Shreveport attorney, Louis Avallone, wrote “as a nation, we seem to be increasingly agnostic, apathetic, about doing what is “right” for fear of being considered politically incorrect, or otherwise offending another.”
When one in ten children are being abused I don’t understand how we can possibly turn our backs and sweep it under the rug. It’s not enough to say “let sleeping dogs lie” or “I don’t want to know about it.’
Unless you’ve experienced child abuse you cannot possibly comprehend the trauma, the dread of even going to sleep, in fear of being either physically or sexually abused.
My sister, Alice, and I lived in a church run orphanage, during the Sixties. We witnessed and experienced horrendous child abuse. For years Alice continued to wake up screaming in the night after her ordeal at the home.
My abuse was less frequent because I dared to report a housemother for unmercifully beating a ten year old girl.
Only God could have given me that raw courage to take action.
It took me thirty-six years to finally locate one of the sexually abused victims who had been removed from the home, in hopes of keeping her mouth shut. I constantly searched for her, because I knew she needed to talk, because they wouldn’t tell us where she was.
In June of 2001 I sat down in my recliner and said “I’ve got to find Sonja!”
I think I knew that would be the day!
With only two calls to directory assistance, for the state of Texas, I was given two numbers for her maiden name. The first knew nothing but gave me his mother’s phone number. She asked for the names of her siblings and recognized a sister’s name on her genealogy site.
Before the end of the day I had Sonja on the phone where she lived in Hawaii. She excitedly recognized my voice.
She needed to talk
I asked her to write her story for a book I was compiling. She was the reason behind the book even though many came forward to tell their stories!
In 2010 we published that book written by these children (many in their 50’s and 60’s) because they wanted to finally be heard. In June we also had a reunion and a book signing in Tulsa, where I first saw Sonja, after forty-five years.
We were interviewed by two television stations who were adamant that our stories needed to be told.
Also I told my story to the Aha Moment Tour that came through Shreveport in May 2013. I was grateful to set up an interview for Sonja Bilbrey-Alamia to tell her story, on the last day of that tour at Salem, Oregon, which is right where she now lives.
The orphanage has moved from Turley to Claremore,Oklahoma and changed their name. They also home school the children, making it increasingly difficult to report the abuse. In 2003 one little girl was repeatedly raped and sodomized by a house parent.
She was unable to report the abuse until she returned home. The man will be in prison until 2018. His name can be found in the Claremore, Oklahoma court records.
As I write I continue to question why anyone would not want child abused exposed. If we don’t protect children who will?
Contact Sarah at [email protected]