Monsters on the Sidewalk: Memories of Child Abandonment, Domestic Violence, and Unconditional Love

By Jeanne Olufson

"Sidewalks have crisscrossed my life like circuits on a computer chip. Only the Master Designer knows where the intricate patterns lead. Some sidewalks still await my feet. Others, I have been dragged over whether I wanted to be or not." (Author)

"Monsters on the Sidewalk" is unique not only because it dramatizes a mother’s abandonment, a father’s oppression, and a stepmother’s brutality, but it also paints a picture of a grandparent’s love and what good parenting looks like. The reader is able to distinguish between the two. Readers can judge between the positive effects of humor and love, and the negative effects of demeaning words and violent actions upon the mind of a child.

The book will also engender hope for survivors (victors) and show that the cycle of abuse can stop in their lives, sparing the next generation.

The brighter light we shine on maltreatment, the greater chance we have to slow its growth.
Child abuse? It’s everywhere.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Nov 7, 2019
• ISBN: 9781490798165

Jeanne Olufson

Jeanne Olufson is a published author, artist, and teacher. She holds a Social Studies Composite Teaching degree with an endorsement in Special Education. She enjoys geography, history, amateur radio, learning guitar, and trying to master the Chinese strategy game, GO. She holds an orange belt in Shorin-Ru Karate and likes to bike ride. Jeanne is an accomplished artist and has exhibited her unique dye-transfer watercolors in Washington and California. Her next project is writing and illustrating a children’s book called, "My Granny Has a Polka Dot Nose."

Book preview

Copyright 2019 Jeanne Olufson.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-4907-9815-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-9817-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-9816-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019917844

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.

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.

Trafford rev. 05/06/2020

33164.png www.trafford.com

North America & international

toll-free: 1 888 232 4444 (USA & Canada)

fax: [phone]

CONTENTS

Overview

Dedication

Preface

Part I: Cracks in the Sidewalk

Introduction

Chapter 1 Demons Unleashed

Part II: Abandoned on the Sidewalk

Chapter 2 Desertion

Part III: Demons down the Sidewalk

Chapter 3 Nightmares Begin

Chapter 4 Daddy’s Little Princess

Chapter 5 Arrows, Divorce, and Destructive Behavior

Part IV: Playing along the Sidewalk

Chapter 6 Paradise at the Cabin and Gaining Resilience

Part V: Evil on the Sidewalk

Chapter 7 Moving Again—Into a Real Nightmare

Chapter 8 Boris, Religion, and Bloody Welts Discovered

Chapter 9 In the Doghouse

Chapter 10 Scalded Hands, Cruel Valentines

Chapter 11 She Couldn’t Kill Me

Chapter 12 The Dark Basement

Chapter 13 Night Tirades

Chapter 14 Lies to the Doctor

Chapter 15 My Brother, My Enemy

Chapter 16 My Hero, My Enemy

Chapter 17 No More Marilyn Monroe Smile

Chapter 18 Defiance

Chapter 19 Stripped Naked

Chapter 20 Forty Miles to Go

Epilogue

More about Child Abuse

Acknowledgements

OVERVIEW

Mommy ripped my hair out last night.

How often have you heard something like that coming from a child? Chances are, you haven’t, and I can tell you why you probably never will. Abused children have an instinct for self-preservation and an often-misplaced loyalty. Scores of mistreated kids are afraid to speak out. As a child, I experienced the same fear. Today, as an adult, I can speak for them. —Jeanne Olufson

Monsters on the Sidewalk: Memories of Child Abandonment, Domestic Violence, and Unconditional Love is an intoxicating reflection of childhood violence and triumph over years of physical abuse. It is Jeanne’s story as she lived it. Monsters on the Sidewalk is not only a memoir about abandonment, repression, and beatings, it’s also about love, hope, and an unconquerable spirit. The writer brings the reader into her private world of fairytales and nightmares to expose a brutality that hides in every corner of our society.

The book can be a useful tool in the hands of everyone coming in contact with these victors, including: the survivors themselves, their families, stepfamilies, educators, counselors, social workers, law enforcement, incarcerated youth and adults, and medical professionals. It can be a benefit to people who work with severely abused children; child advocacy centers that reduce the trauma of child abuse victims; group homes; foster families; Head Start programs for at-risk children; child abuse prevention programs; and community outreaches.

