She was born without legs in a time when such people were institutionalized or worse, but she avoided that fate. They said she’d never walk; instead, she soared.
A fictional account of a girl born over a century ago who, with love and support from her family and friends, defies a culture where disability is considered shameful and disabled people are marginalized, openly discriminated against, and even treated as less than human.
Part 1 includes the following chapters:
Foreword
Being born with a physical disability was a vastly different experience in decades or centuries past than it is today. This is a fictional account of a girl born without legs into an upper-middle class family over a century ago. It hopefully portrays some of the many challenges and prejudices such a person in that era was subjected to, while also avoiding the worst of the sometimes horrific treatment given to those with less money and clout.
If you’re familiar with my other stories, be aware that this one is quite different that most of the others.
It mentions real places, events, and institutions.
It’s set in the past, not the present day, running from 1924 to 1948.
It includes terms, slang, beliefs, and practices that were common in the past but which may be offensive today. My intent is not to be offensive, but to be historically accurate.
There is no sex or anything kinky taking place. It’s a clean, wholesome story.
Although the main character being legless may appeal to readers who fetishize such people, there’s no fetishizing going on within the story.
If you’re at all an emotional person, be forewarned that there are a number of passages in this story that might have you reaching for a box of tissues, including early on in Chapter 1. I’m a hetero male in my 60s, not someone prone to tears, but I cried as I wrote these passages and then cried again each time I re-read them to edit and proofread the story. However, like most of my works of fiction, it’s mostly upbeat, optimistic, and inspiring, and once the heroine becomes an adult, has plenty of romance in it.
Happy Reading!
Mr. Nobody
Chapter 1 – Accepting Millie
It was a bitterly cold, windy March day in Cleveland, Ohio in the year 1924. The calendar might have said that it was nearly spring, but winter was determined to have the last word. John Duncan paced the floor of the maternity ward’s waiting room, anxious for any news about his wife Ruthie and their child in the process of being born. It had now been several hours since he had brought her to the hospital and she was taken to a place where men were not allowed unless they were doctors.
Ruthie was delivering their third child; their fourth if you counted the stillborn boy she delivered as the Spanish Flu pandemic was winding down in 1920. Ruthie had come down with the flu while pregnant during the fourth and final wave to sweep the country, and the doctor believed that was the reason the baby didn’t survive, though he couldn’t explain exactly how the two were related. It was a statistical fact, however, that women who contracted the flu while pregnant had a noticeably higher likelihood of their baby not surviving delivery.
Since then, however, Ruthie had given birth to a son, John junior, whom they called Jackie, now 2-1/2 years of age, and a daughter, Frances, whom they called Fannie, now 15 months old. These two youngsters brought immense joy to both John and Ruthie, and they were excited to add a third child to their family. Of course, they had no idea whether this one would be a boy or a girl, but it didn’t matter now that they already had one of each. John and Ruthie already had names picked out in either case.
John was the only surviving son born into a well-to-do family. His father Leslie ran a successful metal fabrication business that had been started by his father some 75 years earlier. John, 28 years old, was the heir apparent and was quickly rising up through the management ranks, being exposed to all of the important divisions and departments within the company. Eventually, his father would retire and it would be his company to run.
John had graduated from Case School of Applied Science in Cleveland in 1917 with a degree in engineering just as the U.S. was entering the Great War*. He’d been drafted into the Army as a second lieutenant and sent to France; he’d returned two years later, after the war ended, as a first lieutenant and was immediately discharged.
* Now known as World War I
During his two year absence, he and his sweetheart Ruthie wrote letters to each other nearly every day. Of course, there were long delays getting the mail across the ocean and to and from the battlefield. Both of them would often go two weeks without receiving any mail from the other, and then receive a dozen letters all at once. Ruthie’s letters to John were invariably scented with the perfume she was fond of wearing. John carried at least one of her letters on his person at all times, so he could be reminded of her any time he put the letter up to his nose.
As soon as he got back from the war, John proposed marriage to Ruthie at his first opportunity, and she accepted without hesitation. Both of them coming from prominent, well-to-do families, they were planning a big wedding, but then Ruthie realized she was pregnant, and they instead had a quickie wedding. That pregnancy was the one that ended in a stillborn birth, but the two were firmly committed to spending their lives together, and so that tragic loss didn’t cause either of them to have any second thoughts about their relationship with each other.
