Uncover - S19: "Run, Hide, Repeat" E1: Don't Tell

Episode Date: February 13, 2023

It’s 1971 and Ruth Dakin is going through a messy divorce and fears for the future of her young children, Pauline and Ted. She meets Stan Sears, a United Church Minister, a man who offered comfort and safe harbour. But the encounter would change her life – and the lives of her children – forever. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/podcastnews/run-hide-repeat-transcripts-listen-1.6682766 Soon, odd, unexplained things start to happen and the young family is suddenly on the run, uprooted from their cozy home in North Vancouver to Winnipeg and then eventually to New Brunswick. The children are told not to tell anyone, and there are no goodbyes — not even to their father. Also on the move? Stan and his wife Sybil.

The next thing I know is I wake up and I just remember like something bad happened to me last night, somebody hurt me. This is Carrie Lowe's story. Carrie did everything quote-unquote right. She reported right away. Her legal team says police systematically mishandled her case. Meanwhile, her attackers remain at large. I'm Maggie Rahr and this is Carrie Lowe vs. Available now on CBC Listen and everywhere you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast.

This episode contains difficult subject matter and references to suicidal ideation and intimate partner violence. Please take care. So we're just coming up to Sussex here. This is the old road. There used to be a gas station there. It's gone now. It's 57 kilometres to Sussex from the outskirts of St. John. So it's not that far. It's 45 minutes probably from St. John.

In February of 1988, when I was 23 years old, my mother asked me to meet her in a small village in southern new brunswick the meeting like so much else in our lives was to be a secret i shouldn't tell anyone and of course my mom had said to stop at the gas station to meet her at the gas station. So I did. And her car was already in the lot when I pulled up and I got into her car. And that's when she passed me the note that said, don't say anything. Just take off your jewelry and put it in the envelope and I'll tell you later. It's like, oh, here we go. This is going to be even crazier than I thought. It's like, oh, here we go.

This is going to be even crazier than I thought. My mom, Ruth, had told me it was time. She was going to answer the questions I'd been asking for more than a dozen years. What the heck is wrong with this family? Why is everything a secret? Why are we always having to drop everything and leave the house or move across the country? So yeah, I was excited. It's like, okay, finally, we're going to find something out here. It was a short, silent drive from the gas station to an old motel, the Bluebird Motel.

She had a key to one of the rooms. As I walked in, the interior door to an adjoining room opened. Through the door walked a man I hadn't seen in years, who I thought I'd maybe never see again, even though for so long he'd been like a father to me. I was stunned. down, one that would call into question everything I thought I knew about my family and the secrets that had haunted us from one coast to the other. Every family has its secrets. My family's secrets kept us on the run for almost two decades, looking over our shoulders, fearing for our lives.

This is where the circle begins. Secrets are terrible. There's people out there that want to do us harm as a family. Just stay inside. Sooner or later, your reasoning is swamped and you begin to accept anything that you're told. I remember you calling me quite scared. You said, it's the people that have been watching, and now they know where I live. And that was the start. And after that, it got even weirder. I'm Pauline Dakin, and this is Run, Hide, Repeat.

Episode 1, Don't tell. Mom, is it that? Is that the true story? I don't know, Colin. It's like so many things that people imagine how things came to be. That's me and my mom on a sunny Saturday in 1974 in North Vancouver, waiting for my dad to visit. My parents were recently divorced, and a court order is two years younger than me. Think back, do you remember anything from living on Patterdale? Yeah, a little bit. The dog. Yeah. Mostly. My brother, Ted Dakin, is two years younger than me.

I recorded this conversation with him a few years ago when I was trying to sort out what had happened to our family. Do you remember when he would come? I have recordings. Mom recorded it. When he had come, I have recordings. Mom recorded it. When he had visitation. Do you remember him coming to our house? Not really, no.

And certainly don't remember her recording it. Oh, you wouldn't remember? She didn't. Did you still have these recordings? I have. Wow. That would be something to hear. Dad's here.

