Life of Sherri Lynne McQueen
Born 1971Dryden,
Thunder Bay, Gull Bay First Nation ,Dryden, Ont.
I was born November 25, 1971 in Dryden, Ontario. I resided with a family for the first 11 years of my life which in fact turned out not to be my biological family. When I was 11 years old Dryden CAS came into the picture and told me that I would have to go to Thunder Bay to live with my biological mother. I was upset because I didn’t even know who she was, and had no relationship with her for all those years. Thunder Bay, Ont.My biological mother came to pick me up in Dryden and I went to live with her in Thunder Bay. This is where I was sent to HELL.
The first night I arrived, I witnessed people smoking marijuana and that is when the abuse started. I was slapped across my face for calling her by her name, Wanda. She told me that I was supposed to call her mom. We were living in a house on Ontario Street .. I had two brothers who used to come on the weekends. My mother was involved with CAS in 1978 the first time and then again in the 1980’s. I went to live with her in 1982-83. It was a hard a lonely life being taken to this place where I didn’t even know where I was going. I was placed in a bedroom with three boys - my two brothers, and my mother’s boyfriend’s son, SL. This man later became my perpetrator. I used to wake up in the middle of the night and witness him sexually assaulting my brothers - S in particular. He was the younger brother and lived with us full time. Jason used to come for weekend visits. S later started fondling me under my panties, and showed me his penis. He used to make me perform oral sex on him. I was scared to say anything, because I knew that my mother would beat me.
I was pretty much slapped around everyday and beaten with plastic racecar tracks. We then moved to Alberta Street. This is where LL Sr., SL and LL Jr. raped me. SL took my virginity when I was 11-12 years old. The second perpetrator was L L Jr. He had sex with me in his bedroom on the main floor of this house right off the dining room. Keep in mind all the abuse I was still suffering from my mother. I really wanted to die at this point. My last perpetrator was her boyfriend, an old alcoholic man, LL Sr. My brothers and I were swimming at St..Jude’s pool and L came there and told me I had to go home. I went with him and he asked me to make him a vodka and orange drink. I told him that I didn’t know how to so. He told me what to do. I did it because I would be beaten if I didn’t do it. I was then told to lock all the doors. I was then told to sit down. He came to me and started kissing me, took down my pants and asked me if I was a virgin. He then went into the kitchen and got a broom. He started to have oral sex with me then he inserted the broom into my vagina and took it out then he put his penis inside of me. I was scared. (When I am telling this story it is like it happened yesterday).
Then my brother,Jason, came knocking on the door and interrupted L. My brother knocked and knocked on the door. Finally my brother came around to the front of the house and knocked on the dining room window. L finally stopped and pulled up his pants and told me that I better not say anything or he would kill me. I was scared and I wanted to run away and go back to Dryden.
I did run away and went to CAS and I informed them that I didn’t want to go back there. I told a worker who came out to visit me in the receiving home what had happened. The first home I was in was the xxxxxxxx. This is where more hell came. In this home I witnessed a girl who lived there being touched and fondled all the time by Mr. xxxx. Her name was Dawn. She was handicapped and confined to a wheelchair. I used to help him give her a bath and he would stick his fingers inside her vagina. I was then moved around from home to home. In the years 1983-86 I was in approxi-mately 15 different foster homes, girls’ group homes and receiving homes. I hated all of them except for two - the xxxxxx in Dryden, and the xxxxx in Thunder Bay. This is where xxxx sexually assaulted me. He was a military man who wore a kilt. I lived with xxxxx and xxxxxxxxxxx for a period of time. They had two small children, a daughter named Katie, and I forget their handicapped son’s name but he had no arms. I enjoyed living there because I had my first job at age fourteen and I had my own space in the basement. xxxxxx was really kind to me.
One morning she came down and asked me if I could watch the kids because xxxxxhadn’t come home yet. I agreed. xxxx finally came home and I went downstairs to go back to sleep. He was drunk because he was being loud and belligerent. I heard footsteps coming downstairs and then he came into my waterbed with me and started kissing me. I was quiet and said nothing. I was scared. He proceeded to have oral sex with me and had intercourse with me. I was told not to say anything. I believe I ran away that day and never looked back.
I lived on the streets of Thunder Bay and slept under a tree at the marina. I became drunk with the alcoholics who lived outside. The year would have been 1986. I met T T around the same time I was living at the xxxxxxx’s home. He used to bother me when he saw me in Keskus mall where I was working at Doodle’s restaurant. Gull Bay First NationI later saw TT and he took me to Gull Bay. I was 14-15 at this time. I stayed with him there because I didn’t want to go back into care as I had enough of being sent from one home to another. It wasn’t long before I was being beaten up physically, verbally and mentally. He used to lock me in the house with a padlock on the outside of the door. I was at my wit’s end. I had no family, nowhere to go, I was lost. I was still a Crown Ward at this time.
CAS knew my biological father had died, but they didn’t even contact his family. I remember the Judge saying something about this when I became a Crown Ward. I didn’t find my birth dad’s family until 2006. My second home away from Gull Bay was at the Faye Peterson Transition House…a home for battered women. I was in and out of there on numerous occasions. I was even medivaced from Gull Bay to Thunder Bay by air ambulance because of T T’s abuse. I ended up in McKellar Hospital because of the beatings. xxxxxxx used to kick me in the head with his cowboy boots. Kick me in the stomach when I was pregnant. Pulled a gun on me and told me that if I left he would kill me. He threw me and my newborn son out of the house in the middle of the night in February, in minus-30 degree weather. My son was only 1 1/2 months old. Thank God for the pulp truck that stopped and picked me up and drove me to Thunder Bay. (Gull Bay, Armstrong, and Thunder Bay police were involved with this abusive relationship.) Gull Bay police even had to get me out of the house to testify against T in Armstrong. I was locked in the house and they had to get me out.
The Judge said that he was not leaving until he saw me at court that day.In 1989-90 we were driving down Simpson Street in Thunder Bay and this was the last punch in the face I was taking from him. My mouth and nose was bleeding. I had enough. I kissed my baby goodbye and ran for my life. Later that evening my friend bought me a ticket and I was on the bus to Winnipeg with only the clothes on my back and not even a penny in my name BUT I was safe and never returning until sixteen years later to see my grandson. I believe there wasn’t a day that went by that I was not hit, punched, kicked, hair pulled, kicked in the stomach and verbally abused while living in Gull Bay with Mr. T.
My only question now that I am older is why I wasn’t protected by the Thunder Bay Children’s Aid Society as a Crown Ward under their care?. They were supposed to protect me and help me become a flourishing young adult. Why didn’t they do anything about the mess that happened to me? I want answers to these questions. Under their legal ‘care’ I had a young life filled with hate, abuse, rape and sexual abuse, misery, loneliness, alcoholism, drug dependency, being promiscuous, anger, shame, guilt, physically and psychologically impaired. I had a lack of parenting, lack of love, lack of education, and so on. I was a child who needed love, guidance and education. Why did all of these things happen to me? What did I do so wrong in my childhood to deserve this life?
In 1989-90 when I finally left I was 17-18 years old. This is my story as I can remember. I am sure that there is more but this was enough to remember for one day.
Sincerely,
Sherri-Lynne McQueenNovember 18, 2006
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