By now, at least a couple more hours had passed in the maternity waiting room. Other expectant fathers had come and gone and John was still there cooling his heels, waiting for some word about his wife and child.
Finally, the doctor came to the waiting room and made eye contact with him. However, he wasn’t smiling; in fact, he looked rather grim. John’s felt like his heart was stuck in his throat as his imagination thought of the many possibilities of what might have happened, all of them bad. Besides babies being stillborn, it wasn’t unusual then for women to die during childbirth. The doctor then said to him, “Mr. Duncan, please accompany me to my office, sir,” and turned and started walking away. John could do nothing but follow and imagine the worst.
The doctor closed his office door and instructed John to take a seat. John could wait no longer, and asked, “Is everything okay?” even though he already knew it couldn’t possibly be.
The doctor replied, “Your wife is doing just fine. She’s still under anesthesia, but she’ll wake up before too long.” He paused. “Your baby daughter…” he said, and then trailed off and didn’t finish the thought.
“What about her?” John asked impatiently.
“There’s no easy way to say this,” admitted the doctor. “I regret to inform you that your daughter is… deformed. She has almost no legs. Just a couple of little stumps coming out of her hips; that’s all. She’ll never be able to run, or walk, or even stand. She’ll be a cripple her entire life, and that’s the best case scenario.” The doctor paused as he let that news sink in.
“What do you mean, ‘best case’?” John asked. “What else is wrong with her?”
“There’s no way to tell this soon,” the doctor explained. She might have other deformities that we can’t see. She might turn out to be deaf or blind or feeble-minded.”
“Do you have any reason to believe any of that might be the case?” John asked.
“No, not really, but you can never be sure about these things,” the doctor replied. Then he said, “With your permission, Mr. Duncan, I can make this problem go away for you. But time is of the essence; once your wife wakes up and asks about the baby, it’ll be too late for that.”
“Are you implying what I think you are?” asked John incredulously. The doctor looked at him and said nothing, but his expression made it clear that he was. John knew the doctor was offering to kill his child and then claim it was a stillborn birth. “Absolutely not! I forbid it!” he responded angrily.
John elaborated. “My wife and I have already had to bury a stillborn infant once; I’ll not put her through that again! It would devastate her far more than having a child with no legs. Besides, I don’t know how I could live with myself if I allowed that. The girl is not to be harmed in any way. Do I make myself clear?”
“Perfectly clear, sir,” replied the doctor. “Just know that you and your wife will have a most difficult time raising such a child. If you won’t let me do what I suggested, at least consider sending her to an orphanage. Then you and the Mrs. can get on with your lives and try again in another few months.”
John glared at the doctor. “Take me to her, now,” he said firmly.
“Take you to whom? Your wife? She’s not awake yet,” replied the doctor.
“I want to see my newborn daughter,” John clarified.
“It would be better if you didn’t see her, sir,” replied the doctor. “Otherwise, you’ll…”
John interrupted him. “With all due respect, Doctor, I wasn’t requesting your opinion or your approval. I insist on seeing my daughter immediately.”
“Very well, sir,” the doctor replied with resignation as he stood up. “Come with me, please.”
The doctor led him to the nursery, where he said to a nurse, “Mr. Duncan wishes to see his daughter. She was brought here a short time ago; she’s the one with no legs.” John then realized that the nurse, as well as the other nurses there, had been recently crying. The nurse nodded her head but said nothing as she went to retrieve the baby.
The nurse returned holding the baby, and tears were running down her cheeks. She said nothing, but neither did she try to hand the infant to her father. She just stood there.
“I want to hold her,” John said.
One of the other nurses approached, and said, “Sir, let me get a gown for you to wear over your street clothes, and then you can sit in that chair over there, and we’ll give her to you.” She brought a gown and helped him into it, and John sat in the chair and held out his arms. The second nurse said to him, “Be careful to support her head and neck at all times,” as the first nurse handed him his daughter, who was sound asleep.