Well, how are you doing? Recording my dad's visits might sound paranoid, but these recordings were my mom's way of watching over us when she couldn't be in the room. So what have you been doing now since the society last? She also recorded

meetings she had with dad to talk about the visitation arrangements. Dad was unreliable about keeping to the schedule of court-approved visitations. Things between him and mom were tense. Look, Warren, we're not here to argue. No, no, I know, but I'm just saying. You're talking to me. When I listen to the audio from the conversations he had with my mother, I hear him saying, you know, that he wants to be able to see us

when he wants to see us, and he's tired of the restrictions that the courts had put upon him. And I think you can read that two ways. One is, he misses us. And the other is, it's my right. They're my kids, and you're not going to tell me different. And I don't know how much of it is. Because I think the truth is, he wasn't that comfortable around kids.

And you can hear that in the recordings where he's visiting with us. He has no idea how to be with kids. Mom, where's my grade 1 picture? Yeah, well, I think I've got to scoot along. Maybe I can see those next time, eh? Well, that's an awful lot of pictures to go through, isn't it? How would you like to get my coat for me, sweetie? Holly?

Let me just have a quick glance at that, and then I must muster waves. This is my grade three. I don't know who I am. My dad was an investor and real estate developer from an affluent family. By the time he met my mom, he was successful, established. My dad was an investor and real estate developer from an affluent family. By the time he met my mom, he was successful, established. My mom was a prairie girl from a rural village. She grew up poor, moved away and got a job as what used to be called a stewardess. That's how she met my dad, flying the route from Vancouver to Toronto that he often took.

Dad was 16 years older than Mom. He'd been to war. He was married and divorced once before and had two kids from that first marriage. After my parents married, there were new cars, a cottage, vacations in Hawaii, memberships to exclusive clubs, nights out at expensive restaurants. I sometimes think about how my mom must have been overwhelmed by dad's world. So we're just coming up to the Lionsgate Bridge and going to go through Stanley Park. And judging by traffic, we'll be here for a while to enjoy it. I'm in Vancouver, driving to the house my younger brother Ted and I lived in when our parents, Ruth and Warren, were still together.

That was our house. It's right there with the gorgeous gardens. Yeah, it's beautiful, eh? We park in front of the fancy Tudor-style home. It's typical of an upscale subdivision in the 60s or 70s. Homes for the upwardly mobile. It's really beautiful up here. My bedroom window looked up at the mountains.

And I remember somebody saying to me about how they found it claustrophobic to be in the mountains. And I always felt like they were protective. That they felt cozy to me. I have some good memories of that place, of spending time with my mom in that house. She loved being a mother, making a home. We didn't see that much of my dad, Warren Dakin.

Even then, business often came first. It really was, in many ways, the madman years for our fathers. They were both downtown guys. They worked in the investment business. Pat Crowe used to babysit me and Ted. Our parents were close friends before my mom and dad divorced. And, yeah, there was certainly affluence around. And, yeah, for Ruth from the prairies, it must have been strange.

There were lots of liquid lunches at the time. There were a lot of just the guys, the men hanging out up at the Capilano Golf Club. They would all go up there and drink. And I guess they played golf, I'm not sure. But they would certainly make a lot of pronouncements about life in the world and the way things should be. They were very much belong to a group of men who felt themselves to be captains of industry and just write about everything. They had the world by the tail.

They really did. Well, my parents knew that Warren was an alcoholic. I remember over the years, every now and again, my dad might say, oh, Warren's off the wagon again because I know he struggled to be sober at different times. over the years, every now and again, my dad might say, oh, Warren's off the wagon again, because I know he struggled to be sober at different times. So it was certainly part of my consciousness to know that Warren struggled with alcohol and addiction. So yes, they were very aware that he had a problem. that he had a problem.

