A Brilliant Boy

 

Before Toledo and Detroit, my father’s family lived in Chicago.  There were rich relatives who owned lots of property in Hyde Park.  My father’s cousin Maurice was one of them. Maurice was a child prodigy who graduated as a teenager from the University of Chicago.  By the time he was twenty, he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. His family spent a fortune trying to fix him.

One night he showed up at our door. My father said, “Wilma, take the kids into the bedroom.  I’ll take care of Maurice and make some calls.”  I was excited: “Mom, why are we in here? Who was that man?  Is he nice?  Can I say ‘hi’ to him?”  I never found out why or how he was there.

Maurice eventually ended up at Elgin Mental Hospital.  He was in his fifties when Reagan emptied them all. He lived at a halfway house on Sheridan Road just a few blocks from here until he died a few years later. Because my father was gone, my family was next in line to get a share of his inheritance.

I think of him often as I drive down Sheridan.  If you can hear me Maurice, here’s how you played a part in our lives with the money you never got to enjoy.  I helped a husband start a new business. My daughter strapped on her backpack and travelled around the world. My son was able to attend a great music school.  But, best of all Maurice, your Aunt Mary met her husband Irving in the lounge of the hospital where she and your mother visited you every Sunday for all those years.

This is adapted from my book Joan Chandler Today.