Little Avalanches: A Memoir

By Becky Ellis

A daughter’s quest for truth. A soldier’s fight for survival. Their shared search for understanding.

Little Avalanches is a gorgeously written memoir of breathtaking scope that propels readers from the beaches of California in the early ‘70s to the battlefields of World War II.

As a young girl, Becky is forced to hide from phantom Nazis, subjected to dental procedures without pain medication, and torn from her mother again and again. Growing up in the shadow of her father’s PTSD, she wants to know what is wrong but knows not to ask.

Her father won’t talk about being a Timberwolf, a unit of specially trained night fighters that went into combat first and experienced a 300 percent casualty rate. He returns home with thirteen medals, including a Silver Star, and becomes a doctor and well-respected member of the community, but is haunted by his past.

Seeing only his explosive and often dangerous personality, Becky distances herself from the man she wants to love. Yet on the eve of his ninetieth birthday, when Becky looks at the vulnerable man he’s become, something shifts, and she asks about the war. He breaks seventy years of silence, offering an unfiltered account of war without glory and revealing the extent of the trauma he’s endured. She spends the next several years interviewing, researching, and ultimately understanding the demons she inherited.

Because his story is incomplete without hers, and hers is inconceivable without his, Ellis offers both, as well as their year-long aching conversation marked by moments of redeeming grace. With compassionate, unflinching writing, Little Avalanches reminds us that we are profoundly shaped by the secrets we keep and forever changed by the stories we share.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Regalo Press
• Release date: Mar 12, 2024
• ISBN: 9798888451670

Becky Ellis

Becky Ellis is a Timberwolf Pup. The daughter of a highly decorated World War II combat sergeant, she is a veteran of a war fought at home. She earned a BA in English Literature at UC Berkeley and has over twenty years of experience in the publishing industry. She teaches writing in Portland, Oregon, where she lives, plays, and has raised three daughters. Little Avalanches is her debut memoir.

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Praise for

Little Avalanches

"We children of World War II combat veterans are all sisters and brothers of the same father. That father was dark, brooding, sometimes violent. Countless books on that war have focused on men. In Little Avalanches, we hear from one daughter. Becky Ellis has produced a masterpiece. There’s no other book out there like this—a daughter-father story of pain, and then in the end, redemption."

—Dale Maharidge, nonfiction Pulitzer Prize winner, and the author

of Bringing Mulligan Home: The Other Side of the Good War,

and the podcast, The Dead Drink First

"In a world where few subjects are taboo, the impact of war on veterans and their families remains largely hidden from public view. Becky Ellis cuts through the darkness with her memoir, Little Avalanches. Ellis is a brave and tireless storyteller who crosses an emotional and psychological minefield between herself and her war hero father. She emerges victorious on the other side, with childhood demons slayed and in possession of a mature compassion for herself and her father. This memoir reads like a novel. You won’t be able to put it down."

—Jennifer Lauck, New York Times bestselling author of Blackbird

"There is a great deal of academic and popular interest in how parents’ experiences of trauma shape the lives of their children. Books such as Mark Wolynn’s It Didn’t Start with You have become wildly popular. But the stories around World War II continue to focus on the heroism of the men who fought and died, or for those who survived, their silence. Limited attention has been paid to World War II veterans’ struggles to integrate once returning home. The stories of the women and children who lived with these men and suffered from their struggles are strikingly absent. Little Avalanches offers compelling insight into the childhood of an American girl whose father fought in World War II and suffered, like so many veterans, with undiagnosed PTSD. He continued to fight the war at home, treating his children like military recruits. However, Little Avalanches is much more than a memoir of a troubled childhood. In following Becky from her childhood fighting phantom Nazis, to her adult quest to understand her father’s experience, we are offered a roadmap for the journey from victim to hero, from pain to compassion, and from isolation to connection. On a personal note, my maternal grandfather was a World War II combat veteran, who suffered from PTSD, including nightmares and outbursts of anger until he died. His experience and that of my other relatives who fought in Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, and Afghanistan is part of what drove me to study psychological trauma and PTSD. This book motivated me to consider how my grandfathers’ experience of World War II shaped my mother’s childhood and, through her, my own. Becky Ellis’s memoir has also inspired me to examine how children’s experience of their parents’ trauma changes over their lives and the healing gained by children through their understanding parents’ experience."

