Will his two bright kids make it? Or not?
6:36 PM 4/27/04
Dean Mosiman Wisconsin State Journal

A cat can barely slink through the cramped kitchen overwhelmed with dishes, groceries and clutter. <

Nearby, Marvin Hill, 51, sits in the living room of his basement apartment on Allied Drive watching TV in the early February dark. <

His wife, Sherry Kraus Hill, suffering from chronic illnesses she believes were caused by using crack cocaine, moans near Marvin as five more cats relax and roam the place. Sherry, who made the dream catchers hung from the living room ceiling and collected dozens of cuddly, stuffed cats piled along the wall, will die from respiratory failure six weeks later at age 42. <

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Their children are fit and attractive, strong cheekbones, long hair and electric smiles - when they choose to smile. <

The're bright, too. Marvin II, 16, just got an A in advanced algebra and Marissa, 14, aces math and wants to be an actress. Both are in a select program that can deliver a full-tuition scholarship at UW-Madison. Educators see great potential in them. <

But growing up poor in a troubled neighborhood takes a toll on kids, and it can echo through a school or a community. Marvin II and Marissa are like hundreds of at-risk children in Allied Drive. They could fall to the pressures of street life and continue generational bonds of poverty and dependence. Or they could escape to a different life through the classroom. <

The neighborhood is teeming with kids who could tip either way. <

Despite his abilities, Marvin II was thrown off the football team and suspended twice this school year. He was in a fight with an adult who was picking up a student after a mixer at Memorial High School last fall. He swore at an administrator because he felt he was treated unfairly when told not to cut in a lunch line. <

And Marissa? On this day, she hates high school. <

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"I want them to turn out better than I did. I want them to live their lives differently. That's why I tell them my story." <

- Sherry Kraus Hill <

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The family agreed to open their lives so that others can better understand the realities of innocent children growing up in their neighborhood. Marvin and Sherry could never escape what began when they were young. <

Marvin Hill grew up poor in St. Louis and quit school in the 10th grade. Marvin, given his mother's last name, served in the Marines with a hitch in Okinawa, Japan. <

After the service, he was unemployed and escaping into heroin. He moved to Madison in 1979 to try to start over. <

"I really wasn't working. I had really been messing around with drugs and things like that," he said. "I was trying to make a change in my life." <

Marvin eventually earned a general equivalency degree and got a job as a UW-Madison janitor. He's made money cleaning ever since, including the building where his family now lives. Marvin II and Marissa, who use the traditional family name, Harris, see their dad push a broom every day. <

Sherry, born and raised about 100 miles north of Madison in Neenah, left her alcoholic father at age 12 and lived a rough adolescence in and out of foster homes and on her own. She fell in love young. She got beat up. She got pregnant. She drank and drugged. <

"I grew up way too fast," she said in a room at Meriter Hospital a few months before her death. "I lived a wild lifestyle." <

For a time, Sherry lived in Oshkosh and made fast money as an erotic dancer in Green Bay. <

In the early 1980s, she fled to Madison for a better life, but for a while still made money with her looks. "I got a job easily, just like that, same day I arrived," she said. "I was gorgeous, 120 pounds, really pretty." <

Sherry, her then-boyfriend, and their daughter, Rochelle, who is now on her own, lived at the Sommerset Circle apartments - which was becoming one of the city's most dangerous places - off Badger Road. <

She later met and fell in love with Marvin, and they began raising a family there. They would not part until Sherry's death on March 9 this year. <

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After they met, Marvin labored as a janitor and Sherry, escaping her past work, stayed "barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen." Marvin II was born in 1988 and Marissa in 1989. <

Over time, crime overran the Badger Road neighborhood. And the Hills met people and got involved with drugs. "You just get caught up in things," Sherry said, stressing that the children never saw drug use. <

In 1994, police followed two men into the Hills' apartment and made a bust. "We knew em," Sherry said, insisting she and Marvin weren't dealing. "(They) came in to use the rest room. It really wasn't our stuff. We didn't know they had it." <

Marvin and Sherry, who had had occasional minor brushes with the law, both pleaded no contest to misdemeanor possession of cocaine and felony maintaining a drug trafficking place. They were sentenced to three years of probation and lost driver's licenses for six months. <

Around then, Sherry's lung collapsed, the beginning of health failures that would hospitalize and eventually kill her. She battled emphysema, chronic bronchitis and osteoporosis. The children lived Sherry's ills, too. <

Landlords eventually forced the Hills and others out of Sommerset Circle, which was sold and remodeled to the gated and renamed Parker Place, beginning a long, hard-fought recovery for the West Badger Road area. <

And like hundreds of others displaced from bad neighborhoods, the Hills wound up on Allied Drive, which was edging down its own spiral of despair. <

