The trip from the orphanage to the juvenile home had been fairly quiet.  Mr. Guold hadn't said a thing to me once we had gotten into the car.  The trip had taken the better part of four hours.  For the whole trip, all I had done was to sit and look out my window at the fields as the miles rolled by.  For the entire trip, I had sat that way looking out the window not saying anything, my head turned away from Mr. Guold.  That way I could block out he was really taking me to the juvenile home.  Trying to pretend I was only out for a ride.
    I didn't get to ride in cars much.  It seems every car ride I had ever had, I was either being taken somewhere different to live or I was being returned from running away.
    The first ride I could remember was when after my dad had died they had taken my brother and I to our first foster home.  After that there had been two more foster homes before we had been committed to the Iowa Solders' Orphans' Home in Davenport.  By then my brother was five and I was seven years old.  A year later, when I was eight there had been the ride across the state to my adopted home and when I was nine the trip back to the orphanage.  Any other time I had been in a car was when I was being returned from running away.  So by the time I was eleven I hadn't rode in cars much.
    The State Juvenile Home in Toledo, Iowa, like the orphanage was a state institution.
    The juvenile home was for "Dependent and neglected children."  As it turned out I was to be the only orphan boy there.  Well that is what they called me and how they treated me even though I had a mother.
    After my dad had died and I was taken from my mother, I hadn't seen her more than three times in the last five years.  Mostly because they didn't want her to see me.  They had told her, me seeing her was too hard on me.  So when they called me an orphan boy I knew my mom existed but barely.
    In the juvenile home there were about three hundred boys and girls.  About twice as many boys as there were girls.  There was only about ten of us boys who were eleven and they had kept us pretty much isolated from the rest of the institution.
    I guess I was about the worst there was.  Anyway that was the impression I got from them when I was taken to the juvenile home.  I know one thing I wasn't a tough kid, I was scared and there were tears in my eyes.  I definitely wasn't a defiant boy, I didn't talk back to any adult.  I had no attitude problem then or since.  That was one lesson Ms. Gruber had taught me a little over two months before I went to the juvenile home.
    On August 17, three months after my eleventh birthday I entered the Iowa State Juvenile Home in Toledo, Iowa.
    It had been mid-afternoon as we drove up the driveway of the juvenile home and I had gotten my first look at my new home.  I had not yet realized I had been there before.  My gaze first landed on a large three story sandstone building.  It had an old forbidding look about it
    As Mr. Guold parked the car in front of the building, in a space marked, "For Official Business Only," I seen some boys come out of the building, form a double line and march away.  The building I was to learn later served as the school and the administration building.
    Since there wasn't a handle on the inside of my door, I had to wait until Mr. Guold walked around the car and opened it from the outside.
    Even though the sun was shining brightly as we walked towards the administration building, there seemed as though a cloak of darkness descended down around me.  I was apprehensive and scared.  I was trying to think of what Mr. Guold had told me back at the orphanage, that I would probably like this place better.  I hadn't known what he meant by "better."  Better than the reform school or better than the orphanage?  I had taken he meant better than the orphanage.
    After entering the building we went to the end of a long hallway.  The first thing I had noticed on entering the building, the hallways were dimly lit, were very wide and that the ceiling was well above our heads.  It didn't look like a very cheerful place to be.
    At the end of the hallway, Mr. Guold stopped and opened a door, then letting go of my arm, he motioned me to go in first.  Mr. Guold told me to sit in a chair, then he walked over to a woman in the office and handed her my commitment papers and told her we were from the orphanage.  They had talked for several minutes as I sat there in the chair, becoming more and more hysterical inside, almost to the verge of tears.
    Even though Mr. Guold had given me several whippings and I didn't feel he was my friend, he was the closest thing I had to a friend.  I was beginning to realize, he would be going back to the orphanage, leaving me there all alone.
    No, I didn't think Mr. Guold liked me too well.  For in my eleven year old mind, since he was the one who brought me to the juvenile home, he was mad at me and it had been his decision to bring me there.
    I heard him tell the woman (I should say, I mostly read their lips, for they were several feet from me)  "This boy is a chronic runaway.  Don't ever trust him not to run for the minute you do he will be gone."
    She had remarked that they had handled a lot of chronic runaways there and they had straightened all of them out without any problems.
