Home » Crossing Fifty-One: Not Quite a Memoir: Excerpt

Crossing Fifty-One: Not Quite a Memoir: Excerpt

June 22, 2023 | By Women Writers Women Books | Reply More

Crossing Fifty-One: Not Quite a Memoir by Debbie Russell

Three Generations of Family Secrets and Midlife Crises All Set the Stage for One Dream to Come True.

A week before Christmas 1951, Dr. Ralph Russell risked everything to voluntarily enter a locked federal drug-treatment facility known as a “narcotic farm.”

Sixty-five years later, Dr. Russell’s granddaughter Debbie suffers a debilitating crisis of identity when her father (Dr. Russell’s oldest son), always her biggest fan, is accepted into hospice.

Debbie’s investigation into her paternal lineage reveals family secrets and ignites her mother’s volatile outbursts, propelling her into therapy.

When therapy fails her, the grandfather Debbie never knew saves her, and she collaborates with her dying father one last time to make her biggest dream come true.

Crossing Fifty-One pulls back the curtain on the internal struggles of midlife and provides a blueprint for redefining one’s self beyond the constraints of addiction and dysfunctional family dynamics.

EXCERPT

Over a decade ago, I realized that a life—any life—can be reduced to the contents of boxes. When my parents vacated the home where I grew up, they packed my childhood bedroom into several of those boxes that hold reams of paper for office printers. They also passed along to me boxes from their prior lives, lives lived before they met each other and became my parents. Several of these boxes also contained lives even further removed from my own—those of grandparents and more distant ancestors I had never met or barely remembered.

At the time, I accepted them with very little thought. I owned a darling bungalow with a basement and was far too busy living my own life to concern myself with other lives relegated to musty cardboard cartons. Eventually, though, my curiosity got the best of me. As a kid, I had always been interested in my lineage, and for good reason. It was exciting and colorful. My great-grandfather on Dad’s side had penned his memoirs, entitled Life Story of Calvin Parker Russell: Western Pioneer and Ranchman, as told by himself. The hardbound book exceeded three hundred typed pages. My great-grandfather had gifted a copy to each of his sons, which in turn were passed down. Dad was the recipient of one such copy.

I was delighted to take it off his hands when he and Mum downsized. Poring through it eagerly, I devoured three hundred pages of fascinating information about my great-grandfather. His younger son, my grandfather, took up less than ten of those pages.

I never met Dad’s father. He died of asthma at the age of fifty-nine, six years before I was born. Yet he abruptly sprang to life one day when I went down to the basement and lifted the cover of one of the boxes marked “memorabilia” in Dad’s easily recognizable scrawl. A plain manila file folder, bound with a rubber band, lay nestled among newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, and photos. Curious, I opened it. Within was a neat stack of letters, some handwritten, some typed. The first one immediately grabbed my attention:

Earp, California

September 18, 1951

Harris Isbell, M.D.

U.S. Public Health Service

Lexington, Ky.,

Dear Sir Doctor:

An article abstracted in the Modern Medicine caught my attention yesterday and prompts this inquiry today.

The last five years of my 26-year practice have been beset with bronchial asthma and a too frequent use of Demerol, barbiturates, and M.S. The last least of all and the first, most of all. I have been off and on Demerol six times, and this month have used 15 Grams 1 V along with 6mgms ACTH a day. No Demerol this week but have been fighting withdrawal symptoms with barbiturates and some M.S. although I seem to be allergic to M.S. To say the least, I have been quite miserable.

On account of the asthma, I have spent the last three years on the Colorado River desert, near Parker Arizona and Blythe California as Dist. Surg. For the Metropolitan Water District. This is rather an inactive job and the area is very isolated. My family have been in San Diego. Where my real practice (what there is left of it) is located. This has not helped my morale. I have given notice to go back to my practice the first of November. Now I wonder if it had not better be a trip to Lexington.

My asthma does not bother me as long as I take ACTH. That is, not a great deal. I do not know what it will be if I get real active, as I was during World War II. The bulk of my practice is obstetrics, having specialized in it in 1944 by P.O. at Columbia. (Margaret Hague Hospital, Jersey City)

May I have the benefit of your experience, by your comments?

Yours Truly,

Ralph S. Russell M.D.,F.A.C.S.

Dist. Surg M.W.D.

Earp California

This first letter of introduction was followed by an official-looking response:

FEDERAL SECURITY AGENCY

PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE

LEXINGTON, KENTUCKY

SEPTEMBER 27, 1951

RALPH S. RUSSELL

DISTRICT SURGEON

METROPOLITAN WATER DISTRICT

EARP, CALIFORNIA

DEAR DR. RUSSELL,

YOUR LETTER OF SEPTEMBER 18, 1951, TO DR. ISBELL HAS BEEN REFERRED TO THIS OFFICE FOR REPLY. THE CONTENTS HAVE BEEN DISCUSSED WITH THE CLINICAL DIRECTOR OF THIS HOSPITAL, AND HE ADVISES ME THAT THE PATIENT WOULD REQUIRE A PROLONGED PERIOD OF HOSPITALIZATION, AND NO ATTEMPT WOULD BE MADE BY THE MEMBERS OF THE STAFF OF THIS HOSPITAL TO PRESCRIBE TREATMENT FOR A PATIENT NOT ACTUALLY HOSPITALIZED HERE.

THERE IS ENCLOSED AN APPLICATION FOR ADMISSION, TOGETHER WITH A PAMPHLET WHICH DESCRIBES THE TREATMENT AT THIS HOSPITAL.

IT IS SUGGESTED THAT YOU COMPLETE THE APPLICATION, AND RETURN IT TO THIS HOSPITAL, AND IMMEDIATELY UPON RECEIPT OF IT, IT WILL BE EXAMINED AND IF ELIGIBLE FOR ADMISSION, YOU WILL BE NOTIFIED WHEN TO REPORT.

SINCERELY,

W.K. MCCURRY

ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER

CLINICAL RECORDS SECTION

BUY HERE

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Debbie Russell is a lawyer turned writer. She spent twenty-five years as an Assistant County Attorney in Minneapolis, prosecuting numerous high-profile cases and fighting off several nervous breakdowns. At age fifty-five, Debbie took early retirement, giving up a full pension for the freedom of time. She now spends that precious time writing, restoring her property to native prairie and wetlands, and training her rambunctious retrievers. Crossing Fifty-One: Not Quite a Memoir is her debut memoir.