Note to readers: I updated this post January 20th, 2024 after more research and contact with family members led to new information about Bobby and Buddy’s parents. The audio version has not yet been updated.

“Rise up you darn mule!” Aunt Hilda commanded, arms lifted to heaven, dyed-red curls waggling as she wiggled her hands, “Rise up! By the power of Jesus I command you! Rise up!”

Mother, Aunt Nancy, my sister Poogie, our cousin Buddy, and I convulsed with loud, bellyache-hard, tear-filled laughter.

“And the good lord answered our prayers! And that mule pulled his left front leg out of the mire, and then he pulled out the right leg, and, glory to god, he rose up! Praise Jesus!”

We laughed.

A solemn suited man approached us. He coughed the cough of interruption.

“I’m sorry. I have to ask y’all to step outside. You’re disturbing the family in the other parlor,” the funeral director directed us.

On our way out, Aunt Hilda said softly, “So you see, you just have to have faith. Trust in Jesus.”

That was the end of her story about the time when she and her brother Oakley had taken their daddy’s mule to go visit their grandma and it got stuck in a quagmire. I wish I could recount the whole tale, but even if I could, I’d never master Aunt Hilda’s storytelling.

We’d heard Hilda tell that story before. We’d asked her to recount it for Buddy.

We were so happy that day. Yes, we were at a funeral home. The next day we would bury Mother’s brother, Theron, dead from stomach cancer at the age of 49.

No one was terribly sad that Theron was dead, but most of us weren’t happy that he was dead.

Except for my sister. She was so glad he’d left this earth that, the next day at the cemetery on top of the mountain, she would take a shovel from one of the undertakers and finish burying the man who, when he was fourteen and fifteen, and she was four and five, had repeatedly raped her.

But that first day at the funeral home, we were all joy-filled.

Buddy was back.

Buddy’s wife had spotted Theron’s obituary in the paper. She said to Buddy, “You always wondered what happened. Now’s your chance to find out.”

He came to the funeral home alone. Aunt Nancy, Mother, and I were sitting in the outer lobby when he came in. Twenty-six, sandy-haired, hesitant. He looked side to side, to locate the room where his father was laid out.

No one in the family had seen him since he was a boy. Not for seventeen years. But Aunt Nancy recognized him. She walked up to him and asked, “Are you Buddy Rector?”

*Tallest to shortest: Poogie, Buddy, Bobby, me, Edie*

“I used to be,” he said. “It’s Buddy Nelon now.”

“I’m your Aunt Nancy.”

“Yeah, I kinda remember you.”

There were hugs and tears. He asked if his brother was there. He asked if Poogie had come.

In 1962, in Michigan, Poogie had been in the process of filing for adoption of nine-year-old Buddy and his seven-year-old brother, Bobby, when Buddy begged her to take him back to North Carolina.

He begged for weeks. He begged for months. He was worried about his daddy.

Bobby and Buddy’s mother, Mary, had been dead six years. She’d hung herself in November, 1956, in the bathroom eight months after the death of their infant brother, Carl Robbie.

The story I grew up with was that she did this while the boys played in the living room and Theron was at work. But when I started looking deeper into public records, I found that Mary and Theron divorced in April of ‘56. She then married a man named Forest Blair in September, but they divorced the next month. There’s a story in Mary’s family that the divorce was at the request of her family, so they could take care of her. I fear the details are lost in time.

Maybe this past made Buddy a worrier. Poogie relented. She left Bobby at our house and took Buddy back to his dad.

Months later, we learned Theron had taken Buddy to social services and surrendered his parental rights.

Granny tried to get him back. Aunt Nancy tried. Poogie tried. The state said they had no rights. A family had been found to adopt Buddy.

He said he received the bike Nancy sent him for Christmas, but the Nelons didn’t tell him who had sent it. He wasn’t given the letters granny wrote to him, nor Mother’s, nor Nancy’s, nor Poogie’s, nor Hilda’s.

For seventeen years he wondered, and we wondered. The only thing we knew for certain was that he was alive, that Theron hadn’t killed and buried him somewhere and told a tale about giving him up.

After their mother’s suicide, Theron left Florida and returned to North Carolina. He may have tried to make a home for the boys. They were treated badly by him. They were neglected. They were beaten.

One time, on their way to somewhere in the car. Buddy kept saying, “Hey Daddy,” every few minutes. Theron told Buddy to shut up. After many miles, Theron finally asked Buddy what the hell he wanted. Buddy said, “Bobby fell out of the car awhile back.”

Buddy remembered that, that day at the funeral home. He asked what had become of his brother.

After their mom died, Bobby and Buddy lived with Granny on and off again. They lived with Aunt Hilda. They lived with Poogie.

Buddy was known as the good one, the serious one. Bobby, the charming troublemaker.