    His remark to that had been, "This boy you might have problems with.  We have tried every form of punishment we could.  We have blistered his butt a lot of times and yet the minute we took our eyes off of him, he was gone."  Then as though to emphasize what he had said, "He has even ran off within minutes of whippings.  I hate to disagree with you but I'm afraid you are going to have trouble with this one."
    She hadn't seemed to agree with him, they were going to have any trouble with me.  "We know how to handle boys like him."  Had been her comment as she tipped her head in my direction.
    "Well I hope you can, we never had any luck with him."  Then he told her he would walk me over to the orientation unit, which shared a building with the infirmary.  She had replied that she would call ahead and tell them we were coming.
    As we walked to the orientation unit the tears started to come.  I couldn't hold them back for he was saying to me something like, "I tried to warn you something like this would happen, you were just asking for it.  Don't try and run away from here for they have a place here where they keep boys like you who run away."
    He hadn't clarified what he meant by that.  Now that we were here at the juvenile home his attitude had seemed to have changed so much.  Back at the orphanage he had seemed so conciliating, but now he seemed so distant, so harsh, so angry at me, as though he was washing his hands of me.
    By the time we had gotten to the infirmary, I was crying and pleading with him not to leave me there.  "Please Mr. Guold.  Please.  I'll never run away again.  Please don't leave me here."
    When we had gotten to the infirmary we found the door was locked.  So after Mr. Guold had rang the door bell we had to wait until someone inside came and opened the door.  As we waited I continued to plead with Mr. Guold with all of my heart, with tears streaming down my cheeks.
    I felt so tired and weak.  Like never before, I meant every word I said.  If only he would take me back to the orphanage and not leave me there alone.  I felt, I had been bad for running away so much and that they were punishing me.  I wanted him to know that I would be good, if only he would take me back with him.
    I didn't feel I had one friend in the world.  I had left all of my childhood friends back at the orphanage (what few I had) and Mr. Guold had made it fairly clear, he no longer wanted anything to do with me.
    The door was unlocked, I was pushed through and the door was locked again.  Mr. Guold was gone.
    The hospital was quiet.  The only sounds were my sobs as the nurse took me to a room where she told me to take my clothes off.  Seeing I was doing as I had been told she then proceeded to prepare a shower for me.
    After the shower, still nude, the nurse took me to another room where I was given a physical.  On that day, I was eleven years old, I had hazel eyes, light brown hair, it was almost blonde, I stood four feet, nine inches tall and weighed seventy-five pounds.  During the examination they discovered I was totally deaf in my right ear and the left ear the hearing was badly impaired.
    I knew at one time I could hear like everyone else.  I remember the night after my dad had died, I was laying on my back in bed with my mother, she had turned to me and had whispered in my right ear, "If you don't cry, I won't."  That seemed so long ago.  That had happen over six years before.  Over a half of a life time for me then.
    They had asked me if I had been listening to loud music, for it appeared I had nerve damage in both ears.  I had never listened to music except in church and school.  Once in a while I would hear one of the other boys back at the orphanage singing.  But none of that had been loud.  They had asked me if I had ever been hit on my ears, and I had told them about Ms. Gruber hitting me there a lot.
    The last time I had been in the orphanage, I had been there for eighteen months before they had sent me to the juvenile home.  As far as I knew, my hearing had been all right before I had been returned to the orphanage from my adopted home.  By the time I had entered the juvenile home, I was already lip reading to assist my hearing.  If someone stood where I couldn't see their lips, I could hear them but I couldn't understand what they said.  Not unless they were yelling at me.  Then I usually got the drift of what they meant.
    After the physical, I was given a pair of pajamas to wear.  Once I was dressed, the nurse took me upstairs to a room where other boys were reading and playing table games.  As soon as I walked into the room, I recognized it as a room I had been in once before, when on the way back to the orphanage from my adopted home we had stayed over night at the juvenile home.
    All of us "New boys" were taught how to make our beds each morning and how to do housework.  By then I had been in the orphanage long enough, I knew how to make my own bed and to do housework.  But several of the other boys had never been away from home before and all of this was new to them.
    Here we were told all of the rules.  They had been very similar to the rules at the orphanage.  I didn't have any problems with the rules there.  Well, except for running away.
    One of the rules was, "No fighting anywhere."  Even though I was eleven I had never been in a fight with another boy.  I was always quiet.
