The Village that Betrayed its Children
Leskard, the village where I grew up, had a secret - a secret everyone knew but didn't do anything about.
The pictures above are of the Leskard School, S.S. #15 Clarke Township, Ontario, Canada. The small picture in the corner is of the school as it looked shortly after it was built in the village in 1872. The large picture is of the school today, turned into a home after the school was closed in 1966.
My latest memoir is a hybrid - a combination of my own memoir, the voices of thirty people who lived in the same area of Ontario as I did, many of whom went to this school, a history of the village, the school, the villagers, the culture of rural Southern Ontario in the 1950s and 60s, and the attitudes and laws of the time. This new work is a reporting of eye witness accounts, research into the characteristics of pedophiles, and how lightly child abuse was dealt with at that time.
This school was the scene of a crime, perpetrated over a twelve year period in the 50s and 60s, by one teacher/the Principal who was a pedophile. My book explores how such a thing could happen and what the long-term consequences have been for those students that were victimized by the teacher/Principal.
The Village that Betrayed its Children was published in September, 2024, by AOS Publishing, Montreal.
The pictures above are of the Leskard School, S.S. #15 Clarke Township, Ontario, Canada. The small picture in the corner is of the school as it looked shortly after it was built in the village in 1872. The large picture is of the school today, turned into a home after the school was closed in 1966.
My latest memoir is a hybrid - a combination of my own memoir, the voices of thirty people who lived in the same area of Ontario as I did, many of whom went to this school, a history of the village, the school, the villagers, the culture of rural Southern Ontario in the 1950s and 60s, and the attitudes and laws of the time. This new work is a reporting of eye witness accounts, research into the characteristics of pedophiles, and how lightly child abuse was dealt with at that time.
This school was the scene of a crime, perpetrated over a twelve year period in the 50s and 60s, by one teacher/the Principal who was a pedophile. My book explores how such a thing could happen and what the long-term consequences have been for those students that were victimized by the teacher/Principal.
The Village that Betrayed its Children was published in September, 2024, by AOS Publishing, Montreal.
The Village That Betrayed Its Children
What one advanced reader has to say about The Village that Betrayed its Children:
This is the shocking story of a 1950s rural community in Ontario, Canada; a village that housed and tolerated evil for a long, long time.
Canadian author Karen Lee decided to come to terms with her childhood history in this community, a saga of emotional abandonment steeped in silence. Lee was not cast away from her family's kitchen table, where good food was served on time, and all appeared to be well. Instead, her parents were too depressed to treasure their daughter's life, so Lee lived in the chill of her unhappy parents' unhealed histories. She suffered the consequences of their unexamined lives.
It is said that the personal is also political. Not only inside, but outside the home, the rule of silence was upheld until decades later, in 2018, when Lee forthrightly assembled some of her former village classmates and neighbours to uncork the aged silence. Painful memories poured forth.
Feminist poet and writer Adrienne Rich identified the five most used tools of the patriarchy that groom silence and passivity. These are: to ignore, to minimize, to caricature, to distort, and to trivialize. Lee adds one more, namely, to medicate. In this reader's history, also in rural Ontario in the late '50s, every unhappy and repressed 'homemaker' on our street was on Valium.
Misopedia is hatred toward the most vulnerable on the lowest ladder rung, namely, the girl child. In this riveting read, Lee examines her community's and her parents' silence in the face of chronically maintained and blatant evil.
Therapist and writer Pete Walker says that a single trauma can cause PTSD. A trauma that is repeated, however, one that recurs again and again and again, is known as C-PTSD, or Complex Post-trauma, and requires lifelong care of the wounding and then of the scar tissue.
Lee spent many years confined to the same room as a known pedocriminal, known as ‘the teacher’. This was her daily home away from home throughout every day of every month of her childhood and adolescence. Everyone knew but no concerted action was taken, except by an awake minority who packed up and left. Despite this brief pebble splash, the community quickly resumed their collective passivity which became, in turn, the Teacher’s permission to molest. He did so, never apprehended.
Read about the many 'reasons' molestation of children by a public figure is ignored and tolerated. Read about steely reinforcements of denial in a compelling, heartbreaking history that renewed my policy to keep my eyes wide open and my voice polished, proud and loud.
Eleanor Cowan
Author of: ‘A History of a Pedophile’s Wife’
What one advanced reader has to say about The Village that Betrayed its Children:
This is the shocking story of a 1950s rural community in Ontario, Canada; a village that housed and tolerated evil for a long, long time.
Canadian author Karen Lee decided to come to terms with her childhood history in this community, a saga of emotional abandonment steeped in silence. Lee was not cast away from her family's kitchen table, where good food was served on time, and all appeared to be well. Instead, her parents were too depressed to treasure their daughter's life, so Lee lived in the chill of her unhappy parents' unhealed histories. She suffered the consequences of their unexamined lives.
It is said that the personal is also political. Not only inside, but outside the home, the rule of silence was upheld until decades later, in 2018, when Lee forthrightly assembled some of her former village classmates and neighbours to uncork the aged silence. Painful memories poured forth.
Feminist poet and writer Adrienne Rich identified the five most used tools of the patriarchy that groom silence and passivity. These are: to ignore, to minimize, to caricature, to distort, and to trivialize. Lee adds one more, namely, to medicate. In this reader's history, also in rural Ontario in the late '50s, every unhappy and repressed 'homemaker' on our street was on Valium.
Misopedia is hatred toward the most vulnerable on the lowest ladder rung, namely, the girl child. In this riveting read, Lee examines her community's and her parents' silence in the face of chronically maintained and blatant evil.
Therapist and writer Pete Walker says that a single trauma can cause PTSD. A trauma that is repeated, however, one that recurs again and again and again, is known as C-PTSD, or Complex Post-trauma, and requires lifelong care of the wounding and then of the scar tissue.
Lee spent many years confined to the same room as a known pedocriminal, known as ‘the teacher’. This was her daily home away from home throughout every day of every month of her childhood and adolescence. Everyone knew but no concerted action was taken, except by an awake minority who packed up and left. Despite this brief pebble splash, the community quickly resumed their collective passivity which became, in turn, the Teacher’s permission to molest. He did so, never apprehended.
Read about the many 'reasons' molestation of children by a public figure is ignored and tolerated. Read about steely reinforcements of denial in a compelling, heartbreaking history that renewed my policy to keep my eyes wide open and my voice polished, proud and loud.
Eleanor Cowan
Author of: ‘A History of a Pedophile’s Wife’
More about my life in the village:
This picture is taken of the window above my desk in my room where I did my homework. You can see the trees in the valley where the village of Leskard is - one mile from our home to the village school. |
The house outside Leskard, Ontario, where I grew up.
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