Karen Lee
My Story
My thoughts on having suffered from child sexual abuse in my school, nearly 70 years ago.
I am a member of SECE, “Stop Educator-Child Exploitation,” because of what happened to me nearly seventy years ago.
I was eight years old when my parents decided to move out into the Ontario countryside, about twenty miles northeast of Oshawa. My father still worked at the General Motors manufacturing plant in Oshawa. We had already moved once, from Oshawa to Courtice. Initially, I went to Courtice Public School and then St. Gertrude’s school in the very eastern part of Oshawa. I did well, had friends, and lovely teachers.
Then we moved to our “new” home, built in about 1850, the school closest to us, in the country village of Leskard, was S.S. # 15 Clarke, a one mile walk from our house. It was vastly different from the other schools I had attended. All the grades from four to eight were in one room. And I was soon to find out that it differed in other ways that were criminal, and for young girls, dangerous. Our teacher was a pedophile attracted to pre-pubertal girls. I didn’t know the words back then, just the actions of the teacher.
One girl told her parents that the teacher had assaulted her twice, the mother told others in the village what happened and called the police. The police told them that they should threaten him themselves as they could do nothing. One family did move away but most stayed in the village and continued to send their children to the school, despite the teacher continuing to assault and even stalk one student who he was particularly obsessed with.
My mother questioned me and believed me when I told her the teacher had also touched me inappropriately, but, after conferring with the school inspector and considering the options available – moving again, sending me to another school, testifying in court - decided instead to have me return to the school with the warning not to be alone with the teacher. I would be responsible, at age nine, for keeping myself safe. She thought that as long as I wasn’t ever alone with the teacher, I would be fine. However, every time she heard a bit of news about the teacher’s behaviour, she told me.
At nine years old, I was back in a classroom in which I, and the other students, knew the teacher was continuing to assault other girls. I was in his class for five years.
Finally, in 1966, he molested a young student in front of the rest of the class, and her parents and another family put a petition together to have the teacher removed. He was finally fired, removed from our school, but moved to another country school near Orillia. After a couple of years, he returned to our village to live, but never taught again. He continued to molest girls, however, in his job as caretaker in a local church. He died of cirrhosis of the liver at the age of 53, never facing legal consequences for his actions.
I did well in school but in high school had my first break-down, leading my parents to believe that I was just a "highly nervous" person. No one spoke of the teacher and his possible effect on my well-being - including me. I had another breakdown in university and was put on strong drugs to calm me - I discontinued their use myself and finished my Batchelor's degree. I married, did teacher training in Toronto, taught school, and then moved to Calgary where my husband left me with two young children and no child support. I struggled for 3 years and then married again. He encouraged me to return to university to study psychology and become a Chartered Psychologist. I went into therapy to find out why I was so fraught with unhappiness and nervous symptoms. In the meantime, my husband got cancer and died, leaving me a widow at age fifty.
I published my first book, on management consulting, in 2002.
Fate intervened and, while on vacation to Hawaii, I met my present, wonderful, husband on a beach. We were married in 2004 and moved back to Calgary, Canada, to live.
After both my parents had passed away, I realized I had to write the story of my school, the teacher, and what happened to me and the other children, in the school. I went back to the village many times over the next five years to interview thirty people and get statements about what had happened from their point of view and the effect it had on them.
The shame of what happened remains. To this day, some women are still too traumatized to even speak about what happened to them in the school. Some won’t talk about what happened in our village even if they themselves weren’t involved.
That memoir, The Village That Betrayed its Children was published in 2024.
With the writing of this memoir, plus the research I had to do on the legacy of child sexual abuse, and conversations with other survivors, I have finally put many of my demons to rest. Now I want to help others who have or are still suffering from sexual abuse at the hands of educators. Children should not have to deal with predators at the very place where they should be safe.
I am hoping that my work with SECE (Stop Educator-Child Exploitation) will save others from what I have had to go through.