E10. Montana

What follows is the bravest move in the story—Grandma, hat tied and heart heavy, rides to welfare to name what no one in the family would admit, paying for Sadie's safety with her own exile.

Sadie shares how fear stayed in her body long after she was gone, how loyalty to siblings tangles with that fear, and why unanswered letters protected a fragile sense of safety. We talk about the nervous system and how patterns that once saved her now stand between her and intimacy.

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Special Thanks to our supporters, who have made this podcast possible.

• Lucy Mathews Heegaard: Audio Engineer 
  • with music via Epidemic Sound
• Terry Gydesen: Photographer

• Polly Kellogg
• Kate Tillotson
• Dawn Charbonneau
• Jacob Wyatt
• Molly Tillotson
• Julian Bowers
• Wendy Horowitz
• Pat Farrell
• Lynette Tabert
• Laura Jensen
• People's Farm Collective
• Deborah Copperud of "Spock Talk" podcast

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Welcome to the Sadie Green Story about an older adult looking back on her abusive childhood. It's a conversation between Sadie and myself, Pam Colby, her longtime friend. We are exploring how early trauma can affect a lifetime. Thanks for joining us. Hey Sadie.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

Hello, Pam.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Here we are. We've made it to episode 10.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Number 10.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

And our theme today is escape.

The Shack As Safety

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Yes, escapes. I want to say a bit more about that shack fantasy, but also I have a story of when I really did try to end up somewhere else.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Okay, let's hear it. Okay.

