the way, we did not have a ‘hard time’ in Germany even though war was on. Our family was given the management of a German hotel way out in the country – my Aunt said ‘we did everything.’ I imagine bed making, cooking, cleaning, laundry, errands. This began a lifetime of ‘service’ & minimum-wage jobs for Mom & Dagmar – they got off their elite horses in Lithuania except in their minds they remained superior no matter what {not Dad or Grandma, they were humble}. The hotel workers became Mom, her sister ‘Ara,’ Grandma & Dad – Uncle Henry was with the allied army as a chauffer. Aunt Ara said it was an older lady who owned the hotel; our presence took the weight off her back.

And Ara told me the food was great – no shortages. A disciple I used to call in Germany told me that the Nazis stole the food from countries they occupied & sent it to the native country. I guess that showed up on the store shelves. 

 Below:  Grandma, Aunt Ara age 15, Dad, Mom age 17, Grandpa Vincent…2nd:  Mom, Dad, Me, Grandma me age 7…#3d:  me in Ritzy Waccabuc where Ara, Henry & Grandma lived & were employed…4th:  The boat Gran came here on with Ara & Henry, see Henry in the middle with a checkered shirt

Grandma came to America on a separate boat than us – she was always with Ara & Henry –they had no children – by now my Mom & Dad had three. They got themselves a different sponsor to the US – as I mentioned in other books, a millionaire lady named Mrs. Grant, who owned Otis Elevators, in Waccabuc wanted them as servants. Ara managed the mansion housework & two boys, Henry took care of the grounds, horses & did maintenance & repairs {he was a genius at many things from horse shoeing to plumbing to construction. He built a small house as a birthday present for one of the sons, named Riddy, – for which he was paid in today’s money, 2k – & later built a 2 car garage, a superb stone-fenced in driveway & second floor on the small house they bought in North Salem NY – Mrs. Grant furnished it from their area of the mansion, it was 1930’s muted ‘art deco’ of sorts, exquisite. When Ara furnished the new upstairs it was hideous. The bedroom with a psychedelic rug of 6 bright colors, the living room no ambiance, Danish style bare-assed furniture I hated.}

I might add a couple things here. Grandma obviously helped with the household chores, as I recall her teaching me the proper way to fold towels, which Mrs. Grant taught her, I assume. I’ve folded towels that way ever since. Hold the towel the long way, fold over each side part way, & then fold it in half to hang on the rack.

Our Life in Germany – the Hotel & Clara Kaiser

There was a lady who got friendly with Uncle Henry, her chauffer, who sponsored him, Ara & Gran to the US. Here’s her obit:

New York Times obituary Nov 4, 1983

Dr Clara A Kaiser dies at 87

* Dr. Clara A. Kaiser, a former teacher and acting dean of the Columbia University School of Social Work, died Tuesday from burns she suffered in an accident several weeks ago at her home in Stamford, Conn. She was 87 years old.

Dr. Kaiser joined the faculty of the New York School of Social Work in 1935 and was appointed a professor five years later. The school later became affiliated with Columbia. She served as acting dean from 1958 to 1960, when she was named professor emeritus.

Dr. Kaiser was born in Rochester. She received bachelor’s degrees from the University of Rochester and the New York School of Social Work, and a doctorate from OhioStateUniversity. She was one of the first professors of group services at Western ReserveUniversity in Cleveland, and became a leader in the theory and practice of social group work, a method based on democratic group action.

At the end of World War II, Dr. Kaiser went to Germany for the World Y.M.- Y.W.C.A. Service to work with displaced persons. Later, she was a consultant in education and cultural affairs to the United States Military Government there. * 

Below, Mom & Dad 

Mom’s Road to Success

Let me add this: Clara Kaiser also got my Mom on the road to solvency. She was working as a waitress at Thorn’s Milk Bar, a place several members of our family worked, including myself for a time. That was all the professional experience she had. But on the recommendation of Dr. Kaiser, she was awarded a job as Head Chef of the Salvation Army Retired Officer’s Residence, & this got her started on later working for Stouffers, High School Cafeteria manager, & last but not least, manager of the Reader’s Digest plant in Pleasantville, NY. She had great talent & put her nose to it, learning to master recipes of all nations. At the Reader’s Digest Guest House, which she managed, she served the then Governor John D. Rockefeller, who said to o her,

“One of the best meals I ever ate.”

This man had charm. I had a mentor explained in Part 3, Rev. Judy Swaggart, who also met him & yakked a lot – & he said to her,

“I like the way you talk.”

Bottom line – who you know, who gives you a push, means a lot. Talent is one step, but without connections or some kind of exposure, it doesn’t move. Because of Clara Kaiser, my family gained great advantages. {The influence of Mrs. Grant, her Victorian mansion, Waccabuc, the two sons, the older of whom I later had an affair with, inspired me for the rest of my life – that opportunity came from Ms Kaiser – & as I said, she gave Mom a career start years later}…..Mom died knowing she had achieved success in spite of hardships.

