A Mafia Member Adopted Her Just To Do THIS...

Unfiltered Stories

Barbara Lane shares her powerful journey from a foster home to a life of resilience and triumph. Discover how she overcame childhood trauma, loss, and abandonment to rebuild her life and find hope. This story of survival will inspire anyone facing adversity.   #truecrime #trauma   Thank you for watching Unfiltered Stories! We offer a platform for our guests to speak openly about their life stories and journeys, shedding light on the challenges they faced and the resilience they've shown.   Our mission is to raise awareness about survivors by delving into their stories, exploring the impact of their experiences, and how they've managed to heal and rebuild their lives.  By sharing these stories, we aim to break the silence surrounding those challenging memories and create a compassionate environment.   🌅 FOLLOW US 🌅  Facebook ➮ https://tinyurl.com/UnfilteredFB  Tiktok ➮ https://tinyurl.com/UnfilteredTT  Snapchat ➮ https://tinyurl.com/UnfilteredSN

Transcript

00:00My foster father used to visit my bed every morning.

00:08My name is Barbara Lane and I am a survivor of life in foster care and in a foster home.

00:21My story began when I was three years old when our family fell apart

00:25and many of myself and my sisters fell into foster care.

00:30That could have been traumatic for a lot of people,

00:32but for me the real trauma was when we were separated and placed in different foster care homes

00:37and I lost track of my sisters for most of my life.

00:42Our mother abandoned us younger children in projects in St. Louis.

00:47She turned off the heat, she turned off the water, she sold all the furniture and she left.

00:51And we were there three days in what was the coldest winter in St. Louis

00:57before a neighbor figured out something wasn't right

01:00and called Catholic Charities who came and got us

01:03and placed us in St. Dominic's Orphanage in St. Louis.

01:06The trauma was when I watched my sisters leave the orphanage.

01:11One by one they'd have these little suitcases in their hand

01:14and they'd get in cars with people I didn't know or a taxi

01:17and they were just gone and that broke my heart.

01:20My sister Kay and I were placed in the home of a mafia grunt.

01:25It was a very, very abusive home.

01:27He was incredibly charismatic, convinced everyone that we were happy and doing well there

01:33while he was literally threatening us by gunpoint not to say anything about what was going on in that home.

01:40But he was so charismatic, he convinced the social workers that we were doing much better

01:45if she would cut off ties with all of our sisters and just keep everyone away

01:51and let them get on with our life, parenting us in the way they thought, you know, was best for

01:56us.

01:57Of course, none of that was true, but it's the way it went they believed him.

02:06When he introduced us to St. Louis, we didn't know there was anything wrong with the approach that he took

02:14with us

02:14until I think one time I drew a picture of his body as much as a three-year-old could,

02:21almost four-year-old could, and got smacked in the face for doing that

02:25until never, ever, to do anything like that again.

02:28This went on the whole time we lived there through our adolescence.

02:33And he would threaten us so that we wouldn't tell anyone that he would kill one or the other of

02:39us sisters.

02:39And we didn't want that to happen, so we learned very quickly to be quiet.

02:44And I think I was 14 when I had enough of this, and I asked him to please take his

02:50gun and just shoot me

02:51because I didn't want to live anymore.

02:54And so he raised his hand.

02:55I thought he was going to hit me, which he hit us all the time, so that wouldn't have been

03:00anything new.

03:01But instead, he put his hand down, and he walked out of the room, and he never bothered me again.

03:06I thought to myself, if I had known it had been so easy as to ask him to kill me,

03:12and things would have stopped,

03:14I would have asked him a long time before that.

03:18So after that event, he began to allow me to leave the house.

03:22I was able to ride my bike.

03:24I was able to join choir at school, and, you know, be in the play, and play sports.

03:32And for some reason, he just gave me my freedom.

03:35That allowed me an opportunity to feel somewhat normal.

03:40He was an ex-boxer, so he had muscles, and he would beat my sister Kay, something awful.

03:48And I remember a particular time, it was in my nature to protect her, and I tried to stand between

03:55them to get him off of her.

03:57I screamed, and screamed, and couldn't stop.

