Caged Bird in a Window

By Almria Leonard

This is a true story from beginning to end. All the things written in this book are true. It all happened to the author. I'm the author. This story spans all over a period of forty-six years. It's hard to believe I lived. My religious convictions brought me through the abuse, both verbal and physical, the pain, and suffering. God was with me through it all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: May 14, 2024
• ISBN: 9798891570542

Book preview

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Caged Bird in a Window

Almria Leonard

Copyright © 2024 Almria Leonard

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2024

ISBN 979-8-89157-017-7 (pbk)

ISBN 979-8-89157-054-2 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

This is a true story. Everything written in this book happened.

Come Walk with Me

About the Author

This is a true story. Everything written in this book happened.

I was born in the hills of West Virginia. My mother was a devout Christian, and my father was a drunk. I'm the oldest of six children. I endured a lot of responsibility at an early age. I remembered the day my first sibling was born. I was two years old. My grandmother took me to my great-grandfather's house. Then later my dad came and got me. There she was, a tiny bundle in my baby bed. I told my mom to get her out of my bed. Then I tried to reach in and get her out.

My mom said, No! no! you can't do that.

Then my sister moved, and I realized she was real, not a doll but a real baby. Then came another sister, a brother, and another brother all two years apart. Then came another sister three and a half years later.

Times was hard. We moved about every year. Dad drank up every dime he ever made and didn't pay the rent. He never kept a job either. My grandmother stayed with us most of the time. My dad was always coming home drunk and jumping on Mom and slapping her, pulling her hair, always calling her bad names. I remembered when I was eleven years old, he came home drunk as always. He started hitting my mom, and she ran and he was chasing her; I jumped up on his back and put my arms around his neck and tried to choke him. Of course, he knocked me off, but Mom did get away for a while.

We had no running water, not even electric. My dad ran wires into the main line and got electric illegally. He's always breaking the law. I was ashamed of our father and our life. Dad was always gone, sometimes for a week at a time. He was always bringing in other drunks too. I remember my mom keeping us girls away from them. Sometimes we were up all night. The next morning, we had to get ready for school. I worried about my mom and my younger sisters and brothers all day long, knowing there was hardly no food and that my dad was there. By evening when I got home, he and the other drunks were gone.

I remembered when my baby sister was about two months old, my dad had been gone for days. Me and my sister next to me tore down an old building to burn just to keep heat in the house for Mom and the other kids. It was rough. But in my mind, I always dream of being a good parent someday, always working and providing my kids with shelter, food, and telling them about God and his love. Although I never understood why we had to struggle for these things because we were just children. My grandmother was the best Christian I have ever met in my life. She did everything she could possibly do for us. In my eyes, she was a modern-day saint. She's so devoted to God and her family. I loved her so much. Had it not been for her and the food from the government called commodities, we would have starved to death. She was a godsend.

I remembered looking out our windows seeing everyone moving about with their lives. I wondered what it would be like not to struggle and know that my sisters and brothers didn't even have enough to eat, have a very cold home and not even good clothes and shoes to wear. This broke my heart. I prayed daily as did my siblings, too, for God to help our mom and to protect her and keep us in his care.

I remembered when my baby sister was born. I was fourteen years old. That's when the word came around that another woman was having a baby two months after my sister was born and Dad was the father. It got my mom down. I remember her saying, Take this baby, I can't stand it. It was my baby sister; I was fourteen years old at the time. Dad left for good that year. I went to work babysitting for a neighbor. I stayed from Sunday night until Friday evening keeping three kids for twelve dollars a week. It bought my school clothes and a dress or two for my sister that was two years younger than me.

Our grandmother stayed with us from then on. Before Dad left, she would go stay with my aunt, Mom's only sister. Grandma went back and forth from my aunt's house to ours every two or three days.

Going to school was hard. We didn't have good clothes or money for food. I worked in the kitchen washing trays at our noon recess; my sister did too. That paid for me and her and the next sister's lunch, who was four years younger than me. Then in the seventh grade, I popped the popcorn every morning and sold it at lunchtime for my lunch, and my sister took over when I started high school; I was fifteen years old by then.

Our house was cold and the food was skimpy. God blessed us, and we always had something to eat; my grandma was the most help. We couldn't have made it without her. She's a wonderful person, a good Christian woman. Grandpa died before I was born. He was a preacher.

I started dating at fifteen; dated some but not a lot. No ball games or dances though, mostly were just out to eat or going to the old country store to hang out. Then when I became sixteen, I met