Going to Church with Kjeld, the Home teacher.
Our home teacher, Kjeld, came over on a regular basis. He invited me to go to church with him. I knew you had to wear a dress for church. I didn’t own a dress. I started to save up for one. When I had finally saved up enough money for one, I went a few times. I liked church, but not many people talked to me, and I didn’t seem to fit in. When there was a weekly activity, I thought I would go so I could get to know the youth a little better. The activity started at 7:00 p.m. Sander had just barely gotten his driver’s license. He was working a part-time job after school and on weekends at a furniture store. He had saved enough money to buy a car. Bent talked him into buying his old car. A car that was falling apart, but Sander didn’t know any better. I asked Sander if he would drive me to church so he did. When I got there, the parking lot looked empty, but I didn’t think anything of it. I asked Sander if he would be with me, but he said he had better things to do than to hang around a bunch of Mormons. Sander dropped me off and told me he would be back at 9:00 p.m.
I walked up to the door to go in, but it was locked. I sat on the curb waiting for Sander to come back and get me. Since it was Fall, it had started to get dark. I was cold and scared. It was a very long wait. I found out later that the activity for the evening had been canceled but no one had called to let me know. It didn’t seem like anyone cared whether I was there or not, so I decided that I would never go to church or another one of their activities again.
Donny Osmond 1974
I was 13 now. I couldn’t wait to grow up and have a family of my own. I dreamed of what it would be like to meet those unborn children that were waiting for me to be their mom. This is what got me through daily life living there.
One day during school lunch hour, I was invited to my classmate’s house. His name was Vicent. He was the cutest boy in our class. He lived just across the street from the school so we were able to spend the whole lunch hour at his house. While I was there his older sister put on a record. It was called “Puppy Love” by Donny Osmond. I really liked it so I asked his sister who Donny Osmond was. She showed me the album cover. It had a picture of Donny Osmond. She told me he was just a few years older than me and then she added that he was a Mormon who lived in Utah.
Wow! A Mormon, just like me. It must be fate! I was in love. I had it all planned out. We would marry in the Salt Lake Temple and he would take me away from here and together we would have a family of our own. It was all so exciting.
I had a little bit of money saved up, so I went and got my hair cut. When it was the weekend, I went to the mall and had my picture taken. When the picture was developed I got an extra 8″ x 10″ copy for Donny Osmond. I mailed it off with a letter letting Donny Osmond know he was in luck because I was a Mormon too.
With the money that I had earned cleaning the laundry mat up the street, I bought some teen magazines that had Donny Osmond’s fold-out pictures in them. I put these posters all over my bedroom walls. I couldn’t wait to hear back from Donny. But the days turned into weeks and the weeks turned into months. By now I was good and mad at Donny Osmond for not getting back to me. I thought if he couldn’t be bothered to write back to me, well then I wasn’t going to have his pictures on my walls. So down they went and into the trash. At the time I thought I was one of a few Mormon girls in the world, and I had no idea that Donny was getting hundreds of fan mail a day.
Standing Up for Myself 1975
Bent had a good friend named Orla. Orla had invited us to his place for ice cream. When we were done eating he told us we could take the rest of the ice cream home. The next day when Sander I were home alone Sander asked me to dish up the ice cream, so I did. When we were done eating it Sander asked me to wash and put his bowl away. I told him since I had dished up the ice cream he should wash his own bowl and put it away. Sander told me, since I was a female, it was my job. Sander had not hit me for so long. He only called me stupid. I figured that since I was 14, he wasn’t about to hit me now so I stood up for myself. Then Sander kicked the bowl off the table as he ordered me to clean it up. I bravely looked at him and answered, “Clean it up yourself!”. Sander stood up, came over, and then punched me really hard in the face. Blood ran out of my nose, down my face, and all over the floor. I think Sander was just as shocked as I was to see all that blood.
Sander was scared of getting into trouble so he asked me not to tell on him. He offered me 50 cents to keep quiet. I told him I would keep quiet for 75 cents. Sander gave me three-quarters. We then hurried and washed up the blood. My shirt was covered in blood, so I hurried and changed it. When Mom and Bent came home, Mom could tell that I had a black eye. She asked me what had happened. I told her that I had fallen down the stairs. She seemed to believe it. At the time I didn’t know he fractured the bone on the right side of my face. When I became an adult I had to have surgery to reconstruct my cheekbone. That was one painful and expensive operation and to think that Sander got off only paying 75 cents for it.
A neighbor lady saw that I had been mistreated. She said to me that she has noticed that Sander and I always looked neglected. She said that she had been thinking about calling the authorities. Inside I wanted help and wanted to get away from all this neglect and abuse, but I was afraid of what Mom and Bent would do to me, so I told the neighbor lady that my brother and I were fine so she never called the authorities.
Bent’s Birthday. August 21, 1974
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