Hawthorne Hill  − 1 April, 1986

Until this point, I grew up in a house on 57th Street in Des Moines, with my mom, my dad, and my three half-sisters. Our lives in this house were rather tumultuous, though I don't want to exaggerate it. In the early '80s, my father's alcoholism started to get out of control, and he started having problems at work, embarrassing himself and us, and, apparently, abusing my mother.

In early 1986, my mother took me out of the home, and relocated us to the battered women's shelter in downtown Des Moines, in Hawthorne Hill. We remained there for a couple months, or maybe just a month, while my mother started divorce proceedings and finding a new place to live. This was my first of two encounters with Hawthorne Hill, the second occurring in 1992, when I stayed in the Youth Emergency shelter for two weeks. It was also my first experience with downtown Des Moines, where I first grew to love my homecity.

Following this experience, my mother moved us out of the 57th Street house to a house in Urbandale, Iowa, where she served as a caretaker for an elderly woman.