FEST Writing Group

Lawson Jr and McLean

In the last chapter, I asked whether one’s emotional maturity or integration is lessened when an individual automatically fills a need in the family. I chose to begin with my maternal grandmother, Fannie McLean, who was born number 8 after number 7, a brother with Down Syndrome. She became his champion and defender. It was almost as though she was born to fill a need in the family. As an adult, she accomplished her goals for low income children who, in some ways analogous to her older brother, lacked the opportunities open to others.  Though her early relationship with Walter and the family support for it inspired her accomplishments, was there also a cost in emotional maturity?

What I have learned about Fannie McLean’s older siblings has led me to wonder whether some of them had higher levels of differentiation of self than she had. Some of the undifferentiation of the family may have formed around number 7 and number 8, perhaps due to the increased upset and confusion in the family around the birth of a Down Syndrome child in 1890.

As I wrote in the last chapter, there are examples of people who go on to do great things, more than they would otherwise have accomplished, by being driven by the family emotional process. While they may develop a talent, or lead a government, is their emotional maturity less?

Fannie McLean did good work and tried to live a life of principle. She was admired for the frugality and simplicity of her personal habits, as well as for her lifelong efforts to benefit others. Evidence for her emotional immaturity, how her position in her family may have limited her development, shows up, not as much in her work, or even in the radical actions that sometimes accompanied her social activism, but in her marriage and her parenting.

This chapter is about Fannie McLean and Lawson and their sons. They had four children, Mary, Lawson Jr, McLean, and Marty. My aunt Mary and my mother will each have their own chapter because their stories figure greatly in the future story of my family.

Fannie McLean and Lawson wanted different things from life, according to what Fannie McLean and her son, McLean, told me separately. While Fannie McLean tended to be serious and strict, her husband was more fun-loving. He was more interested in enjoying life than in changing the world. It was probably his idea to dress up as a woman and Fannie McLean to dress as a man in the photograph I have of them in the early 1920s. He was born between two sisters and was close to his mother.  His affectionate, easy-going approach to life and his natural respect for women made him an ideal spouse for Fannie McLean.

Born in 1889, three years older than Fannie McLean, born 1892, Lawson lost his store that had been part of his inheritance as the only male heir with two sisters and was forced to find a job in his late 30s to support his young family. The only job he could find in the late 1920s was as a high school math teacher in Dyersburg, Tennessee. He had not planned to work as a teacher, but he was college educated and able to teach math. The family had been unhappy that they had to move to Dyersburg and always planned to move back to the rolling hills of the Cumberland Plateau. Lawson was well liked as a teacher and taught for almost 20 years until his sudden death in 1946 at age 56, leaving Fannie McLean a widow at 53.

Fannie McLean took a dominant role in the family, especially in raising her sons. Lawson went along with her, and if he undermined her strict parenting of the boys, it was only in an occasional wisecrack or joke or smile, communicated mostly to his younger son, McLean. A comment made directly to her would have been meant at most to tickle her seriousness, and she likely ignored it. Lawson would then back down and express full support for her views, which were strong and even radical for the time.

There was no open conflict in the marriage, and I don’t think it would have been tolerated. Lawson often experienced indigestion and had to leave the dinner table. Fannie McLean told my mother that this was because of the misbehavior of the boys. That there might be tension between the parents was never suggested, and at least by my mother never thought.

The oldest boy, Lawson, Jr, made an intense effort to meet his mother’s expectations. Fannie McLean could transfer her drive to help her brother to her first son. She would have felt gratified by Lawson Jr’s intelligence and his eagerness and ability to learn. Later in life Lawson Jr told me that he had tried to be perfect and became a perfectionist. He was written up as a child in the Dyersburg newspaper for being a good citizen. He practiced piano. He made good grades. He grew up to be a college professor and worked for a time with NASA. He married and had three children. As a young adult, he appeared to be doing well. His difficulties in life would appear in his relationships, especially in marriage and in parenting his children.

Lawson Jr identified with the seriousness of purpose of his mother. Aspects of her that could be described as harsh or severe became more exaggerated in Lawson Jr, though only expressed in close family relationships. He was mild-mannered and cordial in professional relationships with students and colleagues, but lost his temper with his wife and children, finally solving his anger problem by avoiding them, his sons told me. His father’s light-hearted comments may have seemed to him to undermine Fannie McLean, and perhaps he picked up on his mother’s hidden irritation. As a young man he was in the Army during WWII, and when he came home on leave, he had angry arguments with his father. After an especially heated argument, Lawson Sr who had a history of heart problems had a massive heart attack and died.

Lawson Jr’s dependence on his mother’s approval motivated him to be successful. As he reflected later in life on his upbringing, he commented to his brother, McLean, that he had learned his lesson too well. He had tried to meet his mother’s every expectation, and he had. But after she died, her approval was wrenched from him, and things fell apart for him without it.