    Like the orphanage, they also had girls here in the juvenile home.  You were never to talk to them.  I never wanted to.  I guess that was for the older boys.  All of the other boys in orientation were older than I.  Some real old, thirteen or fourteen.
    I never knew why the other boys were there.  I never questioned it.  They never knew I was an orphan from the state orphanage.  Anyway I never told them.  I was soon to find out though they had come from home where they had both parents, or at least one who wanted them.  I was the only orphan there that had came from the orphanage.  I had no home or anyone that wanted me.
    When the thirty day orientation period was over with, I was sent to my first cottage, Turner Hall.  It was for the "Little Boys."
    For some reason they called all of the cottages "Halls."  They were all pretty similar in that they all had open dormitories, day rooms (sort of a community room where all of the boys could sit, read, or play table games.  There were no TVs, radios, or stereos) open showers as were the stools.  As in the orphanage, there was no privacy here.
    The three girls' cottages were built like Turner Hall but the other boys' cottages were built different.
    My cottage mother's name was Mrs. Beebee.  She was really old.  She must have been almost sixty.  She was about a foot taller than I was.  Probably about 150 pounds, maybe as much as 160 pounds.  She wasn't as big as Ms. Gruber back at the orphanage had been.
    I went to Mrs. Beebee's cottage about the last of September.  The first few months I had behaved myself.  I stayed out of trouble.  At least I didn't run away.
    The first month in the juvenile home, I naturally couldn't run away, for I was locked up in orientation during that period of time.  The first month I was in my new cottage, I first had to find out the lay of the land.  By the time I could have ran away, the weather had started to turn cold for it was close to the end of October.  So the first winter I was in the juvenile home, I didn't run away, not because I had a change of heart but because it was too cold.
    During that period of time, I had adjusted to the institution as well as most of the boys had.  I had stayed pretty much out of the way of Mrs. Beebee for I was quick to learn, she could quickly fly into a rage and pity the boy who was the cause of it.  I also quickly learned, what other boys said was true, "If she is dressed in dark, watch out."
    She was a lot like Ms. Gruber back at the orphanage had been.  But instead of using a razor strap, Mrs. Beebee used a section of horse reins (a strip of heavy leather about an inch and a half wide, much heavier than a belt) when doubled was about two and a half to three feet long.  Horse reins when applied to a boy's naked body can leave some very mean looking welts.  It is much worse than being whipped with a regular belt.
    It was around the middle of November when my mother found out I was no longer in the orphanage but had been transferred to the Toledo Juvenile Home.  They had told her I was, "quite a runaway problem."
    At the orphanage, she had been restricted from seeing me but at the juvenile home they played by a whole new set of rules, theirs, so they allowed her to visit me.
    A couple of weeks later, right after the first of December, she came to visit me.  I didn't know she was coming for she hadn't written to me.  She never wrote letters to me.  The first I knew she was there is when Mrs. Beebee told me to get my Sunday clothes on for I had a visitor.
    At first I didn't respond, thinking she must be talking to another boy.  No one ever came to visit me. "Peterson.  Are you going to get over here and get these clothes or should I tell your mother you don't want to see her?"  She had asked tensely.
    Then it hit me.  I did have a visitor and it was my mother!
    I ran across the day room to where Mrs. Beebee was standing in the doorway to the front hall.  Almost tearing my Sunday clothes from her hand, I ran downstairs to change clothes.  In record time, my clothes were changed, I was upstairs and out the front door, heading for the administration building, where I knew my mother would be waiting for me.
    It is strange, I never could remember calling my mother, "Mother," "Mom" or even by her name, not since I had been taken from her.  I never questioned why I had been taken from her.  At first I didn't even realize I had been taken from her.  Not for good.  I never asked her to take me home with her.  I never asked her why I couldn't go home with her.  For some reason I felt she lived one place and I another.  I never questioned it.
    I had rushed up to her and she had hugged me and kissed me.  I felt a little awkward about that.  I was a little too old for that kind of stuff.  But it had felt good.
    There had been a man with her.  I didn't know who he was and I hadn't paid him any attention.  We could only visit for about three hours, then they had to leave for the visiting period was over with and I had to return to my cottage to get ready for supper.
    While my mother was there, we talked mostly about me.  I believe that was all we talked about.  Nothing about where she lived or what she was doing.  She asked me things like, how school was, how was the juvenile home and how I liked my cottage.