—Karestan C. Koenen, Ph.D., Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health and Director of the Biology of Trauma Initiative, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard

"Becky Ellis’s beautiful memoir Little Avalanches is the story of a man on the frontlines of history and the daughter he raised to fight the war he survived but never left. It’s about trauma threading from one generation to the next, and how the stories we never wanted to remember bring us back to ourselves and each other, but most of all create room for the messy, complicated, all-powerful compassion that heals us. From hippies to Nazi collaborators, Ellis carries us through decades and across continents, transforming how we might see everything in between."

—Janine Urbaniak Reid, author of The Opposite of Certainty

"Little Avalanches is a lifeline to families struggling to understand why Grunts come home and wound those they love. While there is no one truth in combat, only unique truths of the same experience, Becky Ellis has written a universal truth about the beast that prolonged combat unleashes and has shown us a way to share our stories and begin to heal. I saw both of my daughters’ faces in these pages and am grateful to Ellis for telling the story nobody else would."

—Cpl. Robert Topping, United States Marine Corps, Grunt 1968–1970,

3rd Marine Division, 3rd Marine Regiment, 2nd Battalion,

Fox Company, 1st Platoon

"Women and children have suffered for generations under the control and violence of men, fathers, and husbands. So great is the pain that the response of some daughters is to slam the door shut on their fathers and have nothing more to do with them. In this gripping and unique memoir, Little Avalanches, Becky Ellis does something different—she waits and keeps the door open. Her story details the confusion and agony of young children and mothers and the emotional ‘ripping apart’ and hopelessness they experience. For decades she tries to dialogue with her father. One day he talks, she listens and records. Questions are asked, answered, understood, and both are healed. Her resilience and curiosity transform a nightmare."

—John Allan, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Department of Counseling Psychology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

"Little Avalanches is a collection of heartbreaking, beautifully-written vignettes about trauma. In this unflinching memoir of survival, Becky Ellis shares the disorienting experience of loving a parent she both idolized and feared, attempting to reconcile three sides of her father: a brave World War II hero and doctor, a terrifying bully who abused his children and wives, and a doting grandfather who yearns for forgiveness. Ellis’s visceral, clear-headed prose made this book impossible to put down and left me shivering. Readers who have loved someone from the ‘Greatest Generation’ will find resonance in these pages."

—Anna Bliss, author of Bonfire Night

A REGALO PRESS BOOK

Little Avalanches:

A Memoir

© 2024 by Becky Ellis

All Rights Reserved

ISBN: 979-8-88845-166-3

ISBN (eBook): 979-8-88845-167-0

Cover photo by Marla Cyree

Cover design by Conroy Accord

Interior design and composition by Greg Johnson, Textbook Perfect

As part of the mission of Regalo Press, a donation is being made to support disabled veterans, as chosen by the author.

This is a work of nonfiction. All people, locations, events, and situations are portrayed to the best of the author’s memory.

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 and publisher.

Regalo Press

New York • Nashville

regalopress.com

Published in the United States of America

For my father,

who had the courage to share his truest self with me.

For my daughters,

who believe untraumatized people are boring.

And for readers

who recognize themselves in these pages.

Contents

Part One: The Home Front

All Clear on River Road

Mary Janes

The Birthday Girl

Little Avalanches

A Blinding Light

A Smoked Bird

Crazy Eights

A Day at the Beach

French Knots

The Swim Platform

Replacements

The Sizzle of Wings

A Wild Cry

A Death Trap

Part Two: One Hundred and Seventy-Two Days

October 16, 1944—April 7, 1945

Part Three: The Listening Post

The Nazi Mobile

Another Header

Spearheading

Vanishing

Digging In

The Spin Cycle

A Lucky Kid

Epilogue: A Long Ride

Acknowledgments

PART ONE

The Home Front

All Clear on River Road

In an early memory, a bang on the front door. Three sharp whacks.

The light flickered next to the couch, where I nestled on the cushions next to Martin. His freckled nose was in a book, slim shoulders hunched under the dim yellow glow of the lamp. I was about five years old, curled up with my big brother. Tangled blonde hair pushed away from my eyes so that I could see the small black-and-white TV across the room. My mother stood in the kitchen over a simmering pot. Her white nursing uniform was wrinkled and smudged, and a small tear in the toe of her hose ran over the high arch of her foot.

The knock sounded again. The lamp shade wobbled. My mother slid across clay pavers, peered into a tiny hole at the door’s center, and snapped back. She stood motionless, stiff. Her eyes wide.

Off the sofa, I ran to her side and inched back the curtain.