Monsters on the Sidewalk is a book of awareness written for older teens and adults and is a fresh and worthy contribution to the world of child abuse. The door behind which child abuse hides is thrown open. It is a slice of life that thousands of readers can empathize with. Here are some reader’s comments:

"The book and the story were horrifically mesmerizing. As I started to read the book, I couldn’t put it down—I had to know what the next level of abuse would be and how it would be dealt with. The events were easy to follow and too easy to relate to. Tucked away in a religious community, events were occurring that no one wanted to admit could happen. Growing up in those same years, in the same type of community, I could not help but consider my own circumstances and friends I knew enduring a similar hell.

"As a physician, I see patients every day that are affected by spouse or child abuse in some way. I see victims of abuse trying to deal with the long-term issues. I see them trying to overcome the natural tendency to model the very behavior they have endured—the only example they have had in their life to show them how to deal with children and stress.

"The book was fast paced and captivating. I liked the progression of events as they culminated in a situation that could no longer be tolerated. The interweaving of the lifesaving support from the grandparents at critical times was fascinating. This demonstrated the positive impact each of us can have in the life of a child, even when the child is faced with overwhelming pain and suffering. We also see the frailty of the psyche of the other children growing up in the abusive environment.

The message was clear and gut-wrenching for any of us who work with children as neighbors, teachers, health-care providers, church or ecclesiastic leaders, Boy or Girl Scout leaders—all of us! The fault for the irreparable damage that is done by not recognizing the signs of abuse will be partly upon our shoulders. We must be vigilant to the signs of withdrawal, poor performance, behavior dysfunction, antisocial tendencies, food stealing, and the ‘loner’ mentality that an abused child will show. We are faced with an increasing number of broken homes, single-parent families and multiple marriages. We know that the likelihood of abuse is increasing. Fortunately, there are resources available to any of us suspicious of abuse occurring. We have no excuse, but to act. —Anonymous

I realized I needed to be extra cautious in the disciplining of my children, and to always show them love and compassion. I don’t want them to be afraid of me. Everyone needs to be aware of what goes on in some homes behind closed doors, like this book explains. They need to know this so they can avoid it in their own homes and also recognize it in others and take appropriate action … It is so captivating that I couldn’t put it down until I finished the story that has to be told. Everyone should read this book and know what really happens in the real world. It will change your outlook on life and will make you want to be a better person … You will not be able to refrain from a range of emotions running from extreme hate to compassion. —Anonymous

According to the third Executive Summary of the National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect: —the number of abused and neglected children nearly doubled from 1986 to 1993. Physical abuse nearly doubled, and emotional abuse, physical neglect, and emotional neglect were all more than two and one-half times their NIS-2 levels [second National Incidence Study]. The total number endangered quadrupled during this time.

Child abuse statistics remain high in 2019 and the field of social

work to combat it is on an upward trend. American lives are

more stressful than ever before. Depression, divorce, and drug

abuse run rampant. Children are paying the price and we can

never speak out enough. Monsters on the Sidewalk is a labor of

truth to help in the fight against apathy and ignorance.

Evil doesn’t show itself as evil at the outset. It shows itself as beauty.

—Robert Novak

All events before the age of four are fictionalized based on facts as I know them. The events afterward are based as closely as possible on actual experiences or on accounts from others. Some names and places have been changed. Chronology is followed as closely as possible. Dialogue may be representative, but incidents are fully factual. The first draft was written in 2003 and updated in 2018.

DEDICATION

This story is dedicated to the little boy who became my protector, helped to

rescue me from evil, taught me to fish, and once saved me from drowning.

He grew up to love me unconditionally, and in spite of a traumatic

brain injury, he remembers me as his beautiful sister, Jeanne.

PREFACE

Out of evil, good things can come.

—President George W. Bush, September 2001 (after 9/11)

My father nearly killed my mother. At least that is what she

told people after she abandoned my brother and me. It could

be true. It could be a lie. I will never know for sure.

Sidewalks have crisscrossed my life like circuits on a computer chip. Only the master designer knows where the intricate patterns lead. Some sidewalks still await my feet. Others, I have been dragged over whether I wanted to be or not.

Rumor has it my mother took off and left my two-year-old brother, Danny, standing guard over me by a tall swing set at a park in Utah. He propped a bottle up to my mouth while I waited in my stroller for our grandmother to come pick us up. Danny said he was scared to be left all alone in the early evening with his baby sister. He acted as my protector for the first time—though not the last.

Danny may or may not have imagined the whole thing, but he told his former wife this story many times. I can’t confirm it now, nearly sixty-five years later, because he suffered a horrible brain injury at about age forty when he smashed in his skull during a bicycle accident near the Grand Canyon. My brother’s memory is gone for the most part. He lives from moment to moment and can’t recall events in his past, especially specific memories of abuse from our father and second stepmother.

When I inquired to see what he remembers, he told me, I know there was a lot of punishments.

