Out of the Rubble Into the Light

By Peggy Ann Parham

As I locked my office door after a long day of counseling, out of the corner of my eye, I saw his car speeding down the road turning into the church parking lot. He slammed on his brakes and threw open the car door. He came running toward me; his eyes were bulging with anger and his face was beet red. The look on his face, I will never forget. He was going to kill me. He told me in the very beginning when I met with him and his wife; his first words out of his mouth were, "I will kill anybody who tries to take my wife away from me." Today was the day I finally got her away from him, and he was on a rampage to kill me. As he came running to me, I was petrified. I knew he would kill me. The Lord immediately told me, "Don't run. Run to him!" As I ran to him, I opened my arms to hug him. He stopped and hugged me, melting in my arms in return; he began to weep. "She's gone, she's gone," he cried. I began to tell him that everything would be okay. She needed a break, and she would be back. I took him to the office and prayed with him until he felt better.

Peggy's and Gene's life has been spent through years of taking in women and girls needing homes, counseling, and protecting them from harm. Their experiences of helping hundreds of women and girls led Peggy to enter the world of prison ministry. Her experiences visiting and counseling women in incarceration have been her life's calling. And those stories have yet to be told.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 25, 2024
• ISBN: 9798890436757

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Out of the Rubble Into the Light

Peggy Ann Parham

ISBN 979-8-89043-674-0 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-89043-675-7 (digital)

Copyright © 2023 by Peggy Ann Parham

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Preface

In the Beginning

There Is Your Husband

Our First Girl

He Put His Hand on Us And Prayed

The House on Fifty-Sixth Street

Our Own House

The Girls' Home

The Dungeon

The Nun from New Orleans

The Accident

The Dark Secret

Family History

Heading For Disaster

The Hospital

The Healing

Out of the Rubble

The Return of Our Family

About the Author

To my beloved husband, Gene, and children, Janelle, Kimberly, and Phil.

Your unwavering love, faith, support, and encouragement gave me the strength to write this book.

A special thank you to Rachel Bond for her assistance in the editing of this book, continually checking for punctuation and grammar and encouraging me to press on. And my appreciation to all my dear friends and family who supported me with their prayers and words of encouragement to make this book possible.

Preface

Why did I write this book?

Let me begin by saying that I hope you find my book as impactful as it was to write. I knew from the onset that the writing of my past would cause the nightmares of my life to come flooding back. To go back into my past and write about the horrors of my life was almost too much to bear. I felt a responsibility, however, to ensure that the legacy of my life was not all bad and that there is hope for the souls that we often write off as a lost cause.

This book is about a girl (me) who started life as an innocent, playful, fun-loving child, and how life can take a tragic turn at any moment. At age four, that girl experienced rape in the backwoods of Arkansas, and this continued for many years. At about age five, my family moved to the Watts area of Los Angeles, which left me to grow up in constant fear. Drugs, gangs, liquor, and motorcycle gangs were a way of life, so you went along to get along if you wanted to survive. The school was a washout leaving me unable to read as I passed from grade to grade. A teacher once tied me to a chair with a pair of nylon stockings and put tape over my mouth because I was such a disruptive child.

Thanks to the Lord and hundreds of prayers, there is a happy ending to this book. When my parents would give up on me, they often sent me to live with my grandmother for months at a time out of desperation. My grandmother was a strong Baptist who loved the Lord. I had to attend church with her every Sunday and attend revival meetings at other times. Her prayers for me never ceased. It took most of my life to realize there was absolutely nothing in this world I could do that our Savior's blood, shed on the cross of Calvary, that hasn't been covered already. So if this was true for me, it's the same for anyone that thinks God could never forgive them. There is hope for you.

In the Beginning

My parents, Bob and Nell Cross, lived in the backwoods of Mountain Pine, Arkansas, in the middle of a forest. It was logging country, and the community consisted of about 360 mill workers (including my father) who worked in the mill. There was a small country store, the only store for miles.

I was born in 1938, at the end of the Great Depression; and although money was scarce, my father was fortunate to have a job. My parents were very poor and hardworking, and my mother stayed home to take care of us. We lived in what they called a shotgun house, so small and narrow anyone could open the front door, shoot a gun, and kill everyone inside.

The very early scenes of my childhood are snippets, consisting of one memory not so pleasant. My mother had a nephew, about fifteen years of age, although he looked much older. He was quite suave with a gift of gab and very handsome. His mother lived in Texas, but he seemed to spend a lot of time at our home. When I was at the age of four, he started raping me. Given my age then, I have no recollection of how he coerced me, or what he said to me. It had to be some kind of threat, or why couldn't I ever tell my mother?

My father had several brothers, one of whom moved to California. He was able to rent a small duplex and immediately contacted my father asking us to come west and rent the other unit. The units were small with only one bedroom, but the decision was made to move.

In 1943 my parents packed their few belongings in a suitcase, and the excitement began. My parents, my sister (age two), and I (age four) headed west on the train, as we did not own a car. I can't remember having seen a train before, and I was curious about everything.