04:00He stopped hitting her, only because I think I was screaming so loudly, he was afraid the neighbors would hear.

04:07And that one sticks in my mind a lot, trying to protect her.

04:11I struggled with learning.

04:12I really did.

04:13I had a hard time reading.

04:15I had a hard time focusing at school because of what was going on in the home, as well as

04:21the fact that I was missing my sisters so much.

04:25The nuns, we went to a little Catholic school, and the nuns literally referred to me with the R word,

04:31which I refuse to say.

04:32Out of honor for anyone who had struggles with issues like that.

04:37And I believed them.

04:38I really thought that there was something wrong with me, and that I was incapable of learning.

04:44They would tap on my head and use my birth name, Lane.

04:49What's wrong with you?

04:50You know, are you R, or what?

04:53And it would make all the other kids in the classroom know I was a foster child.

04:57It was horrific.

04:58I couldn't learn.

04:59For me, it was freedom.

05:01It was expressing and finding out who I was.

05:04Adolescence is a time to find out who you are.

05:07And I was free to do that.

05:09I was free to learn about friendships.

05:12I was free.

05:13I was very athletic, quite a tomboy.

05:16I played sports.

05:16I played tennis, which is how I met my husband, actually, at the age of 14.

05:21And so what I did was take all those memories of what had occurred before I was 14.

05:26And the way I describe it is I built a dungeon in my mind with really strong bars, a cell

05:32in there.

05:32And I put all of them in there and locked them away so that I could pretend that I had

05:38a normal life.

05:39From 14 forward, I thought I was doing pretty well.

05:42I really, and I was for the most part.

05:45It wasn't until I got older that those bars in that dungeon just started giving way.

05:50And I realized I had to get some help.

05:54I must have been in first grade that morning at Mass.

05:58I listened to the Catholic priest telling us first graders that Jesus was our friend, our brother, and that he

06:04would always be with us.

06:06My foster father used to visit my bed every morning and fondle me.

06:10That night, after the priest and the Mass, when I went to bed, I said a prayer to my brother

06:16Jesus to come and stay with me and protect me.

06:19Because I believed that priest.

06:21I really did.

06:22And so I went to sleep that night, and I had the most magnificent dream.

06:26In my dream, Jesus came to me and put me on his lap and told me never to worry.

06:31No matter what happened, he would always be with me.

06:34Always.

06:34So the morning when I woke up, my hand was warm, and I believed it was warm from being held

06:40in the hands of the Craig.

06:42And when my foster father came in that morning, I wasn't there in my mind.

06:48I was with Jesus.

06:49So I think that is taking some horrible events and yet helping individuals understand what children do with it and

06:58what I did with it.

06:59And to this day, Jesus is my brother.

07:01So, you know, there's always two sides to every coin.

07:06I didn't realize until I was much older what many of the signs I saw actually meant.

07:14He once took just me to a bakery with him, and he had this package under his arm.

07:21And he sat me down at the table, gave me a donut and a glass of milk, and went back

07:25in the back room for, oh, 20 minutes or so.

07:28And then came back out.

07:30All of a sudden, this became a ritual where every Saturday, he said, come on, we're going to the bakery,

07:36which was in downtown St. Louis.

07:38We lived in the county.

07:39And every Saturday morning, I had a donut and a glass of milk while he had this package wrapped in

07:44newspaper.

07:45Went back in the back room and then back out.

07:48What was in that package?

07:49I don't know.

07:50But, you know, it couldn't have been good.

07:52I don't know if he was getting rid of guns.

07:56I mean, I could only assume.

07:57But then, you know, I often overheard my foster mother speaking in Sicilian, her Sicilian dialect, that I learned to

08:05understand.

08:06But I would never speak it because I didn't want them to think I understood what they were saying.

08:11But I did, and I knew what was coming.

08:13But I heard her say to one of her sisters on the phone that he was trying to break away

08:19from the mafia, but that that's an impossible task.

08:23You know, they don't let you go.

08:24You had to walk on eggshells.

08:26You had to watch what you said.

08:28I got to the point where I would sit at the living room window and watch out the window and

08:34see him drive up coming home from work.

