Lil Iodine — Betty Brock

A young five year old red headed girl already had been raped, is suddenly forced to stand and watch as her home , her father and baby brother, are taken in a suspicious arson. When she discovers that her Father is dead and she questions why he will not talk to her and he is cold to her touch. She is told he is dead and we have to take him out and let the bugs eat him. She is enraged. Two months later this red headed child is thrown out of school for fighting. Any wonder why? All of this happened to this one little girl within the space of eight months. One might, at first believe no, this is not a true story. This must be a fictional fantasy. Oh no! Not so, this is a real true story. The village this story is set in does not agree one iota that this is a child with a big problem, that perhaps needs help. At the age of thirteen the village throws her out of the Church. The one saving grace for this little red headed girl was her big brother who decided to create his own idea of a lil Iodine of his little sister. He taught her to put up her dukes and fight it out with him. Then the war began with this town and this little girl . She went to war with them and she took no prisoners. She won her wars. She would say thanks to her idol, her big brother. She credits her big brother for helping her to be able to withstand the wars she was compelled to deal with in this rural and rough valley in West Virginia. Go into the bowels of Ground Hog Holler on the millstream there you will find this little girls real secrets. Her ship rock. She called it her rock of Ages. She carried all her hopes and dreams to her ship Rock. She read her Bible there. She would sit on her rock and tell herself,some day I am going to steer you right out of here into the out there. The out there being Florida where she ended up for the rest of her life. Retiring from At&T Telephone Company after thirty three years. It was on her ship rock that she plotted her departure from this awful environment. You would think this will always be a child of disaster. Not so, this child created her own successes and continues growing and accomplishing at the age of seventy five. She took the marker with her on down the road and created her own success. She would say of the town she grew up in to be a success there all you had to do was paint your house white. Not a joke. She gives the credit for her success to her dear Mother, whose wisdom it was that kept her in school when she is certain she would have quit and therefore would have become a failure. There is something to be derived from surviving this type of shattered life we are sometimes compelled to live. You cannot run away from the ashes of a broken life. You must build from the ashes. This book is written in strong colloquial flavor. It tells reader about the harsh, and heart-wrenching, traumatic events that could happen to any of us.