She was wrapped in a blanket, but John could feel that her legs were missing. He chose to ignore that for the moment. He gazed into her face, and with tears streaming down his own cheeks he softly said to her, “Hello, there, little Millie! I’m your daddy.” Then he said to her, “Let me get a good look at you, all right?” and proceeded to remove the blanket.
As far as he could tell, she looked perfectly normal and healthy from the hips up. But what little she had for legs were just like the doctor had described. Still, it looked like she was designed to be that way. Her leg stumps were smooth and round and a healthy shade of pink. He wrapped her back up in the blanket as he said to her, “You’re a beautiful little girl, Millie, and I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise you that.” He could barely get those last four words out, he was so choked up and emotional.
Both of the nurses were hardly able to keep from breaking into sobs, and the doctor was emotional as well. John composed himself enough to firmly say to all three of them. “I want my daughter to receive nothing but the utmost care while she’s here. You are not to try to do me any favors, if you get my meaning. In a few days I’m going to bring my wife and daughter home, and I expect her to be as healthy then as she is now.
“It’s no concern of yours what kind of life she might have. That is for me to decide, along with my wife, and no one else. I intend for her to have the best life I can possibly give her. If she can’t walk, I’ll teach her to soar instead.” He paused and looked down at his daughter. “I promise you that, little Millie, as God is my witness,” he said to her. He looked back up at the doctor and nurses. “Any questions?” he asked them.
“No, sir,” said the second nurse. “We’ll see that she receives the very best care possible.”
John then said to the doctor, “I want to be there when my wife wakes up. I want to be the one to tell her.”
“Normally we don’t allow the father to see his wife until she’s fully recovered from the anesthesia, but I’ll make an exception in your case,” replied the doctor. “You may accompany me to the recovery room now. Let me prepare you for what you’ll see. Your wife isn’t going to suddenly wake up as if she’d been sleeping. She’ll be very groggy and disoriented and confused as she gradually comes to. It won’t be a good time to break the news to her then, but if you’re evasive when she asks about the baby, that will only upset her as well.
“The best thing to say when she’s still waking up and asks about the baby is to tell her she’s healthy and doing fine. You can tell her that it’s a girl and that you got to hold her, but avoid saying or hinting at anything negative until she’s fully awake and able to accept what you’re telling her.
“Okay, Doc,” replied John. “That sounds like wise counsel to me. I’ll keep it entirely positive for now.”
Ruthie started coming out of her stupor, and John held her hand and spoke to her, telling her he was there with her, that she’d done great, that they had a new baby girl, and so on. He couldn’t tell how much she understood and remembered, because she kept asking questions he’d already answered.
Then she asked if she’d heard correctly, that they’d had a girl. John confirmed that for her, and she began asking specific questions. “Is she doing okay? Is she healthy?”
“She’s doing just fine, Ruthie,” John replied. “I got to hold her for a bit. She was sleeping but she had a nice healthy pink color to her. She’s beautiful!”
“Did you count her fingers and toes?” Ruthie asked, wanting to know if she had ten of each.
John didn’t think she was alert enough to break the news to her just yet. “No, I didn’t think to do that,” he replied truthfully. He actually hadn’t counted her fingers.
“I want to see her. I want to hold my baby girl,” Ruthie said to anyone within earshot.
“I know you do, Ruthie,” John responded as he squeezed her hand. “You need to finish waking up first, though.”
It occurred to Ruthie that she was already fully alert before John had been allowed in to see her when she’d delivered their other children. “How did you get in here before I was awake?” she asked him.
“The doctor said I could. I wasn’t going to ask him why and give him a chance to change his mind,” John said as he smiled. That was also all true.
“Do you still like the name Mildred Margaret?” Ruthie asked, almost rhetorically. It was clear she did and just wanted affirmation.
“I do,” John replied. “I already called her Millie several times when I was holding her, so we have to use that name now, or we’ll only confuse her.” Ruthie smiled at his little joke.
Later, the hospital staff decided Ruthie was sufficiently alert and recovered to be moved into a regular room. “I want to see Millie now,” she said to John.
“I’ll let the nurses know in a minute, but I need to tell you something first,” he said to his wife. She looked at him apprehensively. He held her hand tighter and looked her in the eye. “Millie is a beautiful baby girl, and I forgot to count her fingers, but I know she’s missing some toes. Actually, all of them. And her feet. And her legs.”