I remember many mornings when Mom rushed us to the basement of that house to play quietly. Even as a child, I knew she was afraid of Dad's temper, especially when he was hungover. I do not believe that my parents knew about what was going on inside that house. that my parents knew about what was going on inside that house. I don't believe that they knew that Warren was physically abusing Ruth. Right. My mum has never mentioned that

as part of the context of the story. Ruth did not confide in her, which is not surprising given the times. These things were not talked about. I never saw my dad hit my mom. It's something I learned about years later. Looking back through family photos, though, I can see how thin mom became during this time. Her eyes look large and often sad.

Decades later, she told me how she'd become clinically depressed, had even contemplated suicide. She said she couldn't go through with it, couldn't leave me and Ted behind, unprotected. She looked for help from Al-Anon, a support group for families of alcoholics. It was someone there who suggested she see a local United Church minister who did one-on-one counseling with alcoholics and their families. And that's how she met a man named Stan Sears. For he is the Lord our God, and we are the people of his class. He was despised and rejected by men, the man of the world. Back then, as a young girl, I could never have imagined the way Stan would become so deeply entwined

with the fear and chaos that would come to haunt my family. Nor could I have imagined the story he and my mother would tell me 17 years later at the Bluebird Motel. And it leaves a question to each one of us. In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news. So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with Season 3 of On Drugs.

And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. From that first Easter morn, the good news of Christ's living presence has been proclaimed to the world. That's the Reverend Stan Sears. It's hard to make out on this old cassette, you can hear how worn it is, It's hard to make out on this old cassette.

You can hear how worn it is, but he's preaching his Easter Sunday sermon in 1971 at St. Andrew's United Church in North Vancouver. The first few words in verse 7 of the last chapter of the Mark. I was 7 years old on that Sunday, and I was in the congregation along with my mom and my little brother Ted. It was just over a year after my parents separated. It was mum who recorded this service, and others too. She'd replay these cassette tapes when she needed to be reminded of Stan's message, that love, hope, and a new life were all possible. You can interpret it as a spiritual resurrection or a bodily resurrection.

I don't think it matters. Mom went to see Stan Sears for the first time in 1970. I have some of Stan's notes from their counseling sessions. He describes my mom as traumatized, reminding him of a frightened deer, alert to his every movement, as if he too might hit her. It was after six months of counseling that my mom started to feel stronger. She later told me it was Stan's gentleness and support that had sustained her through such a dark time. through such a dark time. Mom and Dad divorced.

We moved to a less fancy neighbourhood. And a year later, another move to a smaller house. And so then she bought this little house on 24th Street off Lonsdale. And we all loved that house and she would talk about how there was a high school across the street and you'll be able to go to high school right across the street and there were tennis courts down and what a great home this was going to be and it was the place that you know was presented as this is going to be a great family home long term.

But then she met Stan, and that was the end of that. After the divorce, Mom got some financial support from Dad, but she still needed to work to support us. Again, Stan was there to help. He offered Mom a job as his secretary at his church. was there to help. He offered mom a job as his secretary at his church. And then Stan and his wife Sybil started to become family friends. We had meals together, went on weekend or holiday camping trips. You know, he was the minister of our church. So when we'd go to church, obviously he'd be up front and there'd be hundreds of people at the time. And he was a bit of a bigwig in my eyes when it came to, you know,

he was the minister. So it was interesting to have him in our lives, this bigwig minister was spending time with our family. It was nice. minister was spending time with her family. It was nice. My brother Ted remembers how Stan and Sybil became big parts of our lives, Stan especially. For me, it felt like father and son time. You know, the things that he would teach me, whether it was he came over one night to teach me how to fight in hockey believe it or not when we went camping he would teach me how to light the fire cook on the fire the things that you know your your stereotypical father would do with his son so he was definitely becoming a father figure or a surrogate father because my dad wasn't like that. So they were very, very opposite types

of people. Stan was, you know, I guess one might say more emotional, more in touch, I suppose, with what it is to be a father. Early on, he took me to this father-daughter tea. And always, you know, back before we got smart about these things and realized not everybody has both parents around, there were always a lot of events that were, you know, mother-daughter, father-daughter, father-son, and they were difficult, and you dreaded them. And I just remember feeling so grateful that he was there

so I didn't stick out as the one person without the father in the room. But also, yeah, he just expressed interest and I always liked it when I saw his car in front of our house. Absolutely. Yeah. This was a time when it felt as though life was settling down, and we were finding a new groove with our new friends, the Sears. But it's also a time when strange things started to happen.