Traits I Got from my Kin

A question occurs to me, am I a chip off the old block? In some ways, I am. I gained from the good of both parents, hopefully not the bad. Let me ask Mother God. “In what way do I resemble my parents?”

MG {Mother God within me}: The main thing you got from your Mom – definitely not her cruelty – you have none – but what you did get was her persistence in work, & talent in an artistic way. Her floristry, which she did mail order, she was good at. She was a genius at agriculture; flowers, fruits, veggies, picking mushrooms in the woods, you name it. She knew how to preserve, can, dry, produce all that she gathered, including milking the cow & making all kinds cheeses {you churned the butter}. She knew how to cook from day one & improved tremendously, studying cook books & practicing. She was ambitious to the degree she was able. She joined the ‘Book of the Month Club’ for English, & spoke it fairly well. {Unlike poor Dad who was terrible at English, I believe because he was 17 years older than Mom, was anchored to the old country & its goodness, forever wanting to somehow go back, did not embrace the new world like Mom did.} So from Mom it seems you got an artistic flair & the habit of hard work. 

Below, house where Dad grew up in Lithuania – Store Grandpa owned in Lithuania – Aunt Ara, me, Mom & Dad when we arrived here 1949 – My passport photo, I was almost 5

As for Dad, he was a consummate intellectual, Mom said he was the smartest man she’d ever known. You recall in B’klyn him sitting at his desk for hours plodding through Polish & Lithuanian books, translating one to the other, writing poetry, studying history in 3 languages.

He was a ‘community leader’ & pubic speaker – they all looked up to him.

He was also a hard worker {geared more to intellectual work on a steady basis but he loved to dabble on the farm! You recall hours of him in the fields & the woods. He took the lingonberry bushes, separating big ones into many smaller ones, as had to be done, to propagate new berries. He was in the swamp working on a ditch with Marius, planning a pond for the future Boy Scouts!}

He liked to have company on all feasts & he & Mom put out the red carpet for friends, every Holiday the table had dozens of gorgeous dishes, wine &whiskey, lots of gay chatter in Lithuanian, everyone having a good time, love for all. {You tried to recreate this when you moved to your house, inviting anyone & everyone to the table, with limited success, as the people were vastly different.}

You got his intellectual habits, here you are sitting for hours a day writing books – as of 2021 written & published 25 books! You never went anywhere ‘on the road’ dancing without a book in possession, you read & studied hours a day your entire life.

You also spoke publicly, mostly as the ‘Stripper for God’ where you gave sermons before dancing. Dad’s example gave a start. Dad was committed to the cause of Lithuania being free of Communism & enlarging their culture, you are dedicated to saving the world from Patriarchy to Matriarchy.

Yes you got lots from both parents.

ME: What if anything did I get from Grandma?

MG: You got her body. She was shapely & athletic when she was young. Her body was better than your Mom’s. You also got that Asian strain due to her, which gave you the edge of being ‘exotic’ in your career.

She was also feisty; remember when she told you how she started an insurrection in her school? In those days one’s respect for teachers was sacrosanct; your Dad showed you that. When teacher entered the room, students stood up. {Look at the movie ‘The Blue Angel,’ Dietrich’s first big hit, the Professor/student relationship. This is how it was in all of Europe}. Students never talked back. And so, when one female teacher addressed your Grandma, ‘Dura’ which means stupid in Russian, she stood up & said,

“I’m not Dura, I’m Luba!”

At that outburst all the girls in the class stood up & marched out, & other classes who saw this also followed.

It wasn’t held against her as later she became the Head Mistress of that school.

You are also feisty as you stand up to authority in favor of human rights. So you got plenty from her……{end channeling}

Memories of Germany

  Below, Displaced Person’s Camps in Germany we stayed at before our departure {this was not days, weeks or months.  Prior to that we ran a hotel & had a good life.}

I also might mention little memories in Germany – not many as I was a month from my 5^th birthday when we came here.

The hotel we worked & lived in – recall being invited to the rooms of a lady, for a snack. As I sat at their table, a bit nervous, the lady reassuring me I was safe – a puppy was nipping at my socks, & I still recall vividly how dramatic that was! This hotel had maybe 3 floors, I know I was up high some place.

I recall also walking with Dad through stone quarries, holding his hand. It seems appropriate that when I bought a house in upstate NY it hearkened to many memories of the past. There is a large stone quarry nearby which I frequented with my dogs. There is a birch tree glade on my property – Dad lovingly spoke of the birches in Lithuania – I see them in pics. {My house is on the same latitude as Lithuania – same frigid winters!} And all over my lawn is Sorrel which Mom & Grandma had us pick bags of for daily soup {in Germany}. Best soup then, best soup now.

