A Hundred Year Story, Part 45

By Elton Camp

What Goes Around Comes Around

Mrs. Mary Mowen was Mrs. Smith’s sister. Years before she married and moved
away, but came back there to live after the death of her husband. Highland Hall was their
home place so she had as much claim on it as did Mrs. Smith. Mrs. Smith was openly
resentful of her presence. Regularly, she insulted her to her face. Still, she fixed food for
her and paid all the bills.

Mrs. Mowen, a cultured, gracious person, was a college graduate. I think that’s
one reason Mrs. Smith didn’t like her. She hadn’t attended college. After her husband’s
death early in their marriage, she was forced to make her living as a clerk in Kirven’s an
upscale department store in the main business section of the city. She felt that Mary had
an easy life while she had to work.

Mrs. Mowen had a large old cat of which she was extraordinarily fond. Mrs.
Smith hated the animal, resented having to buy it food, and surely detested it being kept
in the house. When I got in from work one afternoon, I learned that the cat had suddenly
died. Mrs. Mowen had a grim countenance, but her sister made no effort to hide a
delighted smile. “I poisoned it,” she whispered with a mischievous grin when we were
alone in the kitchen. “Here’s what I used.” She pulled a bottle from a shelf in the pantry
off the kitchen and held it out for me to see. It was poison, just as she claimed.

Later in the evening, Mrs.Mowen confided, “I think Sissy killed my cat. So cruel,
so cruel.”

I revealed nothing, but expressed genuine sympathy on the death of her beloved
pet. It made me a bit apprehensive that Mrs. Mowen might meet the same fate. Mrs.
Smith greatly desired the $40,000 that her sister had in the bank. “That money should be
mine,” she told me on several occasions. “Mary lets me pay for everything. It isn’t
right.”

A few weeks later, the two had a serious dispute of some sort. Mrs. Mowen came
up missing. Mrs. Smith searched high and low, but couldn’t locate her. The sun had set,
so the twilight rapidly deepened into dark.

“I don’t know what to do. I can’t find Mary anywhere,” she said in a panic. “Do
you think I should call the police?”

“Let me look for a few minutes,” I offered.

 At the woman’s age, it didn’t seem likely she could be far away. She could walk,
but only slowly and with caution. I called her as I checked each room to make sure she
wasn’t hiding inside, but got no response. It seemed probable that she’d ventured onto the
grounds. I soon located her sitting in the dark on a bench in the side yard, partly hidden
by an overgrown azalea.

“Hey, Mrs. Mowen, beautiful night, isn’t it?” I called out so as not to startle her.

When sure that I had her attention, I sat beside her and chatted a bit before any
attempt to induce her to go inside. She was sobbing softly. I felt terribly sorry for her.

“You just can’t imagine how bad Sissy treats me.”

I did know because I’d heard it done often enough. It seemed best to remain
noncommittal yet sympathetic. I quietly listened for a while as she bewailed her ill
treatment. It seemed to help her to talk about it.

“Don’t you think we should go inside? It’s getting late.”

She took my arm and I led her into the house. Mrs. Mowen was in a dilemma. She
had nowhere else to go and she knew it. Her situation reminded me of Robert Frost’s line,
“Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” At that
moment, Mrs. Smith seemed genuinely glad to see her sister.

When Mrs. Mowen moved back home some years before, she wrote Mrs. Smith
to have a garage built for her car, but didn’t offer to pay for it. Mrs. Smith did as asked
but continued to fume about it up until Mrs. Mowen’s death. The car in question
was a large old Buick from the 1930s. The vehicle was in almost new condition inside
and outside. I drove it once to help keep up the battery. Eventually, Mrs. Mowen agreed
to sell it. Its absence made space for Mrs. Smith to move her Volkswagen beetle into the
garage.

Mrs. Smith was an unsafe driver. She consistently signaled the wrong direction
for turns. I told her about it a couple of times. “Push up for a right turn. Push down for a
left turn.” Although she repeated what I said as if to learn how to signal correctly, she
always reverted to the incorrect procedure. She never got in an accident, but I don’t
know how she escaped. It helped that she drove only right around the neighborhood.