Do you remember when Mom emptied the fridge, the food all had to go? And I seem to remember it was that it got unplugged and the food spoiled, but that could have been a different time. No, that's what she said. I guess a fridge can come unplugged. But I remember how frantic mom seemed about pulling everything out into a garbage bag. And even then, I knew the ketchup and mustard would not have gone bad. That was the same house that we lived in where we had to wash our feet one time and then put plastic bags on them to walk out of the house.

I know the story. I don't specifically remember that, but it doesn't surprise me. Do you remember the hike up Mount Seymour? Yes, I do. 20 feet of snow into the backcountry. I mean, it was beautiful. I'd love to go back there someday. I remember it was beautiful. The Great Escape.

Yeah, yeah, the great escape. Mm-hmm. We laugh about this now, but at the time, it didn't feel funny. It was bizarre, disorienting. And we could see Mom's agitation, feel her unexplained fear. And whenever strange things like an out-of-the-blue nighttime hike in deep mountain snow would happen, Ted and I were told not to talk to anyone about it. I was young, but still, I knew something about all of this behavior, this secrecy, was weird. All of this behavior, this secrecy was weird.

Still, despite that, I was happy. I liked school, had friends, and mostly I felt stable, secure. Until the summer of 1974, the year I turned 10. That's the last time I thought of my family as normal. That summer, my mom, my brother Ted and I went on a camping trip with Stan and Sybil Sears. We started in Vancouver and spent five weeks exploring Western Canada and the prairies. As my producer Michael and I drove through the parts of Vancouver

I used to call home, we talked about that summer camping trip. Like where you were an outdoorsy family? Well, yeah, I guess we really were because we camped. We went camping with Stan and Sybil. And honestly, I can thank Stan for that. I don't know if my mother would have done that if it was just her. Stan took us horseback riding and I did a lot of swimming with Sybil. We visited the little village in Saskatchewan where Mom grew up.

Finally, we landed 2,300 kilometers away in Winnipeg, Manitoba. We'd been visiting there for a week or so, staying at a friend's house, when one night I couldn't sleep. I went downstairs and found my mom still awake in the kitchen. She made us some cocoa. And then she told me. We weren't going back to B.C. ever. I could tell Mom knew how awful this was going to be for Ted and I.

And she was right. I was devastated. I was only 10, and I suddenly found myself separated from, well, everything. My friends, my father, my school, our home. It felt as though my entire world had just been taken away. Worse still, I couldn't tell anyone. No phone calls to friends, no goodbye letters that might give away our new address, and we most certainly could not let our father know. I demanded to know why.

All my mother would say was something I'd hear over and over again in the years to come. I'll explain someday when you're older. But mom told us there'd be one familiar thing going forward. We weren't making the move alone. Stan and Sybil weren't going back to BC either. Was it weird to you as a kid that Stan and Sybil weren't going back to BC either? It did strike me as odd, really. I knew that our family was close, but we had family back in BC. And I, you know, there were maybe family issues, certainly issues with my dad.

But it seemed so strange to tie ourselves to this other unrelated family. Yes, they were close friends, but, you know, people move away and leave friends behind all the time. Other strange things started to happen as we settled into our new lives in Winnipeg. They started small. My mom would sometimes wake us up before school and tell us plans had changed. She wasn't going to work and we weren't going to school and instead we'd be having a picnic or maybe going bowling. I remember being parked near a field somewhere eating a picnic sandwich. It's like, why did we come here and not to school today? Yeah, I think we're probably not that unhappy about it, but it's still a little bit strange.

No kidding. Yeah. It was during this time, as these odd things started happening around us, that our family became even closer to the Sears. Church services, holiday dinners, more camping trips. And these strange things occurred when the Sears were around too. I remember going to their house for dinner and being told that we'd be sleeping over. Even though it was a school night. I remember thinking, this is so weird.

