It took me so long to get up the courage to take my seven children, move 100 miles away, and begin what I hoped would be a better life away from a physically, emotionally, and verbally abusive husband. I'd bought the house a month earlier, and we were allowed to move in while it was going through escrow. Nine more hours and I would have been in the local attorney's office signing all the final papers.

My 13 year old son, Jim, ran down the dark country road to my best friend Patsy's trailer. Jerry, Patsy's husband, took us all back to the trailer. After getting the kids settled down in make shift beds on the floor, I laid on the couch. The acrid smell of smoke filled the room as I lay there in the dark wondering what was next. Where would we go?

The next day we set up camping geer in the yard next to Patsy's trailer. I tried to get help through the local welfare office but they wouldn't help unless I had a place to live. The next two or three months were spent trying to find someone who would let me move in, so that I could then apply for help. This was not an easy thing to do with seven children. To make matters worse, when our home burned down, the local townspeople started gossipying that we had done it ourselves.

It was one thing after the other. My ex-husband wouldn't help - he didn't even pay child support - and two of my children ended up in the hospital. One with pneumonia, the other with ear infections so bad her eardrum on one side had punctured. I asked her why she never told me how she felt and how much pain she was in. She said she knew I had enough to worry about. Again my tears flowed. These kids deserved more than they were getting, and I couldn't even give them the basics.

Just before Halloween a neighbor of Patsy's offered us the use of a very small trailer with two large rooms built onto the side of it. I gladly accepted. It was small and cramped, but it was somewhere to live, and I could get help from the state. It had a wood burning stove and I learned to chop wood for the fire. There was an old ringer washer sitting outside and I would haul hot water to it to do my laundry, washing the lights first, removing them and then doing the medium colors and finally the darks.

We lived there for about three months, then moved into town near an old cedar shake mill where I got a job grading and bundling the cedar roofing shakes. It was a tough job and at the end of each day my hands were swollen from cedar slivers that made their way through my gloves.

We lived in the small town of 400 people for about 5 years, but we were never really accepted as part of the town and after five years I was tired of incident after incident of cruelty. Not only were we the "family that set their house on fire," but we were the "goody two shoes" because we went to church.

The kids and I tried hard to make it work. We cleared the land next to our home and created a baseball diamond, encouraging visitors and even though impoverished ourselves, we always had treats for those who visited. My son Jim even started a club called "The Peacemakers" hoping to make friends with other youths. Our better life was still an elusive dream and the children and I headed by bus from Washington state to Michigan where my sister lived with her husband and two daughters. We hoped that our better life would be there, instead.

We still didn't have much, so we sold what we had to buy the tickets, and packed about 16 boxes with personal items we wanted to keep. I made phone calls and found a house before we ever left, but when we changed buses in Chicago, I called my sister and found out that the people decided they didn't want to rent to a single woman with so many children. So here we were again, no place to stay, and our new beginning slipping out of our hands before we even got to town.

We stayed with my sister in their small two bedroom condo until the owners of the condominium complex said the "visit" had extended beyond what they allowed. I wanted more than anything to have my own place, be able to work and lead a normal life. I had to again ask the state for help, and they were willing to help finance getting me into a place, but I was in for a huge shock when I reached out for their help.

The state gave me until 5:00 that evening to find a place or they told me they would take the kids from me. It was 4:45 when contact was made with an organization that helped people in my position. They talked to the people at the state office and we were put in a motel for the night.

The next day we met with an attorney who contacted the state agency to arrange emergency funds and to have them stop threatening me. The first person he talked to refused to budge from their earlier decision to take the kids. He spoke to someone above them, and then to someone above them, finally to someone very high up. He told them he would call television and radio stations as well as newpapers and hold a multi media news conference regarding what was happening.

They backed down, we got the funds and through some very nice people ended up in a house. Unfortunately, the house was in miserable shape. Sewage went directly under the house, as did bath and kitchen water. It was always filled with flies, and the stove and fridge didn't work right. But, it was a roof over our head and I was grateful.

I had planned to go to another small church, but couldn't find one. One day a flyer blew past me as I was walking and I picked up the bright blue paper. It was an invitation to attend a large inner city church that had bus service. I called to see if they would pick people up in the area we lived. They did and I couldn't wait to attend church again, even if it was a large church.

That church was our new beginning. The people there were so warm and loving. I again became very active in the church, working there part-time and helping them start a day care center. My son Jeff also worked at the day care and was known by the children as "Uncle Jeff."

A very remarkable man, who was a deacon in the church, bought a beautiful home just so I could rent it. I lived about a mile from a state mental hospital, and there were times we had someone from there in our home. Two of my children, David and Lisa, and I began a nursing home ministry and once a week would visit a local nursing home where we read to the patients, prayed with them, and brought them little things like special slippers, stationary, or pretty pens.

Years of domestic violence and living in a town that thought I was a criminal had destroyed my self esteem. For a long time, I thought I was not worthy of receiving love. Yet, here in this new town and church, I became capable of giving and receiving love once again.

In God's plan, all things work together for good. We finally got our new beginning, just a bit later than we planned.

Susan Stevens
Copyright 1999

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