May Mundt a Biography

(Mother and Daughter Circa 1945 - Laughter & May and grown up Joan – holding hands – Together - A Family)

But this temporary hiatus was not ever going to last. The next 6 years saw another 4 children, Rodney, Robert, Betty and Jeffrey, siblings to Joan, saw the diminishing of the ‘love’ of her husband toward May, and an increase in physical, emotional and psychological abuse towards her. There was the jealousy and the emotional control, where he was convinced that May was seeing other men behind his back. In her words, “he was convinced he could see the imprint on the pillow of another man’s head”. On one particular occasion, Jim got her down on the ground and put a foot on each of her arms and pinning her down then proceeded to beat her and kick her. He bruised her face badly. May describes it as being “belted about the head”. What did May do? What a lot of women did in those days; she simply took the beating, cleaned herself up and wore sunglasses to hide the bruises from her children and friends. She had to do this. She could not leave. She had 5 children and nowhere to go or no means of support without her husband. She did go to the Police, to Sergeant Joe Spooner to be more specific, and was told to “harden up and go back and make a go of it”. That she did. Of this traumatic time May says, ‘When you are young, you don’t know what love is like. You don’t know what a person is like until you get married” And of

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