STOLEN FIELDS: A Story of Eminent Domain and the Death of the American Dream

Welcome to my new blog! I'm a first-time blogger so it might take me some time to get the hang of it. Anyway, I'll be glad to hear from all of you who are waiting for the publication of STOLEN FIELDS. Last Friday for the first time, I held an actual book in my hands. It was only the galley copy, but the inside was beautiful! Can't wait to get the finished version.

While there is much humor in the book, along with the sad tale of the loss of the family farm, there are underlying issues that came to light. When my cousin was a little girl, our grandfather started offering her money for little favors -- a quarter at first, then fifty cents, and so on. The child drew the line when his offer reached a dollar, and she told her parents. I hadn't believed my sister when she told me he grabbed her when she was a teen-ager and she screamed and escaped. I asked her about it again when my cousin told me her story and my sister elaborated to tell me that when she told our mother, Mom told her that as a teenager she had been warned away from him by her mother because of something concerning my aunt.

Other cousins began searching their memories for indications of this behavior. One remembered Grandma always shrugging Grandpa off when he tried to show affection to her. Yet another cousin didn't have any memories about Grandpa's behavior, but her father, Grandpa's eldest son, went after his granddaughters and was finally told by his eldest daughter, once she learned of it, that he had better stop or she would put him away.

For the last few years I have been working as a psychiatric nurse, and I see many patients who are living with the memory of similar attacks by a family member -- and it's not limited to girls. I had not realized it was still such a widespread problem, and might have thought, like another cousin, a psychologist, it was just something men did in those days.

Well, they still do it today, and when it's in the family, it still goes on unchecked. Family members keep quiet about it, thinking they are protecting the victim and the family structure. Actually, the opposite is true. The victims are left with strong feelings of guilt and damaged self-esteem at best. At worst, the damage is much deeper. Family structure is corrupted.

In order to bring this practice out into the light, I would like to write about it to build public awareness and to make families aware that they must speak out and end this chain -- because it does carry down as it did with my uncle.

I offer a forum for people to give their opinions, share their experiences if they will, and find validation that they are not alone. If you don't want to share publicly, please contact me through the Contact page on my website at www.jeanboggio.com Strictest confidence will be held, and nothing will be written without express permission.

Jean