I Was Only Nineteen: A Memoir

By Raewyn Harlum

It was a different world in 1966. Considered a social and moral outrage to have a baby out of wedlock, babies were taken from single mothers because they didnt have husbands.

In I Was Only Nineteen, author Raewyn Harlum tells how she relinquished a baby to whom she had just given birth. At the time, nineteen-year-old Raewyn was homeless and sleeping on the floor of people shed known four days. Destitute, her possessions filled one suitcase. She had no family or friends in Australia and her partner already had a wife. When she went into labor, her partner left her at the hospital telling her she couldnt keep the baby. If she did, hed disappear with their two-year-old son.

In this heartbreaking memoir, she shares her story that includes the reunion of the birth parents with the baby after shed grown into a beautiful young woman. It was not a love-conquers-all meeting; the young woman doesnt understand why her birth parents gave her up and then had more children.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press AU
• Release date: Feb 20, 2015
• ISBN: 9781452527642

Raewyn Harlum

Raewyn Harlum grew up on Waiheke Island in New Zealand in the 1950s. She married an Australian and became an Australian citizen. Harlum is a mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, writer, poet, artist, and gardener. She lives in the Noosa Hinterland, Queensland, with her cat Panda.

Book preview

I Was Only

Nineteen

A MEMOIR

RAEWYN HARLUM

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Copyright © 2015 Raewyn Harlum..

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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ISBN: 978-1-4525-2763-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4525-2764-2 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date: 02/18/2015

CONTENTS

Chapter 1   Angels Love Bad Men

Chapter 2   I Have Made My Bed

Chapter 3   Moving Day

Chapter 4   Who Are You?

Chapter 5   Together Again

Chapter 6   Make the World Go Away

Chapter 7   Heading North

Chapter 8   A Roof over Our Heads

Chapter 9   On the Road Again

Chapter 10   Going Home

Chapter 11   Time is a Healer

Chapter 12   Shattered

Chapter 13   Another New Start

Chapter 14   The Accident

Chapter 15   Turning Forty

Chapter 16   The Meeting

Chapter 17   Grieving

Chapter 18   Travelling Northwest

Chapter 19   Mumma

Chapter 20   A New Beginning

Chapter 21   Time to say Good-bye

Epilogue

I have written this book for the daughter whom I had to relinquish in 1966. This book is dedicated to her. I would like to use her name, but because I respect her privacy I will not. I always thought of her as my lost baby. I have tried many times to explain to her why I could not keep her. This book is for my lost baby. This is the story for you, warts and all. I wish I could change the past, but I cannot. I do regret what I did, but unfortunately unforeseen circumstances befall us all.

I am grateful that I had the chance to meet my lost baby, who grew into a beautiful woman.

I would also like to dedicate this book to all the women who, when teenagers, had to give up their babies. This book is for you. I feel your pain. I have walked in your shoes, and I know you suffered. None of us has been left unscathed. To all of you I send healing and love.

The pain is not as bad now. It is a dull pain now, more bearable. After I found my daughter, whom I had relinquished for adoption in 1966, the pain was terrible. It was tearable – tearing at my very innards. The pain was so bad I thought my body would be torn apart. It swelled up inside my head until I thought my brain would burst. But I kept on living; I kept on breathing. I went on day by day, hour by hour, until after a long time – it seemed like an eternity – the pain eased a little, and I felt numb instead. Something inside me had died. Perhaps it was hope – the hope that my daughter would understand why I had to do what I did. My first reaction upon meeting my adult daughter was that I wanted my baby back. I wanted that little baby to bathe, clothe, feed, and hold close to my body. I wanted my baby back so desperately that all the grief that had lain dormant and hidden for years erupted from me like a volcano that had been brought to life. The pain just spilled out of me and filled my every waking moment, permeating my dreams as well. I would wake up sobbing, and my husband would take me in his arms and say, I’m sorry, I am so sorry. At first, I thought I wouldn’t survive this grief. Sorrow, heartache, misery, wretchedness, and desolation were with me every minute of the day.