08:37And I could tell by the look on his face what was going to happen.

08:41So I would tell everybody to be quiet.

08:43My foster mother and my older sister Kay, don't say a word, be quiet, because I could usually conjole him.

08:50You know, tell him something good about himself.

08:53Something like, I understand what a tough job, what a tough day.

08:56So that things would settle down and no one would get hurt.

09:00But my sister Kay had a hard time staying quiet.

09:04She would speak up to him as if she was asking him to hit her, although there was nothing she

09:10ever did that deserved that.

09:12But, you know, I was always trying to calm things down, and it was very hard with her because she'd

09:17be angry, and she'd say something to him smart.

09:20And then he'd get on her, and then I'd try to, you know, protect them, you know, get between them,

09:25tell them to stop.

09:27But usually I'd just get hit in the way.

09:29You know, you'd get hit, too, just trying to be there.

09:32He would throw chairs, he would throw plates, whatever he could get his hands on, he would throw.

09:38It was just the same thing over and over and over.

09:42My sister Kay often had broken glasses, bruises on her face, bruises on her arms.

09:49When he would throw something, he really didn't take aim.

09:52He was just throwing.

09:53I stayed out of fear in that home until I married my husband.

09:58I was 19.

09:59And it wasn't until after we were married that I started to realize I needed help.

10:05I needed to deal with all this.

10:07Because I had somewhat of obsessive-compulsive tendencies.

10:11Like, if there was a glass in the sink, I couldn't go to bed until it was cleaned and put

10:15away.

10:16The floors were immaculate.

10:18I mean, I played it out in that way.

10:21So I was fortunate to find an incredible therapist that really helped me work through my childhood trauma.

10:30I just got in that dungeon and dug it all out, took a look at it.

10:34Because you cannot heal it until you know what it is you have to heal.

10:38I reunited with all my sisters when I was 42.

10:42I did a lot of healing before we were reunited.

10:46So I was really ready for that experience.

10:50And when we were all together, I was to learn there wasn't one of us that escaped.

10:56Not one in our childhood.

10:58So that really put me on a passionate journey to gather their stories.

11:04To listen to them when perhaps no one else ever did.

11:09And I spent one-on-one time with each sister listening to their stories of horror.

11:14And, you know, and watching them heal at the same time.

11:18Because there's healing in sharing your story.

11:21There's much healing in sharing your story.

11:24And so it took me 15 years to gather all their stories.

11:28Because this isn't easy to talk about.

11:30They shared them when they were ready.

11:32And I wasn't going to push anyone.

11:34I didn't even know I was going to write a book.

11:36They just wanted me to take a journal down for them.

11:39And then eventually they said, well, you write it in a book for me and for us.

11:43And I said, okay.

11:44I love them so much I couldn't say no.

11:47So it became their stories united.

11:50And I'm so proud of each and every one of them.

11:52Because they all stood up and told a terrible story to tell.

11:57And they all did it.

11:58They all did it with the hope that our stories will inspire others who've been through some of the tragedies

12:04we've been through.

12:05And know that you can heal from it.

12:07That you can be whatever you want to be.

12:10It takes work.

12:11It takes a lot of work.

12:12It takes a lot of tears.

12:14But, you know, there's a doorway there you can walk through and close it behind you and leave it all

12:19past.

12:20My book is Broken Water, An Extraordinary True Story.

12:24And it's about 11 abandoned sisters who reunite after 43 years and share their stories.

12:33It takes a strength of a warrior to seek help.

12:37And to seek help.

12:38Use that strength.

12:39Be proud of yourself.

12:41There's no shame in seeking help.

12:44There's no shame in help.

12:45I think that healing involves a remembrance.

12:49A remembrance of who you are, which is, in my view, a divine child of the creator, of the ultimate

12:56universe, whatever words you use.

12:59And when you are abandoned, mistreated, you forget.

13:03You forget.

13:04You lose connection with the reality of who you are.

13:08And healing can be somewhat spontaneous when you remember.

13:12It's just that remembrance that you are divine.

13:19Thank you for listening.

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