The following article was written by Sarah Hudson Pierce. She is a friend of mine and a sister in Christ. This appeared in Thursday’s edition of The Shreveport Times. I am using it here with Sarah’s permission. Visit her website at http://www.sarahhudsonpierce.net .
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Having spent my teenage years in an orphanage near Tulsa, Okla., in the ’60s, I could write a book on the abuse I witnessed in this so-called church-run orphanage.
Having just become a Christian before going into the orphanage at the age of 14, I was shocked, slapped in the face, to witness what went on in the name of religion in this place that I expected to be full of love and kindness to those of us who were in a home away from home.
Being the activist that I am known to be, I took justice within my own naive hands and reported one housemother who beat a little girl until she was a mass of bruises on top of bruises hidden beneath her long dress.
How the 10-year-old girl knew to come to me I do not know, but she came up to me before church and told me she needed to show me something in the bathroom after church. She asked me to do this in the church bathroom because we were from separate cottages.
In shock, I told her that I would take her to the school nurse the next day knowing that I would surely be in for the “grim reaper” that day when I returned home from school.
Well the nurse stood in horror as she examined the injuries laid to the child’s backside and legs and assured us she would have to contact the home but that she would not give my name out to the officials at the institution.
When our bus brought us back to the home I knew my case had been canned as I saw the superintendent standing at the bus stop. Being the naive child that I was and somewhat remain today I walked up to him and told him that I was the one who reported the young girl’s abuse.
He told me to go to my dorm mother and that she would “deal” with me; she did but she dared not lay a hand on me. She even told me how she beat her own daughter one time with a garden hose until she had to be put to bed.
After lecturing me for what seemed like hours she told me I was grounded and I had to wear the same dirty clothes to school and church for six weeks and couldn’t bathe or wash my hair.
This story has a funny ending. The incident occurred on Monday and the following Sunday she realized that was the day the orphanage used our cottage as a showcase to hoodwink church members into donating to our “worthy” cause so she flew into action and told one of the older girls to wash and set my hair before the days of blow-dry hair styles.
The grounding and lack of cleanliness was off. Even she could see just how dumb that looked to only call it off for a day.
Long story short, I continued to report abuse including sexual abuse that I witnessed by our own housefather, but nothing was done except questioning and telling the housemother to not leave us with him. And on another occasion a board member/minister attempted to rape one of the young girls on her ride home with him one night. When she ran out of church crying when she saw him, nothing was done when she was questioned, as was he. This last incident happened more than 40 years ago and it almost destroyed the young girl’s life.
If there’s an attorney in the house I would like to know what can be done to this last assailant who is now in his early 70s.
The orphanage now homeschools the children, making it more difficult to report abuse. However there was one girl who was raped by her housefather just four years ago and it didn’t get reported until she went home. Now he is in prison.
The first step we can do is report abuse.
If we don’t protect children, who will?
Sarah Hudson Pierce lives in Shreveport.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: child abuse, faith, orphanage
