January 30, 1999 was the first time we’d written about Kelsey’s story. It wasn’t until August 8, 2004 that Kelsey’s name came up and it was just last week, June 20, 2014, she finally told us it was Her story.
Copying from two different journals, she is going to allow us to tell her story. I, Big Sherry, will tell you that it is quite graphic. Trigger warning advisory.
Also, there are some adult words as there are more writers writing and helping with it.
From the January 30, 1999 entry, someone writes,
“This day 1978, the day I found out that my mom knew about the molestation. That day started the suicidal thoughts and want the because I knew then that my step father would kill me. That day the shame, the guilt and dirtiness overshadowed me for the rest of my life. That day, January 30, 1978, I was still 10 years old, That day I’ll never forget that day.
That day. I sit in my counselor’s waiting room, scared, writing my feelings over that day 21 years ago, frightened at the feelings that grip me, afraid of every move, scared to ask, trembling at every thought that comes to mind especially over that day.
The fear that mother might come again, the slaps that she puts upon Ron – almost killing him. I now know she knows what he has done to me and the guilt is so much too much for Sherry to bear the fear of Sherry dyeing because this awful thing has come out. Victoria Rose is beside me on my lap as I write. (I figured out that Victoria Rose was Kelsey’s doll that we had given up; hence, Kelsey’s new doll now has a name). Sheryll sinned, she told, she will die at Ron’s hands for this. The pain she carries the same. Yet at 31 I am still alive. How? Suicide rages in my being. I am no longer Sheryll – who was Sheryll? Why is it that I can’t bear that name?”
From the August 8, 2004, Big Sherry allows Kelsey to write:
Remembering Kelsey is 10 and she allows Big Sherry to begin; however, Kelsey takes over and writes here and there and Big Sherry writes too….
Kelsey is the sad one and many of Kelsey’s memories seem to be from 1977-1982 or 1983 and maybe into adulthood. Cathy doesn’t know how old Kelsey is but one thing she knows is some of the memory. Memories begin when my father sent me back to my mother. I’ve not talked about that time much. Daddy sent me back to my mother 12/1977 just before Christmas break that year.
The night Kelsey was created:
January ’78 after the cat ate the only meal we had left, my mother asked Ron back to feed us. He was there a short time when one night, as I usually did, when I was sitting at my desk in the sewing room, on the other side of the wall of the living room, doing my homework. I heard beating and yelling. My mother came to me falling down begging me to answer her questions truthfully about what Ron had done to me. She went out to the living room, beat him some more, broke his glasses and then came back to me. This lasted, it seemed to me, for hours. I was 10. Kelsey was created that night.
Then after a while I went out and told my mother to stop beating him. The next day, after school we went to Helen Tapley’s house while the police took Ron away to jail for a short time. After that short stint, he went to the Bangor Rescue mission, where he stayed for a while until my mother brought him back. He did come back in time for Christmas that year because that was the year I got my piano. 1978.
Life after Kelsey’s creation:
Its blurry memories as to what was happening during the 1978 – 1980 years with him because it was a yo-yo. He was there and gone again 
and I never knew what to expect. I remember he was there in the spring 1979 when my grandfather died and in June 1979 when I had my appendix out as well as in July when we went to Acadia National Park. He insisted on taking us rock climbing and my mother was totally against it. He took me, nevertheless.
She brought him back when the men from the church told her she couldn’t divorce him or the church wouldn’t help us anymore. He came back, but for a few weeks, wasn’t allowed to be alone with me. I say he wasn’t allowed to be alone with me for the first couple weeks because that was when my mother started leaving me alone – she wasn’t ever to leave me alone.
Graphic content follows:
Alone and What Happen
She would go to her friend’s house and when she left, Ron would call me downstairs and molest me. This was our house, these photos, but at that time it was yellow with brown shutters. The living room was right inside those windows. He would lay me on the floor between the couch and coffee table, take my panties down and put his body part on my private area and hurt me, pumping me, hurting me. If I 
struggled, the pain became more intense. I couldn’t scream outwardly. I tried to close my eyes and go away until it was over. I felt violated every time, dirty and my panties were wet. My panties being wet has never gone away.
My Grandmother’s Death and the Week of Hell
I would cry myself to sleep, wet my bed and then smell the next day. This happened many nights until my Grandmother Lawton died in September ’79. My mother went for the funeral alone, leaving me with Ron for a week. That week was a week of horror for me. He made me sleep with him and repeatedly molested me. One night he had me on his lap when my mother called. She asked if everything was ok. He was listening so I had to say yes. Then she asked the same question again and added “you know what I mean?” And again, I said yes. I was very fearful of him. I knew he would hurt me if I told the truth.
Side note: When he came back from the rescue mission, I’ll never forget that day. He knelt down to become eye level with me and told me how sorry he was and that he wouldn’t hurt me again. That didn’t last long. Now back to my story..
We hung up with my mother and back into bed we went, him raping me again and again, rubbing me down with lotion and again and again. I was so sore, the pain was in my entire body. My mother returned on Saturday afternoon, we ate dinner, got showered for Sunday and went to bed.
The Question:
Sunday afternoon we went to Barbara’s for lunch and my mother asked the question. I absolutely dreaded and in front of Barbara. I don’t remember the question, I don’t remember my answer but he left and went to the August State Mental home for a while.
I talked to Barbara later in life and she told me that the question and my answer made up her mind. She said she told my mother that if my mother did not call the police, SHE would. My mother called Ron and then the police. He was taken to the August State Mental Hospital and I was put through major interrogation from 2 people, the detectives. We had to go to Ellsworth and we sat in a big room. Things were very different then. It seemed to go on for hours. I went to school during the day and Ellsworth at night. Seems like this went on for days/weeks.
This is my 8th grade school picture, Fall of 1980. I was 13 and had already gone through so much…. in my short life.
The detectives told me that I was a surviving victim and that I could help other girls by telling my story. They also told me that I would some
time have to testify in front of Ron, the judge, and 12 jurors. That was very scary for me. A 12 year old standing in front of all this – it was frightening. When all this was over, I remember the judge sentencing Ron to jail for 6 months. I remember thinking – 6 months for all these years? For all the horror, hurt, and anguish. We left the courthouse, went home and I don’t remember much else about that day.
I remember too that that summer or early fall she sent me down to the church to see the Pastor. I had looked up to this man as a father figure. I will never forget him telling me that my mother wasn’t leaving Ron. I was devastated. I had hoped it wasn’t true but I’d heard the meeting with the men AND I’d read my mother’s journal she kept in the dresser. I knew but I wanted it to be false.
I do remember that Ron got out after 30 days, just under the wire of having to register for the sex offender registry, I was told in 2011. I feared Ron. After that stint in the jail, he returned once again to the Bangor Rescue Mission. Today, 2014, I believe Ron owes a practical form of restitution. What he has done to me can never be undone and I can never be made legally whole again; however, as he told me in later years during a phone conversation with him, he said to me, “It is all my fault.” So, while he is sorry…. I am dealing daily with the pain, I am broken.
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