The West Palm Beach Epstein Hearings #3: Courtney Wild - 'Maybe that's how it works for rich guys'

 What Jeffrey Epstein did to Courtney Wild was terrible. 

“But what happened to me after that by our own government changed my life just as much.”

Tuesday, May 12, 2026, at West Palm Beach City Hall, a group of Epstein sexual assault survivors gave testimony regarding their abuse and the government's response. I listened to this hearing, which lasted about three hours, while I was out on a long walk. 

The next morning, I was searching news sites for more information on the hearing and was surprised at how little was out there. This earth-shattering stuff about billionaire sexual assaults, massive government failure, and the stories of the women who survived all of this and are speaking truth to power took some serious time to find. 

Under one video, someone posted, “This is awful. Why aren’t we hearing more about this?” My exact thoughts. 

I went back and listened again to the hearings. Because I was now sitting at a table and not navigating roads, I was able to watch them too. I took notes and am doing my best to summarize and condense, one survivor at a time. 

I’m trying to avoid editorializing. It’s not my place. The point of this exercise is to share what the survivors said. This is my attempt to help get the word out. 

Each survivor spoke for roughly eight to ten minutes. My notes should take just a minute or two to skim, if you’re so inclined. Please watch the video too and correct me if I need correcting. It’s important to get this right. 

Courtney Wild’s seven-minute video begins at 33:00: (cut and paste link if necessary): https://www.youtube.com/live/fHntY5BVY90?si=ag85yR9MrzXJaI5V

Her primary reason for attending the hearing was to demand changes to the Crime Victims’ Rights Act. She explained how the present system of laws victimized her and other survivors and then made her demands. 

From age 14 to 17, Courtney Wild was abused by Jeffrey Epstein.  “

“I’m here for one simple thing: to make sure this never happens again.”

“What happened to me was terrible, but what happened to me after that by our own government changed my life just as much.”

Before, during, and after the government signed the 2008 non-prosecution agreement with Epstein, Wild and other victims were gaslit. The agreement was signed behind closed doors. She and the other victims knew nothing about it. When she requested updates on the investigation of Epstein, the government continued sending her letters telling her to be patient, even though the case was already over. 

For years, she believed an investigation was ongoing, but that was not true. 

In 2008 she and her lawyer filed her case and that of forty other victims under the Crime Victims’ Rights Act. Resolving the case took ten years, until 2019. During that time Epstein was free to assault others. 

“We wanted to do the right thing for all victims. “

“We wanted answers to a simple question: How could this happen?”

Over the next decade, the communications between the government and Epstein “showed something I will never forget. The government wasn’t trying to negotiate with Epstein’s lawyers. It looked like the government was trying to make him happy.”

“They were making sure that the punishment they were going to give him was okay with him. It seemed like the government had forgotten that there were forty of us kids who had been abused by him. “

 “Where I come from, if you commit a crime you go to jail. I’ve never heard of the federal government letting the perpetrator decide what crimes to be charged with and checking. . . you’re cool with how long you’re going to spend in jail.”

“Maybe that’s how it works for rich guys.”

“After ten years of fighting, in 2019, a judge finally ruled that my rights and the rights of other victims were violated by the (2008) non-prosecution agreement. But there was nothing that could be done about it."

“The court found that the government violated the law. And nothing happened.”

That means that the law, the Crime Victims’ Rights Act, doesn’t matter. And if the law has no consequences, it doesn’t protect anybody.”

Wild says she was lucky that she had a lawyer willing to fight for her for over a decade. That is unusual. A lot of victims don’t have lawyers willing to fight for them for that long, especially in a case like this, where everyone tried to make them feel “crazy. “

“Fix the Crime Victims’ Rights Act so it will actually help victims. “

1. Clearly define “'meaningfully confer with victims.' I’m not sure what it means but I know it never happened for me.”

2. Real consequences and penalties. 

What shouldn’t happen: “After years and years of litigation nothing happens when you finally win and prove that your rights have been violated.” 

3. Record, memorialize, preserve victims' words. 

4. Provide attorney fee provisions so victims can find attorneys who will stand up for them. 

If these things had been in place, maybe all that happened to her and others would not have happened. 

“Do you know how many other girls Jeffrey Epstein abused during that time period?  I bet the FBI knows."

From the time of the non-disclosure agreement in 2008 to 2019, while Wild and others were petitioning for Epstein to be investigated and charged, Epstein, a registered sex offender, continued to abuse other girls in Florida, New York, New Mexico, and around the world "and everyone knew it. "

"There were so many lawsuits, so many articles during that time. He was a registered sex offender and still the government did nothing. Not until 2019 when he was finally arrested." 