I don’t know what happened with Poogie’s attempt to adopt Bobby, but it didn’t happen. Maybe the governmental parties in Michigan and North Carolina thought that a 22-year-old wasn’t capable. Bobby ended back in North Carolina with Granny. Theron came and went.

Five years later, Granny died. Theron took responsibility for Bobby. For a few months.

Granny had died in December. The next fall, when I was in 4th grade and Bobby was in 7th, he came to live with us in River Rouge. I felt thrilled to have a new “big brother” and thought myself really cool when he talked to me at school.

Four months after Bobby moved in, we got up one Saturday morning to find that our blue Pontiac had disappeared. Bobby had disappeared.

My dad got someone to drive him around, but they couldn’t find car nor Bobby. My parents decided to call the police. They found two seventh graders in the car a few towns over.

Bobby and a friend of his, Whitey Ford, had stolen the car. They were headed out for an adventure.

The theft was more than my parents said they could handle. Bobby had to go. I didn’t want him to go. I don’t know which of my parents pushed more for his departure.

By this time, Bobby was a royal handful (and who could blame him?) but he may have stolen the car because he was pissed off.

My father was a pedophile. Looking back as an adult, I suspect dad likely molested Bobby and that's why he tried to run away.

Next, Bobby went to a friend of the family. This was a single, 30-something man who volunteered to take Bobby in. Sadly, according to Bobby, and there's no reason to not believe him, that guy sexually abused him.

Well, no reason except that that guy, was a really great guy. Sweet, kind, generous, intelligent. A man I grew up very fond of, remained fond of until he left this earth.

But good people do evil things sometimes.

From that house, Bobby went to juvie. He stayed a little here, a little there. He went to jail. He got out of jail.

Eventually, he met a girl from Florida. They had twin girls. They came back to River Rouge. Then they had a boy.

Bobby sold drugs and stole things. He’d disappear, then reappear. When he reappeared when the baby was six months old, his girlfriend said, “your turn” and took off. She did not come back.

My sister Edie asked me, “Do you think he killed her?” He’d assaulted her more than once. We hated to think that murder possible, but we did think it.

Bobby tried to get Edie to take the kids.

After a few weeks, he called his girlfriend’s mother and asked if he could bring the kids to her in Florida.

Bobby showed up in Michigan now and again, not with the kids, just solo. He told us they were with their grandmother.

When he was jail, he’d write to Poogie. She’d send him money so he could buy cigarettes, paper, and pens. He drew a lot while in prison.

Aunt Hilda helped him out from time to time, financially, or with a place to stay for a short spell.

I wonder how many haunts he had across the country, where all he wandered.

Then Buddy showed up at Theron’s funeral. He wanted to see his brother. He told us to give Bobby his address and phone number the next time one of us heard from him. Poogie did that.

Once out of prison, Bobby's neediness financially and otherwise soon wore Buddy out, as glad as he may have been to see him again. The last I heard from Buddy, he’d told Bobby to leave him alone.

When Poogie died, Edie let Bobby know. When Edie died, I tried to find him. I thought he’d want to know.

I learned that he’d been dead a few years, hit by a truck while crossing a road, shortly after his last stent in prison. He was 51.

After his girlfriend ran off and Bobby took his kids to their grandmother, he sort-of stuck around a couple years. Then he disappeared from their lives completely. Their grandmother adopted the kids and told them that both their parents were dead.

*Bobby’s picture from his last prison release report.*

When Bobby’s girls were 16, Bobby called their grandmother’s house. His son answered the phone. “Don’t be afraid. This is your dad.” He’d gotten out of prison and wanted to see them. One of the girls and the boy met him at a McDonald’s near their home.

The truck hit Bobby a few weeks later.

How do I know this part of the story?

I received an email from a woman named Monica recently with the subject line, “Lorraine Rector my possible great aunt??” The letter said:

…I came across your [blog post] about Lorraine when trying to research my biological father Robert Leon Rector. His father was Robert Theron Rector…I know nothing of my father or anyone in his family and he has since passed away. I was never able to meet him and was hoping I could maybe find some information from you or any relatives that may have known him or have pictures as I don’t even have a picture of my father…

I wrote back, “Hi Cousin! Good to hear from you! Are you one of the twins?” I remembered their names both started with M but that was all. I sent Monica pictures, told her all I knew about her dad.

We’ve had a few emails back and forth. The twins are well, forty-two years old. Their brother, unfortunately, died young of an overdose. Monica found her mother twenty years ago (she lives!) and developed a good, but long-distance relationship with her.

Theron had two girls with his first wife, before getting together with Buddy and Bobby’s mother. Monica has aunts, her Uncle Buddy, and maybe some first cousins she may find in her search for answers.

Like Aunt Hilda’s mule, a branch of the family lost in the quagmire of time, has risen up.

Buddy and Bobby

Memory Lane

Glory Days