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To the left is a picture of Russ Jackson holding a football. Russ was a quarter back with the Ottawa Rough Riders. Russ was Sue's high school principal at the Champlain High School in the pictures below. Sue attended Champlain High Schook from 1968 - 71. Russ Jackson was a nice man and a good principal. He would always stop and say hello to all the students as he went through the hallways of the high school. The picture above to the right is a picture of Russ Jackson in 1996 holding the Canadian Football League's Grey Cup.
Russ Jackson has been described as the best Canadian-born quarterback to play in the Canadian Football League. Following his outstanding 12-year career with the Ottawa Rough Riders from 1958 - 1969. Jackson is still part of the Canadian football scene as the Hamilton Tiger-Cats radio colour commentator on CHML-AM radio
See a video of Russ Jackson playing football see - History by the Minute at: http://www.histori.ca/minutes/minute.do?id=14250
The two pictures above are of Champlain High School now renamed the Center Jules Leger.
The school is on Lanark Ave in Ottawa across from the CBC TV station.
Above is a picture of the singer Paul Anka taken in the 1950s. Sue and her family lived in Paul Anka's house where he used live in the late 1950s. In 1957, Paul Anka wrote his famous song "Diana" in the basement of the house at 87 Clearview Ave near Island Park Drive in Ottawa. A para transpo driver told Sue once that when he was a teenager he would listen to Paul Anka sing while he was listening at the basement window. Sue's neighbours, Mr and Mrs. Hart who lived next door would hear Paul Anka playing his music. Sue and her family lived in that house from 1967 - 1971.
Above is a picture of our house at 87 Clearview Ave near Island Park Drive in Ottawa.
The front door entrance to our house at 87 Clearview Ave in Ottawa West.
Above is a picture of my family taken at 87 Clearview Ave. Left to Right: my brother Chris, me (Sue), my mom Theresa and my dad Paul-Andre
Above is a picture of my grandma Mary Ann Sage's 75th birthday party at my Aunt Olive's hose at 951 Alpine Ave in Ottawa West. Left to Right:
Back Row: Uncle Lyman, (me) Sue wearing the white suit, Aunt Olive wearing glasses, cousin Patsy (Olive's daughter), Uncle Pat
Front Row: Grandma Sage and my brother Chris wearing glasses.
My grandma Mary Ann Sage was Irish. She would throw salt over her left shoulder. She was superstitious too. She was a devout Roman Catholic. My mom could only marry a Roman
Catholic and not a man she liked who was protestant a sportscaster on the news.
The Sage family headquarters was at grandma Sage's apartment in Hull, Quebec. All the Sages went to the martriach of the family. Grandma only stood about 5 feet tall. She had these
small eyes and she was smart as whip, never missed a thing and I loved her. Grandma Sage
was born in 1986 in Low, Quebec and she lived to be 103 years old. There was a big birthday party for Grandma Sage when she turned 100 years old in 1996 in Cobourg, Ontario, I was not there as I have not seen my parents since 1993. Grandma Sage was 103 years old when she died at the Golden Plough Retirement Home in Cobourg, Ontario in 2000. Aunt Cannie went to see her and it was a hot summer day and there was no air conditioning in the retirement home. Cannie went to get her a cloth to put water on it to put on Grandma's forehead. Grandma said she was not feeling well. Cannie turned around and her mother was dead. Cannie called her daughters Carol and Linda to come over and they did. Grandma Sage is buried in Cobourg, Ontario along side withher son Lyman Sage who died a few years later. I did not go to my grandma's funeral either. I have been estranged from my parents since 1993.
I want to go to see my grandma Sage's tombstone and pay my respects to her.
