Spokane7
65°
July 15, 2011 in City
Girl leaves Aryan past behind
At age 21, Kelty Walker is pursuing graduate degree at UI
Kelty Walker, of Coeur d’Alene, grew up with a white supremacist father in an abusive home outside Blanchard, Idaho.
(Full-size photo)
Kelty Walker grew up in an isolated trailer house in the woods outside Blanchard, Idaho.
“We took five dirt roads to get to the trailer,” she said. “It was out there.”
And in that trailer, her father did all he could to block out the world. Kelty and her sister barely left the house. On rare trips to town, they had to wait in the car or stay within three feet of their dad. They never attended school. No one came over. Their mother left to work in town and their father schooled them in the things he thought were important: calculus and the supremacy of white people.
Kelty would read anthologies of English literature and American literature – “He’d tear out all the pages about the Civil War” – and the volumes of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica. If she disobeyed her father – or if he just thought she had – he’d become violent. He was careful not to leave a bruise. The house was full of guns, and her father prepared them for the day when armed foes would arrive.
“He trained us what to do if we ever saw laser dots on the wall,” she said. “That’s paranoid.”
Kelty – now 21 and studying for her master’s degree at the University of Idaho in Coeur d’Alene – has left the woods of Blanchard far behind. But you get the sense her story is far from over.
She said her dad was violent and domineering, but he also suffered from Huntington’s disease, a progressive neurological disorder whose symptoms include antisocial behavior, hallucinations and irritability, as well as motor-skill deterioration. An intelligent man who had become disaffected and angry after a run-in over some unspecified “political incorrectness” at the University of Washington, he had moved his family to Coeur d’Alene, and then Blanchard, to be near the Aryan Nations around 1990.
“I think he imagined finding husbands for us who were Aryan and having us live next door for all our lives or something – I don’t know,” Kelty said.
At night, Kelty said, her mother quietly, subversively told her daughters that there was more to life than their father’s views of the world. Somehow – through reading, through her mother’s whispered urging, through personal strength – Kelty knew at a young age that she wanted to resist.
For two years, around ages 12 and 13, she stayed virtually silent in rebellion. At other times, she defied her father – sometimes directly, sometimes in roundabout ways. As he got sicker, he became more aggressive. Conflict and anger drifted constantly through the atmosphere. Finally, one day when Kelty was 16 and her little sister was 13, their father became irate and grabbed them by the necks, pinning them hard against a wall.
“That was the first time I felt that if he didn’t let go I would have stopped breathing,” she said. “I was very freaked out.”
For Kelty, that was the end. She feared her father would kill her or her sister – or that she’d kill him in self-defense. Soon, she and her mother were planning an escape at nights in her room.
“It was very fun at that time,” Kelty said. “Very exciting. I couldn’t sleep because it was so exciting. We were going to leave, finally.”
One early morning in June 2006, she and her mother and sister sneaked out the back door while her father slept in a sleeping bag near the front door. They took few belongings, a little food. A neighbor gave them a ride into Sandpoint, where they entered the women’s shelter.
Kelty knew she wanted to go to school. She was smart and tough and had done a lot of reading, but in many ways society was a mystery to her.
“I didn’t know how to fill a tank of gas, or how to go through a checkout stand at a store,” she said.
By January 2007, Kelty had enrolled in North Idaho College courses offered in Sandpoint, under a dual enrollment program that allowed high school students to earn college credit. In her first semester – suffering “culture shock” but loving it – she earned almost straight As. By that November, she had her GED and was working toward a bachelor’s degree.
Her father’s health deteriorated, and he wound up in an assisted-living center. He never came after them, though Kelty says her mother lived in fear of that for years. They worked odd jobs, found a place to live, moved forward.
When she turned 18, she moved to Coeur d’Alene on her own. In December 2010, she finished her bachelor’s degree in psychology and began working on a master’s. She plans to earn a Ph.D. and is interested in researching psychopathy and musicology.