None of those girls should have ever been abused. Epstein should have been in jail, like any other man would have been who committed the same crimes as him. There shouldn’t have been a single victim after 2009. 

“At the same time, I was petitioning the government on why he got the deal that he got, he was abusing other victims. That is the real injustice here.” 

At his bail hearing in 2019, Wild spoke to the judge, right in front of Epstein, and said how dangerous he was. Bail was denied and “I thought that at last we might finally get justice. “

A month later he was dead.

“Once again, the system failed us. Someone let him die in a secure prison, ensuring that he would never be held accountable for what he did to me, as a kid.” 

“Since then, there have been prosecutions but none of that changes what was lost .None of that fixes what was allowed to happen in the first place. I lost years of my life fighting this. So did many others. We did that so the next victim wouldn’t have to. Don’t let this be in vain. Let the Crime Victims’ Rights Act matter.

Epstein West Palm Beach survivor hearing #2: Virginia Giuffre's family

 “ ‘I don’t recall’ is not enough.” 

Tuesday, May 12, 2026, at West Palm Beach City Hall, a group of Epstein sexual assault survivors gave testimony regarding their abuse and the government's response. I listened to this hearing, which lasted about three hours, while I was out on a long walk. 

The next morning, I was searching news sites for more information on the hearing and was surprised at how little was out there. This earth-shattering stuff about billionaire sexual assaults, massive government failure, and the stories of the women who survived all of this and are speaking truth to power took some serious time to find. 

Under one video, someone posted, “This is awful. Why aren’t we hearing more about this?” My exact thoughts. 

I went back and listened again to the hearings. Because I was now sitting at a table and not navigating roads, I was able to watch them too. I took notes and am doing my best to summarize and condense, one survivor at a time. 

I’m trying to avoid editorializing. It’s not my place. The point of this exercise is to share what the survivors said. This is my attempt to help get the word out. 

Each survivor spoke for roughly eight to ten minutes. My notes should take just a minute or two to skim, if you’re so inclined. Please watch the video too and correct me if I need correcting. It’s important to get this right. 

 

 

This post is a summary of the words of Sky and Amanda Roberts. Sky is a younger brother of the late Virginia Giuffre. Amanda is his wife.

Their six-minute video begins at 25:12:(cut and paste link): https://www.youtube.com/live/fHntY5BVY90?si=ag85yR9MrzXJaI5V

Sky and Amanda Roberts, on behalf of the late Virginia Giuffre.  

In summer 2000, Virginia was 16 years old and had just finished her sophomore year in high school. She was working at Mar-a-Lago and was recruited from there by Ghislaine Maxwell. 

Before she died, she gave testimony speaking out against what Sky called a “Global sex trafficking operation enabled, protected, and funded by powerful people."

“Many survivors stay silent because many of the perpetrators hold power, wealth, and influence in our society. Point blank period. That is dangerous. No survivor should have to risk their own safety just to be believed. But Virginia, she did it anyway.”

“She stood up when others were afraid. Told the truth under oath. And faced people she knew were powerful.”

“She believed accountability should reach everyone involved, no matter their status or influence.”

He quoted from her sworn 5/3/16 deposition, describing this as “one of the thousands of stories that still remain untold,” then read from the transcript:

Virginia: “They trafficked me to many people.” 

“Okay. Please name a person that Ghislaine Maxwell directed you to have sex with.”

Virginia: “Prince Andrew.”

“Okay. Who else?”

Virginia: “As a whole, they both trafficked me to many people.”

She was asked to list others. She listed Glenn Dubin (an American billionaire hedge fund manager). The name after that was redacted. Then Steve Kaufman. Alan Dershowitz (lawyer and Harvard Law School professor). 

Sky: “The question isn’t that the names exist. The question is what Congress and the Department of Justice will do about it.” 

Will there finally be investigations and accountability?

Next, his wife, Amanda Roberts, spoke. She said they are talking about millions of records and evidence that points to a network that is much more than just Epstein and Maxwell and that affected over 1.200 girls, women, and boys. 

Epstein and Maxwell didn’t act alone, and Palm Beach was the blueprint, the “center for expansion.” When the DOJ says, “nothing to see here,” survivors know that this is a coverup. 

She quoted from Virginia’s book, Nobody’s Girl: “Don’t be fooled by those in Epstein’s circle who say they didn’t know what Epstein was doing.”

The phrase: “I don’t recall” is not enough. 