I also believe I was molested by one of the members of that hotel – maybe by a soldier as Mom told me an anecdote about soldiers, how she yelled at them for having grenades on a kitchen table & she brushed them off – a no-no obviously as they could explode.

My reason for saying this is when I’m sitting & a man stands around me, like my web man for instance – where his dick is about the same height as my face – it gives me the creepiest uncomfortable feeling. So I wonder if in my pre-memory years a man made me suck his dick where I was short, he was tall, or I was sitting, he was standing. So the memory is gone but the creepiness lingers.

I also recall loving Ara & Henry so much – one time they wee visiting but it was time for them to go. I begged them to stay to no avail, so I went behind the jeep & held onto the bumper with all my might, even as they took off. Everyone screamed for Henry to stop – I did not let go. Bloody knees resulted, I’m glad there are no scars as my dancing & modeling career could have been affected. 

Dad, middle, back, at the University of Vilnius

So my family came to the US on the SS Heintzelman in 1949 & my Aunt, Uncle & Grandma were on a separate boat. Not sure which was first.

Grandma lived with us one month of that year in Middletown {I was only there less than a year when I transited to Dad} & I never got that spare room.

Their Abuse Intensifies

For me, Middletown seemed to hurt even more than Freehold, because my slave services were no longer needed. I was slightly more tolerated or left alone, it seemed, because I did their share of the work, while they worked outside the house & made money. I was given no allowance & was not supported with new clothes, anything extra, just room & board & work. In the Farm off Eli Harmony Rd we had animals, later all gone but dogs – so it fell to me to 100% care of the dogs, who never came into the house but had to suffer on chains. {It broke my heart when Mom no longer bought dog food – they had to be fed scraps, & sometimes there weren’t many. One of them, a cocker spaniel mix, I think caught the rats under the shed, as there were plenty every night – he never ate the meager scraps.}

{It is amazing to me that no matter how abused or neglected or starved dogs are, they still love us & never become revengeful. They simply don’t know they are being abused.

I might add to that I didn’t know I was being abused. I tried so hard to please Mom, I never put 2 & 2 together. This happens to a lot of abused kids I am told. They think it’s their fault, like what did they do wrong?

For much of my life I tried hard to please Mom, I worked & worked, but nothing I did could stop her from hating me. Why didn’t I catch on? Because there was no distance between myself & the Mother/child bond, it took many years to step away, look back & see what was what. I just felt demoralized, defeated & bewildered like why am I being persecuted? What can I do to fix it? Some relationships you can’t fix – you have to walk away. The thing that would ‘fix’ her from hating me was I had to hate & denounce Dad, & that was impossible.

In Middletown there was much less work to be done so I was sort of like ‘extra weight’ to them. The house & furniture were new, easy to clean. No animals. They treated me, under Mom’s auspices, like I was un-necessary baggage, I was then good for one thing: ridicule & abuse. I was the whipping post, a thing to vent their spleen on, to project all their hateful feelings when they felt like it, all three spit their spleen on me & smirked while doing it. 

Leave Torment – Receive Prosperity & Paradise

At sixteen I lived with Dad for a year, then escaped to my destiny – Hollywood & show business – & later upon my return, in 1972, age 27, my daughter & I lived with Dad.

Dad had moved out of the apt around 1974 & moved to Torrevieja, Spain, with his new Puerto Rican wife, where he lived happily ever after & died in 1979, months after Mom’s demise. When he passed I took a trip there & stayed a couple weeks with his wife, thank God I got his archives, they are present here.

  Mom & Aunt Ara at the upstairs Uncle Henry built to their small house – it even had a second kitchen {what the heck for?}  I did not like Ara’s new furnishings, she didn’t have Mrs. Grant’s Waccabuc taste.  What year is this?  I guess around 1977.

In 1986 I started a video business & made the most money I ever had – to my standards I was rich – saved 200k quickly & in 1989 bought my paradise upstate NY {where I am now} – split-level yard with creek below, apple trees on top, a swamp & wilderness with glades of fir & birch trees – 500’ of riverfront & a 5 acre island all my own! I commuted between those two places a couple years before I moved out of Williamsburg, B’klyn 1991. {At that time it was just started to turn from slum to artistic community. It had started long before as fashionable, my building was built then – 356 S.1^st St. between Hooper & Keap – & the apt’s that weren’t ruined had good features. But then the middle class moved out & poverty reigned. But someone decided this would be the next Greenwich Village & while I was still there they remodeled all the dingy little parks & started upgrading & uploading stores with higher-class goods. The poor moved out, the stylish moved in, & I was gone. I have not had occasion to visit there again, but people tell me of it.   {End Chapter 7}