~~~Childhood or The Lack of~~~

I was born on election Day, November 4, 1952 in Oak Knoll Naval Hospital in Alameda, California.

Mind you, I have been a stubborn cuss since before my birth. My poor mother, had been in hard labor with me for nearly 52 hours. The doctors were about to give up and deliver me Caesarian section, when another doctor came in just to let my mom's doctor know that Dwight D. (Ike) Eisenhower had won the election for President of the USA. My mom's doctor looked at the other doctor and asked, "Who won?" He had barely gotten the response, "Eisenhower," out of his mouth when I literally flew out. LOL, talk about a Republican by birth:-)

My dad had been in the US Navy since 1944, when he lied about his age and swimming ability to join the US Navy and fight in the last year of WWII until 1958 when we lived in Port Chicago, California (before it was turned into an Off Limits Military Zone.) 

He was off the shores of South Korea when I was born, stationed aboard the USS Independence or The USS Enterprise (I can never remember.) But he had 
already told my mother that I was  to be named Linda, after the song that was made famous (or so I've been told) in late 1949 or early 1950, by the same name.

My mom said she made her decision for my middle name of  Ruth, by pure 
chance. She said she closed her eyes and flipped a bible open, stabbed downward with her right index finger and said the word under her finger would be my middle name.  SHEESH, I could have had Methuselah as my middle name........  LOL Thank goodness the Lord above took pity on me and led her finger to the book of Ruth and my middle name became Ruth.

My first memory is when I was 4 years of age. I remember being in the
hospital in a full body cast, with a bar stretched between my knees.  I remember the doctors and nurses being absolutely wonderful to me. And hating the thought of going home. I guess I remembered at that time what had put me in the cast and did not want to go home for more of the same:-(

I have since found out that the body cast was NOT the first time I  had been abused physically. I discovered at the age of 36 that I had a sewing machine needle buried in the first joint of the middle toe on my right foot. Seems it had been there since I was about 2 years of age. According to my mother, I had stumbled and just so happened there was a sewing machine needle lying on the floor where I stumbled and it went into my toe. She said she pulled it out. At least she thought she had pulled it all out. No she did not take me to the doctor. She seldom did. (which is why I ended up at 16 having my right ovary removed (read below.)) The only reason I was taken to the hospital when I was 4 and in the body cast, was because my dad heard me scream bloody murder when my left femur was broken in 3 places when my mother beat me.

Yes, you read right. I was beaten. 

My mother did not spank me, she beat me with whatever item she could 
get her hands on. Usually it was a razor strop that she had gotten from my grand father, her dad, who was a barber, other times it was a broom, a belt, electrical cord, coat hanger or worse. I was the only one she beat out of all 6 of us kids:-( My dad also beat me but then he beat us all. He used the razor strop also but he also used his steel toed boots on us. Let me tell you, when you've been kicked anywhere on your body with steel toed boots YOU KNOW YOU'VE BEEN Hurt!!

I do not have any good memories from my child hood. As a matter of  fact, my baby sister and I discussed it once, and found that of all 6 of us kids, I was the only one that could remember anything from before the age of 9. And those were all bad:-(

I remember that we seemed to move a lot. Never staying in any one place for more than a school year. It was not until a few years ago that one of my father's sister's told me that it was because some one would invariably tell the authorities that they suspected child abuse. And my dad would get word of the suspicions, and we would be moved, literally overnight.

I remember when I was 9 years of age and we lived in a very small town called Sheridan, California. I loved that town, the house we lived in (above a cemetery) and my favorite teacher of all time, Mrs. Russoe, I cannot remember the spelling of her name, but Lord, I sure remember her. She was an older kindly grand motherly type and she really cared about her students.

She would pay each and every one of us special attention every day. She never had a bad word or showed any temper to any one. I loved her so much!!!

But, that did not last long. I was raped by an 18 year old friend of  my oldest brother:-(  When I told my mother, she and her Jehovah's Witness friends, said I was lying and was bleeding vaginally only because I must have climbed a barbed wire fence and cut myself.

My next memory is when we lived at 314 Bell Ave., Sacramento 
California. I had to be nearly 12. I remember all of us kids (6 of us) were outside with my dad. It had to be either late spring or early fall. It was dusk. I was sitting on my dad's shoulders while wearing a pair of shorts. 

I remember that there were fingers in a place there should not have been. But did not want to make a scene. So I just sat there like an idiot. Later that night, I remember my father coming to my bed and doing things to me that no father should ever do to his child. 

The sexual abuse continued for over a year. And then my parents got into a terrible argument. I told my mother what had been done to me by ny father.  My mother called in her Jehovah's Witness friends (yep, the same ones from when I was 9) and they all made me get on my hands and knees and crawl to my parents bedroom, where my dad was ,  and apologize to him for making up such hideous lies.

