“I’d need a court order. Even with a judge approving it, we shred the files every ten years. There wouldn’t be anything to find.”

That was the breathlessly awaited response I got to a request for information on the black sheep of my family-Emma Schulz Lipenski.

Everyone seems to have one. That grandmother who won’t stop muttering racist comments about your boyfriend under her breath, the uncle who hugs you a little too tightly at Christmas, and the parent that can be counted on to say something awkward about politics that will inevitably lead to verbal warfare over dinner. It’s natural, within social groups there is always a balance of harmony and strife that must be kept, and the black sheep are the daredevils rocking towards chaos with gleeful smiles.

For me, the black sheep that always interested me was the one no one spoke of except in brief one liners that hinted at more than they said, and that was Emma.

Emma Schulz

Born to poor German immigrants in 1895, Emma grew up in the small town of Yoakum, Texas. It was a town full of German immigrants like herself, which wasn’t a bad thing, not until 1914 when Germany began fighting the United States in World War I. Emma was nineteen when that happened, and no doubt, by now, her family realized what condition she was in. It wasn’t a good time to be German, or to suffer from the disease Emma had. As far as I have been told, by her nephew, my grandfather was that she had schizophrenia.

Who knows when it manifested? It could have been from age 18-22 as my psychology courses say is the most common, or as a child, which is more uncommon. Regardless, in hindsight it seems the family always knew something was different about Emma; that something was ‘off’ about her.

To me, this photo, one of the only photographs of Emma as a child hints at the unstable condition torturing her mind. Eyes that are strangely direct for her age, not posing standing, holding a doll, or posing with a family member, but with one finger in her ear and leaning on a tilted chair. Was she trying to block out the voices? Or is this simply a normal photograph, one that made a little girl in a big family happy to have when it was only of her?

Some of my questions can’t be answered, because no one is left alive to tell. All I knew was that the discovery of this photo, and seeing it for the first time, haunted me. Her pretty face, Cherub mouth, white bonnet over dark blonde hair and the old fashioned dress with a stiff collar is an image that would stay with me even if I lost the photograph.

Wild Child of the 10’s

As the young woman that she grew up to be, Emma began to act out in a way that was uncommon for girls at that time. She ran away from home, repeatedly, with young boys from the community or from others nearby. Her father would no doubt wearily pick himself up, and go after her, perhaps taking one of his sons to help. Her family recognized that she was unstable, but wanted to keep her home with them, where she would be safe and loved.

The family faced prejudice from the rest of the town. The German language was outlawed, and the family could no longer converse as they had been. Their thick accents and last name no doubt made them stick out like sore thumbs, and Emma’s condition, should it have been known, would further ostracize them from others. Even today, my grandfather does not like to talk about Emma. His mother did not approve of her, telling her son to never have anything to do with her. Emma was most likely not sent to school, as she could not read or write, according to a 1920 census. So a silence was built around Emma and her condition, leaving her feeling alone and misunderstood, and mute to the world around her.

Whoops…

Also in 1914, something happened that her family did not expect. Emma, who was unmarried, gave birth to a son, and named him Robert A. Stein. The last name was just an invention, as there was no man named Mr. Stein who had courted and abandoned Emma, or just ran away with her before her father fetched her back. No, the truth is much more complicated and sinister.

While the boy was publically given a name that didn’t belong to him, and perhaps this presented the situation differently to the public of the town, the father listed on the birth certificate was none other than her own brother, Albert Schulz.

Awkward family incest

Albert was a bachelor, and still lived at home along with Emma. My grandfather tells me he cannot be certain, but the implication as he understood it was that Albert hadn’t been listed as a cover or a convenience, but that he was most likely the father of Robert.

It is unknown, how the implications of her son’s birth played out within the family. There is no doubt Emma was further ostracized now, not only by the people in town but her family. Having a child out of wedlock was forbidden, taboo, the worst stain on a woman’s honor. Emma had gone one farther and had a child with her own brother. Black sheep indeed! Not forgetting of course her brother had taken advantage of her fragile state and loneliness. No doubt more of the blame was placed at Emma’s door, her record with wild behavior couldn’t have helped, but her brother had equal if not more of the responsibility of what happened.

