Claire Matthews

Links:

» Books

» Biography

» Articles/Reviews

» News

» Events

Articles And Reviews

Articles

From The Daily Courier, August 5, 2004, Forest City, NC:

Writer hopes story of surviving abuse helps others

By ELIZABETH B. SHERMAN Daily Courier Staff Writer

FOREST CITY -- For a woman who was physically abused by her mother for 17 years and psychologically abused for a lifetime, author Farral Bradtke is surprisingly normal.

The 52-year-old speech therapist works at Autumn Care of Forest City and lives in a beautiful home in Rutherfordton with her dog, Dakota.

"Nobody would ever guess that all of this had happened," said Bradtke. "I was taught from birth that this was something you don't talk about, and if you do, there are really bad consequences."

Bradtke recently had her first book published under the pen name of Claire Matthews. From the Ashes of Love, which she will be signing Friday at Autumn Care, details the horrors of receiving almost daily beatings from her psychopathic mother.

Bradtke's mother first abused her when she was only 18-months-old, when she whipped her with a belt. Bradtke's mother regularly whipped her so hard that she ripped and bloodied the clothes her young daughter was wearing.

Throughout her childhood, Bradtke almost always had bruises, cuts, or black eyes as evidence of the abuse, yet Bradtke says no one in her family or in her town ever tried to help her.

In chapter three, Bradtke describes one such incident that occurred when she was 8-years-old:

"One day Mom and I had been grocery shopping and I was transferring eggs from the carton into the refrigerator one by one, when I dropped an egg on the floor. Mom whirled form the sink where she had been standing and snatched the rest of the eggs from my hands. She said not a word as she broke it over my head, and then turned me completely upside down and mopped the floor with my hair. When she was finished, she let me tumble to the floor. The whole incident took only seconds, and I lay there, open-mouthed. Something about the incident must have struck her as funny, because she burst into laughter. I scuttled out of her way, sweeping the broken egg shells with my hand and thinking only of how to make it all disappear as fast as possible."

Another time, when Bradtke was 12, her mother made her take pornographic pictures of her.

These are the conditions in which Bradtke grew up. The abuse always took place when her father was at work, and her father always denied the seriousness of the situation and refused to interfere.

By the age of 12, Bradtke said, she had resigned herself to the fact that one day her mother would carry out her threat to murder her, and lost all hope for her future.

"I fully expected to die before I ever had a chance to leave that house and get away from Mom," Bradtke writes in chapter ten. "By the time I was 12 I had stopped running away, trying to tell Dad, and hoping and praying for salvation."

Although Bradtke's mother told her that she expected her to remain a virgin until marriage, she also told her daughter, who happened to be exceptionally bright and beautiful, that she was fat, ugly and stupid, and that the only thing a man would ever want her for was sex.

Bradtke internalized that message, and in chapter twenty she writes, "I found that picking up members of the opposite sex was simple! I collected them by the dozens. And I had sex with most of them ... by the time I graduated with my bachelor's degree, I had slept with well over a hundred men."

After joining the Air Force, Bradtke met the man who would become her first husband, and the father of her child. Although the man she refers to as "David" in the book seemed perfect at the time, it wasn't long before he began neglecting her and then beating her. He spent all of their money on alcohol, and cheated on his wife too many times to count.

One night he came home from a drinking binge with his shirt unbuttoned and scratches all over his chest. When his wife asked what had happened, he said he had tripped and fallen on the pavement.

"The lawyer told me the story. David had a girlfriend on the side. In fact, she lived just two blocks away from that little duplex we had been living in. He had beaten her once before and she told him never to show up drunk again. Last night, however, he did. And when she wouldn't let him in he broke down the door, raped her orally, stole her car and house keys and drove off in her car. She had put the scratches on his chest and abdomen as she fought to free herself."

A year later, Bradtke's husband was still drinking and still beating her. She began to worry that if she didn't leave him, he might hurt her son, or worse, her son might turn out just like him.

Bradtke took their then 13-month-old son and left. She returned to the town where she was raised, and with money from the G.I. Bill, some help from her parents, and a lot of struggling, she managed to get her master's degree in communication disorders.

Miraculously, 25 years and two more ex-husbands later, Bradtke is here to tell her story.

"I really hope that if someone reads the book and is being abused, it will inspire them to do something about it," Bradtke said. "I've learned that you never know how you're going to react to something until you get to that point, and no matter how bad things are, you never know how well things can turn out."

From the Ashes of Love is available at Fireside Books in Forest City, and can also be purchased at the book signing at Autumn Care on Friday. Autumn Care is located at 830 Bethany Church Rd. in Forest City. The book signing will take place from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. in the Autumn Care dining room.

Contact Sherman via e-mail at esherman@blueridge.net

Reviews

From The Daily Courier, August 8, 2004, Forest City, NC:

Author reveals healing from a lifetime of abuse

By ELIZABETH B. SHERMAN, Daily Courier Staff Writer

FOREST CITY--Farral Bradtke's From the Ashes of Love is a striking true-life story, both horrifying and inspirational.

