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The lives and deaths of my cousins Hollis and Ty from the book "Sprout" by Dale Peck. Part 1 [1]
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Date: 2025-06-29
Trigger Warning: This diary in all its parts, deals with child abuse and a malignant narcissist.
ALL the names in this diary have been changed, to protect the innocent and guilty alike.
Part 1
I don’t know how many people ever experience knowing, being related to, a person in a novel, but I have and it’s a rather a surreal experience.
The persons I am related to are my cousins in the novel, “Sprout.” It was written by Dale Peck. (Yes is is linked to Amazon because I didn’t find it on Barnes and Noble). It is a coming of age story and won the Lambda Literary Award for 2010.(My cousin also appears in Dale’s novel “Now It’s Time to Say Goodbye” which I am currently reading)
Even if your straight you should read it. LGBTQ read straight coming of age stories all the time.
I know when my cousin entered the story. I know where literary license was taken to move the time of a story, the place, change a bit of the particulars to better suit the story or provide some anonymity.
For the story Dale gave my cousin the name “Ty.” I’m going to use that name, and actually all the names he gave my uncle’s family, so if you’ve read (or will read) the book, there will be no confusion.
I was prepared to write this diary 14 years ago, before I met Dale, before I knew Ty appeared in two novels he’d written. I held off because Ty’s sister, June, asked me not to write about it here. Now, I believe it’s time to tell this story, to give more information on the life of Ty (sounds like a movie), and the life Ty lived. Hopefully what happened to Ty can be avoided in the future..
Before I get more into this dairy let me give you Ty’s sibling line up, including one person who did not make it into Dale’s book.
L.D. = oldest brother; 1959 — 1994 June = sister, 1961 (sole surviving sibling) Cameron = the brother who didn’t make it into the novel, 1963 — 1987, “Cam” for short Hollis = the brother who drowned, 1965 — 1977 Ty = 1967 — 2025
I’ve written a lot about my Dad’s family in dairies and comments here on DailyKos (see below). If you’ve ever read a comment by me about my crazy religious uncle, that would be Ty’s dad. For this dairy I have given him the name “Victor.”
Here is the birth order of my Dad and his siblings.
Growing up Victor was always the boss. My Dad would often tell my sister, Margaret, and me about his brother’s abusive behavior toward him. For instance my Dad’s family didn’t have a lot of extra money so there was one bike for the boys to ride. One would sit on the seat and pedal and the other would stand on the pegs behind resting his hands on the seated boy’s shoulders. The idea was for them to take turns of who would pedal and who would ride.
Victor pedaled exactly once. From the garage/barn to the street. From then on it was my Dad who would always pedal, Victor refused to do it. And if Dad didn’t go fast enough Victor would hit him on the head, back and shoulders until the “correct” speed was reached.
He was cruel in child and teenage hood and if he knew it was wrong he didn’t care.
My Aunts Nancy, and later Alice, moved to Denver from their hometown, Newton, Kansas, to live at the Florence Crittenton Home for unwed mothers. They stayed. After Victor married at age 24, he and his wife Connie moved there then my Dad followed. (it’s where my Dad met my Mom even though they grew up not 70 miles away from each other)
Victor controlled every aspect of Connie’s life including the hairstyle she would wear, long with what my Dad called a “bird’s nest” on top. Victor would often beat Connie. She’d call my Dad for help and he’d often pull Victor off of her or step in between taking a punch meant for her. After their fourth child was born, Victor moved the family back to Newton, Kansas. Dad was no longer there to intercede for Connie.
Victor bought a piece of land outside of Newton on a highway and moved a mobile home onto the property while he built their house. I have very few memories of the mobile home except for how cramped it was and how it smelled of pee.
All of Victor’s boys, like my Dad, suffered from nocturnal enuresis, bed wetting, until they were 10 or well into tweenagehood. Victor beat the boys every time they wet the bed. One day when they were visiting us, I accidentally walked in on Hollis with his father. I heard what Victor was saying and shaming him for it and my presence may have saved him from a beating, or knowing that Dad would come down hard on Victor saved him, IDK Dad knew they were being beaten for wetting the bed.
This happened around 1972 or1973. I know, because along with being a physically abusive person he was also a virulent racist. Dad was sitting down to watch one of his favorite tv shows, Mannix, and Victor said that he wouldn’t watch a show that had a N word in it. Mannix, a Desilu production, was a private detective who had a black secretary.
Connie had divorced Victor by that time. But I’m jumping ahead.
My mom took off cuz maybe she didn’t give a crap about her kids or maybe her husband punched her in the face one too many times, or maybe, you know, maybe she was just a whore, and not no Julia Roberts kind of whore neither, but the kind of whore who sneaks out in the middle of the night and climbs in the cabs of truckers who park their rigs down at the end of the driveway. — “Sprout,” page 155
It didn’t happen in the middle of the night. It happened while Victor was at work. The house on the highway, when an interstate had yet to be built, provided many opportunities. I call them the “trucker trysts” and during one, baby Ty was crawling around and got into some pesticide that hadn’t been properly cleaned out of the kitchen sink. It was a near lethal dose and he almost died.
Truckers would honk as they drove by the house. It happened when I was there, which infuriated my uncle.
But she did leave and she did try to take all of her kids with her. At one point she had everyone and then only June and Ty. But the Kansas hugely religious judge ruled that the “Children belong to their father,” and Connie lost all rights to her children. This happened around 1970.
Taken in 1976 at my aunt Vicky’s house. L.D., Hollis and Ty are on left end of all rows. June is on the far right. My sister Margaret is right next to her. The rest are aunt Vicky’s kids
This was especially bad for Cam because Victor was convinced that Cam was the result of one of the trysts. One basis for his reasoning (besides a whole cockamamy idea about how human biology and sexuality works) is that Cam’s face was more rounded that the distinctive shape of L.D’s., Hollis’ and Ty’s faces that mirrored his own. In truth, Cam’s face was more rounded like Connie’s.
Victor targeted Cam for most of the abuse and the kids joined in blaming him for things they had done so they wouldn’t be beaten or punished. Dad talked about this, and how he tried to intervene. It may have been successful in at least one instance.
When Connie left, June took over cooking, washing and cleaning duties. My Grandma helped babysit, etc. but she died in1972. June was left to mother her brothers.
It probably wouldn’t surprise you to know that Victor was constantly at war with Newton’s public schools. His rules had the kids dressing like they were from the 50s, cotton button down shirts and pants not jeans. The boys also all had haircuts that were buzzed on the sides and either a crew or a caesar on top. June could only wear dresses below her knee, no pants, not even for gym. But this was the 60s and 70s and even in small town Kansas they stuck out like a sore thumb.
end of part 1. Part 2 posted tomorrow at 12noon ET.
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Some of the other diaries about my family:
I'm 54 and I have a new brother: A tale of 2 different people finding their DNA family
No Sex Education ≠ No Sex Among Unmarried Teens: My Family is Proof
Suicide
When all is made hostile; a story of sexual assault
The freakingly COOL, totally AWESOME phone call
The accidental time capsule
A sonogram, a pro-life cousin, & abortion
[END]
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