Emma continued to live with her parents, brother, and son, an odd choice, seeing as what had already happened. In 1918, her mother, often cold, stern, yet loving, died of stomach cancer. Two years later, in the 1920’s census, Emma was listed with her father, brother, and child Robert. Interestingly enough, she is listed under a completely different last name than her family members now, referred to as “Emma Lipensky” misspelled as “Lepensky,” and listed as widowed. There is no marriage certificate on file for Emma, and none that I could find despite numerous searches. Later, Emma “Lipinski” is listed as divorced on the 1940 census record when she was kept in the Rusk State Hospital. Was she really married? Was it just a cover for her child, living proof she was not a “pure” single woman? Was there really a Lipenski? If so, did he die or was Emma forced to divorce him because she was not of her right mind, and her family did not want it to be out there that Emma not only had a child out of wedlock, but was also a divorcee? This was yet another of the numerous mysteries surrounding her life.

Orphaned and committed

Emma’s father was broken-hearted after he lost his wife, and died only two years later. With her parents gone, it is assumed that no one was prepared to board Emma and her son. Regardless of when, Emma was placed in Rusk State Hospital in Rusk, Texas, not far from where I live today. She lived a quiet life there, no records remain but for a 1940 census record, placing her there, and identifying her as divorced. Once again, it is unknown where the “Lipenski” comes from, or if it was even a legal surname. My grandfather tells me the medicine they prescribed her evened out her illness to the extent she could function normally. My grandfather said he believed it was lithium, but we can’t be sure.

It is unlikely that the hospital would allow marriages within, between patients, and so I hypothesize that the marriage/fabricated marriage had to have happened between her parents’ deaths and placement in Rusk State Hospital. The “divorced” or “widowed” question could be answered with the social stigma or Emma’s unbalanced mind when it came to completing government documents. Her son Robert was most likely cared for by family, maybe even his uncle/father.

Robert entered into World War II, after legally changing his name to Robert A. Carson. He didn’t want any ownership to that name he had owned previously, and who could blame him? He left and never returned, his family never knew what happened to him.

His mother spent most of her life at Rusk State Hospital, the grounds beautifully covered with golden brown leaves covering old fashioned, carefully crafted white buildings with cracked façades, overlooking the spacious area. It wasn’t unpleasant, an outside look at least. I didn’t try to get past the opening gate; I didn’t have anyone to visit, and didn’t want anyone to tell me not to take pictures. It didn’t look like an unpleasant place to spend your time, but I’m sure the majority of her experience wasn’t tied up in enjoying the scenery, and have no idea as to the medical procedures and practices towards schizophrenics at the time.

Niece to the rescue!

Shortly before her death, Emma’s niece Oretha Mae Rice came to see her, the daughter of Wilhelmina Schulz, Emma’s older sister. She decided in an apparently unplanned fashion, that she was going to sign Emma out of the hospital. It is unknown when this was, but possibly after Oretha’s divorce in 1985, when she would have been lonely and it would have been more possible to have her move. Maybe she felt pity for Emma, having spent her entire like in the hospital. Maybe she was lonely, who knows?

Oretha drove Emma away from Rusk State Hospital, where she had spent decades of her life, to Beeville, Texas where her brother Jesse lived with his wife. Perhaps she took Emma around to the other siblings as well, introducing her aunt to her now extended family. Jesse knew who Emma was, and kept to what his mother had warned him, when he saw her and Oretha pull up to the house, he stayed in the porch swing next to his wife, and ignored them. Oretha saw he wouldn’t greet Emma, and drove away. He never saw her again.

Emma was entered to a nursing home in town by Oretha, and most likely visited regularly. It was when she had a regular visitor that she died on October 29, 1986 in Beeville, Texas, when she was 91 years old.

There are some questions that will never be answered about Emma, or the role she played in her family, or even how her illness and actions were affected by the culture and time period she lived in. Most of her will remain a mystery, but at least I know I’ve found all I could.