We moved into our duplex on Grand Vista Avenue, right in the middle of the Watts district of Los Angeles, California. This was during the years of the Mexican Pachuca gangs and zoot suits. Zoot suits were usually made of shiny material that looked like silk, in loud colors like red or yellow, with shiny black shirts. They often wore jackets, pants, and a top hat, all made of shiny material, and wore black leather wingtip shoes with white spats. Wearing longer and loose-fitting jackets and baggy pants was therefore seen as being unpatriotic and a symbol of rebellion. This subculture emerged during a time of increased racism and the fight for MMS.

We were almost the only white people in the neighborhood, few could speak English. My parents were so happy my dad had a job, they didn't care where they had to live.

The gang in our neighborhood wore long chains that hung down to their pants, big-brimmed hats, shiny brown shoes, and khaki pants. They carried big zip guns and even bigger knives. Any time of day or night they were standing on all the street corners and were all called Pachucas.

Moving from the backwoods hill country of Arkansas to a gang-infested, crime-riddled city left our family in shock. Dad's brother had gotten him a job in a machine shop. He was supposed to work regular day hours but often did not get home until ten or eleven at night. My mother stayed home during those early years until I started school, she then took a job in a canning factory, working the swing shift and sleeping during the day.

Much to my relief, my mom's nephew did not follow us from Arkansas to California. He did, however, decide to join the military. When my grandmother found out, she called and had him kicked out of the army because he was only sixteen. Instead of going home to Texas, he decided to come to California to live with us.

One night I heard him banging on the back door, so I let him in. His clothes showed signs of a bad fight and were covered in blood, I could tell; however, it wasn't his blood. He showed me a big knife that he had taken away from a gang member. He eventually moved to Texas to live with his mother; he was afraid of being killed. This move, however, was not quite soon enough for me, as he had continued raping me every chance he got.

Mother was working nights and sleeping during the day. As I said before, my dad often did not get home until late at night, leaving two small girls alone. In a normal household, I could imagine two little girls left alone would probably spend their time playing until they got tired and went to bed. After all, there was school the next day, and they needed their rest. At our house, it was two little girls clinging to each other, frightened to death, listening to gunshots, gang fights, and drunks pounding on our door. There were several duplexes in the area, and they all looked alike. Our house was the closest to the bar down the street, so drunks were always mistaking our home for theirs. In the middle of the night, they would pound on our door trying to get into our house. Sometimes they yelled and cussed, demanding we let them in, and refused to leave. We would yell saying whatever small girls could think of, such as, We have a gun, and we're going to shoot you, or We are calling the police. We didn't have a gun or a phone.

At least once or twice a week, we heard huge fights in the street or the vacant lot right by the bar down the street. In the morning, my sister and I and neighbor kids would go out looking at all the blood and see what else we could find.

Today when we visit our old home in the Watts area, the little dilapidated rundown duplexes are still there, but now residents cannot see sunshine or escape the noise, as Interstates 5, 60, and 10 are all overhead.

I have no memory of being in kindergarten, I must have been held back until my sister started school. First grade was a nightmare. The school thought I was a discipline problem, and I was treated like a problem from the first day of school. I was sent to sit in the corner for not paying attention. I was made fun of in front of the class for not being able to read or say my ABCs. I would be jerked to my feet by the teacher for not listening to her. I would come home crying every day. Neither my parents nor the school was aware of my hearing problem, so I missed out on grades 1 through 4 until the problem was discovered.

When I started second grade, I was older and bigger than kids in second grade. This was a frightful experience being around other kids I didn't know and could not understand what they were saying, as they were mostly Mexican.

I had a very bad time in school from the start. I could not hear out of one ear at all, and the other was about 50 percent. (No one knew this at the time.) I had severe earaches and ear problems over the years.

I felt like a caged animal and couldn't sit still or quit talking. I remember my teacher as a very tall, not fat, but a stocky lady. For some reason, I liked her even though I was completely uncontrollable. Many times a day, she took me by the hand and put me in my chair at my desk. Five minutes later, I'd be up running around and talking.

Day after day, she continued taking me by my hand and putting me in my chair. One day she sat down beside me and with a sweet, soft voice talked to me about my problem. She wanted to help me learn how to sit still and be quiet, and gave me a big smile and a pat on my head. She said she had brought an old pair of brown stockings and would like to tie me to my chair. She also had tape to put over my mouth. This was the first time anyone had ever tried to help me with my problem, so I never felt that she was torturing me or trying to hurt me. I thought in my heart she liked me. I was in her class for two years, and I learned how to sit still and be quiet. Somehow the tape and stocking calmed my soul, and I felt safe from my traumatic life.

One day she did something that I will never forget and will always remember her for it. I had a little yellow dress on that day, and she had me go to the board. I was standing there trying to finish the math question on the board. She turned to the class and said sweetly, Look at how cute Peggy is today. Isn't that a beautiful little yellow dress she has on? I felt like a million dollars that day. No one had ever complimented me, and I'll never forget her.

My grandparents had moved to Texas, and one summer, we were