The Devil Takes Care of His Own

By Deb Simpson in honor of her mother, Ruth Milz. Birthdate: August 3, 1920

My mother grew up on the North Side of Pittsburgh, although she seldom describes the place that way: "I always resent that because it has turned out to be such an awful section," she says now. Her comment typifies the paradoxes that characterize her: a taste from Pendleton woolens and souvenir eggs cup, for white gloves and raspberry stockings. "Off Perrysville Avenue," she tells me to say.

When I tell her I'd like to write an essay about funeral homes, the slaughter house, and morgues-places she tells about while laughing heartily, she becomes serious and wants to tell me about swimming at the NcNaughter Elementary School. She remembers the school children swimming once a month "but those things get lost." She remembers the long walk from East Street of Perrysville and the mile-long walk home, up and down hundreds of steps worked into Pittsburgh's steep terrain.

The hillsides in the 1920s were tree-covered. Mother and her sister, Betty Jeanne "("Jetty Bean"), were absolutely forbidden to cut through the woods on their way to and from school. "Absolutely forbidden," Mother emphasizes. Pittsburgh was dirty: Coal-blackened branches left dark streaks on one's clothes. Still the sisters cut through the woods: "It made common sense to cut over the hill." New camel hair coat notwithstanding.

I insist on what I consider to be the real story: funeral homes. "Oh, well," she says, "maybe we did that once. I don't remember. But anyway Betty Jeanne and I looked for houses on East Street that had wreathes on their doors-purple for older people, white for children. They didn't use funeral homes then. The corpses were laid out in the front room, usually in caskets. BJ and I were twelve or thirteen, and we'd just walk right in, kneel on the bench, cross ourselves (we weren't Catholic, so I'm sure we did it wrong), and walk right out. That's all there is to tell.

"I don't remember much about the slaughter house either. That was on East Street as well, and we'd stop in on our way home from school. I remember there was lots of blood and a horrible smell. Cows were slaughtered there. I don't remember the name of the place.

And the morgue. We were older then. It was nothing like what you see on T.V. It was downtown Pittsburgh, probably in the county building. It was what we did after the prom," Mother continues without irony. "There they were-poor, homeless people, I suppose-five or six of them, laid out in a row on marble slabs. Their color was awful, the color of marble. We could see only their feet and face; the rest was covered by the white sheet. We'd arrive in our long gowns-the guys in tuxes. We had on corsages, and we'd say our uncle was missing, and we'd come to identify the body. Of course, they knew we were lying, but that is just what you did after high school proms."

She tells the story laughing again and then insists we change the tone. "Let me tell you. My friends were all Epworth League. We weren't a wild bunch. Yet you know what my mother used to always say about me: 'The Devil takes care of his own.'"