Family Trauma and Healing
“…forced her into his car at gunpoint.”
After all these years of hearing versions of this story, there it was in its entirety laid out on the blog of a true crime writer, author of forgotten historical crimes, one click from the Reddit post that linked me to it. The headline read, “Donald Fearn Tortures and Kills…”
…my grandfather’s beloved first cousin.
Fearn killed my cousin.
I suppose I initially read the gruesome description of this infamous 1942 crime with the same curiosity of other readers. I always thought oral tellings of the story passed down through the family were embellishments. But this post was coalesced from factual accountings.
Unimaginable.
What was done to her does not bear repeating here. But it was anyone’s worst nightmare.
As I read the blog aloud to my mother I became agitated. Was I feeling shame for reading about our family’s tragedy in such a distanced and public manner? Was it protection I felt for my elder cousin known more infamously for her death than for her short life? Here were the most intimate details of our family member’s last tortured moments of breath, as spectacle.
My reaction further intensified as I read through the comments following the post of the story.
Poor girl.
At least [Fearn] died the same year!
I cannot accurately describe the experience of reading strangers’ comments on this case as if it were an episode of Criminal Minds. Voyeurs parsing through the gory aspects of my cousin’s death.
Yet, I don’t blame them. We are all captivated by such stories.
Mom had shared this version of it over and over with us for as long as I can remember:
My grandfather, at 21 years-old was summoned to accompany his uncle to identify his 16-year-old cousin’s maimed body, abandoned and eventually found in a cistern. The tragedy affected him deeply–the source of pain behind a lifetime of alcohol use that eventually shortened his life.
Grandpa’s broken heart never quite recovered. As the father of a young teen, he encouraged my mother to take his cousin’s name for her confirmation, (a religious rite that invokes renaming oneself after a Catholic Saint who calls forth a special connection in one’s life). He told his cousin’s story up until his own death four decades later. Mom thought he sought some sort of redemption in his tellings, perhaps for living or not being able to protect her.
After I shared the post with Mom, she once again filled in the missing, humanizing details about how our family experienced this tragedy. It dawned on me as she talked that the legacy of this murder had tentacles far beyond my grandfather’s pain. Knowing this story explained things about our family. It explained behaviors, beliefs, and above all, fears.
I started to recognize that the story of my cousin’s murder was also part of my story. Indeed, I wrote in the first few pages of my (unpublished) memoir, that “We are all just made up of little pieces of the stories of the people we love and who love us.” This story was a part of how I grew up, who I am, and in part, some of my worries as a parent today.
“We are all just made up of little pieces of the stories of the people we love and who love us.”
Renée Noel
The event, this thing that happened to our family, is more than an anecdote.
In fact, Mom and I stumbled on the blog post a few months ago because we felt a connection with the headlines capturing present-day news. A suspect had been identified in the brutal stabbings of four college students at the University of Idaho. Again, this is more than a story. It is a trauma that will forever change the families who have lived it.
Family trauma is an invasive root that creeps into uninvited spaces disturbing the way we think, live, and love. It demands tending to. Acknowledging the impact of my cousin’s death on our family allows us to deal with the generational trauma that manifested in alcoholism and anxiety.
Yet it is also hopeful to know that with each new generation, what was experienced by some, becomes legend to their children’s children. Tangled blood lines and time thin the impact of tragedy. The raw pain of my grandfather is experienced as empathy by me and his unknown heirs.
To know my cousin’s legacy, our family’s legacy, is to know that families, can eventually thrive again. My grandfather’s alcoholism did not wholly define him. He was a prankster who delighted his children and grandchildren with his intact sense of humor.
I suspect silence is often the fertilizer of trauma’s bitter root, and so I am taking this space to reclaim my cousin’s name, not for her nightmarish death, but maybe, more than 80 years later, her’s can be a name associated with the idea of families surviving trauma.
Alice Porter was a teenager.
She was a nursing student in the 1940s. She was a daughter, the youngest sister, and treasured cousin of an extended Irish, American family.
She was loved.
Perhaps someday I will write more about Alice, but I won’t focus on her death. I am interested in the young woman who decided to become a nurse in the midst of the second world war. Was she a groundbreaker? A patriot? How might Alice’s story be a part of a country’s story? How might it be a part of the story of women in the United States? There are many more aspects of Alice’s life to be known.
I recently learned that St. Alice, the Catholic Saint, was renowned for having provided inspiration to those who endured physical and mental anguish. It’s no wonder my grandfather felt connected to her.
I am writing about Alice Porter so that her name will not just be associated with a sensational murder, but a reminder of her humanity, a family’s love, and the possibility of generational healing.
For resources for families and friends of victims of homicide, the award- winning Connecticut based organization Survivors of Homicide offers services nationwide. Check your state for similar organizations.
About this Blog
Thanks for taking the time to read this post. I spend most of the time in my day-job reading, researching, and writing about things like conflict, civility, and communication. So, this project is a space to muse about life and love. My aim is not to write too often, and only about things that I think might interest you. If that is the case, please like these pages and follow me by subscribing below.
#Alice Porter
#TrueCrime
#FamilyTrauma
#Memoir
Leave a Reply