White Widow:: Living with a White Supremacist

By Christine Eddy

Twenty years after de-segregation, in the counties of North Idaho, people did not seem to concern themselves with racial or religious injustice until it hit them in the face. Most of them may have thought that was taken care of in the 60’s, after all, Civil Rights was the Law.
My friends who lived in Bonner or Kootenai counties did not become fully aware of White Supremacists until Richard G. Butler moved in and showed them exactly what hatred looked like.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 4, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664131491

Book preview

PROLOGUE

I shivered. Seated behind the half-drawn gauzy curtain in the family room on that warm late April morning, I stared out to the full rows of modestly-clad mourners perched on their folding chairs in the chapel of the mortuary.

As I looked beyond my husband’s pine casket draped in lilies and evergreen boughs, I knew all of my friends were gathered there. Buried within me, there was a fearful shame that Bob’s church friends would be there as well. Grimly seated in the first row and staring at me, was the battered countenance of pocked cheeks around a nose netted with burst capillaries in a face I never wanted to see again. Sitting there in his dark blue suit, I feared he would stand and speak in that insistent gravelly voice I never wanted to hear again. I felt chilled to the bone.

Moments before, my parish priest had taken his seat after reading the twenty-third psalm and offering a benevolent blessing for my non-Catholic husband. I was grateful for his comforting words.

Bob’s tiny mother Velma, the red-haired spitfire wedged into our twenty-seven-year marriage, was now grey and numb with grief for her only child, her son, so soon gone at fiftytwo. As I wrapped my arm around her fragile shoulders, my frozen heart knew her grief to be worse than mine. Every one of us, stalled in shock. Paul, my only son, kept his strong, young adult arm wrapped around me. Marie, two years younger, tears streaming down her fair face, resolutely held her little sister Annie, who at fourteen, dazed and shaking, had witnessed her father’s death.

Five days before, with Annie and me along for the ride, Bob had died at the wheel of our truck. And here she and I sat, witnesses to tell about it. I knew the trauma we’d experienced would delay her grief. Not any one of us could have prepared for the sudden death of my husband.

Choir members from my church, dear friends, tenderly harmonized into the final verse of In the Garden. Then, the dreaded person I desperately hoped would not make an appearance stood up. Consumed with long-held shame, I imagined he would begin to forcefully speak. I could still hear the insistent tone of his voice from four years ago when he had confronted me. I felt like he was glaring into me, the dissenter, the enemy of his ideology and religion. Through my dread and fear, I thought he would firmly expound on Bob’s place in the everlasting kingdom, his honored inheritance, where the chosen were admitted, and all non-Aryans banned to hell. No one entered but the pure White Aryan Race. The distasteful presence I refused to look at would finally conclude that Bob was a loyal soldier of his Christian Identity, the church of Jesus Christ Christian, and the Aryan Nations stronghold. God help us, Bob thought so too.

That man did not speak. With one last glance in my direction, he turned and walked out. Sixteen members of his church followed him. That was Richard G. Butler, the builder, agitator, and spearhead of the Aryan Nations Compound and Christian Identity Movement, situated on guarded property outside of Hayden Lake, Idaho. The year was 1987.

chapter 1

ON THE EDGE

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I do not recall a more light-hearted gathering as in December of 1977, friends convened with us under one roof. Before Christmas, winter storms rolled in, bringing an atmosphere of anticipation. Our picturesque little town of Sandpoint, Idaho dazzled shoppers with glittery displays in every storefront window. Eager to spread color throughout our house, I lavishly decorated every surface. With fresh snow powdered over bushes and trees, Bob piled tamarack into the woodstove, and the glowing logs matched my feelings. I was on fire with enthusiasm and overdue for a spirited celebration.

When we purchased our 1930’s bungalow seven years back, we began to knock out walls and build additions onto the tiny house. We added on an enclosed front porch with south-facing windows to let in the winter sun. Bob opened up the kitchen and dining area, diligently following my plans for a modern working kitchen. He and our teenage son, Paul, did most of the work, slaves to our dwelling, nights and weekends. My younger teen, Marie, and I followed suit with constant cleanup and meals. After six years of renovations and expansion, our home felt warm and inviting. Although not complete, we all needed a break. Bob, me, and our growing three, little Annie sprouting before our eyes, had all dug in and lived through the mess of kitchen campouts and re-built walls.