On the cement porch, my father was silhouetted by the beaming headlamps of his blue Chevelle as it idled in the driveway. Whisker stubble shadowed his cheeks and his chin. His tie was loose, shirt tails untucked, and a stethoscope hung from his neck, the steel disc bouncing against his chest as he paced back and forth.

It’s Dad, I said.

Shhh. My mother’s voice was quiet but crisp as she snatched me to her side.

I know you’re in there, my father shouted, his voice muffled by the heavy door.

It wasn’t always like this. My father’s key once fit into the lock. He’d kiss my mother in the kitchen every day after he returned from the hospital and join my brother and me on the couch, a book in one hand, a pour of Scotch in the other. He’d lift me to his lap, tuck Martin under his arm, and read from Uncle Remus. Martin would listen, patient like my mother, but I would drag the stethoscope from my father’s neck and press the steel disc to his ear lobes, his rocking Adam’s apple, his tender eyelids. All the while, my father would keep reading, his voice smooth and steady.

Now, my father rattled the doorknob and banged again. This is my goddamn house, he shouted.

My mother pulled Martin from the couch and hurried us down the hallway to the bathroom, her hand closed tightly around mine. She threw open the flowered tub curtain. Get in, she said.

With our clothes on? I asked.

My mother nodded.

Martin and I scrunched into tight balls and sat shoulder to shoulder in the cold basin. We stared up at our mother, our blue eyes fixed on hers as if they were tethers that could keep her in the bathroom with us. This is not a game, she said, voice hushed. Be quiet. Don’t make a sound.

I was full of questions. But bit the tip of my tongue, squeezed hard, and held the fleshy part there so it wouldn’t move and let words out.

My father wasn’t allowed to show up whenever he wanted anymore. There were exact times and dates when Martin and I were handed from one parent to the other, passed back and forth like shared property. My mother said this was divorce. These were the rules now, but my father didn’t care. He followed his own law.

Another bang. The curtain shivered. The faucet leaked.

One by one, tiny bits of water traced the metal ring of the rusted spout. A clear pendant dangled on the rim, then silently let go and fell, crashing against the tub floor. With each collision, sound burst open. Every drop a broadcast to my ear, shouting, She’s in here. Becky is hiding in here.

Martin huddled next to me. His arms wrapped around his legs. His chin perched atop freshly skinned knees that poked through holes in his blue jeans. It seemed easy for him to stay quiet. He was better at most stuff than I was, including hiding. He was six.

My father got into the house that night. I don’t know how. Maybe my mother opened the door, or maybe he came through a window. I heard a scuffle, yelling, and the slamming of cupboards and doors. Then loud footsteps and the vinyl curtain skittered back. My father looked down at Martin and me squashed together in the basin with his ocean blue eyes and smiled as if nothing unusual was going on.

He lifted me into his arms, and I breathed him in. My father always smelled like outside, as if he’d been in the woods after a hard rain, all earthy and fresh like a path of pine needles tread into the dirt. I slipped my arms around his neck and wrapped my legs around his hip. I felt the warmth of his palm on my skin as he held me close.

Martin stepped out of the tub and hugged my father’s leg.

My mother stood at the bathroom door, her eyes flat. The little run in her hose, an inch wide now, ran up her slender calf, over her kneecap, and disappeared beneath her skirt.

I always felt a divide open as wide as the Grand Canyon when my parents were in the same room. Two years earlier, my mother had packed a hard-sided yellow suitcase for herself, my brother, and me when my father was at work and moved in with my grandparents. After a few months living alone, my father moved into a motel, and she moved us back into the house.

Blue and red lights ran across the papered walls, flicked against the mirror, and traveled over Martin’s forehead. They circled the ceiling and washed over my mother’s face. Then the door banged again.

My father scooped up Martin’s hand and carried me to the entryway, my mother following in his shadow. At the door, my father set me down next to my brother. Then he tucked in his shirt, straightened his tie, and smoothed down his hair before turning the knob.

Cold air rushed in, and goosebumps traveled up my legs in a wave. I pushed closer to Martin, his shoulder warm against mine.

Two deputies filled the porch, their legs wide and shoulders broad. Shiny badges pinned to their shirts. Coiled chords hung from walkie-talkies that clipped on their collars. Loaded belts sat low on their hips. Leather straps held pouches, clanking keys, long flashlights, metal batons, and guns. Black-handled revolvers, polished and holstered. Behind the two men, a patrol car parked next to my father’s Chevelle, and a spectacular light show blazed in the night. Red and blue streaks spiraled over trees, flashed through neighbors’ windows and across their doors.

My father said hello with a Hey there and Nice to see you.

