I am seven years old and the department of social services called mom and dad and asked if they wanted a two week old baby boy. It is March of 1964. I don’t remember much about Tommy at this time. I was told when he wanted to get out of his crib and didn’t get his way right away would bang his head on the rails. I guess that is when my parents realized he was going to have some special needs.

I am eight and a half years old and Tommy is 18 months. DSS talked to mom and dad about adopting him. They spoke with our family Doctor and he was the one who told them that Tommy’s mom was put in a mental institution in Long Island by Schoharie County so that is why Tommy was sent back to Schoharie and placed in a foster home here. It was in the institution that she got pregnant. It was either by another patient or one of the staff. Tommy’s grandmother was also institutionalized there. He said to them that Tommy could very well have special needs and need the extra help. Then he asked if they would financially be able to get him the help he needs. So they decided against it. DSS spoke to the couple that had adopted his half brother and they agreed to take him. After just two weeks in his new foster home the foster mom had a nervous break down and told DSS to come and get him. He was placed back in our home.

I am 10 years old now in 1967 we moved from the farm in Warnerville to the house in Richmondville. My younger brother Paul was also born that year. Tommy is only three. In 1970 my younger sister was born. That made six of us. Tommy now is in first grade. He is having a hard time learning how to read and write. He is really smart in math and science. He also gets in trouble at school. One day he got upset with this boy and pushed so hard that the boy fell and had to go to the hospital to get stitches in his head. Then Tommy hid and it was quite some time before we could find him. We were all worried about him. I am now fourteen years old. My mom and dad get really stressed and angry at Tommy because of his behavior problems. It makes me feel really bad for them. I also feel bad for Tommy. When some one comments on how Tommy isn’t my real brother or why his name is different I always defend him and say, “He is like a real brother”. At Christmas time my grandparents gives my parents money for us five grandchildren. My mom and dad always split it six ways. They don’t like it that they won’t accept Tommy as one of their grandchildren. I am fifteen now and my older sister Ann gets married. I have a lot more responsibility in the house now as well as looking after my two younger brothers and sisters. My mom seems so stressed out much of the time with worry about Tommy and what he was going to do next. She was told by a doctor that she should have a glass of red wine to boost her blood count. She started to drink not only to boost her blood count but to get some relief from her problems. That is causing me to have even more responsibility for the kids. Mom also started an engraving business which takes a lot more of her time. I get angry with her because of her drinking and leaving me with the responsibilities of cleaning, meals, and watching the kids. Tommy is now nine years old and he was misbehaving while my parents had company. Our well meaning friends told my parents that he needs to be hospitalized. He was then hospitalized in a state hospital. He underwent different testing. I am feeling really angry at my parent’s friends for being so pushy about their opinions on how Tommy should be dealt with. Mom is really upset also. She cries at times because she misses him. She doesn’t think she did the right thing having him put there. The testing showed that Tommy had some brain cells that never developed because of the drugs that the hospital gave his mother while she was pregnant. My parents requested to have him come back home after they received a call saying how Tommy had escaped from the hospital. They found him outside of the hospital. They asked him where he was going and he said back home. They asked him how did he plan on getting home and he told them, “See those railroad tracks? I was going to follow them because they go right by my house”. That happened when Tommy was 10 years old.

The hospital had put him on some medication and it made him sleep. He would get up in the morning have breakfast and lay on the couch and go back to sleep. Then he would get up for a short time and then go back to sleep again. My mom called the doctor and got him off that medication.

Tommy started to sneak my dads gun and go out hunting. One day I caught him sneaking dad's gun and he asked me if I was going to tell on him? I told him I wouldn’t. I want to be a friend to him. He would go down to the creek and catch big snapping turtles. He then would open them up and pull their intestines out and string them across the road. I get really degusted with him when he would do that. I also felt bad for mom to have to put up with things Tommy did. One day he came home with a full grown raccoon. He said he chased it up a tree and killed it. He had a big bite mark on his back.

The business takes my parents away for some weekends and I am left to baby sit. My other brother and sister aren't hard to watch but can’t handle Tommy. I would try to lock him out of the house so he would listen to me but he always found a way in. I would finally pin him down on the floor and hold him there till he calmed down. When I would complain to my parents they said that if I didn’t have my cousin up Tommy wouldn’t have acted up.