The Rutherfordton author's story, written under the pen name Claire Matthews, displays the talent of writing about oneself in a way that is factual and intriguing, but not self-pitying. The book is also very well-written, the kind that keeps a reader up all night waiting to find out what will happen next.

Bradtke was physically and abused by her mother for the first 17 years of her life, and almost always had bruises, cuts, or black eyes until she moved away to college.

Bradtke's mother first abused her by whipping her with a belt when she was only 18 months old. Bradtke's mother regularly whipped her so hard that she ripped and bloodied the clothes her young daughter was wearing.

Bradtke says that although the abuse was obvious, no one in her family or in her town ever tried to help her.

Her mother's favorite "game" was to hide her daughter's things. She would often tell Bradtke to find her rosary and get ready to go to confession. The girl would open the drawer of her nightstand, where she was always careful to leave her rosary, and it would be missing.

Her mother would come into her room and ask her if she was ready to go to confession. When the girl admitted that she could not find her rosary, her mother woud "help" her find it by tearing the sheets off the bed, dumping out the dresser drawers and taking all of the clothes off the hangers in the closet. When her room was in shambles, her mother would then announce that she had exactly 30 minutes to find the rosary and clean up all the mess, or she would be beaten.

Bradtke would clean the room as fast as she could, wondering what was wrong with her and where the rosary could have ossibly gone. Of course, she never found the rosary, because her mother had taken it. At the end of the thirty minutes, her mother would come into her room and beat her until she was bloody and crying and could no longer stand.

She was then sent to clean herself up in the bathroom. When she came back to her room, her rosary was always in plain sight. When she was about five, Bradtke thought there was some kind of magic attached to the rosary. Then as she grew older, she thought that she must be crazy. When she was about 8 years old, she realized the truth; that her mother was hiding the rosary and intentionally utting her daughter through these trials because she liked to hurt her.

Bradtke writes that her mother did this to her regularly, often with the rosary or sometimes with other precious items. Some Saturdays she did it every half hour from the time Bradtke's father went to work until he came home at night.

These are the conditions in which Bradtke grew up. The abuse always took place when her father was at work, and her father always denied the seriousness of the situation and refused to interfere.

By the age of 12, Bradtke wrote, she had ersigned herself to the fact that one day her mother would carry out her threat to murder her, and lost all hope for her future.

Bradtke internalized that message, and in her lifelong quest to please her mother, tried to gain acceptance by sleeping with as many men as possible.

By the time she graduated college, Bradtke, says, she had slept with more than 100 men. Yet the emptiness remained.

After joining the Air Force, Bradtke me the man who would become her first husband, and the father of her child. Although the man she refers to as "David" in the book seemed perfect at the time, it wasn't long before he began neglecting her and then beating her. He spent all of their money on alcohol, and cheated on his wife too many times to count.

One night he came home from a drinking binge with his shirt unbuttoned and scratches all over his chest. When Bradtke asked what had happened, he said he had tripped and fallen on the pavement.

The very next day, Bradtke found out that she was pregnant. She cleaned their apartment especially well, cooked her husband a wonderful dinner and even bought fresh flowers for the table. He didn't come home from work. Hours later, he was escorted home by the police. It was her husband's lawyer who told her what had happened the night before; her husband had been cheating on her for quite some time, and when his girlfriend, tired of his drunkenness, had refused to see him the previous night, he had broken down the door to her home and raped her, then stolen her car. The scratches on his chest were from her struggle to free herself from him.

A year later, Bradtke's husband was still drinking and still beating her. She began to worry that if she didn't leave him, he might hurt her son, or worse, her son might turn out just like him.

Her mother continued to psychologically abuse her until the day she died.

Although Bradtke realized that her mother was abusing her, she cared very deeply for her mother, and never gave up trying to win her approval.

As Bradtke's mother was dying in the hospital at the age of 75, she told her first-born child and only daughter that her back hurt. Bradtke sympathetically tried to rub her mother's back, when her mother, in typical fashion, snapped, "I don't want to see your face. I don't want to hear your voice. Get away from me!"

Bradtke silently took her things and left the room. That was the last time she ever saw her mother alive.

It's been nearly 10 years since then, and Bradtke has been very successful and is for the most part happy with her life. Her son did not follow in the footsteps of his alcoholic father, and will soon be receiving his bachelor's degree in computer science.

The little girl who was told by her mother that she was fat and ugly and would never have any friends is slim and attractive and has a group of very supportive, close-knit friends.

The only dream that did not come true for Bradtke, it seems, is finding romatic love. Bradtke wrote her biggest regret in life is marrying her third husband, and she does not intend to marry again.

She is content that after 52 years of anguish her story will finally be told, and she no longer has to hide her horrible past.

From the Ashes of Love is available at Fireside Books in Forest City, and at www.barnesandnoble.com and www.amazon.com.

Contact Sherman via e-mail at esherman@blueridge.net