A couple of days later, she picked me up from school and drove me to an optometrist’s office around the corner from the appliance store. A man with bushy, black eyebrows directed me to a chair in front of a giant machine and began moving different dials. With each new adjustment, I could see much better, until finally I was able to read the tiniest letters on the eye chart with ease.
Mom helped me pick out frames we could afford. I thought they made me look hideous, so I refused to wear them at school. I confided to Lillian how much I hated wearing my glasses, and she urged me to tell Mom, but I felt bad that my mother had spent so much money on me. Sometimes, out of desperation, I’d pull my glasses out of the case tucked into my desk, slip them on, quickly read the board, and then put them back, hoping no one saw me.
I took advantage of the Park Place Public Library, stopping there on my way home from school each day to check out books. It became a refuge for me and broadened my world. I had never lost my interest in photography, and from the wages I received from working at the store on weekends, I quickly upgraded my first camera to a Kodak 110 Instamatic. After finding the cheapest place within walking distance to buy film and get my pictures developed, I began regularly adding more photos of my classmates and siblings to the album Kathleen had given me for my birthday.
One morning, as I ate my corn bran cereal, I read to Mom an offer on the back of the box for a Polaroid camera. I knew that kind of camera was way out of my price range, but I longed for it anyway. Mom secretly began saving proofs of purchase from the cereal boxes, mailed in the form, and surprised me with the camera on my thirteenth birthday. I couldn’t believe I had received such an expensive gift, one that someone knew I wanted so badly. I felt as if it magically appeared because we had never been able to afford such luxuries before.
Because Mom operated the appliance business out of our house, I occasionally answered the phone to take down information from people who wanted us to come pick up their used appliances. I’d been listening to others take these calls for years, so I knew exactly what to do. On one of our preprinted cards, I wrote down the person’s name, address, phone number, and details about the appliance, including the type, make, and model number.
After I hung up the phone, I looked up the address in a big Mapsco book and located the corresponding square on the giant grid map of Houston that hung on the wall. Once I had taken several calls and pinpointed the pick-up locations, I could plot out a route for the driver that would take him to all of the houses without any backtracking. I became skilled with maps and directions, both giving them and getting to places with directions someone had given me. I quickly memorized the Houston highways and streets.
One afternoon, Mom had to run an errand and left me in charge. Minutes later, the doorbell rang, and when I opened the door, a middle-aged man was standing there.
“Welcome to Reliance Appliance,” I said.
“Hi there, little lady. I’m looking for a clothes dryer. Is there someone who could help me?”
“Sure, come on in. I’m Anna, and I can help you.”
He studied me curiously. “You can, huh?”
“Yes, sir. We have several dryers I can show you.” I led him downstairs to that section of the house and pointed out the features of the dryers we had in stock at the time. I knew exactly what to say, including the pros and cons of different makes and models, and the guarantee we offered on every appliance sold. Before Mom got back, I had sold my first appliance. I was busy writing up the receipt when she returned from her errand. I’ll never forget the shocked but pleased look on her face when she walked into the office. I had such fun that day.
Lillian and Mark cared about us and wanted good things for us, and they did everything they could to make that happen. Lillian was the daughter of Delfina, who was Mexican and my father’s first wife. Though I didn’t have many encounters with Delfina when I was a young child, I distinctly remember that when she was around, she used to wield her power over us by saying, “I’m the first wife. I can spank you if you don’t obey.” In actuality, Delfina never really had any power. My mom was the one with power. Delfina tried to exercise control, but when we learned the truth, we knew we didn’t have to obey her.
My half-sister and her husband also cared deeply about educating my siblings and me, since Lillian had experienced firsthand many of the same educational deficits we had from being moved so many times when she was growing up. She resolved to see her younger siblings have a better education than she had. Mark and Lillian read an article about Accelerated Christian Education (ACE) in either U.S. News & World Report or Time. Intrigued and impressed by the description of the Christian-based, church-run school curriculum, they attended the training in Lewisville, Texas, with the intention of starting a school for us kids.
At this time, the two of them were fringe members of my dad’s group, but they wouldn’t separate themselves completely because they were afraid for their lives if they left the group. In order to have an ACE school, you needed to have a church established first. Mark and Lillian obtained a 501(c)(3) status for their church. When that step was done, Mark and Lillian remodeled their garage and converted it into a classroom, complete with individual cubicles for us, offices, scoring stations, and other furnishings based on the instructions they’d received. We worked together enthusiastically as a family to make this exciting project happen.
When the schoolroom was ready, they pulled a dozen or so of us teenagers out of public school to begin this curriculum. Each school day would begin with opening exercises, a Bible “sword drill,” and prayer before we would go to our cubicles and learn at our own pace. That was part of what had attracted Mark and Lillian to this curriculum. Because all of us had gaps in our education, it was impossible to have a one-room schoolhouse approach. But with a self-taught, self-paced curriculum, each of us could pick up at the level we needed to. Lillian was always there if any of us had questions.
On Sundays, the church service mostly followed the Mormon format established by the group I had grown up with, with one interesting twist. Mark assigned each of us kids a different denomination to research, which involved interviewing a local clergy member. Each week, one of us gave a report during the church service on our particular “religion.” I had the Seventh-day Adventists, who intrigued me because they worshiped on Saturday instead of Sunday.
The night before starting our new home-based schooling plan, I had sat on Mom’s bed and rubbed her aching feet. She asked, “What do you think about this new approach to school?”
“I’m so excited!” My mind flitted briefly to the teasing and bullying I’d experienced at nearly every public school I’d ever attended. “I think I’ll do better, because I’ll be able to work at my own pace in each subject.”
“I also think you’ll do better if you start wearing your glasses.”