Calls out Les Wexner and demands he be investigated. Said Howard Lutnick’s changing accounts about his association with Epstein deserve scrutiny, resignations, and investigations. 

Says Todd Blanche’s decision to move Maxwell to a minimum-security prison shortly after meeting with her demands investigation. 

Roberts said:

1. Congress must hold this DOJ accountable for violating the law. 

2. State investigations must continue and expand in NM, NY, FL, Virgin Islands, and everywhere this network operated. 

3. This committee must issue further subpoenas and must require alleged co-conspirators to testify under oath. 

4. Investigators must follow the money. Financial records are not secondary. They are the key to exposing the whole network. Shell companies, tax violations, money laundering, all of it must be investigated aggressively. Financial crimes can open the door to more prosecutions. 

“The Epstein and Maxwell investigations must be re-opened. Not partially, not quietly, but fully. Enablers must no longer be allowed to hide behind wealth, power, silence."

I watched the Epstein West Palm Beach hearing and this is what I learned #1

 

Maria Farmer, #1

 

Tuesday, May 12, 2026, at West Palm Beach City Hall, a group of Epstein sexual assault survivors gave testimony regarding their abuse and the government's response. I listened to this hearing, which lasted about three hours, while I was out on a long walk. 

This morning, I was searching news sites for more information on the hearing and was surprised at how little was out there. I had ample opportunities to read about all fifty plus Drumpf media posts from yesterday and could have spent hours reviewing pundits’ takes on the nutcase’s latest insane ramblings. But this earth-shattering stuff about billionaire sexual assaults, massive government failure, and the women who survived it and are speaking truth to power took some serious time to find. 

Under one video, someone posted. “This is awful. Why aren’t we hearing more about this?” My exact thoughts. Rather than get mad, or rather madder, I decided to get to work.

I went back and listened again to the hearings. Because I was now sitting at a table and not navigating roads, I was able to watch them too. I took notes and am doing my best to summarize and condense, one survivor at a time. 

I’m not including any thoughts of my own. The point of this exercise is to share what they said. This is my attempt to help get the word out. 

Each survivor spoke for eight to ten minutes. My notes should take just a minute or two to skim, if you’re so inclined. Please watch the video too and correct me if I need correcting. It’s important to get this right. 

This post is a summary of the words of Maria Farmer, the first survivor to speak. 

Her eight-minute video call begins at 16:44 (cut and paste link): https://www.youtube.com/live/fHntY5BVY90?si=ag85yR9MrzXJaI5V

She is not present at the hearing because she is ill and was only recently released from the hospital. She says that in the last month alone she spent 23 nights in the hospital and several of those nights were in the Intensive Care Unit. She is at her home, sitting in an upholstered chair with her feet up and wearing what appear to be pajamas. She is swathed in a blanket. Her voice is strong though trembles a bit when she speaks of her own and her sister’s traumas. She is focused. 

She calls herself the original whistle blower, who reported Epstein, Maxwell, Les Wexner and others 30 years ago in 1996. Says she carried weight no survivor should have to bear. 

In 1996 she reported sexual assaults by Epstein, Maxwell, Les Wexner,  and others who she does not name, in “real time” while she was living in New York City, to NYC precinct. Says she was told by NYC police to report these assaults to the FBI because these crimes took place in other states in addition to NY. 

The FBI asked her many questions, giving  her “every reason to believe they would respond.”

Decade of FBI inaction resulted in Epstein and company continuing to commit all kinds of crimes against girls and women. She listed half dozen survivor names to prove her point.  

The FBI tracked her down in 2006, ten years after her initial reporting, and asked her to testify in a federal criminal trial to bring Epstein and company to justice. “I trusted them again. Relied upon them again.” 

Instead of going to jail, Epstein was offered a sweetheart deal and shielded powerful individuals from accountability.  The FBI persists in granting special treatment to certain people to this day, she says. She doesn’t name these people. 

Farmer says she constantly received death threats from Maxwell and her associates, who in one instance threatened to burn down her apartment. Threats continue today. Farmer says she’s in real danger from “internet instigators, trolls, and more.”

She has suffered harassment: “vicious challenges to my truthfulness.” 

She has filed numerous times for release of her 1996 FBI report and has had her efforts rejected or ignored every time. 

In 2023, she wrote letter to Inspector General’s office. An initial response said that the office was busy with other matters, and that the office would get back to her.  The office did not. 

Farmer said she also filed multiple Freedom of Information Act requests for her 1996 files. Her most recent request was in January 2025. Estimated date for her to get that information is November 2027, nearly three years from her latest request. 

