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"Sisters share memories, stories after 14 years apart . . .
Jamie Lynn Puts Family First

from the June 2001 Newsletter

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Editor’s Note:  Jamie Lynn Smith wrote the note (below right to) a friend in 1986, after being admitted to the Youth Ranch.  At age 12, Jamie had suffered horrendous childhood abuse.  Over the next four years, she would have a lasting impact on the entire Youth Ranch family as she courageously made her way toward healing and wholeness.  One of the persons most impacted was an older roommate, Angela Moreno, 16 at the time she and Jamie shared life at HCYR.  When Angela returned to work at the Ranch this spring (see story, page 2), one of her first questions was, “Have you heard from Jamie Lynn?”.  So we gave Angela Jamie’s phone number, and the two fell immediately into sharing their stories, past and present.  One of the results of the renewed friendship is the feature below.

By Angela Moreno-Tijerina

In 1986, at the age of 12, Jamie Lynn Smith came to live at the Hill Country Youth Ranch.  Her dream of a home and a family had finally come true.  Jamie was the youngest of 5 sisters hailing  from Beaumont, Texas.

Jamie and her sisters knew too well the loneliness and isolation resulting from abuse
and abandonment.  Jamie’s biological mother left the family when Jamie was 6 years old. After the eldest sister told her mother that their father had sexually molested her, the mother denied the accusations, yet fled with the daughter leaving the younger four with the father to live.  The father molested each of his four remaining daughters. Their ages were 14, 10, 7 and 6.  Jamie was the youngest.

As Jamie tells now, “We lived in constant fear.”

At the age of 8, Jamie was removed from the house and placed in state custody.  She was sent to live in a string of placement centers and foster homes, where she was again abused — emotionally, physically and sexually. Finally one day, Jamie was sent to live at the Youth Ranch.

I remember the day that Jamie arrived.  So does she.  Jamie and I recently spoke on the telephone at length, and between laughter and tears, reminisced about Jamie’s first day here.  In keeping with Ingram Tom Moore’s “school spirit week”, Jamie arrived on punk-rock day.  Shocked by the outfits and dyed hair, Jamie says she “wondered where in the world she had been taken”.  After a counselor explained the attire, Jamie relaxed and laughed.  Jamie had the bedroom next to mine.  Our beds were separated by a wall not thick enough to muffle her crying at night.  

Photo: (left) Jamie at 12, in 1986.  Jamie knew that what she really needed was a home

and love to go with it.

Four years older than Jamie, I didn’t quite understand why it was that Jamie was crying, I only knew that the tears were filled with pain, loneliness and need.

Today, Jamie recalls that she found the most important missing ingredient at HCYR.  Between the adults who cared for her, and the other children, Jamie found a home.

Jamie was like a little sister to me; she still is.  I remember seeing her for the first time: a bushel full of blonde hair with puffy curls and ringlets. The big blue eyes captured me — eyes so deep and full of pain and sadness, unable to hide the abuse she had endured.

But the joy that appeared in her, as she came to understand that people cared for her, became equally visible after that first day.  Dressed in what she now describes as “the worst possible rags that anyone could find to put her in”, and not having bathed in days, she arrived at the Ranch on October 14, 1986.

Jamie remembers with emotion, “Somebody cared for me, somebody bought me new clothes, somebody took me for a haircut, somebody bought me a doll.”  I still remember watching Jamie sitting on the floor playing with that doll, caressing and loving it, holding it in an instinctive manner, as only a mother would do her own child.  I always knew Jamie would be a wonderful mother, understanding how important it was to have one.

Today, Jamie has plenty of people to care for her and for her to care for.  She lives with husband Ray and children in Hazlegreen, Alabama, in the far north region of the state.  Jamie jokes, with a heavy southern accent,  “My husband thinks if we ever leave Alabama, we will fall off the face of the earth, it being flat and all.”

Married for the last 10 years to the “love of her life”,  Jamie and Ray King  are proud parents to 8 year old Christina, who is “nervous about starting soccer”, 2 ½ year old Judith Ann, “a true tom-boy who likes to get under the cars and work with Daddy”, and little 7 month old Kayleen, “the spitting image of her father”.  I hear the little girls in the background, as Jamie and I talk on the phone, giggling and playing.

I am reminded of the day that Jamie’s eyes filled with something other than pain.  Not long after arriving at HCYR, those big blue eyes became sparkling pools of cool water, full of curiosity.  I remember the night that Jamie’s tears were replaced by girlish, high-pitched giggles. She wanted to know how things worked, why things worked, and why sometimes bad things happened. 

“Why do mamas sometimes leave their babies?”, I remember Jamie asking.  I suppose we all wish that we had better answers for such tough questions.  But I had the same questions.  “Why do daddies do bad things to their babies?”  I guess that if there were good answers for these questions, there would be fewer Jamies and Angelas in the world to ask them.  The Ranch offered the next best thing — the option of a home with safety and love.

Jamie was our little sister, and yes, we played pranks on her, as older siblings often do.  And quite frankly, she got on our nerves sometimes, as younger siblings often do.  But Jamie knew that nothing bad was going to happen to her here, not on our watch.  This was our family. 

Jamie reflects, “Before the Ranch, I didn’t have any happy childhood memories.  None.  Then I came to live at the Ranch.  I do have happy memories from the four years I spent there.  Those are my happy childhood memories.” 

As we reached out to one another, I wanted to clear the past of any lingering hurt.  I apologized for the mean pranks and teasing that we gave her.  In retrospect, I felt bad.  In a very humbling lesson of the human spirit, Jamie laughed and said, “Aw, Angela you were just like a real older sister.  Now when my husband talks about the jokes he played on his younger sister, I have my own stories to tell, thanks to you.  I love you.” 

She went on to tell me that not a day goes by that she doesn’t think about Gary and the Youth Ranch.  She told me a story of a summer trip she took to Colorado in which her houseparent grew weary climbing a mountain.  Jamie took charge, carried her houseparent’s backpack and pushed her up the side of the mountain.  In Jamie’s words, “We had gone so far together; I’d be darned if I was gonna sit at the top of that hill by myself.”

Along with the other new friends that Jamie made here, she also met God. Jamie says “Gary always let you know that God was there, no matter what.”  It was a seed that she would diligently cultivate, and that she now shares with her family.

Jamie’s husband Ray has worked at the same automotive dealership for 11 years and Jamie works periodically outside of the house, while serving as wife and mother.  Jamie plans to go back to school to take classes in computer engineering, something “she is interested in and thinks will benefit her children.”  She beams as she states, “Ray and I work very hard to provide our children with all of the things that we didn’t have.” 

Jamie offers this advice to children living at HCYR today, “Bad things happened to us before we went to the Ranch.  We all have bad memories.  But, you must try to let go and enjoy what you have there.  You must release the pain and soak up the opportunities that are offered to you.”  She adds, “I am so grateful to the Ranch for opening its arms to me when I had no place to go.”

Thank you, Jamie, for opening your arms back to us.  It takes two to complete a hug.