Living With New Mama

Ellen Foster had a very interesting life.  I would say the toughest part of her life was her younger years living with her daddy.  Ellen lived with her parents like a normal child at first, then her mother died from being sick and the county took Ellen away from her father.  Ellen’s father was an alcoholic and every once in awhile would abuse her.  Ellen was a very strong girl.  Throughout her life, she has been through a lot of changes both good and bad.  Deep down Ellen knew if she could just hold on and tough it out that her life would change. 

A year after Ellen was removed from her home; her father drank himself to death.  Ellen didn’t even attend the funeral; she had no intentions of being there for him not even then.  As a child, Ellen had been moved around from place to place.  For a while she lived with her art teacher who took better care of her than she had ever known at that point in her life.  She started to think that holding on that long was well worth it.  Ellen’s grandmother then took her to court to get custody of her.  The judge thought being with family was a “healthier” way of living.  Ellen’s mama’s mama was not a very polite woman at all.  She didn’t like Ellen’s daddy and compared Ellen to him all the time.

Ellen was a very strong girl through all the harassment she had gotten from her grandmother.  That’s all the better Ellen knew, she didn’t have a true grandmother that was there for her and made her good things to eat every time she came to visit.  Ellen was the type of person that wanted to please everyone else before pleasing herself.  Her grandmother really took advantage of that.  She would never admit that Ellen was a nice girl but she knew it. 

Ellen never really judged people, her best friend was a colored girl, Scarletta, and Ellen always played with each other; they never let all the talk about them get to each other.  While living at her grandmother’s house, Ellen didn’t really get to see Scarletta, because her grandmother always had her working in the field with the colored and when her grandmother got sick, Ellen needed to be at her side.  Ellen’s mama’s mama died that year she was staying with her.  Ellen had no feelings about it except wondering where she’d end up this time. 

Ellen ended up with her aunt, Dora.  Dora was a very self-center person.  She only thought about “how great her daughter was” and herself.  Ellen tried to keep to herself like she normally would anywhere else but Dora always tried to figure out what was always on Ellen’s mind.  It was really hard for Ellen to be nice about telling Dora she was fine.  Ellen was a very honest person, when someone was doing something that bothered her she would tell them.  On Christmas Ellen let Dora know that her “precious” daughter wasn’t as “special” as she thought.  Dora was done with putting up with Ellen’s behavior.

Ellen went to the woman’s house that she saw at church.  She heard that this lady took little girls that had nowhere to go.  Ellen was a very brave girls she always just pack her things and went where someone sent her but, in this case, she followed her heart.  Ellen met her “new mama” her whole life changed.  She was actually noticed and wanted in the house and she knew that’s where she was going to stay.  All of her bad times were just memories and they were in the past and she believed that they wouldn’t have anything to do with her future.