She has since filed an administrative complaint against the government.  

After passage of Epstein Files Transparency Act, an FD 71 form was released to her, for the first time, confirming “just a small part” of her 1996 whistleblower report and “vindicating some of what I’ve said for years.” However, a large part is missing, so the partial release of the Epstein files “provides only partial relief for me.”

“Where is the evidence I provided of my sexual assault and that of my sister Annie?”

“Why won’t the FBI release my full report?”

“The failures of those sworn to protect us have overwhelmed me.”

“The stress of the trauma and of the government refusing to turn over written confirmation, along with ongoing harassment and death threats, contributed to me developing serious health issues, including Hodgkins Lymphoma, a brain tumor, Addison’s Disease.” 

Along with her health, the sexual assaults and subsequent government inaction have also robbed her of her career. In 1996, she was fresh out of graduate school, living a life she’d dreamed of and creating and selling art in NYC. Then she was assaulted, threatened, and held captive. Her career was halted and the “trajectory” of her life was thrown off course. 

“We are still walking down the trail that Virginia (Giuffre) blazed for us.” 

“The Federal government owes us explanations, accountability for injuries caused, and a promise of systemic change when crimes against children are reported. Accountability should start with the government’s acknowledgement of responsibility for their repeated failures to act in response to my 1996 report. . . the government needs to start telling the truth” . . . and be held accountable to her and all others who’ve been harmed. 

If the FBI had done its job, “thirty years of child sex abuse and trauma could have been avoided.”

Farmer demanded her FBI file, including her 1996 and 2006 reports, and including her art. She demanded investigations of every lead in this case and of everyone responsible, emphasizing both men AND women, including officials who gave Epstein the 2008 sweetheart deal and anyone currently shielding anyone from justice. 

She demanded that there be no pardoning, no commuting of sentences like for Maxwell “who sexually abused me, my sister” and so many girls and other young women “and personally threatened to kill me.”

“As the Epstein whistleblower, I have waited three decades for justice. It’s a miracle I’m still fighting."

 

100K? No way!

Today my blog, www.alwaysatthestartingline.blogspot.com hit 100,000 views. Watching the numbers creep up the last few days, I had some fun, fantasizing what I’d type on the fateful day I hit that yummy hundred grand.

And now my mind is blank. I remember nothing and am having trouble generating even the most basic vocab. But I assure you, those words I imagined? Phenomenal. Best words ever.  Pulitzer Prize-worthy, bigly. But today on the day of days? All I’ve got running through my head are disjointed lyric fragments like this: “4 am we ran the miracle mile, we’re flat broke but hey we do it in style.” That’s from the New Radicals song, “You get what you give,” which has been on my various gym playlists for, like, forever. 

In December I hit 75K and I wrote this post about how I started writing, why I wrote, and I listed my greatest hits: https://alwaysatthestartingline.blogspot.com/2025/12/happy-75k-to-me.html. So far that post has garnered a whopping 70 views. Don’t worry. Not quitting my day job, which by the way is retirement – best job ever. 

Quick summary. I started the blog because I was writing a book and needed to establish a writing practice that would hold me accountable. That was fourteen years ago. Over the years, I wrote a lot, wrote a little. Got some stuff off my chest. Tried writing some stories. Talked a ton about running. Bragged a bit. Whined. So much whining. Whining is my favorite thing, I guess. 

Here’s where my head went today when I saw that 100K. Immediately, sent out some texts to some friends – most don’t read my blog -- so we could all pretend they were interested in my writing and so that they could then congratulate me on reaching this milestone. 

Next, I googled blogs and bots. Of that 100K it’s likely that much more than half of those views are non-human. Found this post on www.smartlab.at -- “When half my blog readers turned out to be bots,” that got me a little confused but also gave me some insight into why bots are invading blogs, and the implications for future tech. 

Then I thought about going to swim at the Y but there was a sign from the heavens: thunder started rumbling in the distance. Texted a friend to ask if the pool was open. That’s when I learned that Y procedure out here in cornfield land is to shut down the pool for one half hour immediately following each rumble. But on the plus side, she said, I could socialize in between laps. 

“Think of all the friends you can make while you’re waiting in the rest room for the storm to stop,” she wrote. 

I pictured: cold floor tiles, wet hair, lots of shivering. So swimming was a big nope. 

Instead, I had second breakfast and caught up on my French and Spanish on Duolingo. I’m so trilingual at this point, three years in, that I can sometimes translate the storefront signs at the market downtown. Cerrado means closed, in case you were wondering. 