Planning A Train To Montana

Caught Sleeping In A Car

Grandma Chooses To Tell

The Family’s Retaliation

SPEAKER_00 0:56

Around the corner past grandma's house, set back off the road and almost overgrown with brush, stood a small dilapidated, one-room shack. The windows were long broken, and the wind blew leaves and branches through the doorway. But I fantasized about the shack, imagining that it was mine, waiting for the day when I would come and claim it. I pictured a small back door just big enough to crawl through, that led to dark, warm hiding spots, should anyone come looking for me. Animals would nest with me and grow so used to me that we could share each other's food. The crooked front door facing the road had to be covered, of course, with something inconspicuous. But the tiny back door, facing the woods, would be my private doorstep. I'd sit on the ground and lean my back against the weathered boards that stood between me and the local traffic, droning in the distance. I'd hear birds trill and twerp among pine boughs and sit long enough for deer to trust me. After a few days missing, Ma and Pa might search for me on their land and have the brothers comb the country around grandma's. Then, suspecting that I ran off to the main highway, the family would go on with daily chores as usual. She's not smart enough to live alone in these parts, one of them might tell the other, just before they turn the house lights off to go to bed. Eventually, they would forget me. But here I'd stay, playing real life hide and seek in their own territory. I'd have to forage for food at night. But neighbors never lock their doors. The Simmons brothers lived nearest the shack. Lloyd and Lewis were their names. If I snuck up to the edge of woods and waited, I could keep an eye on them, watching as they came and went. I could steal from gardens, or sneak up to grandma's house from this direction. Like a ghost, I'd cover all these parts. I'd manage. I'd live a secret, peaceful life of ease, till I was old enough to go on further. Just me and the animals who loved me, living among the delicate birch, the full-blown maples, and the ever-changing weather. Someday soon I would. Meanwhile, I concerned myself with finding food and warmth closer to home, and the days passed slowly, one by one. I was in Grandma's kitchen one afternoon, just she and I, listening to her white plastic radio sitting on the counter. Grandma lived alone for 20 years. Sometimes she heard no other voices for days, except those on the radio. Voices on the air, she called them. An advertisement for train travel came on, ending with a short note. I didn't say anything out loud to Grandma, but I tucked that message in my head and mauled it over in those hours I was alone. Grandma had a daughter in Montana, Aunt Dora. They wrote to each other once a week, every week, year after year. Grandma would hike down the hilly rudded driveway to the mailbox to leave her outgoing letter in the box with the red flag up, and on her lucky days, she'd walk back up, reading Dora's weekly news, neatly scribbled on several pages of stationery. Aunt Dora had four kids. I felt closest to her youngest, cousin Kate, who was the same age as my sister. I only saw them once or twice a year, at family reunions in Montana or when they came to Minnesota, but I thought that might be enough to justify a visit, even if I didn't announce myself beforehand. If I showed up on their doorstep, they certainly would not turn me away. Although I really was 13, I looked smaller than most 12-year-olds. I set my leaving date a week away, and piece by piece I managed to squirrel away clothing behind cement blocks in the basement. I planned to walk the 13 miles to Crosby, then take an early morning train to Weebo, Montana. I assumed they wouldn't ask questions. I had a definite destination. I could ride free. It all seemed very simple. After dark, I stuffed the hidden clothing pieces in an old feed bag, put on a plain dark jacket, and slipped away toward the road. No cars passed me on the county road, but when I got onto the main thoroughfare, cars became a problem. I walked in the ditch, and when the headlights neared enough to see me, I ducked down in the weeds until the whooshing sound was gone. This made for slow progress. Finally, I passed the Fenderson house and turned onto Highway 6. It was late by now and I was tired. I thought I shouldn't arrive in Crosby too early anyway, so maybe I should rest. Looking for a barn or shed for shelter, I approached an unfamiliar driveway. There was nothing in the yard but cars, so I went to one, an unlocked station wagon. I climbed in, thinking I would rest only a little while. The next thing I heard was a house door shutting, footsteps crossing the yard, and the handle on the car door cranking open. A strange woman climbed into the driver's seat. The light was coming up gray and pink outside the windows. The car door slammed shut, the ignition turned, then her elbow came up over the seat, and her head turned around to look behind her before backing out, and there I was, my head sticking up as surprised and scared as she was. She led me inside to her husband, sat me down at their kitchen table, and quite matter-of-factly left. The husband fed me cornflakes and listened to my story of how I was on my way to Weebo, Montana. I tried to sound brave and sophisticated, like this happened all the time. But he kept asking questions, and I kept getting softer until I was crying in my cornflakes. He said, I'll take you home now. But they won't let my little brothers play with me. Ba says she doesn't know what she ever did to deserve me. Please don't take me home. I'll go on to the station. But he insisted, the train station was no place for a child alone, and refused to let me go. We agreed on Grandma's house. He knew the way. After he dropped me off and waved goodbye, it wasn't long before Pa's pickup came driving up the hill to Grandma's. I remember being terrified, more terrified than usual because this time it was different. This time, I'd taken it outside the family. Now someone else knew. I stood at Grandma's window hearing the approaching motor. Panic was afire in me, wringing my hands until they stung. Grandma reassured me, wanting to believe it could not be this bad. But Grandma didn't know. She didn't see me hanging by my feet inside the barn. She didn't know when I was dipped in scalding wash tubs or put underneath the barrel. She wasn't there when I was so hungry. I convinced myself that shit was really food. And of course, I was too caught in the fear and secretness to tell her. But finally grandma knew enough. Shortly after my attempt to catch the train, she woke up one morning with her mind made up. She dressed in her going-to-town clothes. Clothes that always seemed brand new for her because she rarely wore them. She tied a canvas hat under her chin, then hiked two miles to her brother's house. She offered him a dollar from her worn coin purse for gas, though of course he didn't take it. They hardly spoke. I suspect the tiny worry line between her eyebrows was more obvious, and that her heart weighed heavy in her chest as she sat beside him for the long drive into Brainerd. To tell city welfare people, total strangers, that something was wrong at her son's house. After Grandma went to welfare, there was no forgiving her. What had been hidden between her and Ma gave way to open hostility on Ma's part. Grandma had broken the rule. Against every cultural code, she had put on her hat and went to strangers in a system completely foreign to her, in hopes they had the power and the will to fix a dangerous situation. In doing so, she paid an enormous price, sacrificing a place in her son's family. For in fierce retaliation, Ma demanded Grandma's relationships with Pa, with her, and with the other grandchildren be severed. Pa showed no apparent disagreement with his wife. Grandma and her son were close rural neighbors. Besides the usual family social life of birthday celebrations, holidays, and so on, she depended on her son's family for essential life support. She didn't drive. Her eyesight was fading into blindness. She lived alone on the hill, relying on others for rides, to the grocery store, for visits to the nursing home, for help with wood to feed the stoves in winter, and for companionship. Because Pa used the barn on Grandma's place, he and the six boys were accustomed to going back and forth between the Laznick house and hers. But now all visits to Grandma stopped. If grandkids were on her property, for any reason they were not allowed to speak to her. Jessie, the youngest grandchild, born after the welfare visits, was almost two years old before Grandma laid eyes on her.

SPEAKER_01 11:59

What a price Grandma paid.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

She paid an enormous price.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

And when you after you left and you would visit Grandma, did she want to talk about all what was happening and how they treated her?

Letters, Distance, And Fear

SPEAKER_00 12:14

That's how I found out that uh my youngest sister, born after I was gone. My grandma didn't see her for two years. That's how I knew. She did always want me to go back down, and she would say, blood is stronger than water, and they'll be glad to see you. But I was I just couldn't do it. I just couldn't go down there. And the other painful thing is she would write letters to me. And I still have those letters. And I would never write her back because I was afraid she would show them. She needed them. And my dad eventually did start visiting her. He'd come and knock on the door and visit. I just didn't trust that she wouldn't say something. And it was so important to me that they knew nothing about me. I didn't want them to know anything about me.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

And some of that was just fear. It was totally very fearful that your mother would find you and kill you, really.

SPEAKER_00 13:15

Yes. Uh years later I still I remember one of my brothers' wives wrote to me, and we were gonna actually meet in Duluth and do Christmas shopping. There was a storm and it didn't happen. How did this go? I remember being so afraid that she would know about them coming that I remember standing out on the back porch of my house and calling my friend Molly, who I used to live with. And I was terrified that she was gonna find out where I lived and drive there with a gun. And it was just crazy. It's just a crazy thought. And Molly, who knew me, said, Now, do you really think it was totally absurd. She wouldn't but I had that fear. I really But was standing out to a t- It really wasn't absurd.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

You had lived under her rule for what, fourteen years? It wouldn't whether she would leave home with a gun to try get you. But it makes sense that you would have that fear.

