My housekeeper told me before she died she had a story to tell. Her secret past still gives me chills

Lee Metoyer was dying. The beloved housekeeper, now 72 years old, had been such an integral part of the Krilich family that they could hardly imagine a world without her.

She had arrived on the doorstep of their sprawling home in Barrington, Illinois, nearly thirty years earlier; her life before that day was shrouded in mystery.

The Krilich children – Sandra, her four older sisters and little brother – were always discouraged from asking questions about her past for fear they would scare or offend her.

But of course they had put pieces of the puzzle together over the years.

For example, they knew that she had come to them after a terrible tragedy: her son Pierre and husband had both died in a devastating car accident.

Lee was still grieving and had spent a long time in the hospital recovering from the loss. She kept her precious photos of it next to her bed until the day she died.

Then there was the fact that she was wearing full dentures after losing her teeth in an undisclosed accident, sitting slightly hunched over and shuffling.

What had caused these injuries? They never asked. And over time, as they grew to love her, the answer simply didn’t matter anymore.

Lee had even hinted once or twice that she had a story to tell; One day she would write her memoirs, she said, and no one would believe it.

Yet she never put pen to paper. And now, as she lay dying, she took Sandra’s hand and begged her to tell the story for her.

Only Sandra had no idea where to start.

It took another 23 years before she was able to fulfill Lee’s dying wish and uncover her disturbing past and astonishing resilience.

“I had no idea how to write the story of a woman who had sidestepped every personal question I had ever asked her,” Sandra writes in The housekeeper’s secret.

“Every time I asked her about her childhood, her family, her love life, her educational experiences, or anything else personal, she would only give a fragment of an answer, like, ‘Oh, that was a long time ago.’ then ended the conversation with, “Finish your homework.”

“I always thought it was strange that she revealed so little, but I assumed that the deaths of her husband and child had been so painful that she had simply wanted to put her past behind her.”

The truth was so much worse.

Sandra’s search led her from a Louisiana slave plantation to the haunted tunnels beneath a long-closed psychiatric hospital, where she swore she could still hear the anguished screams of former patients subjected to horrific abuse.

It also led her to Lee’s biological family – her siblings and five children – who had long assumed she had died.

Lee was born Leaner Mae Metoyer, the youngest of five, in Louisiana before moving to Chicago with her parents.

One December evening in 1940, while walking home from work through Grant Park, she was beaten and gang-raped. The attack was so brutal that even her own parents could not recognize her.

“Most of her teeth were knocked out,” Sandra wrote. “Her hands, feet, ankles and hips were broken in multiple places.”

She continues, “The snow they found her in was soaked in blood… The doctors said she only survived because she had been frozen in the snow all night, which slowed the bleeding.”

The revelation finally provided insight into Lee’s dentures, “the strange way she stood and the deformities of her hands and feet,” she writes.

About two months after the assault, Lee’s physical scars began to heal, but emotionally she was in terrible shape. She still couldn’t walk or talk and would wake up screaming during the night.

It was around this time that her doctors also discovered that she was pregnant as a result of the rape.

Her parents – who at the time were both battling cancer and unable to care for their deeply traumatized daughter – made the difficult decision to send her to Manteno State Hospital, a place known to cause not only horrific physical has applied punishments to patients, but also imposed sexual punishments. abuse was also common.

It was there that her first child, Pierre, was born.

The then 19-year-old, who could hardly form a coherent sentence, was banned from keeping the child in the institution. So Pierre was sent to live with Lee’s older brother and his new wife while they waited for her to recover.

But still her condition showed no signs of improvement. Her trauma was exacerbated by her mother’s death, and in an effort to see results, doctors subjected her to three months of inhumane electroshock therapy.

She was given home visits, but they proved difficult for everyone as she refused to move from a chair, even to go to the toilet – she just sat in her own mess and stared at Pierre.

She was then raped again during a home visit – this time by a distant relative – resulting in a second pregnancy.

Another family member took the girl, Angel, into their home.

During a 13-year stint at Manteno, Lee had two more children – Tony and Serenity – by a married man who held a senior position at the hospital. She believed he loved her, but he undoubtedly abused a desperately vulnerable young woman in his care.

Both children were sent to foster care and the man’s name never appeared on their birth certificates.

“It seemed like every step in this story was another punch in the gut,” Sandra writes. ‘I felt anger. Sick, burning anger. I wanted to destroy this man and burn the hospital down.”

A fifth child, Joey, was born to an unknown father, and no one in the family knew what happened to him.

“Even one of the horrors… would be enough to destroy some people for good,” says Sandra. “But Lee was a pillar of our family. She was completely positive. She was the kindest, wisest and most capable person I have ever known.”

A confused Sandra wondered, “Was this the story she wanted me to write?” It was dark, sad, and so full of loss that I didn’t think I could bring myself to share it with the world.

“And even if I could, I had to find the meaning, understand the how and why.”

That meaning became clear after she managed to track down Lee’s first son Pierre – “the man I always thought had tragically died in his youth.”

During a nerve-wracking first phone conversation, Pierre hesitated to ask the biggest question on his mind, about the mother who had been missing for most of his life.

“She had a good life with your family, correct?” he finally asked.

“She was the best thing that ever happened to our family,” Sandra assured him, “an extraordinary blessing…she was deeply loved to the end.”

Understandably nervous about this stranger, he nevertheless agreed to meet her.

Finally, 23 years after making that promise to a woman, she considered her second mother, Sandra walked up the path to Pierre’s house.

She carried with her a very precious gift; one that would bring an end to this remarkable story of surviving – and thriving – against all odds.

“I carried the urn containing Lee’s ashes in a sturdy bag,” she writes, “I was intensely aware that every step brought her closer to being reunited with her family.”

The Housekeeper’s Secret: A Memoir by Sandra Schnakenburg is published by She Writes Press. The names of Lee’s children have been changed to protect their privacy.