I’m sad about his misfortune, but I’m grateful he lives happily in the present and, unlike me, does not have to struggle with the demons of his childhood. Stories from my grandparents and others, as well as photos I have seen, help me to paint the dramatic story of my years before age four (although I do remember wiping up my own vomit off the wall next to my crib). Around age four, most of my own memories kick in. Whether I was told by someone else or remembered it myself, the result is the same. Our mother abandoned Danny and me. Our father beat us, and our second stepmother brutalized us. Yet I suspect if you were to ask any of them, they would claim to have loved us.

My parents did things that today would land them in jail. Back in the sixties, abuse was typically ignored or went unrecognized. In our day, violence against children continues to spiral upward in its intensity and viciousness. In return, children are more violent and suicidal themselves. The laws may have changed for the better, but the abuse has not.

What I believe is that Danny remembered being abandoned when we were young, but it was only one incident in a series of similar acts on the part of my mother. It wasn’t the final abandonment. My father denies the Abandonment story and won’t enlighten me or answer my questions. He declares the memories are too painful. I know if he did dredge up the past, he would have to take some blame for what happened to his children. He never bothered to find out what took place in his several absences and wants nothing to do with this book. I know that, now in his eighties, my father will never accept much responsibility, and at this stage in my life, I don’t need him to. However, I could have used it as a young adult and in my thirties when I suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A trip to a family counselor with him in 1992 proved it was hopeless to try.

In the year 2001, I told bits of my story to a friend of mine, Cathy Larsen. She is a high school teacher who has rescued abused children. Jeanne, she said. Your story needs to be told. People can benefit from hearing it. You need to tell it and be a voice for change.

I listened—I contemplated—I drew courage, and I wrote. Moments of inspiration abounded as I began the project. I turned to special family members who encouraged me to move forward. There may be some who turn against me for writing, and I’ve been told to put it behind me out of concern or go see a psychiatrist (by my father and current stepmother, both of whom swear they will never read it). However, most people who know about this memoir have encouraged me.

I’m sorry it took me so long, but now I am less concerned with labels and my privacy and more concerned with my mission: to enlighten the public and do what I can to end the suffering. I believe I’m on this particular sidewalk for a reason.

I invite you to walk it with me.

PART I

CRACKS IN THE SIDEWALK

INTRODUCTION

Step on a crack—break your mother’s back.

In the Year 1962

I stomped my scuffed, leather shoe down hard onto a crack in the sidewalk. Step on a crack, I cried and stomped again with the opposite shoe. Break your mother’s back! My nine-year-old foot found the next seam in the grainy cement. I lunged forward.

"Step on a line. Break your mother’s spine!" My single desire was to make the rhyme come true.

"I hate her. I hate her. She’s ugly and not my real mother. Cinderella was right. Stepmothers are wicked." Reciting the words to the poem, my foot stabbed every crack in the sidewalk as I walked to school.

Right stomp. Step on a crack.

Left stomp. Break your mother’s back. Right stomp. Step on a line.

Left stomp. Break your mother’s spine!

The bottoms of my feet throbbed to match my anger. If I could have ground my stepmother into the dirt and out of my life, I would have.

Stomp. Step on a crack.

Stomp. "Break your stepmother’s back …"

With every foot pound, my old blue knee socks slipped farther down my shins until they piled around my ankles. I focused landing precisely on each crack, holding my head down, and looking up from the task only when I needed to see where I was going. I had no intention of hurrying along to my elementary school in Layton, Utah.

It don’t matter if I’m slow. I’m always late, anyway. She makes me miss the bus on purpose. She likes making me late to school. She hates me.

Smashing my feet against the hard sidewalk in shoes too small caused my toes to hurt. I was too angry to care. I continued southward on the one-mile trek along a road in Davis County, hoping someone would see me and wonder what I was doing walking alone. The other neighborhood children were already in school. Once in a while, if I had a lucky day, a nice lady in a white brick house would give me a ride. She never asked me why I was walking so late. I guess she felt sorry for me. Even if she had asked, I wouldn’t have told her the truth. I couldn’t.

My crack stomping eased up, and I noticed the warmth from the sun on the back of my blondish head and my plaid cotton dress. The heat felt good. Sunshine and I were seldom companions because I was rarely allowed out of the house. The few times my stepmother, Joan, let me go outside was to go to school and back, or if someone came to visit and she put on her good mommy face to fool everyone. If my dad was gone, she restricted me to the basement unless there were upstairs chores to be done. So, I enjoyed the sun while I had the chance.

I rounded the corner and saw a pretty church with its spiraling cream-colored walls.

Maybe I could sneak in