Como estas? I’m good. Thanks for asking. 

I also know how to say ‘ski’ in French. 

Between hablo-ing and parle-ing, I kept checking in on my blog stats. In the last four hours, it’s gotten an additional 1,374 views. I’ll hit 101,000 by bedtime, I bet. Most of those hits so far are from Singapore and China, which I understand are overrun with bot farms. Yay bots. I'm being sarcastic. 

After Duolingo/ second breakfast/ stats checking, my head started deep diving into the beginning blog post years. Don’t know how I survived those years. Both parents sick, then another family member needed help too. Amid all this, I decided getting yet another master’s degree made perfect sense. Who needs sleep? Then there was that overwhelming layer of stress --  of coming into that final third of my teaching career, that point where you know more about the job than the admins do but they’re Dunning-Krugering the crap out of things and you’re their whipping person. And you can’t leave because of the way the state teacher retirement system is structured so you tough it out any way you can. 

No wonder I ran all those marathons.

Now my head is back in the present which is nearly stress-free in comparison, fingers crossed. I’m grateful I can write when I want. Read when I want. Run when I want. I’ve been doing a lot of the first two and finding all kinds of excuses to avoid the third. It’s been months. 

In 2010, I ran what I thought was my last marathon. Two years later, around the time I started this blog in 2012, I started training for marathons again.  So I’m not saying I’ll never run another marathon. I've been running most of my life, after all. 

This is blogpost #193. Who knew I had that consistency? Not me, that’s for sure. I’ve got plans for #200, so I know I’m going to get at least that far. Certain habits, like striving for more than what you’ve got, die hard. For me, that striving sometimes looks like teaching, or writing, and sometimes it means getting sweaty.

Though I’m not running, it’s not lost on me that I’ve been upping my cardio game in other ways. I’ve been swimming and aqua running up to two hours at a time. Yesterday, I walked 8 miles, just for the heck of it and because it felt good. At night dozing off, I’m still running plenty of miracle miles.  

You never know what’s around that next metaphorical corner. More writing? More miles? I’m just glad that after all these years I’ve still got the dreamer’s disease. Forward is an awesome pace. 

 

 

 

 

Reverend James Healy and family: Let's put all the Eliza Clarks back into the narrative

This is possibly my final post on Reverend James Healy and his family. This doesn’t mean that I’ve covered everything that I think is important about him and his mother. For instance, though he’s now referred to as the first African American Jesuit, during his lifetime he never acknowledged that he was Black and that his mother was Black and enslaved. In fact, there’s abundant evidence that he lied about and deliberately distanced himself from his mother’s heritage. 

There’s a whole story out there about Eliza Clark’s children and how all but one passed as white by author James O’Toole. See my sources at the end of this piece for more info about the book and a fascinating O’Toole talk. 

When I wrote the first blog post on Healy and his mother, I did so thinking that that would be it. I figured it would be a short, sweet, and to the point piece about history and how we inaccurately skewed the Healys. And more specifically how Eliza, the most deserving Healy of them all, gets trivialized and ignored. 

Short and sweet? Well, skew that I guess. 

Here’s the paragraph, a social media posting from my college’s library, that got me writing all this in the first place: 

On April 6, 1830, Rev. James Healy was born in Georgia to an Irish immigrant and a biracial enslaved woman. James and his siblings were sent North to be educated. James attended Holy Cross, and was in the first graduating class of 1849, of which he was valedictorian. He was ordained a priest in 1854, and named bishop of Portland, Maine in 1875, making him the first African American to become a Roman Catholic bishop.

Here’s my initial post on the topic: 

https://alwaysatthestartingline.blogspot.com/2026/04/reverend-healys-mother-eliza-clarke.html

Here’s the second post:https://alwaysatthestartingline.blogspot.com/2026/04/a-horrific-power-imbalance-does-not.html

Here’s the third: https://alwaysatthestartingline.blogspot.com/2026/04/reverend-sweet-baby-james-healy-and.html

 

I’m struggling to write this final bit because it’s been several weeks since I last read all the information I’d been researching. I’ve gotten fuzzy on facts and needed to do quite a bit of reviewing, which wouldn’t have been necessary if I’d just put my head down and kept working back when it was all fresh. Live and learn. 

