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Life & Events > Different Stories -- I Free-associate
 

Different Stories -- I Free-associate

I heard an interview on NPR with Elizabeth Smart, now 25, who was abducted from her home by Brian Mitchell, a religious fanatic, and his wife, when she was 14 and held for nine months. She was repeatedly sexually abused. If it had been me, he would now be minus a body part. She was taken to a hideaway on a mountain and I can understand why it would be difficult to find your way home from such a place if you managed to escape, but they would also take her into populated places and she was too afraid for her life to cry out.

She explained her fear and said she was threatened with death and they also threatened to kill her family.

I must be an anomaly. At 14 I was fiercely independent and cannot believe I would not have found a way to escape and come down that mountain by myself, or make such a fuss in a public place that they wouldn’t dare to kill me.

When I was 11 or so, my mom had to take a job to make ends meet. She went to work for a fur shop on State Street in Chicago, sewing linings into high end fur coats. State Street had all the fur shops. They all wanted European born workers because their needle skills were old world and excellent. In this country, young ladies learned how to navigate malls, not sewing machines.

But Mom’s absence meant I was on my own after school, and all day during the summers. I spent my time exploring the city mainly to get away from my sis, who was seriously troubled, controlling and abusive. (Years later, she loved me to pieces and, it seemed, she had totally repressed memories of her cruelty. I did not remind her.)

When I was Elizabeth's age, I ventured farther afield. I would take the Madison street car to the Loop – it turned around at Dearborn St. – and walk further east to Grant Park which was on the lake. Sometimes I would visit the Art Institute on Michigan Avenue, or go straight to the water and either walk the seawall to the Coast Guard Station (they thought I was cute), where I sometimes hung out, or south to the Aquarium and Planetarium. Really long walks. I would be gone the whole day.

I got to know the city, I got to see a lot, I got to be self-sustaining, happy to be on my own, and very able to avoid trouble. I know this is not the usual school of survival our young are exposed to these days – parents think the way to protect their children is to keep them from knowing the world.

Anyway, because of this in-your-face mindset, I think I would have found a way to rescue myself from a predator like Brian Mitchell.

Meanwhile, I looked up Chicago streets to refresh my memory of old haunts. It’s difficult to recognize places at this later time and place, but I do know that the Chicago Loop, once the premiere destination for white teens on date nights in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, became, in the years that followed my leaving (1957) an all-black entertainment ghetto at night. During the day, the area was still an upscale business area with the major stores and restaurants and I learned that office workers were told not to linger when they left their places of business at night. I understand now that they have rejuvenated the Loop into a vital and integrated evening attraction, with main stream movies back at the big movie houses.

The last place I worked was the Chicago Convention Bureau located on La Salle Street across the street from City Hall. It was an office building full of lawyers, and was attached to the Bismarck Hotel. The Hotel had a European/German flavor, served lingonberry pancakes, and was charming. Now it is The Allegro Hotel. With some effort, I located a photo of the actual building. It is still there.

But the La Salle Hotel catty-corner from this location, one of Chicago’s very finest hotels, was demolished and a high-rise office building was built in its place. (Heads up: this is not progress.) I saw the actor, Robert Taylor, on the street outside the hotel some time around 1956.

In any case, years later I don’t think I would know the city and would have to re-acclimate just as if it was Cleveland or something. I miss the way it was. You can’t go back.

xx, Teal

posted on Oct 12, 2013 8:48 AM ()

Comments:

Nine years, not nine months.
comment by troutbend on Oct 19, 2013 6:30 AM ()
Hi, no, Wiki says June 5, 2002 to March 12, 2003. Long enough. It's that other story where a number of teens/young women were in a house for years that is more frightening.
reply by tealstar on Oct 19, 2013 7:15 AM ()
I grew up in Chicago, and was riding the El and the subway alone at nine. today I don't go to the city without a bodyguard. Times change. back then I might have made a kidnapper miserable enough to pay my parents to take me back. Today they would probably just murder me and toss my body in a dumpster.
comment by stella on Oct 17, 2013 6:13 PM ()
no doubt cities are not as safe as they once were ... but I would think you'd be okay during the day. Stay safe in any case.
reply by tealstar on Oct 19, 2013 7:17 AM ()
I beg to differ with you. You were obviously a very different person and lived a different life than Elizabeth Smart. She lived a fairly sheltered life in in a well-to-do area of Salt Lake City, pop. under 200K. Chicago pop. in 1950 was 3.6 million. Due to her family's religion, she likely was taught to be demure and dependent, rather than independent. I'm very independent too and I'm not sure I could have escaped that situation at her age either.
comment by catdancer on Oct 17, 2013 2:02 PM ()
I thought I acknowledged the differences ... my point is that we are breeding children who are so innocent that they are prey to the worst.
reply by tealstar on Oct 17, 2013 6:14 PM ()
Self-reliance and skills for doing things like navigating a city or town ought to be taught in schools. Some of it's impossible to teach, however -- you are an excellent example of a naturally fighting, surviving spirit.
comment by drmaus on Oct 14, 2013 8:00 AM ()
thanks for kind words ... I think I was born with a strong sense of self. My Mom, if she were here, will tell you I fought her every inch of the way starting in infancy. Can't take credit for that -- it was in the genes.
reply by tealstar on Oct 14, 2013 8:09 AM ()
Children are different now and the world is different. I think that those
of us who had to grow up too soon and protected our children from our traumas may have erred. Then our children carried it to a whole new level
and their children are not independent and forceful. I know my parents
would have been accused of child abuse today because out of necessity I
cared for my two year old sister when I was seven.
comment by elderjane on Oct 13, 2013 6:53 PM ()
my mom wasn't following any parental guidelines -- she just was unaware of the dangers out there. If she had, I'm sure she would have been more restrictive, although I am astonished that she didn't get it -- all you had to do was look around you in that neighborhood.
reply by tealstar on Oct 14, 2013 6:49 AM ()

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