Mya

June 6, 2010 Cherie Bombell 4 comments

Mya tells her story~
When my boys were younger they always complained when they didn’t get their way… I would tell them they didn’t know how lucky they had it, “I could tell them some stories”… I never told them my story instead I told them stories of bad people and poor children kept captured in a large kingdom called Geneva, it was surrounded by a moat and tall guards on horses sat at the gates making sure all the poor lil children didn’t get out… The boys loved my stories and soon forgot why they couldn’t have their way and would insist on me telling them more. My husband thought the stories were a lil too scary for bed time but the boys insisted I tell about the Kingdom Geneva every night…

So Cherie, here goes my story of Geneva:

It was the winter of 1967 when my parent’s were killed in a car accident south of Chicago… I can remember the funeral a lil mostly that my Mom’s hands were so cold… My Dad’s coffin was closed with his service picture sitting on top surrounded by flowers… I wondered if he was really in the coffin or if he was hiding and going to jump out any minute to surprise us… It had snowed and the grave site was cold… My three sisters and I were told it would be hard to put us with white families since our Mom was Korean and, we had no family in Illinois… I can’t remember having Grandparents or Cousins… We stayed with some people from the church for a lil while then I was taken to Geneva… I never knew till years later my sisters were adopted and grew up just a few miles from Geneva… I worked hard at being a good soldier in Geneva but got pissed my first year… It seemed I had to fight for everything there, my commissary was stolen from my room then the candy ate in front of me while they laughed at how easy it was to take… Telling on them only got them madder and they hit harder… Soon I learned to hit, kick, bite and do whatever it took so no one crossed me while I was there…

It all started when I first went there… I was taken to see a doctor and he touched my vagina… I kicked him in the face and told him “do it again and die”… I spent the first week in the hole screaming my lungs raw to get out… I can see my first cottage but can’t remember the name, it was either Hope or Elm… The girls acted so tough during the day but at night in their rooms they cried… I hung out with two black girls from the south side of Chicago and a white girl from Rockford they were gang girls one had killed some one on a dare, one had killed her baby and the other had pulled a knife on kids at her school… I couldn’t beat’em so I joined them… I didn’t have to fight the teachers off at school like a lot the girls… I told them I had the disease and they didn’t even talk to me… I didn’t learn much at that school except how to smoke the cigarettes the girls got from the teachers who they let touch them… I went to school until I was thirteen then worked in the laundry sewing the dresses and clothes for the girls at the school… I just now thought of sweat shops, LOL, if there ever was one it was there…

I never got into any of their honey business shit but, my girls and I crocheted and wore matching colored tams to state our connections to each other… I never missed a communion but secretly hated God and he hated me… I remember crying for each one of my girls when they had to move onto another prison and left me alone… Soon I was too old for one cottage and moved to another leaving those girls too, a total of four cottages, Hope, Elm, Geneva and Maple I don’t recall the order and it made no difference they were all the same… It didn’t take long to pick out the bad bitches on a cottage and I quickly earned their trust, again crocheting colored tams for my new girls, always different colors from my last girls… I was a leader not a follower I had been in Geneva for five years and in that time I was in the hole at least once a month sometimes more… I hated everyone that wasn’t locked up and they hated me… If they left me alone I left them alone… I fought all the time with any one who wanted to fight and for any reason… I never excepted Geneva but got use to it…

I was told months in advance that a family was coming to interview me for their group home in southern Illinois… I think Geneva was ready to get rid of me… My counselor role played with me for weeks making sure I gave a good impression when they came to see me… I was sixteen and four months when I was driven to Chicago train station headed for a group home in Belleville Illinois… I remember buying a pack of Kool cigarettes in the machine and it cost me four dollars… I smoked most of the pack by the time the train stopped… The group home was small only three other kids my age two boys and a girl… We lived in a large house in the middle of town… I had to work hard at controlling my anger when the other kids were being so childish… I was so far behind in school that I worked as a waitress at a Lums Restaurant saving all my tips along with the fifteen bucks a month I got from the state…

On the anniversary of my parent’s death my parole officer handed me my parole papers… I was finally free… No one could send me back to Geneva now! I wanted to see my sisters but couldn’t try to contact them till they each turned eighteen and no one seemed to know where they were… The couple at the group home asked me to stay till spring and continue working while I decided what I was going to do… I didn’t have a car I didn’t know how to drive so I made that my mission, learn how to drive and buy a car by spring… Spring turned into Summer and I was still at the group home… I had bought a used car an old Maverick and they taught me to drive it then I got my license… I said good bye the first week in September and headed west… No place in mind just west where it was warm and far from Geneva…

I tried to forget Geneva and all the suffering I went through alone there… But Geneva had left it’s mark on me… I had learned to read peoples faces and trust no one’s word… I learned to depend on myself and be my own best friend… I learned patience and self discipline which came in handy when I felt the hate and anger Geneva had taught me… But most of all I learned “there is no innocence just degrees of guilt”.