Ruthie was horrified at what she thought she’d heard John just say. “My baby girl doesn’t have any legs?” she asked in disbelief. John simply nodded his head to confirm that she’d heard him correctly. Ruthie burst into tears at this, and John wrapped his arms around her as best as he could.
“It’ll be okay, Ruthie,” he said to try to console her. “She seems to be fine otherwise. I already love her, and you will, too; I know it.”
“How are we going to raise a child with no legs, John?” Ruthie asked between sobs.
“The same way we’re raising the two we already have, Ruthie,” he replied. “We’re going to love her and teach her and encourage her and pray for her and everything else we do for Jackie and Fannie.”
It occurred to John that if he couldn’t get Ruthie to accept their fate and love Millie as much as he already did, he’d have a real problem on his hands. Her next question only increased his concern.
“Do you think perhaps it would be better if we put her up for adoption?” she asked as she continued to cry.
“Better for whom, Ruthie?” he asked her in reply. “Certainly not better for Millie.” He intentionally used her name; he felt he needed to refer to her as a real family member with a real name.
“Who is going to adopt her when the orphanages are full of able-bodied children? She’d spend her entire childhood there with no one to love her. Could you really do that to your own flesh and blood? Are we so self-important that we’ll only accept perfect children from God?
“I don’t believe we got her by accident, Ruthie. God in His infinite wisdom has sent her from heaven to be our daughter. He’s clearly given us an assignment to love and care for Millie just like we would any other child, if not more so. He wouldn’t have done that if He isn’t going to also provide the means for us to accomplish the task, even if we can’t see how just yet.
“Do you remember the account in the Bible where the Lord healed a man who had been born blind? His disciples asked Him who had sinned, the blind man or his parents, that God would have created him that way. Do you recall the Lord’s response to their question? He said, ‘Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.’
“God didn’t punish us by giving us Millie, and He didn’t curse her, either. He made her this way and gave her to us for His own purposes, that His name might be glorified. We have a holy obligation to do the very best we can to complete the assignment He’s charged us with.”
As he said this, John felt compelled to pray. He knelt by Ruthie’s bedside, closed his eyes, and held her hand tightly. “Lord God, I thank You for the daughter You’ve given us today. I praise Your Holy Name that she and Ruthie have both survived and are in good health. I humbly accept the assignment You’ve given us, to raise this little girl to the best of our ability, to love her and to teach her to walk in faith with You.” It didn’t even occur to John that he’d used the word ‘walk’. He wasn’t asking for a miracle; it was only a figure of speech.
He continued. “I pray that You would enable Ruthie to feel the same love and compassion towards little Millie that I do, and that we would be of one accord in the decisions we will make on behalf of our baby girl. May Millie be as much of a blessing to us as we will be for her. Lord, give us the strength to accomplish what You’ve given us to do. For it’s in Your Holy Name we pray, Amen.”
John looked up at Ruthie, and tears were streaming down her face, as they were down his own. But through her tears, she was smiling and nodding her head in agreement with what he had just said. He leaned over and they held each other tight as they both continued to cry.
Then they heard a woman clearing her throat. They looked up, and standing in the doorway was a nurse, who was crying and smiling just like Ruthie was. She had clearly overheard at least what John had prayed, if not what he’d said beforehand.
“I’m sorry; I couldn’t help overhearing,” the nurse said through her own tears. “That was the most beautiful thing I think I’ve ever heard, Mr. Duncan. I know you’ll both be wonderful parents to your little girl. Mrs. Duncan, would you like to meet your daughter now?”
“Yes, very much so,” Ruthie replied.
A few minutes later the nurse returned with little Millie and placed her in Ruthie’s arms. It was as much of a happy event as it would have been had Millie been physically complete. Ruthie’s maternal instincts kicked in as she made over her new daughter.
“She’s so tiny,” Ruthie remarked with a smile. Actually, her head, body, and arms were all quite normal-sized, but she seemed tiny due to her lack of legs. Ruthie counted Millie’s fingers. “She has all ten fingers,” she reported cheerfully.