I never visited my Grandma Sage when she lived in Cobourg because my uncle Lyman lived with her and my aunt caroline in the same house. Lyman molested me when I was four years old and I held some animosity towards him. I told Aunt Cannie what Lyman did to me and she understood my not visiting Grandma or her. I told her my aunt that Lyman tried to molest he sister Olive's daughter Patsy when she was a teenager. Patsy was sleeping in the spare bedroom in Grandma apartment. Uncle Lyman came into the room and put his arm up her nightgown up her thigh and Patsy told Lyman "I am gonna yell and tell Grandma what you
are doing" Lyman quickly left the bedroom. One day I was visiting Grandma and uncle Lyman
came out of the bathroom which was locked with little Venus, Patsy's little girl.
I told Patsy what Uncle Lyman did to me and told her I saw Venus coming out of the washroom with him.
I started high school at the Champlain High on Lanark Ave in West Ottawa across from the CBC
Headquarters and near Island Park Drive.
My grandma Mary Ann Sage was Irish. She would throw salt over her left shoulder. She was superstitious too. She was a devout Roman Catholic. My mom could only marry a Roman
Catholic and not a man she liked who was protestant a sportscaster on the news.
The Sage family headquarters was at grandma Sage's apartment in Hull, Quebec. All the Sages went to the martriach of the family. Grandma only stood about 5 feet tall. She had these
small eyes and she was smart as whip, never missed a thing and I loved her. Grandma Sage
was born in 1986 in Low, Quebec and she lived to be 103 years old. There was a big birthday party for Grandma Sage when she turned 100 years old in 1996 in Cobourg, Ontario, I was not there as I have not seen my parents since 1993. Grandma Sage was 103 years old when she died at the Golden Plough Retirement Home in Cobourg, Ontario in 2000. Aunt Cannie went to see her and it was a hot summer day and there was no air conditioning in the retirement home. Cannie went to get her a cloth to put water on it to put on Grandma's forehead. Grandma said she was not feeling well. Cannie turned around and her mother was dead. Cannie called her daughters Carol and Linda to come over and they did. Grandma Sage is buried in Cobourg, Ontario along side withher son Lyman Sage who died a few years later. I did not go to my grandma's funeral either. I have been estranged from my parents since 1993.
I want to go to see my grandma Sage's tombstone and pay my respects to her.
I never visited my Grandma Sage when she lived in Cobourg because my uncle Lyman lived with her and my aunt caroline in the same house. Lyman molested me when I was four years old and I held some animosity towards him. I told Aunt Cannie what Lyman did to me and she understood my not visiting Grandma or her. I told her my aunt that Lyman tried to molest he sister Olive's daughter Patsy when she was a teenager. Patsy was sleeping in the spare bedroom in Grandma apartment. Uncle Lyman came into the room and put his arm up her nightgown up her thigh and Patsy told Lyman "I am gonna yell and tell Grandma what you
are doing" Lyman quickly left the bedroom. One day I was visiting Grandma and uncle Lyman
came out of the bathroom which was locked with little Venus, Patsy's little girl.
I told Patsy what Uncle Lyman did to me and told her I saw Venus coming out of the washroom with him.
Our family moved from Calais Street in Touraine to 87 Clearview Ave in Ottawa West, a former home where Paul Anka's family live. Paul composed his famous song "Diana" in the basement. An ambassador and his family just moved out of the house and our family moved in. Mrs and Mr. Hart lived next door. They remember hearing Paul singing in the basement as the window was near their house. The Harts were a nice elderly couple. Eva Cowan and her husband and her adopted daughter Mary lived on the corner across from the Harts. The Shouldice family lived across from us. Janice Shouldice attended Champlain high. Her brother was developmentally delayed. I sometimes went over to see Janice and we played board games. Janice was bit older and very sophisticated and mature for her age.
I would walk down Clearview and cross Island Park Drive to go to Champlain High. Mom bought me some new clothes to start clothes that I did not like. Mom told me to wear a heavy brown knit sweater and a fake leather skirt and brown knee highs with ugly pointed shoes. I was so embarrassed I told her I would pick out my own clothes and not her.
Champlain High was a nice high school. The football player Russ Jackson was our principal and he was a nice man who was very handsome. I took a commerical class as my dad thought girls should be a secretary or a nurse. I did not want to learning typing etc. I did not do the academic courses, Chris took these courses.