If she went to Opelika to visit her nieces, or an unfamiliar part of Columbus, I was
the designated driver. Her nieces lived in an old house called Collinwood in a nice
section of town of Opelika.

Mrs. Smith eventually became determined to rid herself of her sister. In collusion
with relatives, they abruptly shipped her off to a luxurious nursing home in Americus,
Georgia. The building and room were beautiful and the staff cordial and courteous. It
was quite a distance from Columbus. Mrs. Mowen didn’t oblige by dying as her relatives
apparently had expected and hoped. The nursing home business office somehow found
out about their patient’s bank account. That set them on fire to get it in addition to the
substantial monthly charge. To that end, the facility began to invent large extra charges
every month. In a few months, they cut deeply into her money to the dismay of Mrs.
Smith. She saw her sister’s money about to slip from her grasp. Something had to be
done.

With the aid and encouragement of relatives, she arranged to have Mrs. Mowen
committed to the Central State Hospital at Milledgeville, Georgia. It was an insane
asylum. The institution provided free care to mentally ill persons. “I hate to do it, but we
have no choice. She has to go to Milledgeville,” one of them declared. The deed was
soon done.

At that time it was easy to have a person declared insane and committed. A
relative had only to find a doctor who’d agree to sign, and off the person went to the
asylum and couldn’t get out. Milledgeville was the largest such place in the United States
with over 12,000 inmates. I visited there with a group of students on one occasion, but
that’s described elsewhere.

Mrs. Mowen was naturally distraught at being put in the insane asylum. She knew
exactly where she was and the nature of the place. “What am I doing here,” she asked
over and over. “Why is Sissy treating me this way?”

It was entirely true that she didn’t belong in a mental institution. She wasn’t
insane or even emotionally disturbed, just old and in the way. It’s hard for some to abide
relatives like that, especially when there’s an inheritance to divide. With minimal help
she could’ve lived alone in an apartment. Most certainly she could’ve remained in the
upper class nursing home at Americus. Greed determined otherwise.

Insane Asylum at Milledgeville

Only a few months were required for the scheme to serve its intended purpose.
She died late in December. It was obvious that Mrs. Smith was delighted when she
reported her sister’s passing. She never showed an iota of sorrow.

Uncharacteristically, she spared no expense on her sister’s funeral. “There’s a

time to save money, but this isn’t it,” she declared. Several weeks later, her emotions had
cooled and parsimony returned. When she shopped for a granite slab to cover the grave,
she argued and negotiated price with the dealer shamelessly. Mrs. Mowen is buried at
Linwood Cemetery. The marker shows her name, dates of birth and death, her husband’s
name, and, ironically, the single word “Beloved.”

There’s a saying that “What goes around comes around.” Some years later, Mrs.
Smith’s relatives had her forcibly removed from her home to be sent to a nursing home in
Atlanta where she soon died. When nursing home employees came to Columbus to take
her away, she broke free and ran to her next-door neighbor, Mrs. Jones. She shrieked,
“My house, my house.”

That old house meant more to her than anything in the world. She couldn’t bear
the thought of leaving it. It was a sad end to her life. Her death cleared up things nicely
for her various heirs. The will left the house to her nieces, but the splendid personal
property was willed to relatives in Atlanta on Ponce de Leon in the ritzy section of town.
That greatly reduced the value of the inheritance of two other nieces. I’ve often wondered
if the nieces knew about that provision, or if they’d assumed that, because the house was
willed to them, the furniture would be included. I heard the conversation from my room
when she told them she’d willed them the house, but she said nothing about the
furnishings. I’d like to think they got a nasty surprise at the probate of the will. Instead of
a mansion full of antiques, they got an old hulk of limited value in a neighborhood that
was slowly but surely declining.

(MORE FROM THE STORY TO BE POSTED SOON.)