Lawson Sr died the same week my mother was graduating from high school. She was the last of the four children to be leaving home for college, and a favorite of her father. Tension, hostility, and open conflict with his older son seemed to some to be the precipitating cause of his death. That Fannie McLean decided for him for years the kind of life he would lead, combined with the looming loss of the last child, my mother, may have had the greater effect on his health. My mother, a younger sister of a brother, mild and eager to please, would have been a respite for Lawson Sr from the often-stated strong opinions of his wife.

After his death, Fannie McLean was devastated. She never slept in her bed again; instead she set up a chaise lounge in the living room where she slept for the rest of her life. She asked my mother to reconsider her college plans and to find a college nearby, which surprised her, mother told me. It was unusual for Fannie McLean to ask for support.

Fannie McLean told me that after her husband’s death she regretted being overly frugal and strict and wished she had agreed to allow her husband more leeway and fun in life as he would have chosen for himself. She was a force in the marriage and family, known for her independence and responsibility for others. Her great grief and regret after she lost her husband is evidence for her dependency on him, unknown to her or others until after he died.

After Fannie McLean died unexpectedly at age 73 in 1965, Lawson Jr had increasing difficulty. His wife learned he had had an affair and met him at the door with a shotgun, he told me. His oldest son moved from Indiana to Louisiana and had little contact with his family for many years, becoming addicted to heroin at one time. Lawson Jr’s younger son developed chronic schizophrenia and was never able to work or move from home. His daughter, born between the two boys, did relatively well, raised two daughters as a single mom with limited resources, and went on to have grandchildren.

Lawson Jr enjoyed jazz music and knew the names of musicians and jazz melodies. He could identify bird calls. He began to show some odd behavior socially, for instance, bringing a young female student to stay with him in a motel at a family reunion at the World’s Fair in Knoxville in 1982, unaware, as he told me later, that it appeared to all of us that they were sleeping together. He asserted that he was an atheist. He adopted unusual, strict diets, mostly of nuts and seeds according to the family. While he had begun his career in Skinner psychology, he was moved to the Audiovisual department. He continued to be a generous support to his students who were his closest friends. He died after a fall that led to surgery and disorientation. He had had memory issues for many years, though it was masked by conscientious notes to himself. He died from Alzheimer’s Disease.

While Lawson Jr reflected his mother’s seriousness, his younger brother, McLean, identified with their more relaxed and fun-loving father. He became the rebel in reaction to Fannie McLean that his father had not been.

In reaction to the severity of his mother, in identification with his father, and in contrast to his perfect older brother, as McLean explained to me, he became a rebel. During the years when his mother joined the Temperance Movement, a teenage McLean was said to have placed an empty wine bottle on the mantle. He told me later that it was a full unopened bottle.

McLean, with whom I had many talks over years, acknowledged that he was influenced by the dutifulness and perfectionism of his older brother and set out to be the opposite. The brothers lived most of their lives at odds, as the unexpressed conflict between their parents showed up between them.

McLean, with the blond, blue-eyed coloring of Lawson Sr, was Fannie McLean’s favorite child. He was considered highly intelligent and original. Edna Hughes, the accomplished and perceptive cousin of Lawson Sr, remarked to me that McLean, though he lacked an intellectual career like Lawson Jr, was more intelligent than his brother. He spent time reading Greek philosophy and existential philosophy. He worked as a proof reader at the New York Times, but left his job in his 20s in the 1950s to play chess in Washington Square Park. There he saw Bobby Fischer burst into tears as a youngster after losing a match, he told me. A letter from the Times encouraged McLean to seek psychiatric counseling after he resigned.

McLean drew the greatest intensity of his mother’s feelings, from intense admiration and belief in his gifts, to frustration and disappointment. He had received a letter from his mother while he was in college, he told me, saying “A dark cloud followed me all day long.” McLean added with a smile “I was that dark cloud.” He dropped out of college. I found a poem Fannie McLean wrote to him, noting that his given name, McLean Jarmon, drew from the names of her mother and father. She ended the poem “All my hopes and dreams are wrapped up in you.”

He eventually moved from New York City to San Francisco, where a brief alliance with a bright young Jewish woman, Marjorie, probably equally unstable as McLean, led to her becoming pregnant. The baby was born in 1962, and McLean lived with us in North Carolina for a year in 1965 in order to avoid paying child support. Fannie McLean and her oldest daughter, Mary, hoped to obtain the baby from the mother. Their idea was that Mary, who had only one child and wished to have more, especially a daughter, would raise the baby, Jennifer. Fannie McLean in her early 70s traveled from Dyersburg to Los Angeles to visit Marjorie with this design. She reported later that Marjorie tried to shove her down the stairs. Marjorie’s report was that Fannie McLean had tried to seize her baby.

The family blamed Marjorie for her pregnancy, harbored the father to protect him from paying child support, and even tried to adopt the child and raise her as their own, leaving out the child’s mother. I met blond, blue-eyed Jennifer as a child of 12 when she visited her dad on weekends. She grew up to make straight As in school and to become a lawyer, perhaps providing more evidence for McLean’s high intelligence as well as Marjorie’s.