I failed art in Grade 9. I sure did, I am not artistically inclined. In my next semester I took music lessons and learned the recorder which I enjoyed. I passed that course. I failed my
first term of typing. We had blank keys on our manual typewriters. Mrs. Healy my typing class teacher would hit my fingers lightly if I looked down at the keys and I did often. We would learn to type by music. I can type quickly these days as I have been typing for over 35 years. My fingers fly across the keyboard.
I joined the Library class. I was shy in those days believe it not. I had a few friends in high school. Nancy Benoit was my best friend. Leigh McGuire and Christine were also my friends.
Both Leigh and Christine were adopted. Their parents were really nice and the lived in nice homes too.
Miss Burbridge taught grade 9 English. I liked to write poems and I did often. One day Miss
Burbridge asked our English class to write a poem and to put up our hands when we were
finished. I was one of the first ones to put up my hands. Miss Burbridge walked over to me and picked up my poem and waited for the other students to finish writing their poems.
After the class was finished, Miss Burdbridge told me to stay after the other students walked out the classroom. I wondered to myself what did I do wrong, oh no, I wondered.
Miss Burbridge told me she read my poem and saw a rare talent in my writing one that she did not see too often. She encouraged me to write stories and send them to as many
magazines as I could. I felt very flattered as no one really ever gave me encouragement at all.
I still like to write and I do. I don't have to rewrite anything, it just flows out of me naturally.
I am very lucky to have that talent. My grammar may not be correct sometimes but I do try my best.
This next piece is vey disturbing to read, just a warning to you all before you read this:
My brother told me this. Chris was a student in Grade 8 at Connaught Public school on Gladstone Ave near Parkdale Ave. Mr. Bacon was his home room teacher. A woman knocked on Mr. Bacon's classroom door and told him Chris has to go home immediately.
So Chris left his school and went home. Mom told Chris to go out to the side stairs and open
the storage door under the stairs and get the bucket and brush we used for washing the car.
We had a built-in storage shed under the outside side stairs.
Chris got the bucket and brush and went into the basement where mom was waiting for Chris.
Mom told Chris to fill the bucket with water and then go get his pet mice out from the furnace
room. After doing what mom asked of him, Chris was told to get on his knees and drown all his mice in the bucket using the car brush. Chris was horrified. Even for mom, Chris thought
she had hit a record for cruelty. Chris cried out and told mom he couldn't drown his mice.
So mom drowned Chris's pet mice one by one. Mom would take a mouse from the cage
and drown it slowly as Chris was made to watch and most shocking of all Mom was laughing as she was drowning the mice, making a game of it, saying things like "Oh, that one doesn't want to die, does it?" Of all the incidents of abuse that happened to Chris by my mom,
this tragic event stands out as his most painful experience. I still get upset thinking about it.
I was not there to witness this thank goodness. I cannot imagine what Chris must have gone throught that day, that most horrific experience. Chris thinks mom motivation to do this to his pet mice was because mom had discovered mice feces in Chris's bedroom - proof to my mom
that Chris was bringing his pet mice up to his bedroom in order to play with them.
Chris played the tuba in the Champlain band when he went to Grade 9. He would bring the
tuba home and put his school books inside tuba as he was walking home with it. One day
his music teacher saw the books in the tuba and told Chris to take his books out of the
big instrument.
I wrote a play in Grade 9 and cannot remember what it was about. My cousin visited us with her baby Brian. She was a single mother and a student nurse. She got a job at the
Cobourg General and worked there for 40 years and retired last year.
Chris and I would play the 5th Dimension and Diana Ross Records. I had Bobby Sherman
posters plasters on my wall. My dad bought me and Chris two old office desk to do our
homework on. Chris liked to build
I had the bedroom upstairs facing the streets. Chris had the bedroom facing east of the house.
My parents had the big bedroom with a walk in closet with folding doors. We had a finished basement with a shuffle board game set in the tile floors. We had a big room where we had a black and white TV and a stereo with a needle to play the big round lps. My dad had a work out room where he lifted weights and did exercises and my mom had a room where the washer and dryer was.