We lived in Modesto, California, a small town of sixty thousand, and it seemed like everyone knew my father as the local doctor and a national war hero. He invited the men into my mother’s house for a drink as if he still lived at that address, but the officers stayed outside under the dim light of the porch, their legs planted on cement as if they were a couple of trees growing there.

One of the men said they were following up on a call and peered over Martin and me into the house. His eyes landed on my mother, traveled over her soft curves, and lingered down her long thin legs to her stocking feet. How you doing, Annie? he asked like an old friend.

We’re fine here, my father said, his eyes on my mother, piercing into her.

My mother seemed to become an outline of herself. Her mouth went slack, her white uniform hung loose on the bony points of her shoulders.

My father directed his attention to one of the deputies and asked him how his wife was feeling. They talked about some strange body part I did not know how to spell or how to locate on myself. That new prescription should be working like a dream by now, my father said.

One of the policemen locked his thumbs into his belt, looked down at his boots, and rocked back on his heels. She’s getting better, he said. You’re a real godsend, Doc.

That’s what all my father’s patients called him, Doc, and according to my mother, they all loved him.

Bring her in on Monday, my father said. No need for an appointment. I’ll take a quick look at her, make sure she’s coming along.

Thanks, Doc, that’d be awful nice, he said.

The other officer glanced into the house now too. Looks like everything is fine here, he said.

It’s a school night, and the children need to get into bed, my mother said. Lou has visitation this weekend, not tonight.

No goddamn judge is going to tell me when I can and can’t see my children, my father said, his voice sharp, his jaw set.

Martin’s back straightened, and his arms went rigid. I caved in on myself, shoulders rounding forward, chin down.

One of the officers shifted from foot to foot. The flick of handcuffs on his belt. The rattle of those small chains.

Sounds like you need to call your attorneys, one of the officers said to my mother. Work this out with them.

My attorney told me to call you, my mother said, her voice faint, her eyes shifting back and forth from one deputy to the other.

You know we can’t do anything unless you press charges, Annie. And that’ll go on Doc’s record.

My mother stood still, and we were all suspended in time.

I desperately wanted to say something for her. I wanted to tell everyone to go away and leave us alone. Let Martin go back to reading his book. Let me go back to watching TV. Let my mother go back to making macaroni and cheese. I wanted to be strong and powerful, like my father, but my mouth didn’t open. Words didn’t come out. If I spoke up, I believed my father would hate me the way he hated my mother.

My mother’s eyes dropped to the floor, and she shook her head.

A decision was born in the silence.

An officer pushed a button on the walkie-talkie clipped to his collar. His lips pressed into the grill of that little transmitter, his voice deep and sure. All clear on River Road.

Mary Janes

When I was five years old, I had an old pair of Mary Janes. The surfaces were mangled and scraped. White holes dotted dull black patent. They looked like old cowhide. Tired Holsteins that groaned and mooed. Oh, how I longed for a new pair. Shiny black patent leather that click-clicked when I tapped down the street. Heel-toe, heel-toe. Click. Click.

I had put the shoes on my birthday list and asked for them at Christmas too, but my mother could not afford fancy shoes, and I didn’t dare ask my father for them.

One morning though, my mother’s weight pressed into my mattress. Time to wake, she whispered close to my ear.

I rolled over and curled around her body, soft and warm. Her hand smoothed my hair, fingers tugging lightly on my scalp like a tiny bird. I opened my eyes, and there was a box, the lid lifted, and the tissue carefully pulled back to reveal the toe of a shiny shoe. Next to the box, a neatly pressed cotton dress spread out on a chair. White tights were folded nearby.

I kicked back the covers and cradled the boxed shoes to my chest. They were pitch-black, patent leather with polished gold buckles and had tiny hinged pins, straight and tight, on each strap. Not a scuff on them. Not even a fingerprint.

Most mornings, my mother rushed about frantically, a cup of coffee sloshing in one hand, a foamy toothbrush in the other, while she tried to prod me out of bed and get me to school on time. But that day, she sat there, unhurried. Her eyes were clear and alert. Delicate pink powder dusted her cheeks. Stiff sprayed curls dripped from her bun. She was already dressed but not in her usual starched nursing uniform. Instead, she wore church clothes, a light blue skirt, tight around her knees, and matching jacket. Try on your new shoes, she said, checked her watch, and stood.

Covers thrown off, I was up and out of bed lickety-split.

My mother reached for the hairbrush next to a coiled ribbon on my dresser. The brush landed on my scalp, and she pulled the bristles through. "We’re going to