Coat Hangers-A Death Becomes a Symbol

 

Joannie told about hearing her mother’s screams from the bedroom and

when she went in to help, she saw her father with his hands around her mother’s neck.

 

During the Vietnam War on 8 June 1972, an iconic photo was taken. It showed naked nine-year old Phan Thi Kim Phuc running away from napalm bombs.

A picture is worth a thousand words. The anti-abortion movement uses photos of fetuses to make the point that babies are being killed. 

Not used as often, but still seen on posters at pro-choice protests, is an equally discomforting if not shocking photo of Gerri Santoro on the floor, next to the bed in a Norwich, Connecticut, motel. She is naked, in the position of a frog, blood coming out of her vagina. Her head is turned to the right. Her right hand is covered with what might be a pair of underpants. Her purse is in the lower right-hand corner of the photo.

She is dead.

She bled to death after her boyfriend failed to abort her 8 June 1964. The medical examiner ruled her death was caused by an air embolism from an unskilled surgical procedure. 

Why Gerri Needed an Abortion

Gerri Santoro was 28, married, the mother of two daughters, Joannie and Judy.

She might have passed into oblivion if Ms. Magazine had not printed that photo in April 1973 along with a story about abortion. According to Roberta Brandes Gratz at Ms., they thought the woman was anonymous.

Leona, Gerri’s sister and a Ms. subscriber, recognized her sister. Her first reaction was horror at her sister’s exploitation.

Over the years her opinion changed.

In 1993 she participated in a pro-choice march carrying a sign with that photo and the words, “This was my sister.” Gerri’s photo, when she was a smiling, healthy woman, was on the other side of the sign.

Leona participated in a documentary called Leona’s Sister Gerri, made by Jane Gillooy (See my post in a few days) in 1995. Her daughters, brother and best friend, Joyce Garboni, also appeared.

Gerri was one of five girls in a 15-child family of Ukrainian descent. They lived on a Connecticut farm.

Leona described her sister as a kid who loved to climb trees. A brother remembered Gerri rushed through morning chores to be able to get to the bathroom first to have enough hot water.

Joyce Garboni was her best friend from the day they met on the school bus. During high school, they worked nights at a factory making condensers for radios, which gave Joyce enough money to buy a 1949 Dodge. The girls would cut classes and change in the car from the school dress code requiring skirts into jeans. Often, they went to the Windham Diner.

Joyce planned to marry in September, after graduation. Gerri kept saying that she would beat her friend to the altar even though she didn’t have a boyfriend.

Then Gerri met Sebastian (Sam) Santoro at a bus stop. They married 18 September 1954, one week before Joyce did.

The saying, “Marry in haste, repent in leisure,” applied to her marriage. What Gerri didn’t repent were her two daughters, Joannie and Judy.

Sam had been put in an orphanage along with his brother when his widowed mother could not cope with four children. His mother kept her daughters, which may have explained his treatment of women. The reason behind his actions did not make Gerri’s beatings any lighter. His daughters were not exempt: Joannie and Judy often had a belt applied to their behinds, far too much, according to Gerri’s brother.

Joyce told how negative Sam was about everything, liked by no one.

He worked in a meat room and was subject to terrible headaches, which Gerri used to explain his negative attitudes.

Sam believed if they moved to the better climate in California, it would help his headaches. Although Gerri was reluctant, she gave in, driving herself and her daughters across country after Sam had settled there. Joannie remembers how much fun her mother made the trip.

California did not improve her marital situation.

An Abused Wife Looks for Happiness

Joannie told about hearing her mother’s screams from the bedroom and when she went in to help, she saw her father with his hands around her mother’s neck. When Sam saw Joannie, he told her they were playing a game, an excuse that she heard more than once. Her mother seemed to go along with it, although Joannie wasn’t convinced.

Coming home from school in the spring of 1963, Joannie found their car packed. The two girls and Gerri returned to Connecticut without saying goodbye to their father.

This period was a happy time for Gerri’s daughters. Joanie remembers how much she loved the bedroom in her grandparents’ farm house where they lived without their father. She loved how her mother came in mornings and rolled up the shade, the flowers, the smell of the grass.

Judy’s memories of that time were how her mother always smelled of Juicy Fruit gum.

Gerri found work at the Mansfield Training School where she met Clyde Dixon. They became lovers.

Joyce said she understood why. He was everything Sam wasn’t, a talker, pleasant, except he was also married. 

Looking for an Abortion

Gerri found herself pregnant. She asked Joyce if her husband could get her some ergot, a fungus that grows on rye which had been used through the ages by midwives and doctors for abortions. She claimed it was for a friend.

Joyce believes that the ergot wasn’t for a pregnant “friend” but for Gerri. Over the next few weeks she debated confronting Gerri. The day she decided to do it, she went to Gerri’s house and found her friend not well. When Gerri told her that the “friend” was no longer pregnant, Joyce dropped the subject.

No one knows if Gerri was ill from the ergot or not. We know she did not abort the baby.

Time was running out. Sam had written a letter saying he was coming home and he wanted to take the girls to the beach for two weeks. Gerri expressed fear that if he found out she was pregnant by another man, he would kill her.

Clyde Dixon talked with Dr. Milton Morgan, who told him how to do an abortion and loaned Dixon the instruments. They decided that 8 June 1964 would be the day.

Joanie remembers her mother leaving that night. She begged to go with her. When her mother said “no” Joannie hid under a blanket in the backseat of the car. Her mother saw her and sent her back into the house.

No one knows where things went wrong. When did Dixon abandon Gerri? Was it when she started to bleed out of control? Was it after she died?

Leona, who had been at her brother’s that night, came home to be told that Gerri had called her and was crying, but said she would call back later.

She never did. 

The Children and Family Suffer Too

The girls remember being told that their mother had died in a car accident. Joannie said it didn’t make sense because the car was in perfect condition. The story changed to being hit while walking. Only later did they put it all together.

When the photo of Gerri on the floor of the hotel room became public, Joannie originally reacted negatively to the treatment of her “beautiful mom,” but later she became active in the pro-choice movement, marching in pro-choice events.v

Judy admits having an abortion as a teenager. She says she believes abortions are wrong and she will have to answer for what she did. At the same time, she is not willing to make the choice for any other woman.

The film shows Gerri as a loving mom. The girls talk about her always making their Halloween costumes. Joannie says she does the same thing today for her own children.

Clyde Dixon spent a year in prison and returned to his wife and family. He died in 1979. Sam Santoro died the year previous.

Note: This is a chapter from my non-fiction book Coat Hangers and Knitting Needles, about abortion before Roe v. Wade. Over the next few weeks, I will publish all the chapters. Borrow freely if it will help reinforce anything that allows women to control their own bodies, a right that is systematically being taken from American women.