Upstairs we had a big kitchen big enough to place a small table and two chairs. We had a big dinning room with a French provincial dinning room set. We had a big living room with
a fancy livingroom set. We had nice white curtains. My mom loved to decorate and she was good a picking up nice furniture. Mom was a perfectionist like Dad. Mom cleaned from morning to night.
One day mom got mad at dad. This time though mom was really fuming. I got home from school one day and there were pot and pans all over the dining room table and on a plate was a
picture of a meal where dad usually sat. Mom wanted Dad to buy her something and he would and she told all of us at supper "I am on strike, you are going to have to cook your own meals and do your own shopping and laundry". Dad was visibly upset but said very little. The next day Mom was real happy as she had gone shopping and bought what she had wanted. Mom
sure knew how to get her way with dad. She would pull a good tantrum too to get her way.
Mom would speak to dad in baby language in public and it was very embarrassing as people would look and mom and roll their eyes. She would say to dad "popsey oppsey" and act and talk in a little girl's voice, pretty freaky to hear if you heard it for the first time.
Mom could turn violent in one minute and then stop and then pick up the phone and speak to someone calling as if nothing was happening and be cheerful and happy on the phone and then would hang up the phone and then grab me or Chris and continue where she left off in her punishment of us, usually by punching and slapping us and screaming obscenities at us.
She could which personalities on and off like a light switch. To the average person that would be very hard to understand and comphrend but to live with somone like that is very frightening
because you never knew when my mom would go into one tirade and then be over with it and then calm down for awhile and then start all over again. I call it living in a war zone and with
mom it was. My enemy at home was my mom. I feared for my life everyday when I lived at home. She could be the sweetest and nice woman one minute and then grab you by the neck and you are grapsing for your last bit of breath to save your life. I have severe emotional
problems from all the abuse i.e. if someone comes up to me from behind and bolts up behind me it scares me, someone jokes and put their hands around me neck or throat I can freak out,
and if someone speaks to themself all the time it freaks me out. My mom would be in the kitchen murmuring to herself all day long in a small whisper. I could not make out what she was saying but if I came into a room she stopped and was not aware I heard her.
Mom could burst out laughing for no apparent reason and then start crying for no apparent
reason all at the same time. Mom would cry sometimes and I would hear her. She could curse my dad up and down and call him every name in the book as she talked to herself but at times
her eyes would light up when he came home. I think my mother may have been molested by my uncle Lyman who molested me, I never found out if he did molest her. I don't speak nor do I see my parents now for over 13 years.
When you visited dad and mom in their Vanier house, my parents would only talk of the of the
events happening that week or month. The family past was never mentioned by them. Mom's abuse towards and dad turning a blind eye most of the time was never mentioned. Mom and dad never made amends, never apologized or tried to compensate my brother and I in anyway.
My mom would still emotionally abuse me when I would visit and dad too. One time dad bought me a voodoo doll from California where you stuck needles in it. I was so upset with the doll that after awhile I threw it out. Dad would tease me about my weight. One time mom told me to stand on a chair as she was shortening my pants and dad walked into the room and said "Suzanne, you look like a big Christmas tree". That remark hurt my feelings as I was trying to
lose weight and I was struggling my diet at the time. Dad hugged me or kissed me when I visited him. I always had to go up to him to kiss him on the cheek and he never put his arms around me. That hurt too. I was never loved by my mom or dad. I always felt like I was no good, a piece of dirt and I had low self esteem too. I was never taught to be assertive.
People could walk all over me and they did and did what they wanted to me without me saying boo to them or to tell them to stop. I developed a self hatred so bad I wanted to kill myself so often and would plan ways of doing it. I tried twice but I survived. One by hanging myself and I did and a nurse cut down the rope in time and another time I took 140 pscychiatric pills and went into a coma for a few days and I survived that too. These days I am happy with my life.
I struggle financially like most people who are poor but I like who I am and what I stand for.
