My mother and stepfather

Abstract

I lived with my grandparents, the Barkers, as my father, Moses Barker, and my mother were separated. My mother had taken a job and my grandmother Victoria Barker took care of me. When my mother remarried and started housekeeping, the first demand of her mother Josephine and the older members of her family, the Barbarins, was: get your son from the Barkers and raise him, because he is your child and his place is with you, his mother. So I was taken from the Barkers. Next they said, take him out of Medard’s private school and send him to public school: it’s more modern and old mean Medard is too cruel to children. So I was taken out of Medard’s school and sent to Marigny, a public school. At first I grieved for my grandparents, the Barkers, but my two young uncles gladly took me to the French Quarter to see and visit them. Gradually I got accustomed to living with my mother and stepfather.