Hi! My name is Clara and I’m a writer and speaker.
I’m also a mom of eleven kids who are all grown up, and now I’m getting to enjoy eighteen awsome grandkids!
Growing up on a farm taught me to enjoy nature and simple living. Home canning and gardening are passions of mine. And, I’m game to try a new recipe any time especially if it has “Italian” in the title! Sure, you can send me your Italian recipes and I promise to share my “special ingredient meatball recipe” with you.
Oh, did I mention I love chocoate, too?
The mountains of Pennsylvania have been my home for the past forty years, but my heart is bound to the ocean. My dream is to spend half a year oceanside, and half a year countryside. And, I know that dreams really do come true!
I blog about life and resiliency. Everybody has some major obstacle to overcome and I hope to inspire you to overcome yours!
My most recent challenge has been learning how to find peace and joy after finding out I didn’t know the man I loved and was married to for almost forty years. Unknown to me, he was a practicing pedophile since the age of fourteen and is now serving a thirty-year sentence in prison.
My healing is coming from being a voice for abused children and adults.
Love,
Clara
My ex spouse and his father sexually abused my daughter from the time she was 9 until she was 12. CPS workers decided her claim against them was “not founded” as she became sexually active after the abuse. The county attorney where my father in law lived refused to charge him because he was “a nice old man who was active in his church and taught Sunday School”. The county attorney where we lived said it was a weak case and with my daughter being sexually active they couldn’t justify charging my spouse.
Because my spouse and his father weren’t charged the county program for supporting spouses and victims of sexual were not available to us.
My family wasn’t very supportive. My father refused to be around my daughter without there being someone close by. My mother commented “He’s her stepfather…it’s not like he’s blood.”
My ex husband told the folks in our small church that I'”d kicked him out because I was involved with one of his good friends.”
When my divorce went before the judge he ordered joint custody and child support to be paid…even after I brought it to his attention that the divorce was because he and her father sexually abused my daughter for THREE YEARS.
After we were on our own, my daughter left my home she moved in with a series of alcoholics, drug addicts, meth users and abusers. She has ruined her teeth with meth and drinks heavily.
We do have a relationship of sorts but she isn’t the same girl/woman she was and I fear our relationship will never be healed.
Today, a dear friend contacted me to tell me she will is leaving her husband because it turns out he is also a pedophile…thank God she doesn’t have kids but my heart breaks for her.
So glad to find this blog. When I found out about my ex in 1991 I couldn’t info that didn’t blame the wife. Glad to see things have changed!
Clara, just wanted to share this positive outcome life event. So thankful these girls banded together.
https://kfor.com/2018/08/15/man-tries-to-grab-girl-her-sister-hurls-coffee-at-him-to-escape/
Hi Clara,
I can’t thank you enough for this blog.
It resonates with me more than I would like… I was in close relationship ( a trusted neighbor, like an uncle to us) with a pedophile who molested my brothers (he tried once with me, but I don’t believe I was his gender of choice, plus I stopped him. Still didn’t tell out of shame though).
I found out before things got physical that I was being groomed by an older man who psychologically manipulated younger women when I was in my early 20s.
And now, I’ve had lots and lots of red flags about a very close family member who I now know is emotionally abusive, but has a lot of the signs you’ve talked about in your blog about being a pedophile… I pray to God that it is not so, but I also pray that truth will come out, because I don’t want any more people, of any age, damaged by this person. Thankfully because of family circumstances (and God’s prompting, I believe), I, along with my husband and 2 year old daughter, are not in contact with this person.
I just wanted to say I so appreciate your deep vulnerability and desire to stop this rampant, gut wrenching evil from happening.
Thank you for your courage.
Clara, I just re-watched this segment with Marilyn Van Derbur…she has a comprehensive journey…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALEfE3rNCqI
..none of us has all the answers, but all of us can help another with our own journeys…
Dear Clara
My daughter was molested by my partner when she was 9. She told me the day after he molested her in my own home while I was cooking dinner. I filed a police report right away and the police did nothing to prosecute him.
I had been in this relationship with this man for 4 years. He had a daughter too.
After the police did nothing I filed a civil lawsuit for damages. The incident took a toll on my daughter and myself, and we quickly went through more than 100000 dollars in therapy.
I reached a settlement in December for damages, and I refused to sign a non disclosure agreement. I do not feel that is enough, I wish authorities would prosecute such heinous crimes. But I feel I did what was right.
I often go back in time in my mind and wonder if I should have known about his tendencies, but those thoughts take me nowhere, and only make me succumb in a fog of guilt that helps no one.
I am working on trying to forgive the pedophile. It is hard because he never acknowledged what he did, and even ran away to another country after I filed the police report, and even went to the extent of sending his family to try to convince me of not filing those charges.
During mediation he was sobbing like an inconsolable baby yelling that he did not do anything. It disgusts me to see so much denial, and a potential repetition of trauma for other children that might be exposed to his illness.
But I am powerless, and the anger does not serve me. I want to see the pedophile in another light, not like a monster, but like a human being, and I want to be able to forgive.
thanks
rosario