I write in my journal at times and today ( April 6,1975 )I wrote “Tommy is getting help tomorrow. A guy is suppose to come down and tell us how to handle his problem. He is eleven and acts like six but other times like eleven”. (April 7th) “Today Dick Shaffer came and gave us a program to do with Tommy. Every time Tom is bad he has to sit for 30 min. I really hope it works. Tommy has been getting on my nerves lately. I am supposed to go to a freshman movie tonight. I am brining Tommy, Paul, and Tami. I have to stop writing because I have to go down stairs to do the dishes." Later "I am supposed to go to Bonnies house Saturday. I pray that I don’t have to baby sit. I know I sound selfish but I think I deserve a night out." I was angry. I wanted to do things other teenagers would do and it seemed the only time I could is if I didn’t have to baby-sit or if I took the kids with me. It seems like all they want for me is work or baby-sit.. I am mad at Tommy for acting up but more mad at Mom for over drinking and making me baby sit.

It was about 11:00 at night and I wasn’t tired. I went downstairs and Tommy was still up also so we decide to go for a walk. We walked up in the back woods. I am usually scared of the dark but I trusted that I was safe walking with Tommy. We had a lot of fun. We had to walk across a log to get across a creek. I fell in. We both laughed over that. I felt like Tommy and I were friends that night.

It is 11/19/ 76. I just turned 19 and Tommy is fourteen. I wrote in my Journal, “Tommy is in a school in Albany. I really hope he gets help." He was sent to a boys home called Parsons because he got to be too much to handle. He ran away from there. They found him under a bridge in Warrenville. He was trying to get home again. He had a lot of pills on him. My parents asked him about it and he said every day they would give him his medication and when they left he would spit it out and saved it. He said that he was going to take it all and kill him self. He was sent back there but in a different program. He really liked it and did well. They kept him in there about 6 months. Then a new special-ed teacher came to Richmondville School . Because of the expense of the home he was in they sent him back home and he started with his new teacher. I graduated from high school in June of 1977. In July I moved to my cousins in Massachusetts. I feel now mom would have to be a mom instead of me to the kids. I lived there a year. I got married in 1979 and got busy with my own life. My parents called me one day and told me Tommy ran away from home. Mom was so worried about him. No one had seen him for a couple of days. I went up to visit mom and dad at their house, my husband and I seen him looking out the window in the barn. He looked so scared. Again I didn’t want to tell on him. I felt so sad for him.

Tommy is now sixteen and he got his drivers license and a truck. Tommy life revolved around hunting. His best friend was a grown man and it was because he also loved to hunt. A couple of times at night in the same week he showed up with a deer he had gotten out of season. We cut it up and put it our freezer. We had to tell him not to get any more. He would get in trouble hijacking deer and other illegal things related to hunting.

David, (my older brother), takes Tommy to Ohio, where he is attending a college, to help him find a job. This is in September. In November David comes home for Thanksgiving. He told Tommy to stay in Ohio and take care of David’s friend’s horse. Tommy wanted to come home as well so he got in his truck and started home. He didn’t have any money so he pulled in a self-service gas station, filled up his truck and left. The police pull him over and took him to jail. In jail he tries to hang himself. My parents get a call that he is in the hospital unconscious. The doctors said they had to resuscitate him to get him breathing. After a few days they are able to take him home. It really bothers me to see the red marks around his throat. Mom thinks he isn’t the same now. He seems slower.

I am now twenty-five and Tommy is nineteen. My grandfather died and my aunt and uncle are having an outside gathering at their house after the funeral for the relatives. Tommy is there. He gets upset at something and takes his truck up the road and starts doing donuts in the dirt. All we can see is a big cloud of dust and dirt. How can he do something like that at a time like this. What an embarrassment. I am so angry with him. Here this is a sad time for my parents and now they have to deal with him.

On 5/12/83 I am now 25 years old and Tommy is 19 and I wrote this in my Journal, “My brother Tommy killed himself today”. My parents called me and told me that Tommy was picked up by the police because he was accused of stealing a coon dog. He denied it but was put in the Schoharie county jail with a bail of $10,000 anyways despite my parents begging them to send him to an institution because of his previous attempt of suicide. He ended his life that night by hanging himself. I felt numb. I also felt terrible for my mom and dad. My mom took it so hard for years after. The Christmas tree was decorated with pictures of Tommy. She made an area on the hill across the road as a shrine for him. She sent pictures to all her relatives of Tommy. The house was filled with pictures. While she was in the hospital in intensive care on a respirator she wrote in a note that she seen Tommy in the vent on the ceiling. I think she felt very guilty and thought she should of done more for him.

As an adult now looking back at this experience I never wished Tommy gone. He was my brother and I loved him as a brother. Tommy had a lot of needs and I wished I was more in tuned with these needs. I also wished my mom had more support from the County, a support group, the school, or just a trusted friend. My dad also was very very hurt over this. I wish also I could have been more of a bigger sister then a parent. I am glad that the laws are better now. If I have any advice to give out it would be the County or any other foster programs to stay in tune with your foster families and provide twenty four hour help. Provide information for your foster families. This is a sad story with a sad ending. I hope some day this experience can help some one else.