    I gave her all of the right answers.  I liked school, which I did.  Oh, the juvenile home was OK.  My cottage was fine, I guess.  I didn't see any point in telling her how I really felt about everything.  Before my mother had left, she had given me a Bible for Christmas, though Christmas was still a few weeks away.
    Christmas came and went.  There was nothing special about it.  There is never anything special about Christmas in an institution.  We had a few decorations, Christmas diner, had church service that day.  But there had been no tree, no presents when we had gotten out of bed in the morning.  No there was nothing special about Christmas that year nor was there anything special about New Year's Day, it was only another day.
    By the first of February, I had not felt the sting of those horse reins nor the bite of Mrs. Beebee's temper.  I had been taught well by Ms. Gruber at the orphanage what the proper attitude to have while near any adult.  I feared Mrs. Beebee enough never to get her mad at me.  I definitely had no attitude problem.  Not where any adult was concerned.
    Shortly after the first of February, five months after I had gone to the juvenile home, four months after going to Turner Hall, I became sick and had to stay in the infirmary.
    I was put to bed on the Boys' ward.  There were about six or eight beds on the ward and I was the only boy there.  Even if there had been other boys there, I doubt I would have sat around talking to them for I had soon fallen asleep.
    It was later that afternoon when I was awakened by the doctor and a nurse that was with him.  I had been sleeping on my stomach with my head turned sideways, laying my left side of my face on the pillow.
     The left side of my face and my pillow was covered with blood.  I had a nosebleed while I had been asleep.  When the nurse saw the blood, she said in sort of an angry voice, "Just look at what you have done.  You have ruined a perfectly good pillow."
    I had felt guilt and shame I had ruined the pillow.  I hadn't meant to do it and all I could say, "I'm sorry Mam, I didn't mean to do it," in somewhat of a pleading and sorrowful voice and with tears in my eyes as I looked at the pillow.  I didn't want her to be mad at me.
    The doctor asked me, "Does your face hurt?"
    I was now laying on my back with my eyes filled with tears, for I felt they were both mad at me.  I hadn't answered him right away and he had sat down on the edge of the bed beside me and asked again, in a more concerned voice, "Where about does it hurt?"
    Taking both of my hands, I placed my fingers on my cheeks just below my eyes.  "It hurts here, Sir," I replied.  His calm voice had seemed to make me feel a bit more at ease.
    He got up from the bed and as he walked towards the door to leave, I heard him say to the nurse, "He may have sinus troubles."  His voice trailed off as he and the nurse went through the door and down the hallway.
    The nurse returned with a pan of warm water and a washcloth.  She never said a word. I could feel she was upset with me and I didn't want to say anything for fear she would get more angry with me.  The blood on my face and hands was dry by now and at times she had to rub sort of hard to get all of the blood off of me.  Once I was clean she took my pillow and the pan of water and left the room, returning a short time later with another pillow for me.
    A couple of days later the nurse came into the ward carrying my clothes.  They were coveralls like all of the boys in my cottage had to wear.  There wasn't any other boys on the ward so I knew she was bringing them to me.  As soon as I seen the clothes my heart sank, "They are sending me back to my cottage," were my frantic thoughts.
    It wasn't I was getting into any trouble at my cottage, it was that I didn't like Mrs. Beebee and I was afraid I would get into trouble there.  Here at the hospital I felt a lot safer and a lot more at ease.
    I was laying on my bed when she had come in, as I did every day I was in the hospital.  I never ran around for fear they would think I was well enough to return to my cottage.  There had been nothing to read, no TV to watch, nor a radio to listen to.  There were none of those things in the juvenile home, nor had there been any of those things at the orphanage.  It had been very boring there in the hospital but my fear of returning to my cottage had outweighed any boredom I had felt.  So I had laid quietly and took lots of naps.
    "Here, put these clothes on. You're going to the University Hospital in Iowa City."  She had said as she laid my clothes on the bed.
    When she had said I was going to Iowa City, she couldn't have made me any happier if she had told me I was going to be adopted.  I knew what the University Hospital was, for I had been there only a few months before and I knew it was a great place to be.
    "As soon as you are ready, come to the office for Mr. Urquhart is waiting for you."  She then turned and left the room.