One dark night, I sat on Teewah Beach and decided I would just walk into the ocean and keep on walking. I had had enough. I wanted to end my pain. I just wanted to be at peace. I stood up to walk down to the sea from the sand dunes where I was sitting. Suddenly I saw a host of little lights moving towards me from farther down the beach. I just stood there watching, and as the lights moved closer, they became a lovely sight to behold. Dozens of little lights all twinkled like stars in a dark night sky. They looked like fireflies moving towards me. For one crazy moment I thought they were fireflies. I had seen fireflies when my husband and I camped beside the Boyne River at Benaraby, and that was a happy memory. I suddenly thought of him asleep in our tent at the camping ground. He had no idea that I had even left the tent. I suddenly thought of him waking to find I had walked into the sea. I thought about my children and the pain I would cause them. I loved them, but in my depressed state I had forgotten them. Now I remembered them. I had come to my senses; the moment of utter desperation had passed. I had just wanted to get rid of the pain that was permeating my body. The twinkling lights came closer. I soon discovered that it was a party of school children. There were sixty children and their teachers all walking the beach with their torches. I could hear their excited voices chattering as they came closer to me. The children and their teachers were staying at the nearby wilderness camp. I felt I had been given a sign not to kill myself. That night was a turning point for me. I had received a message of hope. I survived the first time I lost my baby, and then I survived the resurrection, when the baby returned as a beautiful young woman.

Although I feel incredibly sad for the life circumstances that made me relinquish my baby, I know I can’t change the past. Each child is such a possibility for grief, anguish, and pain that it takes a special courage to be a parent. It hurts when I see my daughter and know she will never think of me as her mother. Yet she is a product of her birth father and birth mother. She was conceived in love. She has our DNA, our blood, our genes, our ancestors’ genes, and our good and bad traits. After I found out I was pregnant with her it never even occurred to me to relinquish her. I was going to keep her, but alas, that was not what fate had in store for her or for me. One day she will forgive me. One day she will understand. I am grateful that I had the chance to meet her. It was a different world in 1966 when she was born. It was considered a social and moral outrage to have a baby out of wedlock. Babies were taken from single mothers who were deemed unfit to raise them because they did not have husbands. They were just young girls, some as young as fifteen and sixteen. I was only nineteen.

CHAPTER 1

ANGELS LOVE BAD MEN

At dusk, I am standing at the bedroom window of our rented, furnished house on Gould Street, Canterbury, Sydney. As I am drawing the curtains against the night, I notice a car driving very slowly past our house. I recognize the driver as a barman from the local hotel. He is staring at our letter box. I think, how strange. Was he checking the number of our house?

The next morning, 18 June 1966, I wake with a feeling of impending doom. I have this depressed feeling I always get when something bad is going to happen. Waking from a deep sleep, I hear a female voice telling me to tell my boyfriend to get out of the house. I hear a voice telling me he has to go now. I jump out of bed and take a few steps to the window. Glancing behind the heavy curtains and through the lace net curtains, I see a car parked outside the house next door. There are two men in the car. I instantly know they are coming for my boyfriend.

I yell to my boyfriend, Glen, Get out of the house! Go now. He is instantly awake. He always sleeps naked, and now he quickly dresses in trousers and shirt. Grabbing his shoes from beside the bed, he runs through the house and out the back door.

I’ll get in touch with you through my uncle, he tells me. I love you, baby.

I don’t know his phone number, I quickly tell him.

He is in the phone book. His surname is S—— he replies. Then he is off across the back yard, sprinting for the back fence.

From the kitchen window I watch him jump over our back fence onto the neighbour’s property. I glance at my watch. It is five thirty a.m. I hear hurried footsteps coming around the side path, and simultaneously there is a thunderous knocking on the front and back doors. He only escaped by seconds.

Open up! It’s the police, a loud voice shouts.

Although I am closer to the back door, I choose to walk to the front door, which is near our bedroom. I take my time walking to the door. As I open the door, I am rudely shoved against the wall as the two detectives I had seen sitting in the unmarked car come into the hallway. The redheaded one walks straight through the house and opens the back door to two other men. They search the house, pulling out drawers, looking in cupboards, and tipping stuff out.

Where is Mervyn Harlum? the tallest detective shouts at me.

For a minute I feel hopeful. He must have the wrong person. I thought they were looking for Glen Newell.

You have the wrong house, I say. There is no Mervyn Harlum here.

We have the right house, he sneers at me. Mervyn Harlum lives here.

I still think he is wrong; my boyfriend of nearly three years is called Glen Newell.

Come in here and sit down. We need you to answer some questions, he barks at me.