Lawson Jr and McLean were affected differently by Fannie McLean’s death. Lawson Jr’s functioning in life up to her death in 1965 was buoyed by her investment in his career successes, and his functioning diminished after the loss of his mother. McLean, who had rebelled in reaction to his mother’s pressure, had an opposite response to her death.

It was after Fannie McLean’s unexpected death that McLean found a job with benefits sorting mail, a stable job, though not the kind of job of influence his mother had envisioned for him. He supported his daughter and saw her every weekend, developing a strong bond which seemed to benefit them both. Once he retired, he kept a spacious apartment in the attractive Sunset area of San Francisco.  He and Jennifer would ride their bikes in Golden Gate Park. He remained active playing tennis and chess, along with some gourmet cooking, and did some dating at a Unitarian Church.

In an epilog, after the death of his mother, McLean became caught in a triangle with his sister, Mary, and her husband, Andy. He would drink too much, often saying aloud what others in a family group were thinking, including insults to Andy, the scientist he perhaps wanted to bring down a notch as he had his older brother. Lawson Jr, on the other hand, had great respect and admiration for Andy, an atomic physicist. His early admiration for his older sister, Mary, expanded to include her husband. McLean finally stopped drinking for a year in the 1980s to prove to the family that he was not an alcoholic.

McLean as an infant had stepped or fallen into the street of Pate Avenue and was run over by a car. Mary, only 5 years old herself, had been in the front yard and charged with watching him. McLean recovered, but all of his life he had an odd hole in his side that he would sometimes show us kids. The injury prevented him from going into the service in WWII, as his older brother had. Perhaps this limited his educational opportunities since he was not eligible for the GI Bill that had helped Lawson Jr and our dad as well. Years later he commented on the lack of status he experienced by not being part of the war effort.

My mother was the only child born in Dyersburg, in West Tennessee.  The rest of the family looked down on Dyersburg, while Marty grew up there and was to a degree a product of Dyersburg. She was considered not to have the high intelligence of the older three, to be rather silly, but pretty. She grew up to enhance the qualities the family saw in her. A lot was made of her dark complexion, and she was believed to be a beauty by the family. I think my mother was intelligent, and that it was her family’s view of her that interfered with her development intellectually. I wish I had been able to be a friend to her, but that was not to be.

My mother was born at the beginning of her mother’s mission to make sure that low income children had shoes and attended school, and Fannie McLean had less interest or investment in this fourth child who was born at an inconvenient time soon after the family’s forced move to Dyersburg. Mother told me that it was her father who would tuck her into bed at night. Her dad had grown up with sisters and likely enjoyed this little girl so different from her serious and ambitious mother.

In conclusion, the family story was that Lawson Sr was fully supportive of Fannie McLean’s new way of life after the move to Dyersburg. Fannie Mclean was headstrong and forceful. She believed that everyone should believe and see things as she did. It would have been difficult for Lawson Sr to change her mind, even about things he felt strongly about. He often had indigestion and had to leave the dinner table. The family viewed the two boys as the problem, something they had said or done had upset their father so much that he had to leave. Lawson Sr had grown up with sisters, and he was more comfortable with his daughters. He left the raising of his sons to their mother, who was intensely interested in them.

At the same time, Lawson Sr could not stop himself from having an opinion about Fannie McLean’s seriousness, especially in how she raised the boys. McLean, their younger son, described how Lawson Sr would make humorous comments meant to chip away at Fannie McLean’s seriousness. Fannie McLean, who believed that her strict views were upheld by the Bible and Christianity, would not have been amused by Lawson Sr’s humor, though in some circumstances she could have a sense of humor, too. She was determined to do all she could to raise her sons. She might have experienced Lawson Sr’s little jokes and asides, especially to McLean, as sabotage, though I think it likely that on the surface she ignored the comments.

The conflict between Fannie McLean and Lawson Sr remained underground, to be acted out in conflict between their two sons throughout their lives. McLean, who rebelled against his mother’s harsh views about alcohol and religion, joined with his father in making little jokes about them. When he and I had a picnic in the Viola cemetery where Fannie McLean was buried, he held up our carafe of water and quipped “Baptist wine.”

Mary was the child who was able to have a relatively realistic relationship with both parents. But it was her relationship with her mother that provided her with a favorable position in the family. Her mother viewed her as strong and capable. Both she and Mary focused together on the weaknesses of the younger three children. Fannie McLean carried forward her intense attachment for her older brother, Walter, along with her belief that he needed her guidance and protection in life, to her sons. Mary, as the oldest of the four, felt a natural protectiveness toward the younger ones. She and Fannie McLean took it a step further, too, believing in an innate lack or weakness in the younger children that required their vigilance. Mary’s success in life was in part due to her favorable position in her family. The younger children were brought up to believe in Mary’s competence, if not in their own.