“I want to research the scariest thing I can think of and the most beautiful thing,” she said.
Which is an amazing way to look at things. And is but one of the amazing things about Kelty Walker. She’s smart and funny and diverse – her hobbies include karate and working under the hood of her VW – and she has a straight, tough take on her dire childhood. When she talks about it, she chuckles at the bleakest moments.
“If I didn’t find humor in all of this, I wouldn’t be able to revisit it,” she said.
She’s done things that a lot of others might have never done. And yet she gives a lot of credit to the Sandpoint women’s shelter – now closed – and to an array of social services, public education programs and professors for helping her along the way.
Her mom and sister live in Sandpoint. Since Kelty fled her father’s home, she’s seen him just once. He now lives in a Sandpoint nursing home, and she went to see him a few months ago. She is unsentimental about the visit – “I was just curious,” she said.
“It was a very surreal and grotesque experience,” she said. “The last time I’d seen him, he was domineering and violent. … I went in and he’s all hunched up and skeletonlike. He can’t see and he can’t move (very much), because he’s on anti-psychotics.”
The drugs control his tremors but also limit his motion, she said. He was ingratiating and tried to be affectionate.
“He said he’d been wanting to see me for a long time and couldn’t understand why I didn’t want to see him.”
She told him about her plans to earn a doctorate.
“Then he started the Aryanism spout,” she said. “Then I left.”
Shawn Vestal can be reached at (509) 459-5431 or shawnv@ spokesman.com. Follow him on Twitter at @vestal13.
The draw of the unknowable 
Truthbtold on July 15 at 6:32 a.m.
Great story….with all the negative things going on in the world, it is wonderful to hear such an amazing story of strength and grace!!
It is amazing the resilience of this young lady and the strength of her mother to leave is commendable. So many times we hear of the mom that won’t stand up for her kids, or the young people who go the opposite way in life, when faced with so many challenges.
This is a perfect example of when life gives you lemons…….MAKE LEMONADE!!! :)
YOU GO GIRL………..
kamm on July 15 at 9:17 a.m.
One person, just one person, can rescue a willing person from abuse. I’m glad she had her mother and sister and that they found a safe and encouraging home.
Kelley seems to be a resilient individual who followed an inner moral compass.
Congratulations!
tylerr on July 15 at 10:10 a.m.
It’s sad to hear that Kelty had to go through those terrible times growing up. But, it is wonderful to hear how she turned it around and chose to make a better life for herself.
Very inspiring!! What an amazing individual. God Bless you Kelty! May your your life continue to grow more joyous with each passing day.
rawkmandale on July 15 at 11:12 a.m.
Thanks for this great story - very encouraging.
idbarrelracer on July 15 at 11:18 a.m.
Great article. I have a parent with Huntington’s Disease too, and I know the trials that have to be overcome in order to survive childhood. Glad Kelty has her sights set on a better life after dealing with the abuse as well as the disease. One thing the article didn’t mention is that HD is hereditary. I wonder if Kelty or her sister carries the gene mutation. I certainly hope not and that she can move on with her life completely.
Byrdie714 on July 15 at 11:56 a.m.
Impressive!
ChefGus/ John Olsen on July 15 at 12:12 p.m.
A classic casebook story of abuse that played out with the escape and healing of the victim. I hope her mother is doing well too. That all took a lot of guts, and likely was very scary. The most critical and at risk time is during the time you are leaving the abuser and it is best to have a solid plan and some place to go. It is sadly a problem that we only see the tip of, with the bulk of the iceberg ominously hidden beneath the seeming calm waters. Best wishes, continued healing and care in your choice of significant others… John
EWUeagle2000 on July 15 at 12:36 p.m.
The past is history, the future is a mystery, but today is a gift that’s why it’s called the present.
misjustice on July 16 at 7:48 p.m.
Inspiring. Best to you Kelty. In time, perhaps, you will be able to forgive your father; not for his sake but for yours.