Zada Doak Leon
Philadelphia, PA
zleon@comcast.net
My name when I was in the Church was Zada Doak (now Leon). I grew up in San Diego, California and my mother joined the Worldwide Church of God when I was 5 or 6 years old. She was brought into the Church by my Uncle Jim (James Doak, her younger brother) who became a Preaching Elder in the Church. My mother raised us using her maiden name after her divorce from my father when I was 2 (hence my having the same last name as my Uncle Jim).
Growing up in the Church was miserable for us as young children. Not only because we couldn’t celebrate birthdays (and my mother sent back any gifts we got from family for our birthdays or Christmas until they just stopped sending us anything at all or even talking to us), but because at school my brother and I had to sit in the Principals office whenever our classes were doing things like making Valentine’s decorations, Halloween decorations, etc. We were made fun of and laughed at all the time because of these differences. Whenever we had to take off the 2 weeks for the Feast of Tabernacles, we had to take tons of school books and homework with us to complete during the days of the Feast so we wouldn’t fail in our classes. Christmas was the worst. When other kids came back from Christmas vacation and talked about what they got, we always just hung our heads and said our family didn’t celebrate Christmas. It made us freaks at school. We were not allowed to have any friends that were outside the Church. If we tried, my mother broke the friendships up. The only school dance I ever went to was my Senior Prom, after getting permission from the minister in our Church and after assuring him that the boy was just a friend and I had no romantic interest in him (which was true anyway). I had to be home by midnight, so we left the prom at 11pm in order to be on time. I’m still surprised they allowed me to go. I’m more surprised that the boy I went with put up with it all.
I was accepted to Ambassador College in Bricket Wood in 1974 as my first year of college. I actually knew Ronald Weinland, he was a Sophomore when I was a Freshman there. My mouth feel open earlier this evening when I found a blog about him and his book of predictations. I never saw this in him during that time, he seemed like a nice, normal enough guy. I just now got out my 1974 Envoy to look at his picture. I’m still in shock about what I’ve read about him tonight. Anyway, I transferred to the Pasadena campus for my Sophomore year because my mother had had a small heart attack and I wanted to be closer to home.
I had been baptized in the Church when I was 17. I had asked to be baptized mostly because it would make my Mom and my Uncle Jim proud of me, not because I really felt like I was truly spiritual. My Uncle Jim was a fairly high ranking minister of the Church, so it was important to my Mom that my brother and I were a “real” part of the Church. She couldn’t wait to get to church that first Saturday after I got baptized to brag about it to her friends.
We used to attend Church in Craftman’s Hall in San Diego. I can still see the place in my mind. I grew to hate that place. Just a year or so before I left for Bricket Wood, the Sabbath services were changed to a place that was closer to my home, a meeting room in a hotel or a club (I honestly can’t recall).
I hated how the ministers told us what we could wear, how long our skirts had to be, that we couldn’t wear makeup (HARLOT!) then later changed it to we could, then they changed it again. We were told what soap we could use, what food we could eat, not to see doctors, the control was overwhelming. You cannot believe the extent of control they exerted over the members. In fact, when I had to get a booster shot for smallpox to get my visa to attend Bricket Wood (and I had to or I couldn’t have gone), the minister anointed me with oil and prayed over me, asking that the shot not take affect and for God to cleanse the medicine out of my body. I kid you not.
The Holy Days, especially the Day of Atonement were days I grew to loathe. I couldn’t see the sense in making people light headed and so hungry and miserable that after enduring those long services, all we did was go home and lay like limpets on the couch or on the floor, watching the sky outside the window, hoping the sun would just hurry up and set so we could eat. It really was torture.
During my Sophomore year at Ambassador College, my Uncle Jim left the church, and a lot of the members in his congregation followed him. He later told me that he just couldn’t stomach the things that Garner Ted was doing (sleeping with the other ministers wives and other women in the church) and the other things that were going on that he decided not to tell me about (but we all heard the rumors anyway. And when you’re Uncle is a high ranking minister in the Church, you get to hear it all). To the best of my knowledge, my mother never spoke to him again after he left. After he died, she said she wished she had, but of course it was too late.