Before I stop I want to let everyone know I settled in LA and went back to school one step at a time and stayed with school earning my degree in Arts and Photography. Now I run and own a photography studio… I married a law instructor I met at school, the love of my life and we raised three amazing boys, now grown and happily married, no grandbabies yet 🙁 I found my sisters they didn’t remember me, but seemed so happy with their lives I never contacted them again, I know they are happy and didn’t suffer that’s all I can ask for…

This is for Brenda-thank you for writing your story it has helped me more than I can say just knowing it is okay to stop and remember those dark days in Geneva… BTW, I think we were on the same cottage at one time… I’d be willing to write if you ask Cherie for my e-mail addy… In conclusion, let me add that is not a disgrace to be in Geneva, it is a disgrace to leave Geneva and not learn from the experience…

Cherie it is ok to print this now that my box of tissue is empty, lol

#1 | Written by Gypsy on June 5, 2013. Reply

I was there in Geneva from 1964-67. I hated the ugly hard black & white shoes they called “state-stompers” and I really hated the checkered skirts and starched white shirts they made us wear. They sent me to Belleville Il. too and I eventually ended up staying with a foster family in Swansea. I got a job working at a club called Ricco’s and got into trouble for putting bubblebath soap in the Belleville water fountain. lol…When I was in Geneva I was on Maple Cottage, Oak & Elm. I got put in the hole many times. Uncle Willie always wrote me up so I could never go to the Saturday movies. I think I remember you
#2 | Written by marilyn brandt on July 16, 2011. Reply

I was incarserated in Geneva for over 2 yrs., in 1955 and 1956, and this is the first time, ive ever heard of the punishment cottage (Willow HALL),..referred to as “the hole”,………when i was there it was just the “punishment cottage”,.period.And i have a question,….what,in the world,.is a “tam?”,I also,worked in the laundry room,…plus,a few other jobs. We never had a comminsary when i was there. Noone,could buy candy,or anything else,……those of us lucky enough to have a parent,send us a “goodie box”,sometimes, was the only candy, hand cream ..pens,paper ,etc etc. we ever could get. We had no money put on books like the jails,do. i wrote my story to Cherie, but i think i got it to her,to late,to go in the history,exhibition,…..but thats ok,…maybe it will show up at a later time ,when she has time to fool with it. well,…..thats my, 2 cents worth LOL….,..Marilyn
#3 | Written by Mya on August 24, 2010. Reply

Hi Yvonne, thank you for the comment… You mentioned your mother stole a car to go see her boyfriend could that man be your father? If you were a Kennedy wouldn’t your mother of told you before she passed? It’s a shame not to know who your father is… At least she didn’t get pregnant while she was in Geneva like two other girls I knew did… I can’t find the pics of your mother, where did you post them? Good luck with your book and your search to find your father’s true identity…

I don’t think many girls from Geneva talked about the place once they left… It was a hard time in our lives and most of us wanted to forget we were ever there… It was even harder for me when someone asked where I grew up… Who wants to tell a possible friend you were in a reform school for almost 6 years? Once I was an adult and asked where I grew up… I always told ppl a boarding school west of Chicago… It wasn’t really a lie, they boarded us there and it was west of Chicago LOL…

I am a survivor in more ways than Geneva… Life throws us challenges when we least expect it… I’ve learned to love these challenges using my Geneva survival skills to gain strength and move forward in life…

Please write more about yourself and your mother, it is very interesting to read… I wish you the very best in finding answers to the mystery of your past…

M
#4 | Written by Yvonne Powers on August 22, 2010. Reply

Dear Mya,

Hi there. My name is Yvonne Powers. My mom was in that horrible place, and pregnant with me when she went in. She never spoke of that place, except to tell me about my birth there. My cousin found this geneva site, and when I opened the page and seen the cemetary, the hair on my neck stood up…I noticed in the article that there’s a name on a headstone, Yvonne…I wondered if mom had seen that name and liked it so much, that that’s how I got this name I hate…lol…she used to say, about naming me yvonne, that she just loved the name…
I was reading brenda’s story(S) and that woman is a survivor of her lost childhood. It seems to me, that you too have had to survive your childhood. Especially since you had just lost both parents, then your siblings and ended up in that hell hole….I am so very sorry that happened to you mya. You had a very strong mind and will to survive in there, no matter what it took. If you’d like, check out my blog, it explains about how my mom came to be there. And that she just came from the Shriver/Kennedy compound, she was a foster daughter of Eunice Kennedy Shriver. She actually stole Sgt. Shriver’s car and was heading back home to chicago to see her boyfriend. She had a passenger, which I recently found out about…it was Liza Minelli…they were best friends that summer. Judy Garland was a regular guest of Eunices. Can you imagine? My mom passed away last october, taking the secret of my true bio father to the grave with her. I strongly feel it was a Kennedy…The girls were caught when they stopped for ice cream and liza was taken back to her mom and my mom was sent back to her abusive aunt. both moms parents were dead. since she was pregnant with me, I think the only choice for the Shrivers was to put her somewhere to have the baby…after all, she couldn’t come back there like that…I’m working on it, but I think only dna will solve this puzzle. My cousin, who helps a lot with research, looked up and found JFK’s blood type…I have a rare blood type, 0- rh factor…so does he…and it runs in families…I’m thinking more of ted kennedy…as the possible father…
Anyway, I’m in the middle of writing my book about my life, my moms and her moms…I did post, on the geneva cemetary site, my story about my mom and the Shriver/Kennedy families and her stay in Geneva. Please, feel free to read it. along with the blog, at the bottom is a pic of my mom when she was a teenager. It was, I think, just before she went to live with the Shrivers.
God bless you,
Yvonne Powers

Cherie Livett Bombell

Mya

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