And he built a Cabin.....

How it started….

Who wakes up one day and decides to build a small cabin in the woods and start a “Catholic” organization that resembles a cult that follows very few of the Catholic Church’s principles and abuses women and children?

My father.

   I don’t like when someone tells me I'm "acting like my father", especially when he is a master manipulator and controller and perfectionist, but unfortunately I have found myself trying to beat those very traits out of myself at my therapy sessions. I probably could write a book about my father. I feel like I know the man so well. I have his voice running through my head every day.

   My father did not have the ability to say he was sorry, to apologize---at least to his children.  I have decided that is one of the most important things you must be able to tell your children if you make a mistake. He manipulated, abused, and controlled us and refused to admit he was wrong.

   He tried to use this same type of manipulation and control and abuse tactics on visitors but many got tired of it very soon and would end up leaving. The author of this article had only been to the homestead one time but already could see that my father was engaging in controlling and manipulating people and enforcing strict rules.

   I found an old article in Mother Earth News about my father when he was only 28 years old. Here is a brief excerpt out of the article:

 “The CHM school and headquarters is a 68-acre farm on top of one of the rolling hills of south central New York, just outside the town of Oxford. I first learned of CHM in the Contact columns of MOTHER and when I saw a full-page article about the movement in an upstate daily, I decided to check it out.
Fortunately I didn't show up unannounced, otherwise I would have been required to spend a day sawing wood. Unannounced visitors must saw wood for a day or they are invited to leave. It's a rule that keeps tourists and crashers away.
There are other rules, too: no cameras, no "gadgets" of any kind (flashlights, radios, etc.), no hard liquor or drugs, no cars or machinery and no "profanity" or vulgarity. Tobacco is "tolerated but not encouraged" and women wearing anything but kneelength skirts and dresses are not allowed to visit. Women in shorts or pants "will be advised to go home and get dressed properly."
The homesteading school is not managed—as you might expect—by hoary Bible thumpers but by bearded, 28-year-old Richard Fahey, who has apparently. been the only continuing resident of the farm-school. I arrived during one of Richard's Saturday morning classes on homesteading skills. (The Christian Homesteading Movement, Smith, Hal 1971. http://www.motherearthnews.com/Nature-Community/1971-03-01/The-Christian-Homesteading-Movement.aspx?page=3).”

   Although my father wanted to prove to the world that he had great ideas with homesteading, he could have done it with respect for human beings---- most of all his family. My father is a brilliant man. There is no doubt in my mind about that. That never excused his mistreatment of human life, abusing his own children and tossing them away like garbage.

   Here is a quote about children directly from one of my father’s writings that he distributed:

   “We are concerned with the perfection of each individual, knowing that the world can never be reformed without the reformation of self first. We believe that, while many good and selfless people are striking at the branches of social evils, the root—the stability of the family—is neglected. Most people are not, can not, be social reformers, but they are parents and have the sacred duty to form their children and themselves in the likeness of God. Failing in this, it matters little how many hospitals they build, books they write, or cures they discover. Succeeding in this, they have the success that counts for eternity. (Richard Fahey, 1971)”

   My father wanted us to be perfect. And if we weren’t we were severely abused and punished and then disposed of.

   The homestead was pretty. Full of flowers, flowing creeks, swaying poplar trees, blooming apple trees, bee hives, sweet smelling country air, crickets chirping, birds singing.

   But somewhere there was a little girl crying because she wasn't perfect enough.