They had little choice. <

"At the time, no one wanted to rent from anyone coming from Sommerset," Marvin said. <

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"They are the most resilient kids I have ever seen in my whole life," <

- Spring Harbor Middle School <

Principal Gail Anderson <

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On his final eighth-grade report card, Marvin II got two A's, 2 B's, 2 C's and a D. <

And his teachers wrote, "A pleasure to have in class all year ... Late or missing assignments ... Very disruptive ... A great person to know and to teach ... Shows leadership qualities." <

Marvin II's grades usually are strong - he gets many A's and had advanced scores in state math and reading tests last year. He's athletic, musical and artistic - his father cherishes a vivid rose drawn for Sherry. But his school file is full of write-ups for disruptions, fights and troubles. In the seventh grade, he and a buddy released a brake on a bus and rolled it down a hill, taking out some signs. <

Marissa's grades are strong, too, but more erratic - three A's, a B and two C's in her first quarter of high school and an A, a D and two incompletes in the second. She has behavior problems, too. <

Marvin and Sherry said they tried their best. <

The couple, married in 1996, provided a two-parent home and Sherry made sure the children read and got their homework done. <

Until her health failed, Sherry worked at the former Allied-Dunn's Marsh Neighborhood Center, where she helped children with arts, jewelry-making and crafts, especially the dream catchers. <

"She loved to help people," Marvin said, tears clouding his eyes. <

And the parents tried to shield the children from dangers lurking outside their apartment door. <

Sherry saw the neighborhood's ills - the mentally ill man roaming the streets day and night, children in diapers in the street, evictions, fights, drug dealers, police chases - but could not escape. <

Marvin sees the same, sweeping up ripped baggie corners that once held drugs and getting asked to make buys. <

"I try to instill into them not to get too enthusiastic about the street because there's nothing worth anything out there," Marvin said. <

Marvin II's view of the drugs outside: "It's kind of bad. But we've grown up around here so it doesn't affect us much. You know what it can do to people, like my mom. It makes me think about the right thing to do." <

And on gangs: "Don't say nothing out of line, nothing disrespectful. They don't just bother you." <

Marissa, who can cite gang names as easily as the hip-hop performers she likes, mostly hangs with pal Ashley Lewis, whose grandmother, Sandra Watkins, is a pillar in the neighborhood. "Almost everybody has got my back," Marissa said, meaning people look out for her. "Plus, I know how to fight." <

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The chaos on Allied Drive often makes students too distracted and tired to learn, said Gail Anderson, principal of Spring Harbor Middle School, a small environmental science magnet school that draws students - including Marvin II and Marissa - from across the Madison School District. "It has a huge impact on their success," Anderson said. <

And more disturbing: "Marvin and Marissa by no means present the most challenging situation," she said. "There are kids who are so far gone I don't know how we can bring them back without some kind of divine intervention." <

The schools intervened with Marvin II and Marissa, identified early on as having special needs likely caused by their environment. <

No one knows if it's been enough. Their mix of high grades and acting up remains. <

Anderson, who has often picked the students up from home for events, admires them. <

She remembers Marvin II impressing teachers at his old elementary school with sparkling manners when she brought him there to promote Spring Harbor. And his frugally spending a $100 grant to buy an outfit for his graduation. And when a former teacher, Theron Sorgaz, returned to play a trombone duet with Marvin II at the school's final band concert, a performance his parents missed because Marvin was caring for an ailing Sherry that night. <

"He's the kind of kid who touches people," Anderson said. <

Now, Marvin II and Marissa have a rare opportunity in UW-Madison's People Program. <

The program, designed to increase diversity at the university, accepts about 100 students annually and requires a six-year commitment to after-school tutoring and summer programs beginning in the seventh grade. It leads to a full, five-year tuition scholarship. <

Marvin II and Marissa's potential is what makes it so demoralizing for their supporters when they get in trouble. <

"It's unbelievably frustrating at times," said Holly McGee, a People Program liaison to Memorial High School area students. "You can see the potential for greatness, not only for Marvin, but for many of these students." <

McGee believes Marvin II and Marissa will make it. "I know they can. I pray they do," she said. "If they don't it will be sickening, heartbreaking." <

But now the children are being raised by a poor, 51-year-old single father without full-time work and who is grieving. <

Near the end, Marvin told Sherry she didn't have to hold on for the family anymore. And he later saw her eyes open and a tear form. He believes she died at peace. <

The cats still roam the apartment and the future is open for Marvin II and Marissa. <

"Everybody's holding on," Marvin said. <

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Contact Dean Mosiman at dmosiman@madison.com or 252-6141, and Andy Hall at ahall@madison.com or 252-6136. <

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