I have self respect now and I can can be assertive and take charge and control of my own life and I do. I am not shy anymore and I can stand up to politicians, the medical community and bureaucrats and I won't blink, I look them straight in the eye. I have integrity and I tell the truth. I am a credible person on my journey to help ban electroshock from this world the atrocity that it is. Everyday I get up and my computer faces me and I start another day
of fighting the good fight. Claire Culhane a prison activist once told me on the phone. "There is no better fight in town than what we are doing"
My mother's behavior was becoming more erratic, out of control and very violent especially towards my brother and I. Chris and I jumped when she told us to do anything in the house.
You did not argue with mom because she could be violent with us.
I remember when both my brother and I were strangled and beaten. It all started when mom
walked into my room and started screaming about glue on my bedspread. Chris ran into my
bedroom and he found my mom squatting over me and she was strangling me around my neck.
I had used Lepage's glue to make a collage and some glue onto my good quilt. Chris pulled my mom off me and then he ran downstairs to the phone by the side door (we only had one phone which was 722-4170. Chris dialed the operator and asked for the Police. Just as Chris got
the Police on the line, my mom pulled Chris from the phone and hung it up. Mom then, once
again started her her strangling thing that she did. I remember Chris fighting back, hitting mom in the face and body until she let go. Chris then ran out the side door of the house
yelling that he was going to the nearest Police station. Mom wasn't so easily outsmarted, however. Mom coolly told Chris that if he ever did that, she would kill him and me. Chris fell for her threat and re-entered the house. What followed was a terrible beating so much so
that my sister went to her school counsellor at Champlain High School on Lanark Road in Ottawa for help. I remember my brother Chris and I sitting with the counsellor after school.
The counsellor was an older woman in her late forties or fifties. We both remember that
this counsellor either through a letter or a phone call requested that my mom contact her.
I remember my mom being extremely worried and upset with me for this. As far as I know,
my mom probably ignored the counsellor or if mom did contact her probably used her
lying and distortions to cover up her abusive behaviour towards us.
My brother had left his bicycle against the side of the outside stairs which mom had painted
the day before. Chris left his bicycle there overnight. The next morning at breakfast, mom
became furious and grabbed a hammer out of a kitchen drawer, rushed into the dining room
and was about to strike Chris on top of his head. Luckily dad actually intervened for a change.
A terrible row ensued between my parents and the Ottawa Police were called. After the Police arrived at 87 Clearview at our house and spoke to my parents, an officer spoke to my
brother privately. Chris remembers which parent he preferred and Chris told the officer
he preferred dad. Chris told the Police officer he didn't like my mother because she was
always angry and beating him and me. That day, my parents split up for several months.
Chris was so upset with what had happened, that eventually he was sent to the school
counsellor to see what was wrong.
I was always afraid of my mom. One day Chris motioned for me to come into his bedroom.
He took me to his closet where he showed me a thick piece of 2 by 4 with nails on it.
Chris asked me "do you know what this is for?" and I replied "yes, it going to used on
mom if she beats us again". My brother nodded yes.
I was so nervous all of the time and I was under so much stress with all this out of control
behaviour by my mom that I began to stutter severly and had a difficult to make
phone calls. I don't stutter anymore as I live with less stress now.
We couldn't keep pets in our house too long because would abuse them horribly. Our black poddle Pierre was beaten lots by mom. Mom's friend Carmen Couturier gave mom a mongrel called Maggie. Maggie got spayed and mom wanted to teach the dog not to urinate on the floors.
She took the dog down to the laundry tub and forced water down its throat and gave it a bath and then walked the down in the freezing winter weather. The dog came in with iccles on it.
Dad spoke to Carmen and told her the story and Carmen took back the dog. Mom could be
very vicious and mean at times. She in estimation was a very disturbed individual who should not have had any kids.
My brother and I tried to go to civil court to get compensation from our parents for all the trauma we went through about 10 years ago, but lawyer fees were too costly. Going to the Police is our only option now, but my brother and I have not chosen to do that.
