By Jamie Jamieson
Staff writer
PEABODY Penny Braddock wants the world to know what happened to her and other deaf children at the Boston School for the Deaf in the 1950s and '60s.
The 53-year-old Peabody resident is one of 19 former students who have filed suit against the nuns and priests who ran the school from 1935 to 1991, when it closed.
The former students describe, often in vivid detail, the hellish treatment they endured, including physical abuse and sexual assault. Their allegations range from being slapped in the face, beaten or dragged by the hair, to fondling, being locked naked in dark closets, and being forced to stand for hours naked in a shower while nuns watched.
Braddock's story is no less bizarre or brutal. She charges a nun forced her to drink the urine of another child when she was 9 years old. The same nun hit her while she was in her dormitory bed, and dragged her onto the floor by her hair, she said.
Speaking through an American Sign Language interpreter in the Boston office of attorney Mitchell Garabedian, Braddock said deaf children today do not face that kind of treatment. "For a long time I put it out of my mind and I didn't think about it," she said.
But coming forward has lifted a burden from her, she said. At first she was nervous about telling what had happened. Now she is relieved.
"I didn't realize how much better it would make me feel," she said.
Garabedian, who has represented victims of priest sexual abuse in the Boston area, filed a civil suit in Suffolk Superior Court last spring on behalf of nine of the former students. In August, Braddock and eight more students joined that suit.
How far the case will go is uncertain. The standard in civil law, Garabedian acknowledges, is that victims must file suit within three years of the day they connected the harm they've suffered to the perpetrators' actions. In this case, the plaintiffs are suing 20 to 50 years after the abuse allegedly occurred.
But Garabedian argues that because of their limited language ability, partly caused by their deafness, these plaintiffs simply did not realize the harm that had been done to them all those years ago. It wasn't until recently that they made the connection between the harm done and the conduct of the individuals named in the suit, he said, so they should be allowed to pursue the case.
Since the suit gained national attention, dozens of other students from the school have come forward, he said. Garabedian had 89 clients involved at last count, and he expects more.
Now he is seeking personnel records and other documents, much as he did in the priest abuse cases, from the Sisters of St. Joseph, who ran the school, and from the Archdiocese of Boston, which he claims had a supervisory role at the school. (The archdiocese denies it.)
Preparation for trial could take 18 months, he said.
Sisters 'heartbroken'
"These allegations came as an enormous shock," said Sister Joanne Gallagher, communications coordinator for the Sisters of St. Joseph.
Dozens of nuns, priests and other staff members are named in the suit, and most of the sisters named in the suit are of retirement age or older.
"They are heartbroken," Gallagher said.
The charges are especially shocking because the order has dedicated itself to social justice, she said. One statement posted on the order's Web site deplores priest sexual abuse, including "the abuse of power of those who concealed crimes and avoided taking responsibility."
Gallagher said the order took great pride in its work at the School for the Deaf.
"For nearly 100 years, more than 250 members of the Sisters of St. Joseph ministered to approximately 2,200 students," she said. The school was run with "a very well-educated faculty" of sisters and about 450 lay people, she said. "So these kinds of allegations were a complete surprise."
Now the order is searching 60 years of records in response to the suit.
"At this time we have found no contemporaneous evidence substantiating these allegations," she said. But the order's leaders continue "to seek the truth with an open mind."
Gallagher made a plea to the public to keep an open mind, not just about the sisters named in the suits, but also about the former students who brought the suit.
While the Boston Archdiocese has said it had no responsibility for the Sisters of Saint Joseph, Garabedian insists it does. The archdiocese created the order, he said. "It is not a creation of the Vatican." A spokeswoman for the archdiocese declined to comment.
Gallagher, speaking for the Sisters of St. Joseph, said, "Most of the foundations we had in this diocese began at the invitation of the bishop. How that played out organizationally in 1899, I don't know."
Years of isolation
What is certain is that after more than 35 years, Braddock has decided to come forward to tell her story and seek compensation.
Braddock tells a story of such profound isolation in her deafness that her coming of age took decades. She attended the school from 1955 to 1967, living there during the week, but returning home on weekends.
She blames the Boston School for the Deaf for failing to teach her enough about the world to take part in ordinary life. Because students were forbidden to use sign language, she says, her ability to communicate didn't develop for many years.
The nuns insisted the children read lips. Using sign language was grounds for punishment, sometimes severe punishment. "If you didn't understand, you were hit," Braddock said. "I remember not wanting to be hit and just thinking I have to be good, I have to be good. I was very afraid. I learned nothing."
At night sometimes the girls in the dorm would hide and try to speak to one another using sign language. But their efforts were crude. They barely knew the letters of the alphabet. So they would make up signs, creating a language of their own.
She left the Boston School for the Deaf when she was 16. Her mother worked as a waitress to pay for her tuition to a high school for the deaf in Buffalo, where she finally learned American Sign Language. But she struggled, she said, having started so late.
No one in Braddock's family knew sign language, so she had no way to talk with them in those days.