Bob’s tools secure in his workroom for the winter, the current sawdust swept away, I cleaned our new tile floors and carpets. Outside projects and activities on hold, I concentrated on the season. The frosty landscape around our house filled me with energy. Late evening, Paul and Marie upstairs doing homework and five-year-old Annie already asleep, Bob and I sat across from each other at our table in the dining area. I felt secure inside the new double glass sliding doors and our warm knotty pine walls. As we sipped from our mugs, I smiled into Bob’s eyes and poured out my wish, Let’s have a Christmas Party!

OK Chris, we can do that. Whatever you want. With a sturdy hand, nicked and scarred from years of laboring on our home, he grabbed his mug and polished off his coffee.

Why don’t we invite workers from the mill and the customers you know well?

Sure, they’ll all like that. I’ll get two or three bottles of wine.

I watched that endearing smirk widen across his fair face and crinkle around his bright eyes as he added, And a good-sized bottle of brandy for your home-made eggnog.

Thinking out loud, I added, Of course, our friends here in the neighborhood too.

Sure, that’s a great idea. We’ll have a fine time. Scooting forward in his chair and sitting ramrod straight, he appeared taller than his stocky five-foot-eight frame. Blond hair receding from his temples, to me he looked as handsome as the day I met him in 1958. He, the older man of twenty-three, and I, just turned eighteen.

I zipped across the kitchen, grabbed a pot holder, and lifted the Pyrex coffee pot off the stove. Back at the table, carefully refilling his mug, I added, I’ll ask friends from my church choir, and two or three from the town genealogy group I’ve organized.

He frowned and scratched at the stubble on his jaw. Hmmm, well, I suppose so. That was a recent hitch; Bob’s hesitation over my inviting others that he didn’t know into our home. Being a likable sort, a constant twinkle in his blue eyes, he ordinarily fell into friendly conversation with people as soon as he shook their hands. A successful sales manager at the local tie mill and lumber yard, always honest and reliable, his consideration of customers’ needs had dramatically increased retail sales. Lately he acted wary of strangers.

At home over the past year, he had expounded on his views with bold statements such as Damn Jew government, or Civil Rights is nonsense. I knew his growing comments were completely opposite to my thinking. I wracked my brain to understand why he suddenly hated Jewish people or continued to downgrade people of color.

Before we moved to Idaho in 1968, I understood his comments could have related to the stress of his job. A police officer in Southern California in 1966, he was assigned to active duty during the Watts riots in Los Angeles. As the years went by, once in a while he vocalized a negative outlook about black Americans and our government. Lately his vehement statements had increased while watching television news reports, especially if the subject matter involved Jews or people of color. Over the past year, running taxi for three growing children, I stayed involved with my outside activities. Busy, I found it easier to ignore most of his remarks.

His latest views had not yet wiped out his dry sense of humor and jovial nature. I hoped he would enjoy the Christmas party and be social with everyone. I counted on his sincerity. He had always tried to please me, whatever the occasion. After his negative attitude and hesitation over people he did not know coming into our home, my enthusiasm waned. I worried over what Bob might say when all were inside our doors. In the end, my determination for an overdue party won out. With serious resolve, I forged ahead.

On a weekday morning, invitations delivered and party plans well underway, I scribbled out a list of needed supplies to prepare traditional Christmas recipes. Shopping accomplished, I lined up baking ingredients, donned my heavy-duty apron, and dug in. I spread out battered recipe cards handed down from my Weisel Grandma. By afternoon, the kitchen filled with sweet spicy aromas of an old-country Christmas. I produced Springerle and Lebkuchen, pfeffernusse, egg bread and stolen. With hands plunged into the dough, kneading and baking consumed my thoughts. This temporary respite put Bob’s changing views in a corner cupboard. I didn’t have to look there.

On Saturday evening, kids all out to friends, I hoped the night would go well. Our whole house smelled of spices and crusty breads from the oven. I’d gone overboard with poinsettias perched on deep windowsills and garlands over the doorways. Bob, in his sport shirt and brown cords, lit red candles around the cookies and cakes on the Christmas tablecloth, while I slipped into a scoop neck black top and long glittery blue quilted skirt, the latest style of the 70’s. Standing under the mistletoe, Bob planted a generous smooch on me, an obvious sign from him that he anticipated a happy evening. The tension in my neck eased off. I asked him, Honey, would you turn on some Christmas music? He didn’t love the Christmas season and I thought he’d grumble, but without so much as a raised eyebrow, he said, Okay.

