Victims’ Ally Is On The Move To A New Battle

It’s the Deborah Whipples and the Patricia Gallaghers who haunt Cricket Green.

She could have been either one of them - the woman whose abusive husband allegedly killed her or the woman who killed her abusive husband.

Instead, Cricket became the person to whom battered women ran. For seven years, she was a constant at the Coeur d’Alene Women’s Shelter and buoyed 2,500 women and children on the run.

Her shoulders absorbed tears and cushioned bleeding heads. Her powers of persuasion loosened private purse strings and prompted people to care, at least at holiday time, about women and children wasted by violence.

Cricket left the shelter last week, after six years in charge, for the St. Vincent de Paul Society, where she’ll work with homeless women.

“I’m not burned out. It’s time for fresh blood,” she says.

And for medical benefits, which the nonprofit Women’s Center hasn’t been able to offer without taking money from programs. At 40, Cricket is thinking of her future.

She never expected a career in victims’ services. A friend who volunteered at the Women’s Center recognized Cricket’s marriage as unhealthy. She urged Cricket to volunteer at the center with her.

Cricket finally sought shelter with her two children in 1985 after she said her husband held a gun to her head.She helped send him to prison a year later for molesting a girl.

Her friend still wanted her to work at the women’s center. Cricket wasn’t interested.

“The last thing I wanted to get involved with was other beaten-up women,” she says. “I wasn’t ready.”

In 1990, she gave in. The women’s shelter needed help with food preparation. Cricket knew state and federal food preparation rules from previous jobs. Battered women gravitated to her warmth.

“I could tell them what I’d been through,” she says. “And I didn’t feel I could judge. I stayed in a bad marriage 10 years. They were trying to leave.”

Her history left her with an urgency to help. She helped establish a night crisis line at the shelter and stayed on-call seven days a week. She fought against dingy rooms and for higher wages for her six emotionally worn staff people.

Before she left, the shelter moved to a new building and her staff’s wages went up 50 cents an hour.

In 1992, former state Attorney General Larry EchoHawk gave Cricket the Victims’ Friend Award. The Women’s Center promoted her to shelter manager, then director.

“I’ve dealt with at least 2,500 women and children there,” she says. “But the ones that hurt the most are the ones we sheltered who got murdered by their abusers. You can never forget them.”

Her new job will move her out of direct touch with abused women, but she won’t stay off the battleground.

“I’m a rabble rouser on the domestic violence scene and I’ll stay that way,” she says. “Remember the victims, remember the victims.”

Desperately seeking…

Coeur d’Alene’s Lake City Playhouse is making its bid to become the art hangout in the eastern part of the town. The community theater wants to exhibit the works of local artists during its stage productions.

It’s even offering to promote sales of artwork displayed at the theater. For details, call 667-1323.

Up a tree

Don’t let Arbor Day leaf you behind if you’re into art. Design a picture that honors trees for a button the U.S. Forest Service Nursery will give to fourth-graders on Arbor Day, April 24.

The contest is for Kootenai County middle and high school students. Entries could win a savings bond, T-shirt and a dozen buttons. Pick up applications from art teachers.

, DataTimes MEMO: What’s your favorite Arbor Day festivity? Plant a story with Cynthia Taggart, “Close to Home,” 608 Northwest Blvd., Suite 200, Coeur d’Alene 83814; fax to 765-7149; call 765-7128; or e-mail to cynthiat@spokesman.com.