To illustrate how little she understood, and how difficult it was for her to communicate, she told the story of her wedding day. Braddock said she tried to lip-read the priest's words as he read the wedding vows at the ceremony, but she just couldn't understand them.
"He forced me to read out of a book. I said I can't," she said. Her family insisted, pointing to the book, telling her to just read the words. But the words on the page were meaningless to her. Braddock was so upset she felt faint.
"I didn't understand the vows. I didn't understand anything," she said.
Braddock and her husband, who can hear, were married 24 years before they divorced about eight years ago. They raised four children, each with the ability to hear. Her first two boys never learned to sign. When her daughters were born a decade later, she taught them to sign.
The girls were born after she had landed her first job she was in her 30s as a teacher's aide at a preschool for deaf children. That was her first opportunity to use sign language every day.
Working with the deaf
For the past six years Braddock has worked at the New England Homes for the Deaf in Danvers as an activities director, and most recently as a certified nursing assistant. There, American Sign Language is the main language. Being able to talk to people every day has enriched her life, she said.
Now that her youngest daughter has graduated from high school, Braddock is thinking about her own future. She dreams of going to college, something she wishes she had had the opportunity to do when she was younger.
Garabedian sees a common thread between the clergy abuse cases and that of the deaf students. "The nuns, priests and employees of the school had an enormous amount of power, and they did not have to answer to anyone but the individuals who were within their religious group," he said.
And like the victims of priest abuse, the deaf children were often told they were mistaken if they tried to tell their parents what was happening to them. The deaf children were particularly vulnerable, he said, because they had such difficulty communicating.
"The parents trusted the leaders of the school to take care of the children," he said.
That was the case with Penny Braddock's mother. Very recently Braddock visited her mother and told her the whole story, including her decision to join the lawsuit.
"She was surprised and disappointed and felt as though there were two faces to the school," Braddock said. "She's sad."
Then it was Braddock's turn to be surprised. Her mother approved of her joining the suit, and encouraged her to, "get it out and talk about it," she said. She's been able to do that by taking part in a monthly meeting of the participants in the suit. "Every time I go to a meeting, I feel better," she said.
Not every nun at the school was cruel, Braddock added. She talked about one supervisor who was especially kind to her, whom she remembers fondly. And she mentioned that she knows some people who had a good experience at the school.
"I didn't," she said. "Being forced to drink urine isn't a good experience. That's not right."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Penny Braddock of Peabody is a plaintiff in the suit against nuns at the Boston School for the Deaf. (Amy Sweeney/Staff Photo)
Staff writer
PEABODY Penny Braddock wants the world to know what happened to her and other deaf children at the Boston School for the Deaf in the 1950s and '60s.
The 53-year-old Peabody resident is one of 19 former students who have filed suit against the nuns and priests who ran the school from 1935 to 1991, when it closed.
The former students describe, often in vivid detail, the hellish treatment they endured, including physical abuse and sexual assault. Their allegations range from being slapped in the face, beaten or dragged by the hair, to fondling, being locked naked in dark closets, and being forced to stand for hours naked in a shower while nuns watched.
Braddock's story is no less bizarre or brutal. She charges a nun forced her to drink the urine of another child when she was 9 years old. The same nun hit her while she was in her dormitory bed, and dragged her onto the floor by her hair, she said.
Speaking through an American Sign Language interpreter in the Boston office of attorney Mitchell Garabedian, Braddock said deaf children today do not face that kind of treatment. "For a long time I put it out of my mind and I didn't think about it," she said.
But coming forward has lifted a burden from her, she said. At first she was nervous about telling what had happened. Now she is relieved.
"I didn't realize how much better it would make me feel," she said.
Garabedian, who has represented victims of priest sexual abuse in the Boston area, filed a civil suit in Suffolk Superior Court last spring on behalf of nine of the former students. In August, Braddock and eight more students joined that suit.
How far the case will go is uncertain. The standard in civil law, Garabedian acknowledges, is that victims must file suit within three years of the day they connected the harm they've suffered to the perpetrators' actions. In this case, the plaintiffs are suing 20 to 50 years after the abuse allegedly occurred.
But Garabedian argues that because of their limited language ability, partly caused by their deafness, these plaintiffs simply did not realize the harm that had been done to them all those years ago. It wasn't until recently that they made the connection between the harm done and the conduct of the individuals named in the suit, he said, so they should be allowed to pursue the case.
Since the suit gained national attention, dozens of other students from the school have come forward, he said. Garabedian had 89 clients involved at last count, and he expects more.
Now he is seeking personnel records and other documents, much as he did in the priest abuse cases, from the Sisters of St. Joseph, who ran the school, and from the Archdiocese of Boston, which he claims had a supervisory role at the school. (The archdiocese denies it.)
Preparation for trial could take 18 months, he said.
Sisters 'heartbroken'
"These allegations came as an enormous shock," said Sister Joanne Gallagher, communications coordinator for the Sisters of St. Joseph.
Dozens of nuns, priests and other staff members are named in the suit, and most of the sisters named in the suit are of retirement age or older.
