Nearly flunked high school

 I've had a few people ask how on earth someone like me could have nearly flunked out of high school so I thought I'd share a little about how I grew up.

I grew up on a farm in rural Iowa.  Born in 1960 to Bert and Kathy A.  My mom was a sweet, kind person who was overwhelmed by a husband who was harsh, cruel and mean to his wife and children. For years I held it against my mom for not rescuing us from an abusive man but, truthfully, she did all she could do back then.

I was the oldest of 4. I had 2 sisters and 1 brother. Beaten from the time I was 4 years old, I was the scapegoat who received the beatings. By the time I was 13 he would lock me in a room in our barn after a beating.  The room was actually for grain storage and it had a foot of rotted grain on the floor and was infested with rats and spiders. Growing up I thought I was stupid and I'm sure you can agree that my upbringing is why I did so poorly in school.

My younger sister was molested by this man and was raped when she was 15.   She was desperate to leave the home so she married someone at age 17 and moved out.  After she left he moved onto my youngest sister was nearly molested. But after the first time he tried she got the shot gun out.  While he was sleeping in the living room she took the shot gun and nearly shot him.  But she had second thoughts and laid the shot gun in a corner.  My mom arrived home after this happened and my sister explained what she had almost done.  The commotion woke him up and when he saw the shot gun in the corner he asked "what is that doing out?"  And my mom explained that he had "almost been shot by your own daughter so you better leave her alone after this". He never tried molesting her again. 

I left home when I was 17 as well.  I graduated early, somehow, I had earned enough credits that I could do that.  I moved to town, about 5 miles away.  It was a college town which had many boarding houses with rooms that were rented to students who could eat on campus. I rented one of these rooms and got a job at Holiday Inn washing dishes 4 days a week.  Those were the days I ate because they gave a meal to their employees each day they worked. I lived there for 6 months and then met my first husband.

Today I understand why I was married at 18 to an alcoholic who broke my rib once.  I wanted a place to live and needed to eat every day.  He left me after 6 yrs of marriage for someone he met in a bar.

Now comes the part of my life where my life turned around for the better.  I became a Christian after he left and started attending a church I had attended when I was a teenager.  A year later I enrolled at Faith Baptist Bible College and that opened up a whole new world.

So that's my early history.  You can read more about my life by browsing through my blog.  Thank you for reading this far.

I will add one more thing... when I was 36 I took an intelligence test. I was having trouble at work with my boss and I thought if I could find out my strengths and weaknesses it would help me at work.  I was shocked when the results came back.  I was in the 98th percentile for intelligence!  Unbelievable.  I was stunned for nearly 3 months.  I went into a depression after realizing all the woulda, coulda, shouldas.  After 3 months, I shrugged off the depression and worked at starting a charter public school.  You can read about this part of my life by searching "Durham Charter Academy" in the search box on my blog.

Thank you again for reading this far!