I could probably stop right now, not write another bit, and the earth would somehow find a way to continue turning. It’s a cloudy day here in cornfield land, but the temps are in the low 70s and there’s a pleasant breeze. I could be outside on the deck napping/ pretending to read/ guzzling Chardonnay instead of shifting on this uncomfortable chair, leg bouncing, staring at a half-empty screen with too many open tabs, sipping on cold, milky tea and struggling with typos. Unfortunately, I’m a bit goal-oriented and hate to leave things hanging so, a la Samuel Beckett’s Unnameable narrator, “You must go on. I can’t go on. I’ll go on.”

Let’s have at it. 

Yes, it’s true that Michael Healy, white father of James Healy, sent him and most of his surviving siblings north to be educated. Because the children were part Black and by law slaves, it was illegal for them to be educated in Georgia, their home state, so it does make sense that the father sent them away. But why is Michael Healy the one central to the narrative? That’s my issue with all this. Why is all the focus on him and what HE did? Why does no one ask, “What about the mother?” 

So, I ask.

What about Eliza and her life? What was her role in all this? 

 If James left home at age seven – which would in today’s terms mean he was a second grader, someone who still holds an adult’s hand while crossing busy streets, that means his mother Eliza was just 23 years old, the same age that many Holy Cross graduates walk the stage, shake the college president’s hand, and receive their diplomas. That, in my opinion, is heartbreakingly young for both mother and child. 

History uses the verb ‘sent’ to describe James’s passage north. But perhaps history needs a lesson in semantics. Why not, after all, say, instead of sent, that he was taken/removed/kidnapped/ stolen/snatched from his mother instead?  

I don’t know if he was, in fact, taken from his mother against her wishes. I just want history to put his mother, Eliza, back in the narrative.  James Healy had two parents, and Michael Healy isn’t the one who gave birth to those kids. Yet Michael Healy had all the control. Eliza, on the other hand, had nothing. 

We know that Healy the father got the idea to send the kids north during a chance meeting with a Catholic priest while he was journeying from New York to Boston on business. We don’t know what Eliza thought of this idea. We don’t know if she had a say. We don’t know how she reacted. Heck, we don’t even know if she had anything to do with raising the kids either. Maybe she was never a part of their lives. Maybe the kids knew her as their maid or cook or something else. We don’t know. 

History, accurate or not, has always been about the men. Women, on the other hand, get short shrift. History is as much about what gets included in the historical record as what gets discarded. 

Historian Rosalind Miles writes “Men dominate history because they write it, and their accounts of active, brave, clever or aggressive females constantly tend to sentimentalize, to mythologize or to pull women back to some perceived "norm." As a result, much of the so-called historical record is simply untrue” (From Who Cooked the Last Supper?).

It’s the sentimentalization of Eliza that gets me most, because it takes away her personhood and turns her into a trope. When Eliza does get mentioned, we see nothing of her suffering, hopes, dreams, humanity. Instead, we get sugary dreck like this, from Diocese of Portland, Maine archivist Barbara Miles, “This is a story of absolute love.  His mother had to love her children enough to give them away. She had to know that they would be free, even though she never would be,” says Miles. “Eliza lost all of her children to freedom.”

Here’s what’s true about that statement above: Eliza lost all her children.  

The freedom part, like all the other words? Debatable because among other things those kids went on to live lives that hid their enslaved mother’s heritage. How can you truly be free if you can’t be or are denied who you are? 

We know nothing about Eliza. We don’t know if she loved her children. We don’t know if she had anything to do with them once she was born. We don’t know what, if any, role she had in their lives. 

We do know this. James never saw his mother again after he left his father’s plantation. He did see his father though. There is plenty of evidence that his father traveled north to visit him and his siblings quite frequently. He may not have seen his mother again because travel would have been dangerous. She was pregnant nearly every year of her life once she gave birth to him. But also, as a black, enslaved woman, it was illegal for her to travel north. What we do know is that once those children left Georgia, Eliza never saw any of them ever again. 

But they must have written to her, right?

Nope. There’s no evidence that any of them wrote to her. None. 

Perhaps they sent messages to her via many letters to their father? Nope. 

Perhaps they asked about her in their many many letters to their father? Nope. 

She was wiped from their lives when they left. Yes. I use the passive tense there, though I imagine the act of separating those young Healy children from their home was anything but. I use that tense because we don’t know who was responsible for deleting Eliza Clark from her children’s lives. We don’t even know if she was in their lives BEFORE they left Georgia either. There’s no evidence of her having or not having any relationship whatsoever with those kids. 

Reverend James Healy mentioned his mother exactly one time in one letter. His father had sent him a daguerreotype of her. James wrote back, thanked him for the image, and wrote that Eliza hadn’t changed much since he’d last seen her when he was seven. That’s it. 