I follow him into the kitchen, and we sit at the wooden kitchen table. He pulls out some papers from a folder and places them on the table. There is a sheet of paper with Glen’s photo on it and the name Mervyn Lee Harlum written beneath. I am stunned. The detective tells me my boyfriend is a criminal and makes me look at the paper he puts in front of me. I read that Mervyn Lee Harlum was born 31 December 1934. It says he stole five hundred chickens and two sheep. I read that he spent eight months in Maitland Gaol for sheep stealing. He did time in Long Bay Gaol.

I cannot read any more. My head is spinning. I have been with Glen for nearly three years, and I thought he was Glen Lee Newell, born in 1936. I met him when I was sixteen, and now I am nineteen. For two years and ten months I have been living with someone I don’t really know, someone who has lied to me about his name and his age. It was hard enough when I found out he was married with children. I discover with shock that there are now more lies. When our son Mark was born, I had written to his parents to tell them about him. I had called them Mr and Mrs Newell. I had given the letter to my boyfriend to enclose with a letter he had written to them. He did not tell me their name was Harlum. Now in hindsight I wonder if he even sent my letter. The few times I have met his parents they have always called Glen by the name of Sonnie, which is his childhood nickname.

While Detective Marvin is interrogating me in the kitchen, the other detective who came in the front door is searching in the sitting room. He is a redhead like me, but his hair is a darker red than mine. My red hair inherited from my mother is lighter, bleached by the sun. Detective Red Hair appears in the kitchen doorway with a long gun case.

What do you know about this? he asks me.

Glen borrowed it from an old man he worked for, I reply.

That is what Glen told me when he put the gun case behind our sofa in the sitting room. Glen told me not to touch it. I don’t even know what the gun looks like. I have never looked inside the case.

Is this what this is all about? I ask. He didn’t steal it; he told me he borrowed it. Can we not just return the gun to the man?

At this stage I am thinking that maybe it is all about the gun. Suddenly I think did he steal it? I feel scared. This is too big for me. There is too much I don’t understand. Detective Red Hair looks at me strangely, and I feel scared. Something big is happening. Something bad is happening. It feels surreal, like I am in a dream. I feel like I am in a bad dream. In the bedroom, my two year old son, Mark, is crying. He has been woken by the men who came in the back door and are now searching the bedroom. Everything has happened so fast that I had forgotten him. I jump up from my hard wooden chair and hurry to him.

Detective Marvin follows me into the bedroom. The two men leave the room and say to him as they pass that there was nothing in there. What does that mean? What do they expect to find? The bedside drawers have been emptied onto the floor beside the bed.

I am changing Mark’s nappy when the detective points to the open wardrobe where all of Glen’s shirts are hanging. Glen has twenty shirts. Most of them are long-sleeved white shirts. He has more shirts than I have total clothes. When I first started living with him I was surprised that one person owned so many shirts, especially as most are white. To me it seems strange that someone would own lots of shirts of the same colour when the shirt can just be washed and worn again. My father probably only owns half a dozen shirts. Glen was wearing a suit the night I first met him, and he often dresses in his dark grey suit. He likes to dress in his suit with a white shirt and likes to wear a hat. My father only wears a suit for weddings and funerals.

Who does the ironing? Detective Marvin asks.

I think this is a ridiculous question but answer, I do.

How strange it is for him to say that, I think. Who does he think does the ironing? Why does he even want to know who does the ironing?

I take Mark to the kitchen to feed him his breakfast. My poor little boy is bewildered with all these strange men in the house. His dark brown eyes are enormous, and his bottom lip trembles. He is ready to burst back into tears any moment. My normally spotless house is now in a mess. The police have just left things on the floor where they have tipped them. I realize they are not going to put things back where they found them. Suddenly the detective starts firing questions at me.

Where is he?

Where did he go?

What is the make of the car he is driving?

What is the registration number?

I will answer your questions after I feed my son, I reply. This is a bad mistake. A quick learner, I take only seconds to realize I have made a mistake. Detective Marvin stands up and grabs Mark. He just picks my little boy up from his chair and starts walking out the kitchen door. Mark immediately lets out a howl. A dizzy feeling runs right through my body. I am enraged that this bully feels he can intimidate me and now he is scaring my baby.

We know you are a prostitute called Diane from the Cross, he says to me. You are going to lose your son, and you will never see him again. We are going to take him away from you.

You are a dirty prostitute, he yells at me. You are not a fit mother.

Mark is scared and crying, but the man is oblivious to my little boy’s fear. I feel such rage at this man. I would like to smash him in the face. He is scaring my baby and does not give a damn. I would like to tell him what I think of him, but I realize he is very dangerous and I need to keep very calm. This man