    I had tried not to show my excitement while she had been in the room but now she was gone I flew into my clothes.  It didn't seem I could get my shoelaces tied fast enough.  I didn't know who Mr. Urquhart was but I didn't want him to wait.  Not that I was afraid he would get mad at me but rather I was in a hurry to go.
    It always seemed, if they knew there was something I really wanted there was always someone there to take it from me.
    Mr. Urquhart and I left the hospital and walked to the car that was parked on the street north of the hospital.  He hadn't held onto my arm as most adults did whenever they took me somewhere.  It felt good that I was leaving, as though I would never be coming back.
    I had a great deal of trouble looking ahead, even to the end of the day.  Today I was leaving, in my mind I had no vision of returning.
    It was only fifty, sixty miles to Iowa City but it had seemed as though we would never get there.  I had no vision as to what they were going to do to me but I hadn't been afraid of going to the hospital for I was getting away from the juvenile home.  That outweighed any fear I might of had of going to the hospital.
    On the way and while I was in the hospital, running away never entered my mind.  I wanted to stay in the hospital and never go back to the juvenile home.  So when we had gotten to the hospital, I tried to be as quiet and behave myself as much as I could.  After all, I was suppose to be sick, so I felt I should at least act that way.  I was hoping that Mr. Urquhart would leave me there and not take me back.
    I had quickly learned, any fears I had about going back to the juvenile home with Mr. Urquhart were unfounded.  Mr. Urquhart had taken me to the admitting office where he had told me to sit in a chair, then going to the counter he had handed a woman there some papers and talked to her for a while.
    He came back to me and told me to stay seated, that I would be staying for a few days so some tests could be made on me.  His parting remarks were, I was to behave myself while I was there.
    To me, it was a warning.  If I acted up while I was there, I would pay dearly for it when I got back to the juvenile home.  But that was someday and that was a long ways off.  I was happy that I was going to be staying in the hospital and his warning was soon forgotten.
    A nurse soon came in and after talking to the woman behind the counter, she came over to me and told me I was to go with her.  We went to the elevator and up to the third floor of the hospital.   Getting off of the elevator we turned right and I followed her down the hallway, past examining rooms and doctor's offices to the nurses' station of the ward that I was to be on.
    This was the "Ear, Nose, and Throat," ward.  There were no other boys on the ward, only adults.  To me, I was the only one on the ward that didn't feel sick.
    A nurse took me to a room where I undressed and took a bath.  Once the bath was over with, the nurse gave me a gown to put on.  I had never seen a gown like that before and I had put it on backwards.  The nurse had told me the opening to the gown went to the back.  Helping me, she had tied the strings for me.
    I didn't like the gown for even with the strings tied, the gown still showed much more of my backside than what I wanted seen.  Handing me a robe, she assured me once I had the robe on, no one would see anything.  Even then, I insisted on having pajama bottoms too.
    Once I had gotten dressed the nurse had taken me to the far end of the ward and showed me where my bed was and then took me out to the solarium at the end of the ward.
    Over the next few days several x-rays were taken of my face and various test were made of my hearing.
    I had even made several trips to the dentist while I was there.  The first time any dentist had ever done any work on my teeth other than to just check them.  I had several fillings put in and it had been on the first trip I had made to the dentist I had discovered the affect of Novocain.  Or I should say, the after effects.
    The dentist office was on the same floor as the ward was and after I had some fillings put in, I was on my way back to the ward.  My mouth had sort of felt numb but I hadn't associated it with the Novocain the dentist had used on me.  I was somewhat thirsty and seeing a drinking fountain ahead of me, not far from my ward, I stopped to get a drink.  The first swallow of water I started choking.  I became hysterical and started crying.
    A doctor who knew me, stopped and asked what was wrong and I had told him about being at the dentist and how after trying to take a drink of water I had choked.  He then explained to me the effects of Novocain and that it would soon wear off.
    The University Hospital was a teaching hospital for doctors and nurses.  So there had been many times I would have to sit in a room in front of interns and nurses, while a doctor explained my case to them.  There had been one time, I had almost choked on a giggle.  It seems the doctor thought there might be some thing wrong with the hearing test equipment or I wasn't playing the game right.  Several times during the tests I had faked hearing sounds when I didn't, to keep them from making me wear a hearing aid.  Hearing aids were only for old people.