Ruthie then uncovered Millie’s lower torso, inspected her leg stumps, and covered her back up again. “She’s beautiful just the way she is,” she said to her husband. “I can see how you fell in love with her so easily. I love her, too!”
John was very relieved to hear that, and threw up a quick, silent prayer of thanks to God for answering at least that part of his earlier prayer.
Chapter 2 – Defending Millie
And so John and Ruthie brought baby Millie home and loved and cared for her just like they had for their other two children. While she was still an infant, her lack of legs really didn’t make any difference anyway.
Jackie, their eldest, was old enough to notice Millie’s missing legs and ask questions. But John and Ruthie downplayed her condition and treated it as if it were no big deal, and Jackie came to think of it the same way based on their examples.
The reaction from their respective families was quite different, however. There was a significant cultural stigma against people with disabilities, and especially those who were born that way. Society did not want to have to see or think about such people; the expectation was that a child with a disability or other noticeable birth defect would be put up for adoption or at least shipped off to live at a children’s home, where he or she could then be conveniently forgotten about.
Living in such a culture, both John’s and Ruthie’s parents and other relatives exerted a lot of pressure on them to have Millie sent away to a crippled children’s home. They argued that such a facility was properly equipped to accommodate the obvious mobility issues she’d have, and with all of the children there being physically disabled in one way or another, she wouldn’t be subjected to being tormented by her peers. But such places were residential, meaning that Millie would be living there most of the time, with exceptions during major holidays.
At first, John and Ruthie both adamantly refused to even consider doing that, and it strained their relations with their families. Complicating matters further, John worked at his father’s company and was expected to take over running the business when his father retired. The last thing either John or his father wanted was for this to become such a wedge in their relationship where John was either forced out or felt compelled to leave the family business.
The grandparents continued to push to have Millie placed in a crippled children’s home, and wore John and Ruthie down until they reluctantly agreed to at least look into it. What they found was that such places invariably had strict policies prohibiting visitors, including prospective parents such as they were, but also the parents of children in residence. That was a big red flag to John and Ruthie; it seemed obvious there was something going on that they were determined to keep hidden.
John had a fraternity brother named George who was an investigative reporter for the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the city’s largest newspaper. He contacted him, filled him in on Millie and the grandparents’ wishes and what he’d discovered thus far, and asked if he could find out more for him, or at least give him some tips on how to do his own investigation of what actually happened behind closed doors.
George agreed to help; after discussing it with his editor, he’d gotten permission to do some digging into these children’s homes as research for a potential article or series of articles. He determined that these homes had been established with the best intentions of providing care to children who were crippled due to serious underlying medical problems, whether due to injury, disease, or congenital defects, and who needed ongoing medical attention and therapy beyond what the parents could be reasonably expected to provide or pay for.
However, the homes had also become dumping grounds for children who were physically deformed in some way but who didn’t need any significant medical care or therapy. In some cases, the parents had abandoned their children or voluntarily relinquished their parental rights, and they’d become wards of the state. In other cases, the parents still had legal custody but chose to send their children to these homes and didn’t really want to know what went on inside.
Parents did this partly because of the cultural stigma of having such children, and partly because there were little to no appropriate resources available to help them keep their crippled children living at home.
George began inquiring about the conditions in such places from people who were likely to know, or at least have a pretty good idea. He heard persistent rumors that conditions in such homes were deplorable, children were routinely neglected and abused by the overworked and largely untrained staff, and any love or compassion or education the children received in such places was purely inadvertent. These were places of no hope.
George reported what he’d uncovered back to John, and he asked George to repeat this in front of Ruthie and all four grandparents, so they’d hear it firsthand from an unbiased source. All of them were appalled that such places were allowed to exist, and all agreed that John was completely right to refuse to consider putting Millie in one of these places, and from now own would have their full support for keeping Millie at home.
Millie was a delight to be around as she grew older and became both verbal and mobile. She didn’t pay any mind to the fact that she was built differently than anyone else in her life. She was quite clever; she taught herself to walk on her hands and find other ways to compensate for her missing legs. She had little trouble keeping up with her older siblings, whom she adored. Seeing this just confirmed to her parents and grandparents that she did not belong in a children’s home.