Bob approved of one long-playing record, Christmas hymns in German. Little did I know then, the connections that German language created in his mind, or how it would support his strengthening beliefs in the years ahead. He put the LP album on the stereo. I loved it. Those gentle and lilting carols brought me back into the eighteen-hundreds, to my ancestors in Austria and Germany. I imagined my Grandma Flora, a little girl, singing with her four older sisters while standing around their harpsichord. Or my Grandpa Joseph, a boy of eight, as his father taught him to play tunes on his zither.

That night, none of Bob’s agitated remarks surfaced as guests streamed through our wreath-covered front door to his warm greetings and proffered cups of spiked eggnog. We all joked and laughed while I pulled hot goodies from the oven. Happiness bubbled around me as I greeted twenty friends from both of our lives, all together, and all welcome in our home.

Little did I know that in the coming years, our calendars would not mark another date of cheerful celebration such as we enjoyed on that Christmas night.

chapter 2

SLOW AWAKENING

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S adly, one by one, our mutual compadres dropped from our lives. The jokes that our family and friends lovingly aimed at Bob, no longer brought laughter. Two years back, we’d teased him and called him Archie Bunker, while he acquired the habit of making blatant remarks at TV family shows or the news he watched. On the 70’s sitcom, All in the Family, Archie Bunker was viewed as a reactionary conservative and a lovable bigot. That is the way we looked at Bob.

Although his bigotry was evident, as with most things in our family critical to Bob’s nature, it seemed easier for our children and me to roll our eyes or laugh at him. I considered none of his remarks trivial or humorous, and witnessed an extremely intelligent man, my husband, paired with an uneducated, prejudiced character portrayed on TV. With deepening sadness, I feared I could not change him.

For a little while, he tossed off the teasing and jokes before his earnest purpose took control, and he developed dedication to his cause. Awhile back, he had attended a meeting at the town hall. He was interested in finding out more from an organization called the Posse Comitatus. He said they were about constitutional rights and the right to bear arms. None of that sounded harmful to me. He did not ever mention their survivalist agenda or antagonistic antiSemitic beliefs.

After he attended that meeting, he told me about a Christian minister he met there. Bob didn’t divulge the man’s name. He explained the guy was building a church on twenty wooded acres, about forty miles south of Sandpoint, near Hayden Lake. He walked around the kitchen, like he couldn’t sit still, smiled, and said, The newly broke ground is going to be the headquarters of Christian Identity. Peculiar and foreign to my ears, in those days Bob’s adventures were never questioned. I said, Oh.

The following Saturday morning, in jeans and T-shirt, Bob hoisted his chain saw and toolbox into the back of the pickup. On his way out he said, A bunch of guys are going to help build that church, and I want to do what I can. I’ll see you later. I was not surprised. That was my man, always there for someone who needed help.

For the next three months, Bob drove down to Hayden Lake every other Saturday. Two weeks back he had left early on a Sunday morning as well. When he returned that night, he said, Pastor Butler is going to begin services next week. The name meant nothing to me.

The following Thursday evening, we were seated at our claw-foot dinner table, with plates, forks, and a heavy hot casserole dish in the center, like a weight to hold us down. As usual, my teens and Annie quickly made the sign of the cross and waited for me to finish the brief Catholic blessing, Bless us, O Lord, and these Thy gifts… Ordinarily, Bob’s cryptic comments came fast on the heels of that simple prayer. He’d say something like, Well, for the chosen us. Lately, he’d launch into derogatory statements over the evening news and curse through his take on left-wing government, or maybe mumble a racial slur or two.

I dished up the casserole. Forkful halfway to my mouth, he made one more statement that froze my hand in mid-air.

Tomorrow after work, I am going out of town for the weekend, to my church.

I knew where he was going. A whole weekend to his church? What?

My help is needed. Our chapel is nearly finished. The determination in his face was palpable.

I felt my eyebrows rise. The enormity of his dedication shook me. A complete weekend sounded like an indoctrination. I was afraid for myself and for him, as though that place were a magnet pulling him from me. Until that evening, I’d desperately tried to circumvent the scary thoughts in my head, while watching his demeanor change as he left on a Saturday or a Sunday and returned late in the day, coming from the place he called ‘church’.

