by Donna Swagerty Shreve
Tale of Woe
A common routine, while we visited my in-laws in El Paso, was Jack, my father-in-law, sipping his brandy and telling family stories from his childhood. The two young grandsons were asleep, Bennette, my mother-in-law, was off to bed, and Mack , Mitch and Adele were out and about or living outside of the home. The room had just three of us. I was basically the invisible person observing. Jack wanted John to be his audience and I was ignored. However, I asked many a question and Jack answered the questions as if John had asked.
It was obvious to me that Jack was very proud of his family’s heritage. Jack’s parents were killed in a car crash in 1927 while the family was living in Scarsdale, New York. Jack had grown up in privilege with servants and private schools. Losing his parents at age 13 was devastating as the four children were sent in opposite directions. The two older sisters were basically out of the house by this time but the two younger sons were still in the home. Younger brother Nelson was sent to live with family friends, the Quaids, and Jack was sent to live with another family called the Bulls.
I have no idea if Jack had any input to his placement but it ended up not being a good one. The Bulls had a fourteen year old daughter who was coming into her sexuality. She started coming on to Jack and wanted to explore sex. Jack rebuffed her advances so she told her parents he had tried to rape her. He was quickly put into a private 7-12 boarding school in Pawling, New York which is now known as Trinity-Pawling School. I heard Jack tell this tale twice with several years in between each telling. Both times he became angry again at the injustice of what happened to him. He succeeded in school but lost any sense of caring adults, or of belonging.
After knowing Jack since 1966, I observed that he was a very moral man. On one of our visits to El Paso I gave Jack a book “The Other Side of Midnight” by Sydney Sheldon that I had just read. We were both avid readers and shared some common interests in history. The book in question was a real page turner and popular at the time. By the next morning Jack had returned the book to me explaining that it was just too sordid for his taste. He couldn’t finish it. I was so surprised and as I told him, I had received the book from my mother who had enjoyed it. It gave me more insight into Jack and I was careful in sharing any future books with him.
Based on comments from his four children I believe he was a very moral man. His early experience with his host family becomes all the more believable. His deep hurt was so evident all those years later as he shared family stories.
505 words
10/14/2026
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