Jackie and Fannie included her in their play and loved on her as well. They’d not yet been exposed to prejudice and hate towards disabled people, and so had no reason to think of her as any less than themselves. They both readily assisted Millie when she was unable to reach something high or needed help carrying something. Both John and Ruthie were proud of all of their children and how they treated each other.
John and Ruthie went to considerable expense to have a child-sized wheelchair custom made for Millie. Back then, wheelchairs were nothing like they are now; they were much heavier, couldn’t be folded, and the user moved themselves not by grasping the large rings on the outside of the wheels, but by rotating cranks at the ends of the armrests.
The wheelchair was of very limited use because they had a two-story house, it wouldn’t fit into a car, and absolutely nothing was wheelchair accessible anyway. Millie hated it; it was much more difficult for her to get around in the thing as opposed to walking on her hands and climbing up on furniture. She would only use it if someone else pushed her in it, but there were relatively few situations where even that was practical. Before long she outgrew it, and her parents saw no point in replacing it.
As time went on, John and Ruthie had two more children, a third girl they named Alice, and a second boy named Henry. These were two years and four years younger than Millie, respectively.
John’s and Ruthie’s families were members of different congregations affiliated with the same Christian denomination. Once they’d become engaged, the couple jointly decided that they would attend John’s church, and Ruthie moved her membership there. After Millie was born, they took her to the church’s infant nursery while they attended worship, just like they’d done with their two older children.
The ladies who worked in the nursery welcomed Millie like any other baby, and while she was an infant, it hardly mattered anyway. As Millie promoted up into subsequent age groups in the nursery, where her physical differences were more relevant and apparent, no one voiced any objection. John and Ruthie began to take for granted that Millie’s disability wouldn’t be an issue at church.
However, one Sunday in the summer when Millie was four years old, the congregation’s ranking elder, a Mr. Murray, approached John after the worship service. “May I have a quick word with you, Duncan?” he asked, implying that they should go somewhere out of earshot of others. They went to an empty corner of the sanctuary together.
Mr. Murray said to John, “Tomorrow evening, some of elders will be meeting and we request your attendance as well. 7 pm sharp at the home of Mr. Reid. Also, we’d appreciate your discretion; please don’t mention this to your father.” John agreed to come, but wondered what it was about. Nevertheless, he respected Mr. Murray’s wishes and didn’t mention it to his parents or to Ruthie. Monday, he simply told her he’d been asked to attend a meeting to discuss church business and didn’t elaborate.
At the home of Mr. Reid, John saw that the majority of the church elder board was present, with the notable exception of his father. John took a seat, and Mr. Murray called the meeting to order. Apparently he wasn’t expecting anyone else. He then turned to address John directly.
“Duncan, we called you here to discuss your crippled daughter with you.” From everyone’s stern expressions, John could tell they weren’t there to tell him what a delight she was.
“You mean Millie,” John replied, subtly making the point that she should not be defined by her disability. “Why, has she done something wrong?” he asked.
“Not exactly,” replied Mr. Murray. “We haven’t made an issue of this until now, hoping you’d do the right thing without prompting from us, but it’s apparent that strategy hasn’t been effective. We think it’s high time you placed her in a crippled children’s home where she belongs.”
“With all due respect, sir, what business is that of yours?” John replied, now having a pretty good idea where this discussion was headed, and why his father had been excluded.
“It’s our duty to look out for the best interests of the congregation,” Murray replied without elaboration.
“And you’re saying the congregation is better off without a crippled child among them?” John asked, forcing Murray and the other elders to admit what they were trying to avoid saying directly.
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“And why is that, exactly?” John asked, again forcing them to come out and say what they were thinking but didn’t want to admit.
“It’s upsetting to the members of the congregation to have to see her. They come to worship and are instead confronted with a deformed, crippled child. Her presence also makes for a bad first impression to any visitors we might have, especially any who have a child her age.”
“It would seem to me if people are offended by the sight of my daughter, they’re the ones with the problem, not me or my family. We have every right to be here,” John responded indignantly.
“Perhaps,” Murray conceded, “but again, we must consider the best interests of the congregation. It wouldn’t do at all to have people start leaving the church because of her, or to have people decline to join because of her.”
