Former Miss America shares gripping tale
In the mid-’50s, when I was around 12-years-old, I watched my very first Miss America Pageant on our brand new black-and-white television set and saw a stunning Miss Colorado by the name of Marilyn Van Derbur win the crown. She was beyond beautiful, and I was awestruck 10 times over. At that time, it was a common practice for Miss America to make appearances at state pageants throughout the country. Also at that time, the Miss Louisiana Pageant was held in Lake Providence near my home so, of course, my calendar was marked. I was going to see Miss America in person.
When the evening of the state pageant arrived and Van Derbur was introduced as Miss America 1958, she stepped onto the stage and seemed to float to the end of the runway. I was sitting only a few feet from her. She looked angelic, was radiant and moved with such grace. When she began to speak, she engaged the audience with incredible ease, maturity and comfort. Everyone loved her.
At the end of that evening, as a young girl, I could not have imagined it would ever be possible for me to admire Van Derbur more than I did at that moment. Nevertheless, a couple of weeks ago (57 years later and ironically sitting about the same distance from her), I felt my admiration grow to new proportions. This time the setting was not a beauty pageant but instead, the Gingerbread House Bossier/Caddo Children’s Advocacy Center Partners in Prevention Luncheon; she stood at a podium rather than the end of a runway, and she did not introduce herself as Miss America but as a childhood incest survivor.
Her story of abuse at the hands of her prominent now-deceased father is riveting as well as horrific. Van Derbur skillfully and passionately described the molestation in detail, at times graphically, to a spellbound audience in a ballroom. Her voice, tone and facial expressions were all reflective of the magnitude of her past suffering. She took the audience into the victim’s experience and trauma.
She described her father as an affluent Denver businessman, philanthropist and sexual predator who molested her from the age of 5 to 18 – over 600 times. She remembers her mother as beautiful and gracious but also as the woman who denied and did nothing to help her daughter or to put an end to the abuse. “If my mother wasn’t going to help me, who would? Without her help, I knew there was no hope of it stopping. There was no one to tell. Who would believe a child? This kind of thing wasn’t supposed to happen in a picture perfect family like mine. Back then, no one even uttered the word ‘incest,’” she said.
When Van Derbur reached her early 20s, she remembers, “My youth minister/friend began to detect and to study some mysterious and destructive behavior patterns that I was exhibiting. After nine years of trying to figure out why I was trying to destroy myself, he took a leap of faith and asked the question that saved my life: ‘Did your father ever come into your room at night when you were growing up?’” She was unveiled at that point, and a brutal recovery requiring many years of therapy and numerous hospitalizations followed, she said, accompanied by crippling night terrors and flashbacks.
Van Derbur had believed her recovery and all else that she had built in her life would be destroyed if the public were to find out about her molestation experience. Still, she summoned her strength and went to the Kempe National Center to look into setting up an adult survivor program for other victims. She wanted to help, and her identity was to be kept confidential. However, a newspaper reporter was there, learned about her past and put the story on the front page of the Denver Post the next morning. “I thought it was the worst day of my life,” Van Derbur said.
But it was the best day in the lives of thousands of other victims who saw the headline and came forward. They now had a courageous advocate who would serve like no other. A new organization, Survival United Network, was founded to handle the large numbers. She has appeared on the cover of People Magazine, testified at congressional hearings, addressed conferences throughout the nation, produced education videos and spoken in over 500 cities where she does not leave the room until each survivor who wants to meet with her personally has done so. She gives each one the time he or she needs.
In her book, “Miss America By Day,” Van Derbur not only tells her personal story but educates parents in regard to prevention and shares her findings from interviews with other survivors of the traumatic and long term effects. Perhaps, most importantly, she gives hope. She assures, “I now live with a calm that is difficult to describe. I know there is hope at the end of the tunnel for survivors who are willing to do the work of healing. The pain ends. ... I promise.”
Jo Ann Garner is a freelancer writer for The Forum and CityLife. Email comments to [email protected].
