A MOTHER'S STORY
[an article I first wrote about 15 years ago and posted on Facebook. I repost it here today, on Mother’s Day, 2025]
On this Mother’s Day weekend I am remembering the story of a pioneering, passionate advocate for social justice. A woman “before her time.”
She grew up — living most of her early years in poverty — born a few years before the Great Depression started. She was the daughter of a silver miner, who struggled throughout his life to provide for his small family. Worried about the tolls that silver mining took on his relatives, through “consumption”, he did what he could to find other employment in the poverty-stricken hills of Idaho. When the Depression was its toughest the family struggled, and battled hunger at times. Her father was reported to maybe supplement his family’s income by bootlegging.
She was brilliant, the smartest in her class, and always seemed to have her eyes on the outside world, greater horizons, a woman well before her time. She learned a lot about this world, and politics from her beloved Uncle, who was active in the unions.
After graduating from high school, she traveled over 1,700 miles to attend college. She would become the first person in her family history to graduate from college. Her college days were difficult, though her parents often did not know how little money she lived on despite her scholarships; later they learned from friends that they would loan her a dime or quarter just so she could eat.
After college she started a brilliant career as a journalist, and this took her to great heights, earning accolades. But she took time out to give birth to seven children. Too anxious at home, she got involved in politics and became the Vice Chair of her state’s Democratic Party.
When her youngest son was able to go to kindergarten, she went back to work as a journalist. She quickly rose up in stature and ended up covering the White House and politics, along the way meeting several Presidents – Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon. She won several awards. Even while doing this she could never do this except with the byline that read “women’s reporter” and when she went to Washington she had to do so only if she was also covering the First Lady.
Her passion for social justice – perhaps fueled by her life path, or the poverty she grew up in, or just some inner strength – led her to fight passionately for civil rights her whole life. To cite one of many examples, she fought to integrate her home town, making sure that the first black family to live in her hometown could buy a house, despite fierce opposition. While working in journalism she fought with others successfully to get women admitted to the Press Club for the first time.
After winning several writing awards, she became aware that she was being underpaid, despite her great success. When she went to the bosses and demanded to be paid like her higher paid male colleagues they refused, and told “your husband has a full-time job, so why do you need the extra money?” She quit, again an early social advocate, and showing her courage.
Maybe it was the years of fighting those battles, or her genes, or living also with an alcoholic husband who subjected her to almost daily verbal abuse, but the inner demons did take their toll. Her alcoholism became debilitating. She also suffered from depression, and maybe today we would call her a “manic depressive” or bipolar, given her bouts of frenetic behavior, followed by horrific collapses.
She had a difficult fall on the street one day, and hit her head. Whether it was this fall, or some other trigger, she developed epilepsy and grand mal seizures. Because of this, and because the physicians kept giving her many pills to fight her many difficulties, she ended up needing to stop work. This sent her into a further spiral. At times, she would spend months in the hospital to treat her mental illness, and at least once tried to kill herself. In the latter years of her life, she likely spent more time in hospitals than at home.
As her youngest son, I always admired my mother Marian (“Toni”) Dunne McBride’s brilliance in her career and her passion for social justice. She also taught me everything I know about politics, through many, many hours of conversations I had with her. I was a sponge that would listen to her stories and theories, and I suppose now I was a companion to her during difficult, lonely times.
I would watch her at times have horrific bouts caused by her alcoholism and prescription drug abuse. A “falling down drunk”, several times I saw her have great falls, and break many bones. I won’t ever forget the time she broke a leg and had to be hospitalized, and while there learned that her mother had died. I visited her in the hospital and comforted her, and I don’t think I ever saw her so sad.
It was incredibly difficult of course to watch her collapse into the ravages of alcoholism, prescription drug abuse, depression. It took a toll on me, as my older siblings noticed and they urged me to leave the house when I graduated from high school, which I did.
In typical fashion my mother lashed out at me when I left the house in a tirade that for some reason we happen to have on tape. My mother was a very difficult person at times, and when she got into an ugly mood, she would strike out at people, even those she loved, like her seven children. She would use the telephone as a weapon, calling at all hours of the day and night, often in a drunken, drug-induced stupor. To this day it makes me dislike the telephone.
After being married to my father for over 30 years, she demanded separation from him, and they lived apart. Though always verbally abusing each other, sometimes using physical violence (she was the one who used it), they probably suffered more by being apart than when they were together. They talked to each other on the phone every day, several times a day, despite the inability to live together. Both spiraled downward.
One early morning in 1986 I received a phone call that caused me to spring out of bed since it was around dawn. My father was on the phone. I recall he simply said, “Timmy, your mother is dead.” She was 63 years old.
She was found in a bathtub, in which hot water probably been pouring into it for days, according to a witness who lived next door. We don’t know to this day what killed her for sure, since she had so many ailments, but the toxicology report said that she died with a lethal dose of alcohol (over 0.2) and prescription drugs in her system. That was enough for authorities to list as a cause of death.
Losing a parent before you are 30 years old (I lost both before I was 30 years old) is very difficult. I went into mourning for several weeks or months. At times even years later I resented my friends who had their parents nearly their entire lives, even into retirement. I longed for the ability to call up my parents and ask them for advice or help or just talk.
Hearing all the stories about how difficult childhood was for all of us in my family many of our friends feel sympathy. I won’t sugar coat it, and, if anything, it was worse than what I write here. But these two brilliant, troubled, passionate parents produced seven remarkable children, who have a long list of accomplishments. Four are professors, two are lawyers, one is a doctor and five are teachers (including the professors). Combined, these seven children have 17 college degrees or advanced degrees, which is a remarkable testament to the woman who was the first in her family tree to get a college degree. Clearly these troubled individuals did something right or there was some secret to success.
My mother's incredible life has taught me a lot about what I needed to know to do what I do. I saw her at the pinnacles of success, and at the very bottom. I know now that what she suffered from was a set of illnesses that at the time were not well understood, and stigmatized. She was not treated well by the medical profession, who over-prescribed her. She fought against the glass ceiling but never forgot to fight for those who had less than she did. All this was great training for a professor in a school that studies public health, social policy and social work.
I never have resented or felt hatred towards my mother despite the troubles. I chose to focus on the great gifts she gave me. She gave me her incredible intellect, her passion for social justice, much if not most of what I know about politics and policy, now my chosen profession, and much more.
Happy Mother’s Day Mom and love always, your son Timothy.
______
Marian Dunne McBride was born in 1923, 102 years years ago. She passed away in 1986 at age 63 (see obituary).
