From People weekly magazine, June 10, 1991 issue. Minimally edited.
MISS AMERICA'S
TRIUMPH OVER SHAME.
It began at age 5. Now Marilyn Van Derbur tells of her shocking 13-year ordeal of sexual abuse by her millionaire father.
"My father was a handsome, intelligent man," recalls Marilyn Van Derbur. "He served as president of the Denver Area Boy
Scout Council and helped establish Denver's Cleo Wallace Village for Handicapped Children. But there was another - secret
- side to him. From the time I was 5 until I was 18 and moved away to college, my father sexually violated me."
PEOPLE ASK ME WHY I DIDN'T TELL what was happening to me. It was because I perceived no way out. A young child tells
on her father and what happens? She's taken away from her family. Her father goes to jail. The family is destroyed, and the
message is, "It's all your fault."
In order to survive, I split into a day child, who giggled and smiled, and a night child, who
lay awake in a fetal position, only to be pried apart by my father. Until I was 24, the day child had no conscious knowledge
of the night child. During the day, no embarrassing or angry glances ever passed between my father and me. I had no rage toward
him at all, because I had no conscious knowledge of what he was doing to me. Anyone who knew me would say I was the happiest
child. I believed I was happy.
Still incest colored every aspect of my life. I couldn't stand to play with dolls. Nor did I
like to be touched or hugged. I also had a need to excel, to have some control over my life. I got straight A's in school.
Afternoons I volunteered to work at the Wallace Village for Handicapped Children. I was drawn to children who were different.
Incest is an isolating experience. You feel all alone. You feel isolated from your family and
your friends. I did date, but my first real boyfriend was Larry. I was 15, a sophomore in high school, and he was a senior.
I loved him from the moment I laid eyes on him. I was safe with Larry. After graduating from high school in 1955, I enrolled
at the University of Colorado. I went home for Christmas vacation, and one night I went into my parents' bedroom to say goodnight.
My father pulled me down to him. I pushed away from him with such anger. That was the day child reacting, still without knowledge
of the night child.
During my sophomore year, my sorority sisters elected me as their representative to be
Miss CU. I won that title and then the Miss Colorado title, Then I had to go to Atlantic City to compete for Miss America.
It never entered my head that I would win. But once I did, I wanted to be the best Miss America ever. Every single day I did
the best possible job of whatever I was asked to do.
When my term as Miss America was up, I returned to Colorado to complete my education. That same
year I was hired by AT&T as the only spokeswoman for their commercials on the Bell Telephone Hour, a bi-weekly showcase
for fine music on NBC. I had that job for five years, the last three after I graduated Phi Beta Kappa and was living in New
York City. In 1962, when I was 24, I took a trip to Los Angeles for a filming. One day I had lunch with D.D. Harvey, my former
youth minister. With words I don't remember, he punctured the wall I had built around the secret, and I began to sob. The
only words I was able to say were, "Don't tell anyone." He said, "Whom don't you want me to tell?" and I said, "Larry." D.D.
said, "Then he's the only person we have to tell.
I had loved Larry with all my heart for nine years, but I kept running from him without understanding
why. In 1961 I even went so far as to marry someone else. The marriage lasted only three months. At D.D.'s urging I called
Larry who flew to L.A. the next morning. I sobbed and sobbed, but eventually I got the words out. When Larry finally heard
what I was telling him, he held me and said, "Now I understand everything." A week later I visited my sister in Kansas City
and revealed my secret to her too. I remember seeing the blood drain from her face. She said, "Oh, no. I thought I was the
only one."
I married Larry and started the Marilyn Van Derbur Motivational Institute. I kept up a frantic
pace, speaking to employees of IBM and Kodak and to high school assemblies about how to give the best of yourself.
I wanted a baby so much, but we had been told we couldn't have children. Then eight years after
we married, I got pregnant. In the delivery room I was told the baby was in a difficult breech position. I had told Larry
that I'd consider anesthesia only if the baby or I were near death. For me, sleep is when a man could do anything he wants
with you and you have no power. I have never fallen asleep naturally. From age 18, I have taken a sleeping pill or lain awake.
So I locked my eyes with Larry's and had a perfect, natural delivery.
Jennifer was our miracle baby. But when she turned 5, I began to have these uncontrollable fits
of sobbing. I'd tell Larry, "I don't love her anymore." It would take 20 years for me to understand that in Jennifer I was
seeing myself as a 5 year old.
Around that time I also started having attacks of paralysis. My body functions would slow, my
pulse rate would drop into the 40's, and I would just lie there unable to move. I thought I'd die. But the doctors could find
nothing physically wrong with me. After seeing a psychiatrist, I decided I had to talk to my father.
When I went to him at his house, I started by saying that it was the most difficult thing I
had ever done. He said, "Just a minute," and climbed the winding staircase, two steps at a time to the second floor.
I didn't hear a toilet flush or a phone call being made, and when he came back, I knew instinctively that he had a gun. I
talked for almost 10 minutes, and my father didn't deny anything. He said, "If I had known what this would do to you, I never
would have done it." I didn't believe it then, and I don't believe it now.
After our conversation, he pulled out the gun. He said, "If you had come in any other way (which
I took to mean public exposure), I would have killed myself. "I believe if he had used the gun, he would have killed us both.
From that day on, we never spoke of it again. The month before he died, he knew my life was beginning to shut down, but he
never reached out to help me.
It wasn't until Jennifer entered puberty that I became totally dysfunctional, It was 1984. I
was 47 years old and had just been named Outstanding Woman Speaker in America. But I couldn't proceed with my career; I was
suffering from acute anxiety.
Larry thought if my sister were to fly to Denver and talk about her violation, maybe I would
go into a rage at my father and begin to heal. Gwen told me her story in vivid detail. I cried for her. The anguish was as
fresh as if it had been the previous day.
Three days later I want to a psychiatrist. Ten days after that my mother called. She said, "We
haven't seen you." I said I wasn't doing very well. I knew that my father had heard me because he always listened in on the
extension. That night he suffered a fatal heart attack. I felt it was my fault. I had told.
Up to this time I had kept my secret from Jennifer, but I knew that I couldn't lock her out
anymore. After I told her, I took her in my arms to cradle her. Then all of a sudden she was rocking me and crying for me.
Over the past seven years, I spent many hours a week in various kinds of therepy. I remember
the first time I allowed myself to imagine the night child. She was manacled in an out-house, lying in urine and feces. Recently,
I saw her again. This time she had no mouth. I realized then I was not only afraid of what would come out of that mouth but
also what would go into it. As part of the healing process, I spoke with each member of my family, including my mother. At
first, she didn't believe me, and it was only after my sister said, "me too," that my mother acknowledged the truth. These
past years have been an agonizing journey for us. It was profoundly significant to me that she agreed to support me and that
the Van Derbur family gave $240,000 to start the Adult Incest Survivors Program at the Kempe Center.
Although none of my sisters could be there, 17 other members of my family stood together that
night when I acknowledged the humiliation, and the world didn't fall apart. My goal now is to make the word incest speakable
and to take away the stigma we attach to it. We have to figure out how to stop these violators and how to help their families
heal. I want to say to them, "Look at my family. We are free of shame."