Ted and I went to bed that night and were awoken by a terrible racket in the basement. It sounded like chaos. The crash of objects hitting the floor and walls below us. Voices, agitated, angry voices. Ted and I were panicked. What was happening? Stan and Mom and Sybil were there to reassure us. Don't worry, they said Even though they looked pretty worried It was just the dog, upset about something

Go back to sleep What do you remember about that night? It was a little scary Not knowing what the heck was going on downstairs Because it didn't sound like a dog making a racket at all. No, it was just another one of those unexplained strange things. Ted and I were young and kids are resilient, so we adjusted to things the best we could. But nights like the one we spent at Stan and Sybil's,

and the absolute secrecy that was demanded of us, that made Ted and I aware that our family was different. We learned to shrug and move on. For a while, at least. But it was that year when I started grade six that I started to have a terrible time going to school. And I would just stop going. I just stopped going to school. What did that feel like? Like, what was the feeling that you had when you just stopped being able to go to school?

I just, I remember feeling overwhelmingly sad and I just couldn't stop myself from crying all the time about silly things. Just anything would make me cry. Looking back, I think that somewhere between BC and Winnipeg, I'd become unrooted. I felt sad, unanchored. And after a few years of trying my best to ignore it, it had all caught up with me. I started refusing to go to school. I was diagnosed with clinical depression and was out of school for six months. And, you know, the school phobia was really, looking back, I think not so much about what might go on at school as just not wanting to let mom out of my sight. I needed to see her, be close to her, because I think probably having lost everybody else with that move and feeling so isolated from everybody else because we didn't get to say goodbye or tell them where we were going,

from everybody else because we didn't get to say goodbye or tell them where we were going, that I just, I felt I needed to know where she was because what if she disappeared too? Instead of going to school, I went to the Winnipeg Child Development Clinic every day. I saw a psychologist. And then I, as I began to feel better in the spring, the psychologist helped me sort of slowly go back to school you know for a few hours a day to start with and so by the end of June I had was there

full-time for the last couple of weeks and then you it didn't really last that feeling of sort of stability that you came out with right yeah I think think we found out that the Sears were moving in July. I think they went in the summer. And it was sometime after that that Mom said, so, we're going to go to St. John as well. We're going to move there too. It came out of nowhere, but then, you know, once she said, we're going to follow the Sears, I think it was like, oh, this again, you know?

Once again, Ted and I asked the same question. Why? Why were we moving to St. John, New Brunswick, of all places? And why were we moving with the Sears? I was old enough to know this wasn't normal, that something very strange was going on. Years later, at the Bluebird Motel, my mom and Stan would finally give me an answer. We were in danger, on the run, sworn to secrecy.

Dangerous people were after us. My mom was in fear for her life, and Stan? I'd soon learn that he was there to protect us. Next time on Run, Hide, Repeat. I remember you were shaking and you were having trouble to breathe. Your breath was very shallow, face was very red, and of course tears and just crying and upset. We now know why you were so anxious.

They were trying to get Stan, and they were trying to get to Stan through mom, and they were trying to get to mom through us. He was the target, and she became the target because of him, and then we became the targets because of her. So suddenly you understand why it should be a secret where you're going and who you're doing it with. You understand why she would be so upset if I wanted to visit my dad or frightened if I was sneaking out of the house at night. This was the answer to the secrecy. You've been listening to Run, Hide, Repeat from CBC Podcasts. I'm Pauline Dakin.

The show was written and produced by myself and Michael Catano. Graham MacDonald is our Associate Producer and Sound Designer. Roshni Nair is our Coordinating Producer. Special thanks to Eunice Kim for her help with this series. Our Senior Producer is Willow Smith. Our Executive Producers are Cecil Fernandez and Chris Oak. And Arif Noorani is the director of CBC Podcasts. You can check out home videos and photos from my childhood on Instagram,

at CBC Podcasts. Give us a follow while you're there. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.