Free The Three Christs of Ypsilanti by Milton Rokeach Page B

to come to live with him. Leon refused. He went to work and held various jobs as paper-cutter, laborer, and finally as an industrial electrician in a large corporation. Mary quit working and now spent all her time in church or tending her flower garden. Leon gave her all his earnings. His mother described him as “a very nice boy. He did everything I told him to.” Things went this way until he volunteered for the army, an action his mother strongly opposed, of course. During his three years in the army he was in excellent health, except for an attack of dengue fever, which lasted a couple of weeks. He served in the Signal Corps, workingon radar reconnaissance. In four theaters of war, he earned four ribbons and four combat stars for exposure to enemy fire. There is no record that he had any difficulties adjusting in the army. He received an honorable discharge in 1945 as a private first class.
    Leon was described by his mother as being an entirely different type of person after his service in the army. She complained that he now attended dances, ran around, and in general refused to obey her. He had a photograph of a girl in New York with whom he corresponded, though they had not met. He announced his intention of marrying this girl, and when his mother was away, packed a suitcase and left for New York. He returned to Detroit in a few days, refusing to say what had occurred. He was later to tell us that the girl was a “prostitute.”
    He resumed his old job as an industrial electrician in 1945 and remained on the job until 1950. During this period he completed his education at a technical high school in the evenings and in the fall of 1948 entered a university. The vocational advisor in the V.A. commented as follows about Leon: “Veteran appears sincere, co-operative, ambitious, expressive, and emotionally stable.” Leon was interested in going into medicine but listed as alternative vocational choices: radio operator or repairman, social worker, psychologist. But his performance in college was very poor. He dropped two of his three courses, and completed only one satisfactorily. This ended his educational career.
    In the meantime Leon’s absenteeism from work became more frequent, and he was fired in 1950. The pattern was repeated on the next job, which he held for about two years and left in 1953. He had begun to complain of chronic exhaustion and thoracic spine pain. The V.A. diagnosis was “neurasthenia.” Leon was now unemployed and continued to be so for about ten months, until he was committed in April of 1954. During the period of his unemployment he was supported by his mother’s old-age assistance. There were many occasions during this time when there was insufficient money for food, clothing, and fuel, and the Gabors had to be helped out by neighbors and friends.
    According to one of our informants, Leon was “polite” to hismother and did not put up any overt resistance, although she was too strict with him. Only once did he show any signs of rebellion. One week in 1950, when he was still working, he refused to give his mother any of his earnings unless she cleaned up the house and cooked for him, instead of spending all her time praying or tending her flowers in the yard. Mary refused, for example, to let him buy a radio. Not only was it wrong, it would keep her from hearing the voices she must listen to. She felt sure Leon would get into trouble, that almost everything was sinful or led to sin. Originally she had wanted him to be a priest, but later she told him that he was not good enough.
    The evidence is overwhelming that Mary understood neither herself nor her son and was probably psychotic.
    While Leon was still in the service, Mary had made a down payment on a house across from the churchyard. She rented out the whole house except for the two rooms in which she lived with Leon, and shared the kitchen and bath with the tenants. Every inch of wall space was