SPEAKER_00 14:21

Yeah, in a in a way, I did have that fear. But I was a grown woman, I had a responsible job, I owned my own house. I I was miles, worlds away from them.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

And and But it just doesn't it just go to show you that how much that imprint of childhood stays with you?

Trauma’s Imprint In Adulthood

SPEAKER_00 14:41

Yeah, still, even now, even now. Here I am, pushing 70. Your mother long dead. My mother is gone. Yeah. Yeah, I still have fear uh in my body for sure. You know, the whole loyalty with my siblings is also related to fear. Not that it makes sense, not that it's logical, but they are I see them as supporting her or believing her or almost spies for her still.

SPEAKER_01 15:11

Now she's no longer spies for her memory or or her legacy.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

Isn't that crazy?

SPEAKER_01 15:17

It makes sense, but what really strikes me is just how this process has been for you. And I'm just curious, do you feel like it's brought up more fear making the podcast or the whole thing?

Work As A Safer Outlet

SPEAKER_00 15:33

I've spent much of my life totally ignoring this. That's the essence of this. I've just been an automatic pilot. And walled it off. Yes. Walled off the memories. Yes. And when I was in that cabin, I fell apart and I went through all kinds of stuff, not knowing what I know now. Now I'm lucky in that I have a therapist that I see every week. Okay. And I'm starting to understand this fear that is very real. I'm learning more about the brain now than the nervous system, how there's the basic amygdala of the brain part that is primitive and all about survival. It's about fight, flight, or freeze. And I recognize how I've done that in my life in relationships. And when you're in that mode, that really basic instinctual fear, you can't think. You're not rational, you're not in your executive brain. So learning about this stuff helps me understand things that happened in the past in my life that I wasn't aware of at the time because I've never taken the time to recognize how that trauma affected me. And I'm just more in my emotions now. I'm so much more connected to my emotions now. Because I have the commitment to it and I'm not busy all the time.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

And you're getting professional help.

SPEAKER_00 17:06

And I'm getting professional help.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

And you have over the years at various times.

SPEAKER_00 17:11

Not much. Not much. I really haven't.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Okay. Yeah. I hope this process is part of the healing.

SPEAKER_00 17:20

I've had a good life. I've functioned well, but there's so much I didn't know. And the whole relationship thing, the intimacy thing, getting close to people, that's what I'm trying to figure out now. That's what I feel like I've failed at in some level. That makes sense. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

And I think does a lot of people who've had as much trauma as you put it out with opiates or alcohol or sex or there's something that Mine was work. Here's work, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:51

And people who were in uh bad situations. I worked with vulnerable people.

SPEAKER_01 17:56

So I you know You could see that that things were better for you.

SPEAKER_00 18:00

Yeah. Yeah, I've triaged all through my life, really. I've triaged what's uh my focus. And I'm really aware of people being out there alone, really. So I've I've probably been saving myself all along by satisfaction from helping other people. And I've done that work in a structured setting where there were rules and boundaries and paychecks. Yeah. So I don't feel like I went way out of bounds in my support of other people, but I was all in, man. I was all in. It was my life.

SPEAKER_01 18:39

I remember going to movies with you, and your text messages would just keep going. Oh you had it on really low, but I could hear woo-hoo. And I was just saying, how could she be getting so many work texts? And it's not work time anymore.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

Uh yeah, I loved what I did, but it kept it it ran my life, that's for sure.

Trying To Understand The Abuser

SPEAKER_01 19:01

That was my life. I think that it was a good outlet anyway, compared to how many people deal with their trauma. I was so lucky.

SPEAKER_00 19:08

I came to Minneapolis in the middle of the Vietnam War, and there was a place for me to just get rid of a lot of rage. I had so much rage, and I put it in a place You hooked right in. Yes. And I got kudos for it. My life could have been so different. I just feel like I've really been fortunate.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

It's also who you are, and that you've people get dealt hands and just how they play them out is dependent on who they are. And I think you always of grace or Yeah. It's hard to understand, but your resiliency is just something that so many people admire.

SPEAKER_00 19:52

Yeah, and there are times when I've gone to a movie or read a book, and I'm trying to find that's a whole different thing.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

Okay, we'll go there another day.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

I want to understand why my mother did what she did. How can people do things like that and be high-functioning, likable people themselves?

SPEAKER_01 20:16

Well, I think the only way you will ever understand your mother is no longer gonna be available to you because I think it's whatever happened to her, as they say. Yeah. She must have experienced some really dark stuff herself. And it was the times where people don't tell.

SPEAKER_00 20:35

Yeah. And she had a hard life. And yet she was generous and contributed a lot to the world and her small world. It's just people are so complicated.

Complexity, Healing, And Thanks

SPEAKER_01 20:50

They are. Yeah. But I think your process is helping me anyway to understand more about trauma and healing.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Thank you, Sadie. Thank you, Pam. I'm a babe in the woods, but thanks for definitely in the woods.

SPEAKER_01 21:07

Yeah. You love those woods. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

Thanks for being here with me. Thank you.