God, I hated them all at that time. Even today the hatred wants to jump out all over again.

Sometime during the next few months I remember my mother blaming me 
for my older brother setting fire to a large area of North Sacramento, where we lived, and breaking a broom handle over my head.

I guess my oldest brother Tony, decided after my dad got away with  molesting me, that if my dad could molest me and get away with it, then so could he:-(

The sexual molestation by both my father and brother continued 
unchecked for 3 more years, when I was 15 and had finally had enough of my brother and called my dad at work and told him about Tony. He 
called the police, who arrested Tony, took me to the hospital where they did a rape kit on me and the next thing I remember was appearing before a psychiatrist and Tony being sentenced to a mental institution in Salt Lake City. (We lived in Grantsville, Utah at that time.)

We were only in Utah for about 9 months before moving back to Sacramento, California.

The molestation by my dad continued until 2 weeks before my 18th birthday and my wedding day. I took a large butcher knife to my bed that night and when dad came into my bedroom, l I pulled the knife and told him I'd kill him if he ever came near me again!!!  He must have realized that I was serious, and never came near me again!!

I only wished, I had that courage when I was 11.
 

I met Roger, my husband, through the mail. LOL yep sight unseen:-)) He was in the US Army stationed at Camp Ames South Korea. He was 25 and I was a 16 year old High School dropout. BUT I was not the typical drop out. I went every day to my State capital and helped my State Senator, 
Jesse Unruh and my Governor, Ronald Regan, by taking visitors on tours 
of our State Capital. Yes, I met and fell in love with Governor Regan!!! What a wonderful man he was!!!

One day the Governor suggested that I might want to write to some GI's to let them know that not all teen agers felt anger towards them (this was during Vietnam.). He suggested that I go to our local USO and get a list of USO clubs throughout the world and choose 2 or 3 and write them offering to write to lonely GI's just wanting a word of kindness from home.

I chose Thailand, Da Nang, Vietnam and Seoul Korea. The only one I 
heard back from was Korea. (I heard back from Vietnam 3 years after I 
married Roger.)

Roger had gone to Seoul for only the 3rd time since being stationed in Korea almost a year earlier. He saw my letter and picked it up and we became pen Pals:-)

I  received Roger's first letter in April of 1968. I was in the hospital having just undergone emergency surgery for removal of my right ovary due to a huge cyst that had burst (my mother refused to call an ambulance because she said I was faking the agonizing pain I had been in for weeks) and my appendix, while the docs were in there anyway.

My dad brought the letter to me and was he ever furious!!!  I told him about why I was getting the letter and that the Governor had suggested it. That kind of calmed him down a bit. (my dad Loved the Governor, even though he was an Independent voter:-)

Roger and I wrote back and forth for nearly 21 months before we finally met in February 1970. He was on his way to Europe to go train some Army units in the job that they did hey for years I really did think he repaired sewing machines:-))

He visited me in Sacramento for 3 days before heading to Germany. We
continued to write, but by this time we were writing on a more personal note.

In March of `1970 he was in a small place called Siegelsbach, West 
Germany (years before the Wall came down). He wrote me this letter 
describing military life as might be seen through the eyes of a military wife. And ended by asking me if I thought I could live like that. I thought it ws a proposal, and wrote back that yes, I could accept it and that if that was a proposal, I accepted, if not, then forget I said yes. LOL Poor man did not know how to tell me it was NOT a proposal until we had been married for 3 years:-)))

We were married on 7 November 1970, 3 days after my 18th birthday, in 
Las Vegas Nevada in the Clark County Courthouse by a Judge, with my 
mother and the Judge's Secretary, Isabella Leaf as our witnesses:-)

Every one gave us 6 months to be divorced. My father disowned me (we
did not talk for more than 25 years)

Here it is 34 years later and WE are the ones that are still married. 

My parents divorced twice in that time, before my mother's death in 1998. Of my 4 brothers and my sister, 4 have been married and divorced. I am the only one to last and for that I am so thankful that the Lord led me to Roger, and vice versa!!

We have been blessed with a good life. We have had our troubles as every couple does. But we have survived.; We have survived the death 
of 2 children. And the growing to adulthood of our one surviving child, Kristina, who we love so dearly.

We have survived the military and the normal struggles of life. We have survived because we love each other. And maybe because we are naive enough to believe in each other and the love there is between us.

Who knows for sure?? Not I.... BUT I will take whatever it is and say
Thank You Heavenly Father for this Gift of love and the wonderful man 
you placed in my life.