For months, packets of literature had streamed through our mailbox and into our home. I only needed to briefly peer into the top leaflets stacked on his bedside table to know where Bob was headed. His bigoted viewpoint seemed to fit right in with the trail of literature that continuously made references to Bible verses. Bob kept those pamphlets close at hand to support his agenda, reading material containing a strange interpretation of both the New and Old Testaments of the Bible. Later, I’d find out that this ideology had its own version of the Bible, published in England.

I could easily see how people with that narrow thought process—of hating Jews and people of color—would reject the idea of a loving creator. They’d be left dangling over the edges of their jaundiced information. I didn’t understand how Bob could believe that dangerous nonsense. He seemed to know the love between us was based on a benevolent spirit. I must have been pure enough for him.

Oddly, I still felt the security of Bob’s love for me, that one separate truth of ours that kept him steady in my heart. And I knew I loved that man to the core of my being. I would not entertain the frightening thought of life without my soul mate. Together we were one. I had no belief in myself to stand alone. Insecure and needy, I only followed my heart. He loved me, you could ask anyone. They would say, I’ve never seen a man love a woman more than he loves you. I didn’t need others to tell me. Of that one thing, I felt sure.

I didn’t want to look underneath Bob’s love, for there I’d recognize the one thing I was not ready to face. I shoved his radical intention into a dark corner of my mind and slammed the door on it. I clung to my faith and traveled the pathway of my own truth. I believed in a loving spirit. One creator for all humans. One Universal Love. I was sure my intelligent man would not continue to walk down that dangerous road. When I look back, I do not recognize my naïve self.

With Bob’s statement at the dinner table, my fighting spirit was born. In the bedroom that night, I shakily told him, I’ve always understood that you don’t believe in the doctrine of the Catholic Church, and you’ve always known that is fine with me. But, when we married, you promised that I could raise our children in my faith, and I did. Now that Paul and Marie are older, I want them to be independent thinkers and find their own way. When they are around, you will not try to influence them or little Annie with these new ideas of yours. Is that understood?

OK, OK. Stop making a big deal over it!

The next day after work, Bob packed the truck and said, I’ll see you Sunday night. The truck was our one vehicle for the family, so on Sunday morning, my brood and I walked into town, headed for the red brick church and Mass.

Bob’s narrowed thinking had come about slowly during that time of change in the midseventies. Before he chose to slip into the trap of the Christian Identity movement, he enjoyed pleasurable activities to fill his evenings and weekends. When we moved to North Idaho in the summer of 1968, he discovered his own heaven with the best of nature wherever he looked. Bob and I and the children reveled in the beauty of crystal clear Lake Pend Oreille and soaked up the summers on the warm white sand of City Beach. Bob taught every one of our kids how to swim. Then he stroked laps across the wide expanse of water. An award-winning swimmer since his days in the Marine Corps, he took on miles and always ventured deeper out than I did.

Content with his acquired love of fishing, calmed through spring and summer, before sunrise or into the evenings, he relaxed with his pole and bait. Once in a while, my older two watching our youngest, I would drop the housework and take off with him. Bob dug up fat night crawlers for bait. Or I dug, and he grabbed. There was no way I would handle those squiggly creatures.

On the outskirts of town, Bob parked off a dirt road. Compatible silence felt so good then. Twilight eased on as an orange glow blended into the azure sky. Hoisting poles and creels, we climbed through barbed wire fences and chased the welcoming cows back toward their verdant pastures. We waded around thick stands of trees and through boggy bushes sunk into the rocky edge of gurgling streams.

Reluctant to touch the grey squirming mass in the bait box, I made a face, and Bob patiently handed over my worm-wrapped hook. With freshly baited line, on the first cast I tangled hook, line, and sinker in low overhanging branches. Bob expected that. I did it every time. He’d start to bluster, calm down, and untangle me. Smiling, he would head off around the bend to shady pools. Oh, how fishing relaxed the man!

Left to my own devices, on a gentler cast I felt a strong tug, and pulled in a hand-sized brook trout, a brookie. Not an avid sports woman, I didn’t need more than one. Within minutes, Bob would call out to me from downstream. He’d smirk, open his creel, and show off a bunch of pan-sized trout.

Stars twinkled in the late evening sky as