“Let me tell you what I’ve learned about these crippled children’s homes you’re advocating,” John said, taking the offensive. “They’re horrific places. They’re as bad as any prison, perhaps worse. The children there are neglected, abused, forgotten, and left to rot. They do nothing to prepare them to lead productive lives as adults, instead sentencing them to a lifetime of poverty and misery. Parents and other visitors are strictly prohibited, so there’s no oversight of any kind. I can assure you of this: My daughter will only ever see the inside of one of those places over my cold, dead body.
“Now, as far as the church is concerned, have you all forgotten what Scripture teaches us? We should be a refuge for the less fortunate. We should welcome widows and orphans and the crippled and the blind and the poor into our midst and treat them with compassion; not drive them away because we find them loathsome. The church, of all places, is where my daughter should feel safe, loved, cared for, and protected. But it’s clear you don’t want a church; you want a country club that masquerades as a church.”
Mr. Murray replied, “I hoped it wouldn’t come to this, Duncan, but you’re being most unreasonable. Let me lay it out for you so you know exactly where you stand. The teacher of the five year old Sunday school class is the wife of our biggest donor. She has made it clear that she does not want your daughter in her class when the children promote up in the fall. Neither does she want to stop teaching that age group.”
John knew exactly who he was talking about. The husband of that teacher was sitting in that very room with him.
Mr. Murray continued. “As I’m sure you know, this family wields quite a bit of influence in this church, and if they were to leave, they’d take the families of several other large donors with them. Some of those other families have also expressed their concerns about your daughter. This congregation could not survive without the continued financial support of these people.
“So to be as clear as I possibly can, effective when the children promote up in the fall, your crippled daughter will no longer be welcome here. You and your family may continue to attend as long as you don’t bring her with you and you don’t make a stink about this.”
John now realized he couldn’t win this. He stood and prepared to leave. “Let me be equally clear, all of you. You’ve asked me to choose between my daughter and this so-called church. I’ll make that choice forthwith. I hereby resign my membership from this body effective immediately. You’ll have that in writing first thing tomorrow. Good luck with your country club, gentlemen. Good night.”
John was seething with anger about what had just happened. He got in his car and drove directly to his parents’ house. His father answered the door. “Hello, son! We weren’t expecting you. What brings you here this evening?”
“We need to talk, Dad,” John said tersely as he entered the house.
“All right… Privately, or can your mother listen in?”
“I don’t care. It’s about a church matter.”
“Let’s go to my study, then,” John’s father suggested. The two men went to the study and closed the door behind them. “So what has you all hot and bothered tonight, John?”
“I assume you didn’t know about the elders’ meeting tonight. They apparently intentionally excluded you.” Leslie shook his head negatively. “They asked me to attend without telling me what it was about. When I got there, they ambushed me. They told me Millie is no longer welcome because the wife of a big donor doesn’t want to have to see a crippled child when she comes to church. I just tendered my resignation verbally and will submit it in writing in the morning. My family will not darken the doorway of that place again.”
“I think maybe you need to start from the beginning and tell me everything that happened,” said Leslie. John then recounted the entire meeting for him. When he was finished, Leslie put his hand to his forehead and shook his head. “I was aware there was some discontent about Millie. I tried my best to appeal to everyone’s sensibilities. I had no idea it was going to come to a head like this. I completely understand your position and am proud you stood up for her like that.
“In light of what transpired tonight, they’ve given me no choice but to resign as well. Certainly because of the ultimatum they gave you and for choosing money and influence over faith and the authority of Scripture, but also for excluding me from their meeting. That was a clear violation of church bylaws. If they voted on the matter, I would have had to abstain because the matter involved my family, but I would have least been able to speak my peace, and they denied me that.”
“I appreciate your support, Dad,” John said in response. “I didn’t mean to drag you into this.”
“I was already at odds with the other elders about this long before tonight. It had nothing to do with you; this is my granddaughter they’re forcing out because they don’t like the way she looks. So what do you intend to do about finding another church?”
“I’m going to meet with the elders at the congregation Ruthie belonged to before we married, explain our situation, and see if they’d have any objection to Millie attending. If they don’t, we’ll join there. If they do, I’ll keep looking until I find a church that actually tries to live out what Scripture requires.”
