The year was 2019 when I found myself in contact with multiple television producers to discuss my Hephzibah House experience. It felt like nearly a lifetime had passed since I completed that 1995 summer internship in Winona Lake. Leah Remini’s influence in bringing awareness to abuse within religious cults was expanding right alongside the Me Too movement.
However, even further back, in 2012, only months before I set sail for Arizona, I was asked to write a descriptive letter introducing myself as an IFB pastor’s daughter. The letter was to be addressed to the IFB pastors who supported Ron Williams and his reform school. I did so, and two days later, Susan Grotte, former student (inmate) and leading activist, posted it on her blog.
Letter To The IFB Supporting Churches
Summer Internship ~ Hephzibah House
Anyway, after completing the various phone interviews with the producers, I arrogantly concluded they were just looking for candidates who could participate in the making of trauma porn, at least, as that term was originally defined. I understand now, however, that emotional rawness and transparency are profoundly valid change agents. And I truly believe that to everything there is a season.
Back then, though, I was in a season of bypassing or taking the shortcut.
I still told them about the horrors of the place and we even talked about how my father sent my cousin as well as one of my siblings to other fundamentalist reform schools, one of which, was a Lester Roloff home for girls. Naturally, they tried to get me to emotionally describe how it all made me feel.
Instead, I shared my Pollyanna perspective.
I spoke of how well my past IFB life, including my Hephzibah House experience, had served my future self. They, however, were selling the need for change through a sensational and emotionally charged story filled with shame, secrecy, extremism and hidden religious abuse rather than one filled with stoicism and the “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” alchemy. Yes, I get it now.
Dr. Phil Show ~ Hephzibah House
Living in Sin ~ A&E Documentary
TO: Any Woman Without Dependent Children
FROM: Pastor Ronald E. Williams, Director of Hephzibah House
This is from my Hephzibah House photo album-scrapbook. I had jotted down notes on this paper, and then later covered them with good old fashioned white-out.
Susan Grotte, who is featured in the videos above, dedicated her life to leading a group of women whom were all either former students or staff and all of whom wanted to close the doors of Hephzibah House. She was relentless in her pursuit of justice and it is she who deserves honor and respect for her leadership and persistence. Hephzibah House is finally permanently closed.