By Rebecca Holm
Inroduction
In the United States, the most dangerous place for a woman is in her own home.”
That’s what Elena Stone, a licensed clinical social worker and the program director for the Family Violence Department of Mid-Coast Family Services, told participants in the Silent Witness March and Tribute on Monday at De Leon Plaza in Victoria.
Stone’s agency was the host of the event “to commemorate all the women killed in Texas by their intimate partners during the previous year,” said Stone. “Last year there were 143 women killed.”
A crowd of about 50 attended the event, which began with a silent march from The Street of Ten Friends sign at North Street to De Leon Plaza. Those in attendance then gathered around the gazebo, decorated with purple ribbons in honor of National Domestic Violence Month, to hear the master of ceremonies, Gary Moses, and the opening prayer by Rev. Victor Scocco of Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church.
“We denounce without fear of reprisal all acts of violence at home and abroad,” said Scocco. “Make our homes a dwelling place of peace for all.”
“This is a silent epidemic that just covers this state, it covers our nation, and the more we get out and the more we get to talk about it, the more we can try to prevent domestic violence,” said Randy Vivian, Mid-Coast Family Services CEO, who offered words of welcome before Deborah Branch with the Victoria County District Attorney’s Office read a proclamation from Mayor Will Armstrong.
The atmosphere was somber for speaker Phoenix Palmer Johnson of Austin, who talked about her personal experiences and read excerpts from her book “The Phoenix Factor: Rising From the Ashes of Abuse.”
She recalled how even three years after divorcing an abusive spouse, she still lived in fear of him. Because he continued to harass and call her, she nailed shut her windows and kept her curtains drawn.
After one particularly brutal attack, she said, “A police officer had told me that ‘if you didn’t get the hell out of Dallas, we’ll find you in an alley with your throat slit.’
“I knew I had to do something, and I had to do it right then,” she said. She placed a large sign in her yard that read “Stalking victim lives here. See anything, call 911.” She then packed up her belongings and on the day she was set to move to Austin, a woman came to her home to say that her ex-husband had died.
“Even in death he will haunt me,” she said.
“Do we take these memories and let them destroy us, or do we take these memories and use them to then build a foundation for change,” she asked. “We have a choice in every situation … in those choices, we can use those memories to build a mausoleum or we can use those memories to build a monument for change.”
Then names of the 143 victims from Texas were read; Marty and Casey Urwin, members of the music program at Faith Family Church, performed ; and Pastor Larry Helms of Faith Family Church offered closing remarks.
“It was awesome; very factual,” Delsie Marsh of Victoria, said of the program. She stated that she hoped that the Victoria Public Library would obtain a copy of Johnson’s book.
“I started out with Mid-Coast and Anderson House in 2003,” said Sandra Thompson of Victoria. “It’s my first time to be here. I come from a family of domestic violence, and I’m just now coming out on the other side. Everything the speaker said hit home… people don’t realize there is an outlet, because you’re so stuck… If you can get out, just do it, because there is always hope.”
Stone said she hoped that the program would raise awareness about the problem of family violence. “Almost every day in the police blotter there are incidents. There was one day I looked at the paper and there were five domestic violence incidents in one day. So the problem is right around us. Sometimes it’s our neighbor, it may be someone we sit next to in church … there are no cultural, no economic, socio-economic barriers. It transcends every culture, every race, it is in every country.
“There is help available, and people don’t have to live this way,” she said.
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