Anything else anyone writes about any relationship Eliza might have had with her children is wishful thinking and/ or sentimental crap. I think Eliza Clark and all women who suffered as she did deserve better than that. I think history needs to do better by her. I think history needs to do better for all women. 

Here are most of the sources I used for all four posts on Reverend Healy and family. I say ‘most’ not all because I think I forgot to note a few. I know. Stupid of me. Luckily, these are just haphazardly written blogposts I felt like writing. Obviously, they’re not for college credit or anything. I’m including these sources – in no particular order by the way, for anyone who feels like learning more about the Healy family and/ or anyone who wants to check my facts and hold me accountable.

I highly recommend the Georgia Archives site, which has phenomenal facts on plantation life during the time Eliza Clark was alive. I also recommend James O’Toole’s talk on the Healy children and how they passed for white. I haven’t read O’Toole’s book yet, but if it’s anything like his talk, it’s likely to be engaging and informative. As always, thanks for reading. 

www.Portlanddiocese.org  (James Augustine Healy: Slave to scholar to shepherd)

www.Catholicgene.wordpress.com  (The first African-American Priest in the USA) 

www.Muse.jhu.edu  (talk given by author James O’Toole) 

James M. O'Toole. Passing for White: Race, Religion, and the Healy Family, 1820-1920. Amherst: U of Massachusetts 

www.Irishamericanfootnotes.blogspot.com (The Healy’s (sic): An Extraordinary Family)

www.Thetablet.org (Bishop Healy Vaulted From Slavery to Servant of God) 

www.NewtonBeacon.org (Born Into Slavery)

www.AtlantaHistoryCenter.com (Voices of Freedom)

www.Georgiaarchives.org

www.HolyCross.edu (What We Know: Report to the President of the College of the Holy Cross, The Mulledy/ Healy Legacy Committee, 18 March 2016)

 

www.Babel.hathitrust.org  (Bishop Healy: Beloved outcaste; the story of a great priest whose life has become a legend

www.Smithsonianmag.com (Born Enslaved, Patrick Healy “Passed” His Way to Lead Georgetown University)

www.Onlinelibrary.wiley.com (Slavery and institutional morality at Georgetown University: Reply to Nelson)

www.Smithsonianmag.com (Maryland Archaeologists Unearth Jesuit Plantation’s 18th-Century Slave Quarters)

 

 

 

Tyranny then and now: Henry VIII and a warning for today

 I was about 350 pages through Philippa Gregory’s 500-page Boleyn Traitor when it finally hit me. The author isn’t simply fantasizing about the Tudors and Henry VIII in particular.  She is also writing about the slimy piece of garbage currently occupying the Oval Office. Perhaps that’s why I found Gregory’s King Henry particularly revolting.

Before I continue, I want to acknowledge that I don’t know a ton about England’s Tudor period. Most of what I do know comes from a couple of Elizabethan and Jacobean Shakespeare college classes I took a lifetime ago. Any history I learned then was framed within the context of Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets. Sure, since I first learned to read I’ve devoured tons of historical fiction and fantasy that centered on that and other periods of English history. I’ve visited historical sites, walked in the footsteps of kings and queens, and oohed and aahed over museum displays. I probably know more about the Tudor and other periods of British history than most Americans. But let’s face it. That’s not saying much. 

My interest in Tudor times picked up a little these last few months. After seeing the musical Six in January, my interest was piqued. I wanted to know more about Henry’s doomed wives and the times in which they lived. So, I read Antonia Frasier’s, The Six Wives of Henry VIII. It took me far longer than I expected to get through that, an indictment of where I’m spending my free time -- mainly on social media. I think social media will be the downfall of our society, and yet here’s me, sacrificing my focusing ability because I want – nay – need to slake my quick fix thirst. Those dopamine hits are addictive. More on that another time perhaps. I’m working on curing myself by writing more, reading more, and staying longer at the gym. Just to be upfront: Not cleaning the house more. 

Now back to the topic.  

Lady Jane Rochford, Anne Boleyn’s sister-in-law and lady-in-waiting, is the narrator of Boleyn Traitor. Her story intertwines with that of Henry’s wives two (Anne Boleyn), three (Jane Seymour), four (Anne of Cleves), and five (Katheryn Howard), starting shortly after the birth of the future Queen Elizabeth, and ending right after number five’s – Katheryn Howard’s – beheading and just before her own. Lady Jane is portrayed as an educated, erudite spy who interacts regularly with the main players of the day, primarily Thomas Cromwell, but who always looks out for the queen du jour’s best interests as well as her own. This portrayal of Lady Jane does not track historically, but nobody says it needs to. It’s historical fiction, not non-fiction. Playing fast with the facts goes with the genre. 