"They are heartbroken," Gallagher said.
The charges are especially shocking because the order has dedicated itself to social justice, she said. One statement posted on the order's Web site deplores priest sexual abuse, including "the abuse of power of those who concealed crimes and avoided taking responsibility."
Gallagher said the order took great pride in its work at the School for the Deaf.
"For nearly 100 years, more than 250 members of the Sisters of St. Joseph ministered to approximately 2,200 students," she said. The school was run with "a very well-educated faculty" of sisters and about 450 lay people, she said. "So these kinds of allegations were a complete surprise."
Now the order is searching 60 years of records in response to the suit.
"At this time we have found no contemporaneous evidence substantiating these allegations," she said. But the order's leaders continue "to seek the truth with an open mind."
Gallagher made a plea to the public to keep an open mind, not just about the sisters named in the suits, but also about the former students who brought the suit.
While the Boston Archdiocese has said it had no responsibility for the Sisters of Saint Joseph, Garabedian insists it does. The archdiocese created the order, he said. "It is not a creation of the Vatican." A spokeswoman for the archdiocese declined to comment.
Gallagher, speaking for the Sisters of St. Joseph, said, "Most of the foundations we had in this diocese began at the invitation of the bishop. How that played out organizationally in 1899, I don't know."
Years of isolation
What is certain is that after more than 35 years, Braddock has decided to come forward to tell her story and seek compensation.
Braddock tells a story of such profound isolation in her deafness that her coming of age took decades. She attended the school from 1955 to 1967, living there during the week, but returning home on weekends.
She blames the Boston School for the Deaf for failing to teach her enough about the world to take part in ordinary life. Because students were forbidden to use sign language, she says, her ability to communicate didn't develop for many years.
The nuns insisted the children read lips. Using sign language was grounds for punishment, sometimes severe punishment. "If you didn't understand, you were hit," Braddock said. "I remember not wanting to be hit and just thinking I have to be good, I have to be good. I was very afraid. I learned nothing."
At night sometimes the girls in the dorm would hide and try to speak to one another using sign language. But their efforts were crude. They barely knew the letters of the alphabet. So they would make up signs, creating a language of their own.
She left the Boston School for the Deaf when she was 16. Her mother worked as a waitress to pay for her tuition to a high school for the deaf in Buffalo, where she finally learned American Sign Language. But she struggled, she said, having started so late.
No one in Braddock's family knew sign language, so she had no way to talk with them in those days.
To illustrate how little she understood, and how difficult it was for her to communicate, she told the story of her wedding day. Braddock said she tried to lip-read the priest's words as he read the wedding vows at the ceremony, but she just couldn't understand them.
"He forced me to read out of a book. I said I can't," she said. Her family insisted, pointing to the book, telling her to just read the words. But the words on the page were meaningless to her. Braddock was so upset she felt faint.
"I didn't understand the vows. I didn't understand anything," she said.
Braddock and her husband, who can hear, were married 24 years before they divorced about eight years ago. They raised four children, each with the ability to hear. Her first two boys never learned to sign. When her daughters were born a decade later, she taught them to sign.
The girls were born after she had landed her first job she was in her 30s as a teacher's aide at a preschool for deaf children. That was her first opportunity to use sign language every day.
Working with the deaf
For the past six years Braddock has worked at the New England Homes for the Deaf in Danvers as an activities director, and most recently as a certified nursing assistant. There, American Sign Language is the main language. Being able to talk to people every day has enriched her life, she said.
Now that her youngest daughter has graduated from high school, Braddock is thinking about her own future. She dreams of going to college, something she wishes she had had the opportunity to do when she was younger.
Garabedian sees a common thread between the clergy abuse cases and that of the deaf students. "The nuns, priests and employees of the school had an enormous amount of power, and they did not have to answer to anyone but the individuals who were within their religious group," he said.
And like the victims of priest abuse, the deaf children were often told they were mistaken if they tried to tell their parents what was happening to them. The deaf children were particularly vulnerable, he said, because they had such difficulty communicating.
"The parents trusted the leaders of the school to take care of the children," he said.
That was the case with Penny Braddock's mother. Very recently Braddock visited her mother and told her the whole story, including her decision to join the lawsuit.
"She was surprised and disappointed and felt as though there were two faces to the school," Braddock said. "She's sad."
Then it was Braddock's turn to be surprised. Her mother approved of her joining the suit, and encouraged her to, "get it out and talk about it," she said. She's been able to do that by taking part in a monthly meeting of the participants in the suit. "Every time I go to a meeting, I feel better," she said.
Not every nun at the school was cruel, Braddock added. She talked about one supervisor who was especially kind to her, whom she remembers fondly. And she mentioned that she knows some people who had a good experience at the school.
"I didn't," she said. "Being forced to drink urine isn't a good experience. That's not right."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Penny Braddock of Peabody is a plaintiff in the suit against nuns at the Boston School for the Deaf. (Amy Sweeney/Staff Photo)