It was a sad existence made even worse by the sexual abuse I was suffering. Most days, when Brian came home from work, I had to shine his shoes and then massage his feet or give him body massages. My small hands would tremble. I hated having to touch him, and as I massaged him, I would try and dodge his fondling hands. Most of the time, I was too numb to cry; staying numb was the only way I could survive.
The summer I was nine, we officially started to dress in real Amish clothes. Upon writing letters to several communities, Brian was informed that since he and Mamma were divorced, they would never be allowed to fully join any Amish community. However, the Amish welcomed correspondence with people who wished to live a Plain lifestyle, and he was told he could get guidance from a bishop in Pennsylvania. The Bishop wrote Brian and told him he would not mentor him until we began conforming to the full Amish dress code. He sent Brian the name of an Amish company that made things for “Plain people.” Brian happily ordered dresses, head coverings, aprons, shirts and broad fall trousers.
When the clothes arrived, my sister and I stared with dismay at the plain blue dresses and the uncomfortable-looking aprons and head coverings, but it did not take long before we got used to the uniform. Brian constantly admonished us on how evil and prideful it was to have any form of print on our clothes. Mamma started taking sewing lessons again and was learning to make dresses and other items of clothing. Slowly, but surely, Mamma and Brian were building an unbreakable barrier between us and the outsiders, a barrier few people would be willing to cross in order to save Samantha and me. I am sure there were people who had some idea how badly we were being treated, but everyone looked the other way, all in the name of religious freedom.
I learned to make bread, cook and clean the kitchen. My sister helped while Mamma oversaw us, beating us with the belt whenever we dropped something or made a mistake. A lot of times, Mamma was worse than Brian. She would laugh fiendishly as she lashed the belt across our small frames. Sadly, the only times she gave us hugs or showed any affection at all was when other people were around.
That fall when we were living in Prescott, Arizona, we saw some people dressed like us. I remember being surprised because this was a rare occurrence. Brian immediately went over to talk to the man of the family, who seemed just as surprised to see us as we were to see him. There was the father, whose name was Gary, the mother, and their two daughters, who appeared to be in their early twenties. Brian found out that they, like us, had recently converted to the “Plain” lifestyle. The women said they would teach Mamma how to sew plain clothing, and they invited us to go to dinner at their house that evening. At their place, we saw an old school bus stuffed full of all kinds of food and clothing parked in their front yard. When Brian asked what it was for, Gary informed him that they were hiding out because the government was after them. He did not mind sharing this with Brian; he knew Brian was also against the government.
I liked the daughters. They were very nice to Samantha and me. I especially liked the fact that Mamma did not beat me when we were at their house. I always felt drowsy when there because I found myself relaxing. Mamma and I learned to sew from the girls and soon we were making our own plain clothing.
Trouble began to brew amongst the adults only a few weeks after they met. Brian and Gary both wanted to be the leader of the group. Gary thought Brian should pay one-tenth of his income to him. He also thought Brian should try to recruit new members. Meanwhile, Brian thought he should be the leader since he was older. Since they could not work things out, we split company.
One day before we parted ways, Mamma and I went to get some fabric from one of their bedrooms. As we entered, we noticed that one of the closet doors was open. I saw some hair sticking out from under the door and pulled on it. To my surprise, I found myself holding a blonde wig. I looked at it curiously while Mamma opened the large side door. My mouth fell open—there in front of us were a bunch of guns. Along the bottom of the closet, there were several boxes filled with wigs, makeup and many different styles of clothes. Mamma quickly closed the closet and went to tell Brian that she had a headache and wanted to go home. The next day, Brian confronted them and they argued for a while until we left. When we drove by the next day, they were already gone with their fully stocked bus. Many times, over the years, I have wondered who they really were, but I suppose I will never know.
The winter I turned ten, we got a motor home and Brian officially quit the mining business. He could no longer get permits, and there were way too many people protesting mining in Arizona for him to try to continue. With some of the profits he made from selling the mine to a larger corporation, he bought woodworking tools and extra sewing machines. That summer, we set up shop in the local trailer parks and began making things to sell. Mamma would sew Amish dolls while Samantha and I would sit for hours in the back of the motor home, stuffing doll parts with cedar sawdust. Sometimes, we would work for eight to ten hours straight, stuffing and sewing doll parts.
Mamma would sew the doll clothes for a while and then sit outside to sell them wherever we happened to be parked. These items sold pretty well, and due to this newfound success, Samantha and I became a very valuable source of income. We were never given lunch breaks and rarely stepped outside of the motor home. I was still plagued with headaches, and the constant smell of cedar sawdust made them worse. Also, the little school work we had been doing stopped. I had completed the second grade math book by this time and was attempting to start the third grade one, but because of my poor foundation, I was not learning much.
And so, the summers went, one exhausting day after the other. Mamma and Brian became our overseers while my sister and I did almost all of the work. They set time limits on how long it should take to do the dishes, sweep the floor, and make dinner and stuff doll parts. Brian’s favorite way of punishing us was to pull down our underwear, and then while we bent over, he would beat us so hard that we developed large blisters.
During the evenings and on Sundays, we would sometimes play checkers and other board games. Brian said he had played these as a kid and they seemed to make him happy. Sometimes, we would even have popcorn and Mamma would play too. Samantha and I would try to be happy, but these were the most confusing of times. These people kept us isolated from the world and beat us. Yet, they sometimes would try and pretend that we were all normal and that we could have fun together. Samantha and I loved to play games, and we would smile. Mamma and Brian would appear to be somewhat happy. Then, less than an hour later, they would find some reason to beat us without mercy.
The winter I turned eleven was a turning point for me. One evening, our motor home mysteriously caught fire while we were away. As a result, we were let out of the payment plans and Brian was able to collect insurance money.
That March, we headed back to Washington, where Brian and Mamma planned to buy a farm. Samantha and I once again hoped things would get better. We didn’t know we would live isolated on a mountain top for the next eight-and-a-half years.
People speak sometimes about the “bestial” cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, as no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel.
—Fyodor Dostoyevsky
In March, we drove back north and, one day, Brian came across an ad in the paper for some land across the Cascade Mountains in eastern Washington. We drove across the mountains to see it. The property was nestled on a mountainside six miles outside of a small town with a population of sixteen hundred people.
It was April now, but there were still occasional snow flurries, and the majestic mountains were capped with glistening crowns of snow. I sat