I felt like a stranger in my home with my parents, almost like a boarder. There was no
warmth from my parents and they treated my brother and I badly. I lived in terror all of my childhood and I could not relax or let down my guard just in case mom came after me again.
It was like being in a war zone for l7 years and the enemy is the person who is supposed to care, love, and nuture you. My brother and I suffer from post trauma stress. I am a very
anxious person most of the time, hyper you could say and I find it hard to relax and unwind.
Even after all these years, I am still affected badly.
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There were people who heard we were being abused but no one helped us. My aunt Cannie did nothing to help us, the Champlain High school counsellor did nothing and the one Ottawa Police officer who spoke to my brother did not help us. We were afraid to go to anyone else.
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ADVICE TO SOMEONE READING THIS TODAY AND IS BEING ABUSED, GET SOME HELP NOW!
But this is my advice to anyone who is reading this and is getting abused, tell everyone you know and meet and tell them what happened and someone
will help you out.
Don't be afraid to tell your counsellors, teachers, police, relatives, friends and their families, priest, rabbi, reverend, kids helpline, go to any community center and tell someone, tell your family doctor, walk into an emergency department of a hospital and tell them what is going on, walk into a police station and tell them you need help, dial O and ask for the police on any phone, dial 911 if you have to.
Do anything to keep yourself safe. Tell a school nurse or counsellor or a teacher. Tell them all of what is going on, what type of abuse you are experiencing, who is doing the abuse and how many people and where the abuse takes place.
Get names and phone numbers, street addresses of your abusers and bring them with you. Where the abuser works or where their house is. What is their cell phone number, home number, work number, where do they work, get the addresses, names of their friends, family etc. Somebody will help you.
Call your local police station and ask to speak to a police officer, if that person does not help you, call again and tell the operator that the person they referred you to did not help you and ask for someone else to help you.
You may be afraid to say anything to anyone thinking they may not believe you but someone will, just keep telling your story to as many people as you can, there is hope out there, No one has the right to abuse you under no circumstance no matter what you did or may have said
to someone. It is against the law to abuse someone.
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I liked Champlain high. School was my sanctuary away from home where I felt safe until I had to go home. Schools were pretty safe in the late 60s and early 70s. I never saw a student talk back to a teacher. I saw never saw any drugs around me, I am sure some students took them but I never saw any around high school. I was a "square" and so was my brother. We did not smoke cigarettes, and we did not do drugs, and did not drink alcohol. I was a wall flower you would call. I didn't have a boyfriend at Champlain high because I was too shy. I had a good figure but did not wear the latest clothes, I never did and never have. I had my eye on a few boys but they did not know I liked them. I was never part of the "it crowd" I was not popular at all. I met a young native woman named Doris who introduced me to her religion called "Baha'i" At l6 years old I became part of the Baha'i faith which I still am. Doris took me to
some Baha'i firesides. Andy Andrews and Steven Thirwall knew me since I was young.
Leigh McGuire and her boyfriend and I and my brother Chris started a little quartet called the "West End Tweeters" and we went to the Royal Ottawa Hospital a psychiatric hospital on Carling avenue to sing to the patients in the auditorium. I remember when it was my time to sing and I had a frog in my throat so to speak and I walked off the stage very embarrassed.
Little did I realize in the next few years I would be a patient at that hospital for many years in and out of that hospital.
I was part of the Library club while I attended Champlain High School from 1968 - 71. One day when I was in the library putting some books back on the shelves I heard Mrs. Healy my typing teacher being paged
on the intercom. I took no notice of it of this. The next day in the local newspapers there was a story about a
young man and his girlfriend who has visited the peace tower in Ottawa. The young man had jumped to his death from the peace tower from the visitors section. His girlfriend was with him and witnessed this. The young man was Mrs. Healy' son. Apparently he had been using street drugs. It was a real tragedy. Mrs. Healy was off work for one month after he son's death. I felt so sorry for Mrs. Healy.
My brother Chris played in the school orchestra. He played the tuba and he was good at it.
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