And I do appreciate how Gregory plays. When I first suspected that the author was going all Trump on Henry, I did some quick searches to verify my suspicions. Yup. See her interview in The Herald, 10/9/2025. I can’t post actual quotes from it because there’s a paywall and I neglected to copy and paste when I was first granted free access. (I know. I should have paid.) She calls Henry VIII “Trumpian,” I believe.  

In this interview, “I think he’s a psychopath,” she talks about questioning the stories we’ve been told are fact about Henry VIII: BBC Radio 4, 10/28/25. (Sorry, I don’t know how to post the link.)

Additionally, on Literary Hub, 10/29/2025, she explains how her purpose in writing the book in the first place reflects what’s going on in the world today, echoing the words of Pastor Martin Neimoller, who wrote:  

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

 

Gregory writes:

All of us must decide what attack on our institutions, our traditions, our liberties is our breaking point: the point where we say “no.” History tells us that we must find the courage to defend each other and our societies before the danger is immediate and personal. By the time the tyrant comes for us—it is too late. We must not be like Jane Boleyn, recognizing the dangers too late to say “no,” or we will be silenced as she was, and the tyrant will write our history, too.

Pretty sobering stuff. 

 

Throughout Boleyn Traitor, Henry is described as a guy who always gets his way. What more proof do you need other than that he creates alternative facts and establishes an entire new religion to prove that he was never married to the woman he was actually married to? First wife Catherine of Aragon, to whom he was married 24 years, was a few years his senior. He manipulated his court and the rule of law to get out of that marriage because, just like Drumpf, he likes them young and again just like the orange one, he likes variety.   Anne Boleyn was age 26-32 when she married Henry, 41.  Jane Seymour was about 17 years younger than him. Anne of Cleves was 24 and he was 48. Katheryn Howard was just 15 and Henry was 49. 

As he ages, it’s obvious Henry is doing poorly, but none of his sycophants acknowledge this. For how this reflects with us in the US today, read anything. Two rational, evidence-based starting points: Scott MacFarlane, Heather Cox Richardson. 

Tudor England has an additional layer, because talking negatively about the king can get you killed. In the US, we’re not there quite yet. But as in the US among Trump’s followers (google Mike Johnson for starters), the kiss butt parasites of Tudor England pretend everything is fine. Just fine: “It’s illegal to speak ill of the king: You can’t say anything but praise. It’s against the law to say that he is old or unwell. It is illegal to say he might die. . . Nobody matters more than the king. . . We all put him first” (p 314). 

Just like contemporary DC, the court thrives on lies, all in the name of protecting the king. As in our present day when the prez goes social media silent, some even wonder if the king is dead and/ or someone else is ruling: “People start to whisper that the huge trays of food are a deception, and he is not in there at all. I wonder if there is another greater deception: if he has died in there and the Seymours are concealing his death until they have made alliances” (p. 316). 

And then there’s this, echoing Trump’s social media post exhorting destruction of an entire civilization: “Nobody knows what he’s thinking. . . He does nothing but sleep and eat, except for when he raves like a madman” (p. 319).

Here Drumpf, arguably, raves like a madman in an early April 2026 social media post that put the entire world on edge:  

A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will. However, now that we have Complete and Total Regime Change, where different, smarter, and less radicalized minds prevail, maybe something revolutionarily wonderful can happen, WHO KNOWS?

I could write more about Gregory’s interpretations of societal norms in the day and Henry VIII’s proclivities in particular, but I’m not writing all this to bang out a thesis. I’m simply writing to get some things out of my system and to share some thoughts. I set some goals this year regarding reading and writing, primarily because I wanted to distract myself from the incessantly dreadful news cycle. Finding meaning in what I’ve been reading, and sharing ideas is helping me sort things out a bit and find focus.

In her afterword, Gregory discusses how historical views shift and talks about Henry VIII in particular: “Henry VIII has evolved from the first, Elizabethan view of him as the founder of a nation, and from a post-war view of him as a jolly eccentric. Now, there is a growing understanding of him as a dangerous man; an abuser of women, a false friend, and a tyrant" (p. 483).

There will come a day when history writes about us and how we responded to Drumpf and company. I wonder what lessons future generations will glean from our actions and inactions. I don’t expect them to be kind but I hope my family will see that at least I tried.