From Helen - Writing the Book

Music to play while your read

This is my true life story

• Helen Hoover, an abandoned child who grows up in an orphanage.
• Helen Choban, the verbally, and physically abused young wife and mother of four children.
• Helen Bowers, the mature woman, who looks back over eighty plus years of my life

My life

• Born to parents that could not take care of me, did not love me, and did not want me
• A new start with a family that wanted me but were soon taken away
• Teenage years spent in an orphanage where I learned not cry, and what it was like to never hear anyone tell me “I love you”
• My life as the bad times when I felt like I was trapped in a dark tunnel, and could not see any hope or light
• The good times when I emerged from the tunnel, and saw light, and happiness.

Why I wrote the book

• I want to share with you how I overcome an early life of being abandoned, unloved, and unwanted and then went on to survive a marriage of verbal and physical abuse. Along the way I had to deal with the serious health problems of my children and struggle with my own bouts of deep depression and illness.
  
• I want to tell you that it is possible to overcome the bad things that happen to you in your life, and become a happy and loved person!
  
• It is important to share the power of the word “love”, and to show and tell your children, family and friends that you love them.
  
• People need to believe that no matter what happens to you in your life, you can overcome them if you believe in yourself and a higher power. I have tried to put the past behind but my past did shape my future.

I could have let my experiences break me but instead I became strong. You should not give up. My story may make you cry with sadness or smile with happiness but most of all I hope it gives you courage and hope to go on and create a happy life for yourself.

There are things today in our world that are really encouraging to me.  As a society we continue to look for ways to help orphans and abused people.  The Twin Cities is fortunate to have two remarkable women working to change things.  They are incredible examples of how one person can make a big difference.

Mary Jo Copeland is the founder of Sharing and Caring Hands.  Here is the Guiding Principle that is on their web site http://www.sharingandcaringhands.org/

We are dedicated to the proposition that the e community can make a difference in the lives of others through volunteerism, donation and commitment, and that this can be accomplished without creating an expensive bureaucracy that saps the resources necessary to carry out it's vision and achieve it's goals.

Her newest project is the Gift of Mary Children's Home. When completed this will be a group residential facility for 200 children.  I see it as the next generation of the cottages I grew up, with many improvements.  Adoption and foster care can no longer meet the needs of all of the children in need and this is a wonderful alternative. Their web site http://www.giftofmary.org/ provides this as the mission for the home.

The mission of Gift of Mary Children’s Home is to provide a safe and loving, nurturing environment for children where they can grow emotionally, physically, spiritually and academically, toward the goal of being happy, well adjusted, self-sufficient, responsible adults.

The Gift of Mary Children’s Home will offer education, vocation, social, recreational and spiritual needs for children to develop and succeed in the future. This stable, long-term placement will keep siblings together.

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Abused women everywhere found a friend in Janet Hagberg.  She started the Silent Witness Initiative in 1990.  There are now chapters in all 50 states and 30 countries. Their work, along with many other organizations, has made a difference in reducing domestic violence.  This link describes the improvements that have happened from 1974 to 2004.

This is from their web site http://www.silentwitness.net

Mission Statement
Promote peace, healing and responsibility in adult relationships in order to eliminate domestic murders in the United States by the year 2010.

Vision
Promote successful community-based domestic violence reduction efforts in order to reach zero domestic murders by 2010.

Domestic violence was not talked about in my early life.  I am convinced that if programs like Silent Witness and many others had existed and if domestic violence was talked about in 1940, my life would have been very different.

I hope you will take a few minutes to learn about these two worthwhile programs.

Table of Contents  | About the book from Helen | About the book from Fay

About the Owatonna Orphanage | Publisher and Graphic Designer