John then went home and filled Ruthie in on the events of the evening. They agreed that the children should not be told the reason they were leaving their church. Ruthie was under the impression that her home church would welcome Millie with open arms, but they both wanted to make sure before they committed to anything. Millie’s father was an elder at that congregation, so it seemed like a good place to start was to talk to him.
A few evenings later, John went to speak to Ruthie’s father Edward Stewart. They met in Edward’s study with the door closed, similar to how John had spoken to his own father. John brought his father-in-law up to date with all that had happened regarding Millie at his own church.
Then John said, “Obviously we want to find a new church where Millie will be welcome and accepted. But we don’t want to do this by trial and error; we want to find out in advance whether there’ll be any problems before we even visit. Your church seemed like the logical place to start since Ruthie grew up going there.
“My questions to you, sir, are first, whether you know of any faction in your congregation that would object to a crippled child attending, or any other reason why she wouldn’t be welcome? Second, assuming you don’t, would you be willing to help us gain the endorsements of the rest of the elder board, the pastor, and anyone one else in a position of influence? If we had those, we could feel confident that if anyone makes trouble about Millie now or in the future, the church leadership would come to her defense.”
Edward replied, “I don’t know of anyone influential who would make a stink about a crippled child, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t anyone. Let me start talking to the other church leaders about it and get a sense of their collective thoughts on the matter.”
Edward spoke individually to the pastor, the head of the elder board, several of the children’s Sunday School teachers, and a few people who he knew were likely to be big givers to the church. He explained his granddaughter’s condition and her family’s predicament. No one he spoke to had any objection or concerns about Millie attending, other than practical questions about how she’d navigate steps and other physical obstacles.
Encouraged by the responses, he asked to be given time at the next elder board meeting to address the entire group about his granddaughter and seek their endorsement. At the meeting, he again provided a detailed description of her and her condition, and his daughter’s family’s fiasco at their previous church.
He concluded his presentation by saying, “Gentlemen, I suppose what I’m asking you to decide and commit to, is whether we’re going to be a church that welcomes, accepts, encourages, and assists the disadvantaged as Scripture teaches, or whether we’re going to be a church that is more concerned about appearances and money and church politics and placating troublemakers and malcontents who happen to have deep pockets.”
The elders were in agreement that their church needed to be the former, and it was their obligation as well as the pastor’s to make their position clear to the congregation. They asked the pastor to preach a series of sermons on the subject of Christian charity and the biblical teachings about welcoming the disadvantaged and treating them with dignity and compassion.
Then on the last Sunday of that series, they’d get specific and tell the congregation about Millie, inform them that she and her family would begin attending the following week, and remind them that it was their Christian duty to treat her and her family with kindness and acceptance. They’d also ask parents to prepare their children for what to expect and teach them how to react appropriately, and would speak directly to the children in the class Millie would attend.
All of that groundwork and preparation paid off, as the entire congregation went out of their way to welcome John and Ruthie and their children, especially Millie. Of course, it helped that Ruthie had grown up in that church and many people still fondly remembered her. John and Ruthie both had a very good feeling about this church from their experience that day, and a few weeks later they became members. Millie felt like a celebrity at this church; everyone knew her name and made a point of greeting her when they saw her. Shortly afterwards, John’s parents also began attending the church and joined as well.
Because the church wasn’t handicapped accessible, and Millie didn’t have a wheelchair anyway, when she wasn’t being carried, she got around walking on her hands like she did most everywhere. Multiple people asked about that – to John and Ruthie, Ruthie’s parents, and various church leaders. Why didn’t Millie use a wheelchair, and then when they realized a wheelchair wouldn’t be able to get up and down steps, what physical changes would be necessary so that she could use one?
Of course, wheelchair accessibility was uncharted territory in the 1920s, and so there were no standards or best practices; anything the church did would be a matter of them using their best judgement along with some trial-and-error. John, who was trained as an engineer, took measurements and developed plans for ramps, and identified a suitable place to install a small elevator. But there was no money in the church budget for such things, and Millie was perfectly content to either be carried or walk on her hands, so they collectively dropped the matter.