Saturday's Child
by Ernestine L. Martin
$26.99, hard cover, 410 pages
Published: July 2004
ISBN 1880849-67-4

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This memoir is also “the story of two families.” Her father’s family, the Ritters, “enjoyed a comfortable, financially secure lifestyle” in New Jersey. Her mother’s family, the Whortons, had been among the first English settlers in North Carolina’s Craven/Pamlico county area. For the Whortons, “Life was a constant struggle with unending hardships. Nothing came easy.”

Sandwiched between an older and a younger sister, uncomfortable in her role as the surrogate for the son her father never had, and forced to endure the unrelenting disapproval of her histrionic mother, Teeny felt drawn to the Whortons. Some of her fondest childhood memories are of her summer visits to her “North Carolina family.” And she has other pleasant recollections of growing up in the 1930s and ’40s: Mandy, her beloved mammy; family pets; neighborhood friends and playmates; gypsies; the circus; and more.

When Teeny falls in love, marries, and starts her own family with the handsome, Pepper Martin, she believes that she has escaped, at least partially, the Gothic psychological entanglements of her immediate family. She finds, however, that not only has she failed to escape the negative influences of her father, mother, and sisters, but that her relationship with Pepper also has its dark side.

Ultimately, Teeny’s unquenchable spirit triumphs: “This is my story, the story of an insignificant person who worked hard to survive many difficulties as she traveled down the road of life and, finally, found peace and satisfaction in her own being.”