Shirley Lucille Hardin, Lou For Short

963 Words2 Pages

II. LOU Her full name was Shirley Lucille Hardin, Lou for short. She was the daughter of Herbert Sidney Hardin and Shirley Lucille Jackson. Lou was born in 1919 in San Francisco, California. Lou’s childhood was very unstable due to the mother being only nineteen when she had Lou. Her mother, Shirley was known as a 1920s flapper girl, which at the time was similar to an exotic dancer. Flappers bobbed their hair, smoked, drank, and treated sex very casual. Herbert disappeared shortly after the birth of Lou and he mother gave her to her mother, Shirley Lucille Jackson, to look after her and raise her. Early reports of Lou’s first marriage with Cleon Morgan Cox II, or Red, said that Lou was a horrible mother, to her two son Cleon and George. Shortly after Lou’s divorce with Red is around the same time that she met Howard’s dad, Rodney. Within the next year, 1955, Rodney prosed to Lou and they all moved in together under one house. With Lou’s previous marriage, she was more financially stable than the Dully family which seems to bother Rodney. “A woman should not be the bread winner in the family.” Rodney soon took up multiple jobs in order to become more financially stable to support his family better. Beside from teaching at an elementary school, he worked as a motion picture processor at Eastman Kodak, a check at Whitecliff Market, and lastly as a crossing guard for the same elementary school that he teaches at. He also enlisted into the national guard and took military classes on weekends Rodney’s attitude and relationship with his children began to spiral downward. Rodney was never home and when he was home he didn’t want to be bother. If the children woke him up they would get punished for it. Lou also ran a tight ship and kept t... ... middle of paper ... ... very well. ON several account both brothers were caught fighting each other at school over petty drama. Howard also began to steal items from local convenience stores and he was caught a majority of the time. One of the deals he made with the cops and his parents was he was given a paper route and was to deliver the San Francisco Examiner, until he paid all of the money back he stole from the newspaper stand. Around 1958, Lou was determined to find out Howard’s problem. She started classes at Foothill College in Mountain View, where she became a medical assistant. Lou’s personal diagnose of Howard was that something was wrong with his brain. Lou took Howard to many psychiatrists that fall and all of them said that Howard’s behavior was normal. One psychiatrists told Lou that she could benefit from some medical treatment. Lou was later referred to Dr. Walter Freeman.

More about Shirley Lucille Hardin, Lou For Short

Open Document