Advice not taken

In 1973, Mom became smitten with her penpal Paris Young.  This long distance romance had swept her off her feet.  She must have had doubts about the road she was driving herself and her children down, because she never told her friends or her sister that her boyfriend was a prisoner.  But she still spent lots of time seeking signs that her decisions were sound.  She consulted the Ouija board.

Usually it would be late at night, after the little kids were in bed.  Most likely it was after the mailman failed to deliver a letter from Paris, and Mom was starving for more flowery romantic promises, or a scheduled Sunday phone call that for some reason didn't happen.  Those trying times called for a consultation with the Ouija board.

Mom would get it set up on a card table, then summon me out of whatever dog book I was reading.  We would put our fingers lightly on the pointer, and then she would talk to Daddy, trying to summon his spirit:

"Darling, are you here?"  Then her hands would push the pointer towards "Yes."
"Does Paris love me?"  Again, her hands would push the pointer towards "Yes."

I would break her concentration:
"Mom, you pushed it.  I thought the spirits were supposed to move it, not us."

She corrected my perception of what she was doing:
"I am not pushing it, Daddy is doing it.  It just feels like I am moving it."

Then she would go back to talking to the Ouiji board:

"Darling, does Paris want to marry me?"  The pointer moved quickly over to "Yes."
"And is he going to be your children's new father?"  No suspense here, "Yes" again.

Mom was very pleased with the answers she was getting.

"Is Paris getting out soon?"  A bit of hesitation, then the pointer went to "Yes."
"And we will live happily ever after, right Darling?"  A resounding move towards "Yes."

This little scene would be repeated dozens of times over the two years of her engagement to the conman.

She also consulted her personal psychic and faith healer, Cecil Cawthorne (see Sept 16 2017 article, What's with this Spiritualist Stuff?") I had not seen Cecil for many months, because he had moved out of San Diego.  I don't think she told him of her boyfriend's circumstances, but she was planning her upcoming marriage and wanted Cecil Cawthorne to officiate at the wedding.  When the marriage finally took place in July of 1975, however, Cecil was not the minister.  Mom never talked about the reasons, and I never asked.  When Mom passed away in 1986, I found a letter, folded and forgotten, in the back of her desk drawer:

Mom obviously was very unhappy with Cecil's response and she never spoke of him again.  In his letter, he begged her to slow down.  His advice was to live together for 6 months before making everything official.   In the end she rejected Cecil's prophetic warning, preferring instead to stay in the fantasyland of an Ouija pointer which she ensured would provide the answers she wished to hear.  And consequently, Paris wiped her out financially, mentally, and ultimately, physically, in less than 5 months.  The Reverend Cecil Cawthorne may or may not have been psychic, but in this sad chapter of our time on Eagle Street, he was most certainly right.