The Evil Island

By Rose E. O'donnell

This is a true story. The names of all people, institutions and places have been changed or removed to protect the innocent, and as well the guilty. .

The adventures and episodes in this book cover the partial lives of a few people travelling the curves and crevices on the roads that befall them, both lead characters having roots from dysfunctional beginnings.


This story exposes the evil and vindictiveness of family members to one another, their despise, envy and greed, and basically their lack of empathy, or caring for one another. This ends up draining the energy and life force from the victim, and tragically haunting him or her on a daily basis for the rest of their lives.

This book is a tribute and memoir to a man and boy who suffered greatly due to his undiagnosed learning disability; during the era when learning disabilities were of an unknown nature, and definitely not understood or recognized. Those individuals, often not supported by their own parents and family, learned to endure and survive alone against all odds. As they struggled through life their difficulties intensified. It caused them to become strong in other ways and areas, but their emotional pain and barriers solidified.


This story lays bare some people and some societal groups who stand for, and advocate evil
In the end, we wonder if those responsible for evil, whether due to ignorance or sheer stupidity, understand or realize the harm they have caused. Those responsible must or will face their evil, their greed, their asinine logic, and their general lack of empathy, as they stand before ‘their Maker on Judgment Day’. In the end we also question will certain factions of society be able to recognize themselves, evaluate or re-evaluate their structures and past misgivings?

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: May 22, 2019
• ISBN: 9781728312712

Book preview

THE

EVIL

ISLAND

ROSE E. O'DONNELL

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AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

Copyright © 2019 ROSE E. O'DONNELL. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse  05/21/2019

ISBN: 978-1-7283-1272-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-1271-2 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

CONTENTS

Chapter 1    Svetlana

Chapter 2    Terrence

Chapter 3    The Ugly Sister

Chapter 4    Donnie

Chapter 5    Donnie To Ronnie Transition

Chapter 6    Leaving Quebec

Chapter 7    The Undiagnosed Disability

Chapter 8    The Greedy Brother

Chapter 9    The Evil Island

Chapter 10    A New Start

Chapter 11    Renovations

Chapter 12    The End

CHAPTER 1

SVETLANA

S vetlana, of Ukrainian and Polish descent, was one of eight siblings to be exact, raised on a prairie farm. These early immigrants were allotted farm land back in the early 1900`s. These people were the bare roots and backbone of Canada. They worked hard, produced, and generally had very large families, due to the lack of any appropriate birth control, other than that officiated by the Pope, which obviously did not work, and further burdened people with very huge families.

When Svetlana was thirteen years of age she left the farm, never to return or see her family again, totally estranged from everyone. As the story goes, as she relayed it to me only once when I was a young teenager, her brother was sexually abusing her and somehow, which was not originally too clear to me, Svetlana got hold of a gun and shot her brother dead. He was fourteen at the time. Somehow the family covered up the murder and presumably Svetlana left the family in shame, never to return.

This abuse and murder was told to me quickly in a quiet and secretive fashion, one time only, never to be repeated. The information has stayed with me in the back of my mind. It has riddled my brain, and again, kept secret from all others by me for all of my life; the depths of my sub-conscious or conscious painfully trying to imagine these past events over and over. Murder of the abusing brother, the abuse to the victim and how long it may have lasted, and for the shame put on the victim, and perhaps as well on the abuser. In previous times no one every spoke of or told of such abuse. It usually stayed within the family and was all right, and was simply never acknowledged or discussed. The closet was full. Mothers closed their eyes in denial and sometimes acceptance. Anything to keep the family together.

I personally know of other families from this era where sexual abuse and incest within the family has taken place over a period of many years. This was accepted within the family and no one ever spoke of it. The victims take the brunt and suffer internally all their lives. Finally today we have accepted to rectify these abusive situations, bringing the perpetrators to justice, and providing the much needed therapy for the victim, and hopefully as well for the abuser.

For all of my mother`s seventy-four years before she died of a final heart failure, of which she had many, she never once spoke of her family. I never knew that she was Ukrainian-Polish until I discovered this secret by accident when rummaging through family photos and records of her original name and heritage. This was very shocking. I knew nothing of my heritage, or hers. Svetlana, the wife, better known to all as Lena, was secretly known on paper as Svetlana. She had changed her name from Svetlana to Lena to presumably escape her past. I do feel and understand that she wanted to erase her past and only wanted to appear as English which may have been her prime reason for marrying the Englishman Terrence O’Donnell. Lena was embarrassed to be of Ukrainian descent. She wanted to be ‘someone’. She wanted to fit in, blend in, to be English and look English. I am aware that during and after World War II Ukrainians were shunned and could not get jobs in Canada. Therefore, in desperation, they often changed their first and last names due to these rather harsh, inconvenient and difficult circumstances. A matter for survival.

Svetlana, now known as Lena, was able to block out her beginnings and forget completely the people who could have been helpful or influential during her early existence, and even in her later life. I am sure the pain ran deep, unhealed sorrows, stories never to be told. Bloody knife wounds through the heart that would never heal. Families broken.

How does one forget, or try to forget. Do the demons not follow us, hovering within and about? Memories of horror, sadness, grief, do they not follow us every day until the day when we resort to our six foot coffin. Obviously no counsel was available in those days. Parents were numbed, sworn to secrecy. Life continued and the hardships and toil on the farm continued. No one every spoke of the personal injury, the emotional heartbreak, or the horrific things that could have and did happen in the past.

Svetlana at the young age of thirteen took menial household jobs, ironing, sewing and cleaning to sustain herself as a teen on her own, and maintain her broken life, ostracized from her own family. Svetlana was creative and nimble with her hands. Eventually she apprenticed as a seamstress and did become an excellent sewer of garments. Svetlana could sew anything and create anything from scratch, no pattern ever needed. She created and sewed most of her children’s clothing. She even made wedding dresses from scratch for neighbours, with no pattern in hand.

My mother never communicated with any of her family, and never in her whole life returned home. She had seven other brothers and sisters. Being ostracized, I presume she was the black sheep of the family, the bad one. I am sure being isolated from her family had its emotional impact on her for the duration of her life.

Lena did have one sister in Toronto with whom she communicated occasionally. They did not like each other and whenever they met their emotions would become tumultuous, they fought, and they would eventually depart with angry words and feelings of longing despair.

I think my mother spent her whole life on the run, never acknowledging, but only trying to pretend that everything was fine. In reality it took its emotional toll on her. Lena was a depressed individual who, like others with an unresolved past, continue in their confused mind of dysfunction affecting all others with whom they come in contact, most especially their spouse and children. Terrence was Svetlana’s first victim.

Myself having been raised in Quebec from mixed parentage, I never realized the hatred and discrimination towards Ukrainians until I Iived briefly in Alberta. It appeared that Ukrainians, or better known in the west as ‘Bohunks’, were viewed as second-class citizens, or worse. In retrospect, it appears that the Ukrainians remained closed-knit and not inclusive with others within their communities. In later years when I worked in Ottawa promoting the sale of a new national newspaper across Canada, I was always shocked when speaking with Ukrainians in central and western Canada to hear how they had not yet mastered the English language, after more than fifty years in this country, and were interested in knowing absolutely nothing about the rest of Canada, or the rest of the world outside of their