- Feb 5, 2002
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What if I told you there was a real “Mrs. Robinson” — someone who once met two musicians, and before she knew it, they were singing about her by name. I know her story well, because the real Mrs. Robinson was my mom.
She was born Barbara Balday in 1932 at home in New York City, a sickly child who was not expected to live. Her mother had delivered four live daughters and ten stillborn sons before her. When the oldest daughter, my aunt, helped Mom enter the world, she balked at having to wash the new baby. “Oh Mother, do I have to?” she asked, “It’s only going to be dead.”
No one called her by her real name until she went to school. She was always “Tootsie” in those early years. Her role models were Jesus and Shirley Temple.
Mom’s father was 56 years old when she was born. His father was a brigadier general in the Civil War. He was a Union General who helped black soldiers put an end to the misery of slavery. My great-grandfather moved his family to New Orleans after the war, when federal troops worked to protect the voting rights of black Americans in the South.
Mom’s maternal great-grandfather also worked toward the cause of abolition. Reverend James Junius Marks was the Presbyterian pastor of a church in Quincy, Illinois. He knew Abe Lincoln and visited him in the White House. Marks volunteered as a chaplain for the Union Army, and he shared the imprisonment of the troops he served. He traveled to the Holy Land and gave lectures on what he saw where Jesus walked.
When the general’s son, my grandfather, moved back North, he met his wife in a coffee shop in Pittsburgh. She had left her family’s farm to explore city life. My grandfather said he “always admired the way Jewish people were devoted to the education of their children,” so he moved his family to New York City.
Their church had a Sunday school and a choir. The children sang In The Garden and other Christian colloquial hymns. Like some churches, it also met on Wednesday evenings. But unlike others, these meetings were known as “message services,” in which a medium would claim to “channel” the spirit of someone who had died. As it turns out, my mom was raised in a Spiritualist church.
Continued below.
The Early Years
“Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so….” These are the first words I remember hearing from my mother. She was rocking me in the old Victorian rocking chair her mother had used for her. My first memory is centered around my mom and Jesus.She was born Barbara Balday in 1932 at home in New York City, a sickly child who was not expected to live. Her mother had delivered four live daughters and ten stillborn sons before her. When the oldest daughter, my aunt, helped Mom enter the world, she balked at having to wash the new baby. “Oh Mother, do I have to?” she asked, “It’s only going to be dead.”
No one called her by her real name until she went to school. She was always “Tootsie” in those early years. Her role models were Jesus and Shirley Temple.
Mom’s father was 56 years old when she was born. His father was a brigadier general in the Civil War. He was a Union General who helped black soldiers put an end to the misery of slavery. My great-grandfather moved his family to New Orleans after the war, when federal troops worked to protect the voting rights of black Americans in the South.
Mom’s maternal great-grandfather also worked toward the cause of abolition. Reverend James Junius Marks was the Presbyterian pastor of a church in Quincy, Illinois. He knew Abe Lincoln and visited him in the White House. Marks volunteered as a chaplain for the Union Army, and he shared the imprisonment of the troops he served. He traveled to the Holy Land and gave lectures on what he saw where Jesus walked.
When the general’s son, my grandfather, moved back North, he met his wife in a coffee shop in Pittsburgh. She had left her family’s farm to explore city life. My grandfather said he “always admired the way Jewish people were devoted to the education of their children,” so he moved his family to New York City.
Their church had a Sunday school and a choir. The children sang In The Garden and other Christian colloquial hymns. Like some churches, it also met on Wednesday evenings. But unlike others, these meetings were known as “message services,” in which a medium would claim to “channel” the spirit of someone who had died. As it turns out, my mom was raised in a Spiritualist church.
Continued below.
The Catholic Conversion of the Real "Mrs. Robinson" - The Coming Home Network
Share via: Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Email More Label of the UK EP for Simon and Garfunkel – Mrs. Robinson from 1968 (the CBS logo has been removed). Licensed under Creative
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