A Life of My Own
A LIFE OF MY OWN
A Memoir
Donna Wilhelm
Dallas, Texas
La Reunion Publishing, an imprint of Deep Vellum
3000 Commerce St., Dallas,Texas 75226
deepvellum.org · @deepvellum
DeepVellum is a 501c3 nonprofit literary arts organization founded in 2013 with the mission to bring the world into conversation through literature.
© 2019 Donna Wilhelm. All rights reserved.
First edition November 2019.
Printed in the United States of America.
ISBN: 978-1-941920-91-6 (cloth) · 978-1-941920-92-3 (ebook)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019947675
Cover Design by Justin Childress | justinchildress.co
Cover Photo: Kim Leeson and KERA, North Texas Public Broadcasting
Interior by Kirby Gann
Text set in Bembo, a typeface modeled on typefaces cut by Francesco Griffo for Aldo Manuzio’s printing of De Aetna in 1495 in Venice.
Distributed by Consortium Book Sales & Distribution.
This book reflects the life experiences of the author, and for privacy concerns, some names of persons have been changed or abbreviated.
CONTENTS
Discoveries, Secrets, and Deception
Life and Death in a Hardship Outpost
London and The Colombian Connection
To readers everywhere—celebrate your lives and share your stories with those you love while there is still time.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I am indebted to the generous supporters of my memoir. Eminently, Kristin vanNamen, for more than a decade, has mentored me in the craft of storytelling and encouraged me to confront my truths with compassion, for myself and others. Her patience, skill, and fortitude during relentless editing revisions has nourished the manuscript’s coherence and essence. She rescued when computer technology thwarted my ineptness, and she conceived the reliable format and documentation that kept us on track and productive. I am grateful to members of the Forest Lane Writers Group, especially Rita Juster, Lauren Embrey, Trea Yip and Jane Saginaw, for their honest, cogent critiques, their encouragement and most of all, their friendship. My son Nick’s advice—“Just write your truths, Mom”—allowed me to reveal my parental angst without fear of invading his privacy. The input of beta readers, notably Bridget Boland, helped me define the narrative arc and deepen character development. In joint editing sessions, Beatriz Terrazas contributed journalistic skills, clarity, and best practices that fine-honed the manuscript for publication. Kay Cattarulla, a friend of more than fifty years who shared affinity as international corporate wives, generously read my entire manuscript pre-publication. Her feedback was perceptive and poignant. On the path to publication, my friends and published authors Jaina Sanga, Julie Hersh, and Rena Pederson gave wise counsel and magnanimously shared their networks. My publisher Will Evans and Deep Vellum have enabled a unique collaboration of mission and vision. Our partnership focused on the power of the literary art form to connect authors and readers across all geographic and cultural boundaries—an intent that superseded the core financial goal of commercial publishing and created an ideal match for my philanthropic identity. Finally, and with deepest gratitude, I acknowledge Julia Brown, my treasured personal assistant. Nothing in my daily life, my philanthropic life, and my writer’s life would be manageable without her loyal discretion, her compassionate efficiency, and her line-by-line proofing along with down-to-earth feedback.
A Life of My Own
A Note about the Journey
When my teenage daughter was away for a year at boarding school, she began to ask questions about my past. I sent back edited answers that I hoped would inspire her to trust herself and feel the support of a nurturing family. When I became a mother, I vowed to give my children every comfort and concern for their wellbeing. A promise meant to reverse the neglect and disparagement of my childhood.
I grew up in an immigrant boarding house run by my Polish mother in Hartford, Connecticut—a bizarre outcome for Mother, who had once been the privileged daughter of a patrician family in the Old World. My father Juzo, who’d grown up in Poland among hardworking farmers, emigrated to the New World and forged his way into working class America.
When I was a teenager, my much-older sister lured me from Hartford with promises of a liberated life with her in the Arizona desert. However, Arizona brought trauma and instability, along with one joyful year and the kindness of remarkable strangers. At age nineteen, I fled from my dysfunctional family—and arrived in the New York City of the 1960s.
There my reinvention began—first