I remember coming home from first
grade from Our Lady of Fatima School in Lafayette and my younger siblings were
not there. Mom said there had been a car wreck and dad was at the hospital with
them.
To me, there are several Catholic
references that may have saved my family from more serious harm. My school name (and it was our church), my being
named after the Virgin Mary and once living on St. Louis Street in Lafayette
before that home. The hospital was Our Lady of Lourdes.
They had just gone down the street
in the 1962 red Ford Falcon while I was at school around 11 a.m. on March 31,
1964. We are not sure why dad was home from work. Maybe it was his lunch hour
and they only shared one car, so were running errands together. The incident occurred
1.5 miles from our home, 125 Westchester Drive.
We kids grew up knowing the
basics; a truck (turns out it was a 1952 Chevrolet) hit them from behind. However, I just learned about a lawsuit from a
free weekend access to newspapers.com. I
couldn’t wait to call Lafayette Civil Court for a copy on Monday. I could have
missed all this if I hadn’t asked the clerk to try Van Osdell as one word when
she could not find it. Story of my life. We did not know the Falcon was also pushed
into a parked vehicle. We thought we knew the gist of the story, but evidently not
how severe mom’s injuries were. She temporarily lost vision. A housekeeper was
needed to help out.
In the lawsuit filed that was
settled for I don’t know how much, the ambulance cost $7. The emergency exam at
Our Lady of Lourdes for three of them was $49. The hospital expense through
April 6 for my 4-year-old brother was $188.84—he had a skull fracture and
concussion. There were special nurses, sitters, pharmaceuticals, meals my
parents ate at the hospital, long distance calls for help, transportation
expenses for family to come by rail to assist and a taxi fare for mom which I
assume was to get home for when I got out of school. Even a TV rental for my
brother in the hospital and for 90 days once he got home. I always thought they
bought him a TV for his suffering and maybe they did after the rental. I guess
TVs were not standard in rooms back then. Benny also made subsequent visits to
doctors and to a different medical facility, Ochsner, up until May 1965.
The insurance deductible on the
car was $100. I’ve always assumed It was totaled.
Dad always said he shooed the TV cameras
away, so the scene must have been pretty bad. Later, I become a newspaper
reporter who would report on various calamities.
My sister and I look back and see
why our family always prayed in the car before a trip to New Orleans, our
hometown. Why dad always said to drive defensively—it was his motto. Why we had
to keep a quarter for the pay phone in the glove box while traveling from
Shreveport to LSU and had the names of every Texaco station owner on the route
in case of emergency. We even called collect when we got to our dorm using a
fake name to avoid the long-distance charges.
Dad worked for Texaco for $32 a
day, the suit said. Mom did not work outside of the home. How did they afford
the house, car, three kids and private school for me?
I don’t remember much about our
year in Lafayette, but I had pictures of every house we ever lived in placed in
a big frame as a Christmas gift for my parents one year. I drive by that
Lafayette house every time I am in the city. One time the owner was outside,
but did not invite me in. He did take my picture in the very spot I posed at
age 5 for my first day of school.
The accident, getting off at the
wrong bus stop once, a bad dream about an elephant on top of me when I was very
sick and eating Fudgsicles at school are my only memories of Lafayette. Though
I think this accident stuck with mom forever, as years later I was in a hit and
run and at the very moment she called my cell to ask if I was OK. She “heard”
me in the hall calling out “mom.” I was fine, but that driver ran off. An eerie
situation for sure.
And just this summer, I believe
my parents were with me for protection when my car stalled on the very busy
Mississippi Bridge in Baton Rouge. Of course, Jesus was, too.
On the very day I requested the
lawsuit, there was a “Jeopardy” question about the assassination attempt on the
Pope on May 13, 1981. He attributed the
protection to the Virgin of Fatima. The Pope believed that a motherly hand
guided the bullet’s path from the threshold of death.
As I said, being at Fatima school,
Our Lady of Lourdes hospital and my holy name are attributed to this accident
not being worse.
I will always wonder where they
were going and if my parents thought about March 31 every year. I will now.
I’ll also visit the site at 2802 Johnston St. where these injuries occurred
next time I’m down in Lafayette. I’ll drive to all the Marian locations and say
a thanksgiving prayer that the Lord was with them and it wasn’t the hour of
their death.
