The Stories About My Grandmother

Here are two of the many articles John Carlson wrote for the Des Moines Register concerning our family. I've copied and pasted them into the blog with permission from John Carlson. The first one was the story he wrote regarding her 90th birthday. The second was the story he wrote when she died. They both perfectly sum up and explain our family story better than I ever could. Thanks again John Carlson. If these articles have been put up with out the correct permissions, please let me know and I'll take them down immediately.

- Sunday, June 13, 2004

Headline: No one deserves a happy birthday more than Mary

John Carlson's IOWA

An Iowa family gathered for a birthday party a few days ago, celebrating 90 years of life for a fine lady.

They had cake, told stories of life back on the farm and shared some laughs.

There was a time, not all that many years ago, when anybody who heard of the suffering wondered if the Goedkens would ever smile again.

No family more deserves a happy time. No lady is more worthy of celebration than Mary Goedken, their mother, grandmother and great-grandmother.

She has been through more troubles than any 10 people should have to endure.
First came the death of an 11-year-old son, Tommy, in 1971, of the hemophilia that ravaged the family.

Then, beginning in March 1987 and continuing the next 10 years, came the loss of five more sons -Ernie, Carl, Dennis, J.J. and Loras -two daughters-in-law and a grandchild -all eight from AIDS.

The five sons contracted HIV after taking a contaminated blood product designed to treat their hemophilia. Dennis and Loras unknowingly passed it on to their wives. The baby, Clayton, contracted the virus from his pregnant mother.

Remarkably, few people in Monticello realized what was happening to the family. The country was just learning of HIV and AIDS, and much of the talk was harsh. It was, most believed, a disease confined to gays -certainly not something that would decimate a "nice" family.

The Goedkens, a stoic, German Catholic family, barely spoke of it, even amongst themselves.

Ernie died and the reason given was hepatitis. Others died and friends were told it was pneumonia or vague illnesses related to hemophilia. It was an unimaginable silent suffering.

Mary got herself to Mass every morning at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Monticello, just a few blocks from the little house she shared with her husband, Vince.

It was, she said, her strength.

I came to know Mary in 1993, when she and the rest of the family allowed me to tell their story in the Register. Every person interviewed, at some point, spent a few minutes talking about her. Not because they were prompted or asked. It was because they respected her so much and looked to her for strength.

"Mom's the strongest one of the bunch," Loras told me. "I guess she has to be to endure this."

Nobody doubted it.

People heard about the family tragedy and used words such as "unimaginable" and "horrific." No description seemed adequate.

Mary quietly led them through it.

She told me she did it through faith and, incredibly, without tears.

"I was afraid if I started crying, I'd never be able to stop," she said one day, sitting at the kitchen table, carefully turning the pages of photo albums filled with pictures of her dead sons.

Their story was told, and the community responded with a love and support none in the family could have imagined.

"People have been so nice," Mary said. "I'm glad they finally know what happened."
Vince Goedken, Mary's husband of 61 years, died in February 1997.

Loras was dead six months later, the last to be taken by AIDS. Mary was with him, at his home in Houston, when he died. She gave her son comfort at the end, and when he was gone, washed his body, helped dress him and said goodbye.

She came back to Monticello and, a few years ago, moved into a nursing home. Trips to church are fewer now, but the faith remains.

"She says the rosary three or four times a day," said Steve, her surviving son, the only one not born with hemophilia. "That's very important to her."

At 90, she tires easily but enjoys her life. And she gets confused from time to time, Steve said. "She'll say, `Why haven't Loras or J.J. come to see me?' Then I'll remind her what happened and she remembers right away. She just kind of shakes her head and wonders how that could have happened to us. But she's doing very well, considering everything."

The birthday party originally was planned as a community gathering, but the family thought it might be too much for Mary. As it was, about 50 family members were there.

Clare, a daughter, said it was a fine day for her mother.

"She had a wonderful time," Clare said. "People came from all over. Nobody wanted to miss it. Really, it's hard to imagine she's still here, given all that she's gone through. I'm really proud of her. We're all very proud of her."

I'm proud to know her.

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Headline: AIDS stole her sons; now `Mom's home,' too

John Carlson's IOWA

I'd been in this business nearly 20 years and was walking into what almost certainly would be the most difficult interview of my life.

What do you say to a woman who had lost four sons, two daughters-in-law and a grandson to AIDS?

The lady across the kitchen table in the tiny Monticello house smiled and offered me tea. A private, quiet person, she was uncomfortable as well, not quite certain of herself or what to say. So she did the only thing she was capable of doing.

She told the absolute truth about the unimaginable tragedy that had decimated her rural Iowa family.

It turned out to be a fine interview. For both of us, I think. She hadn't said much about it to anybody but family and clergy, and she opened up, answering every question, almost relieved to be able to say things that had been held inside for a very long time.

Mary Goedken talked about raising a family with six of her seven sons suffering from hemophilia, the youngest, Tommy, dying of the disease at age 10.

And how a blood-based treatment, something that was to make their lives so much easier, had infected five of her boys with HIV. And how two of those sons unknowingly infected their wives. And how a grandson was born with HIV. And how all but one had died of AIDS.

That was in 1993. Four years later, another son died. That's eight members of her family taken by AIDS in a 10-year period, more than any family in America to die of the disease.

Now Mary is gone. She died Monday at the age of 91.

One Iowan read their story in the Register and wrote a letter to the editor that read, in part, "They say God never gives you more than you can handle -I wonder."

I've known people who have talked about their faith being tested, that they didn't think they could endure whatever they were facing at the moment.

I wish I could have introduced them all to Mary.

Every day of her adult life -at least until she became too ill -she went to Mass at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Monticello. Her sons' funeral cards were always with her.

Faith, she said again and again, is what got her through it all.

That and strength, a tiny woman holding up an entire family.

"I live from day to day and keep going," she once told me. "I go to Mass every morning. That seems to be where I can get relief. . . . I just can't believe the six of them (her sons) are gone. I think about it, and I just can't believe it."

I got to know her a little better and felt comfortable telling her that I was amazed she could discuss these deaths in such excruciating detail without crying.

"I didn't cry," she said, describing how she coped with the 1988 death of her son, Carl. It's something that stayed with her through it all. "I was afraid if I started crying I'd never be able to stop."

Steve, the one Goedken son who was born "healthy," without hemophilia, shook his head in amazement and gratitude describing his mom.

"I marvel at her," he said in 1997 as the family prepared to bury Loras, the last to die of AIDS. "Until you're a parent, you don't understand what it might be like to lose a child, the heartbreak and the emptiness you must feel. And she's been through that six times. . . . I don't have an answer, except the obvious -a strong faith and the belief that they will all be reunited again some day. She believes that, and so do I."

It's hard to be absolutely certain what comes after death, and I certainly have no credentials to speak on that score.

But I'd like to think Mary and Steve were right, that very early Monday morning, a few seconds after Mary took her final breath, she heard a half-dozen very happy boys yelling the very same thing:

"Mom's home."