Women’s Center Repairs The Victims Of Violence

Four times the Women’s Center in Coeur d’Alene picked up Kelleen Burgess, patched her wounds, strengthened her spirit and withheld judgment when she returned to the man who hurt her.

“They counseled me against returning,” Kelleen says, obviously wishing she’d listened. “But I genuinely loved him. I truly believed I could be his savior.”

She couldn’t save him, and the Women’s Center welcomed her back as soon as she realized it.

“They saved my life and helped my son have a better life,” Kelleen says. “It’s the most loving organization I’ve ever encountered.”

The Panhandle’s broken, hounded and violated women have found solace and sanctuary with the nonprofit Women’s Center for 20 years.

They’ve called the center’s hot lines after rapes and beatings. They’ve sobbed and screamed and begged for help. They’ve arrived at the secret shelter with blackened eyes, bloodied noses and broken arms.

In the past year, 70 women and 75 children hid at the shelter, 44 women called to report rapes, 1,176 entered therapy and 401 joined one of the center’s support groups. Center volunteers were asked 2,100 times to help women wade through the court system.

More than 1,000 women and 1,100 children have stayed in the shelter since it opened in 1983.

“The Women’s Center really deserves more than it gets from this community,” says Nancy Mjelde, who first volunteered at the center in 1979 and went on to serve through the 1980s on the Governor’s Council on Domestic Violence.

Nancy opened her home to abused women before Coeur d’Alene had a secret shelter. Men chased and threatened her. They called her a busybody and a buttinski. Police paid little attention to domestic violence calls because the law gave them no teeth.

Those were the days when women who stumped for protection from abusive men were called feminazis or homewreckers and pastors sent battered wives back to their husbands to plead for mercy.

A degree of enlightenment glimmered in Idaho in the 1980s. People began to acknowledge domestic violence and its toll on society. Agencies and organizations began to fight it with money. Laws were passed. Police began to work with the Women’s Center.

“Need changed things. There’s been a lot of good work done,” Nancy says.

But the good work hasn’t slowed the violence; it has just repaired the victims.

Like Kelleen.

She didn’t begin as a victim. After high school, she hung on the arm of a California drug dealer who treated her like a princess, if her memory is reliable. At 28 in 1989, Kelleen decided to clean up, move to Coeur d’Alene and have children.

“I had the life, but I wanted to have meaning,” she says.

Her new boyfriend drank heavily, but Kelleen figured alcohol was better than drugs. Plus, he was a handsome cowboy and Kelleen was a sucker for looks.

He was an angry drunk, but Kelleen could handle him until she got pregnant. That’s when the systematic beatings and degradation began.

“He’d get drunk, beat me, black out, apologize and buy me things,” she says. “He’d call me a fat cow. He beat on my legs until I was so swollen and bruised I couldn’t walk.”

She was too embarrassed to tell her family and friends, but finally asked her brother to stay with her. Her boyfriend beat up her brother too.

Kelleen called the Women’s Center for help when she was eight months pregnant.

“I was worn out and freaking out,” she says. “I wanted my life to be mine.”

In cloak and dagger style, she hid a suitcase across the street from her home, sneaked past her drunk boyfriend and jumped into a taxi the center had sent for her.

Kelleen’s an outspoken woman a notch below fearless. But she breaks down when she talks about the moment she first entered the Women’s Center’s shabby shelter.

“When I got there, I was safe, warm and there was no fear anymore,” she says, her relief so palpable eight years later that she can’t stop the tears.

Her boyfriend registered for alcohol treatment and begged her to return. Kelleen went home and her boyfriend checked out of the program. As she labored in the hospital, he visited her drunk, then disappeared for a few weeks.

The beatings began again when he returned. He broke her nose. He stole her car keys and registration. He tried to steal the baby.

She hid in the shelter, returned to her boyfriend, hid in the shelter and returned to her boyfriend.

When her son was 13 months old, Kelleen left her boyfriend for good. She had nothing but her baby when she arrived at the shelter.

“They gave me clothes - good stuff for job interviews. They fed me and helped me with makeup and hair,” she says. “They helped me when I was in court all the time for protection orders, custody battles.

“They praised me and made me look good. I didn’t feel like white trash, which is what he used to call me.”

She stayed at the shelter nearly three months, found work and saved enough to rent an apartment.

When she sank into a frustrated depression after her boyfriend broke into her apartment, a Women’s Center volunteer picked her up, took her son to a baby sitter and took Kelleen to a doctor.

Seven years have passed since Kelleen declared her independence. She’s 36 now and her confidence and strength defy anyone to recognize her as an abuse victim.

But she recognizes abused women everywhere she goes and quietly slips them the Women’s Center business card. When her work schedule permits, she volunteers at the shelter, which has moved to a cheerier building.

“I was strong before abuse tore me down,” she says. “They taught me that it’s all my choice on what I have to endure. They helped me be myself again.”

The Women’s Center operates the only 24-hour staffed shelter for battered women in the Panhandle. It’s raising money to buy or build a new shelter. To donate or for help, call 664-9303.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: THE WOMEN’S CENTER The Women’s Center operates the only 24-hour staffed shelter for battered women in the Panhandle. It’s raising money to buy or build a new shelter. To donate or for help, call 664-9303.