I got married on the Ambassador College Pasadena campus to a “non-believer”, and the ministers refused to marry us (I’m now divorced). I’m surprised we were allowed to use one of the musical recital halls to get married in. We just called for a minister out of the yellow pages, who came and conducted the wedding. My cousin Susan Doak (Uncle Jim’s daughter) was still in the Church and was a student at Pasadena…she was one of my bridesmaids (she later left the Church, of course). I was also surprised that I wasn’t tossed out of the church for doing that, but by this stage, I was rarely going to Church anymore, although I hadn’t let my mother know that yet. I think it was another 2 years of pretending I was going before I finally told her I had quit. I was scared to tell her, and with good reason. She talked to the minister in her Church, and to my shock, she was allowed to continue talking to me and seeing me. ; She told me that if the minister had told her to cut me out of her life like she had her brother, she would have. Nothing that the Church had done up to this point hurt me as much as hearing my mother say that to me.
My mother stayed in the Church until she died. It had splintered by then into other churches, and I’m not sure which one she was in. She was in a nursing home by then and didn’t go to Church anymore anyway because of being in the home, but she remained faithful to the day she died. We just agreed to not discuss religion. I was always so angry at the Church because of what it did to my mother. She had been divorced when she joined, and because of that, she was told she could never remarry. She never did. She spent the last 30 years of her life alone once my brother and I left home, when she should have been able to find someone to love her and share her life with.
For that alone, I will never forgive The Worldwide Church of God, Herbert W. Armstrong or any of them that ruined my family. It took me years to realize that the stubbornness and rebellion I feel towards any authority is because of the total control of this Church and its ministers. To this day, I do not handle being told what to do very well. It has caused a lot of damage.
I will admit this: I was happy when I heard that Herbert W. Armstrong had died, and even MORE happy when I heard Garner Ted had died. It’s terrible to say, but that’s how I honestly feel. What’s interesting, is that I have both of their signatures in an old autograph book I used to carry around to get people at church to sign. I’ve kept it because it helps remind me how far I’ve come.
I recently connected with quite a few people I grew up with in the Church. None are in it anymore, but it’s good to be able to talk about all this with people who truly understand what it was like. It’s hard for people who haven’t experienced something like this to understand. If you’ve never endured that brainwashing and control like we did, you can’t possibly “get it”. I’m always asked “why didn’t you or your family just leave”? Because we all felt we couldn’t, it was all we knew. How sad is that, I ask you?
Thank you for allowing me to say all this.
Sincerely,
Zada Doak Leon
Explore posts in the same categories: Personal Story
October 1st, 2008 at 12:46 pm
I’m so sorry, Zada, for what you had to go through. You brought a tear to my eyes. I hope that some day, rotting Herbert and rotting Ted, and all the rest of those damn “ministers” will PAY!!
October 4th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Thank you. I’m the most angry about my Mother being so alone all those years of her life. Such a waste of the only life we have.
I also remember someone in the Church making paddles for church members (about 1/2 inch thick, with a nice, sturdy handle on them)…my Mom broke it over my brother’s butt. We had to bend over and grab our knees when we got spanked. I actually remember calling the minister one day to brag that I had been soooo good, I hadn’t gotten spanked that day! How sad is that?
I also went to the summer camp the Church had up in Minn. I got to take my first airplane flight to go there (I think I was 15). The girls and boys each had cabins on opposites of the lake (if I remember it correctly), and we had chores, but there was actual fun too. I clearly remember Garner Ted coming up and hosting a sing along by the campfires, and we were all so thrilled because GARNER TED was there! We were all like groupies or something. I also remember the counselor in my cabin actually SPANKING me because we had been told NOT to speak at night for any reason after the lights went out. One night, us girls heard wolves howling, and we whispered about how it scared us. The next morning, the counselor asked if anyone had talked after the lights went out, and I (like a fool) raised my hand and was honest, saying we were scared, etc. I got spanked in front of everyone in the cabin (3 swats) with one of those big wooden paddles. It was so humilitating. Funny how when I got home, all I could remember was the FUN. Sad, sad, sad.
I am surprised at how emotional I still am about all this crap. I thought I had outgrown it or gotten over it. I clearly haven’t.
Btw, I have a picture of myself and Ronald Weinland at Bricket Wood in my photo album. I’m going to look him up on the web, I had no idea he turned out like he has. Wow.
October 6th, 2008 at 7:11 am
Your story was very moving. I’m a 1960 Ambassador graduate who left in the mid-seventies. I led both my sister and my parents into the organization. I knew your uncle, and my oldest son had a crush on a daughter of his. Jim squelched that when he tried to contact her years later. My children suffered similar lives to yours in their early years. I’ve written my story down and published it. If you would like to read it, I’ll send you my Word file. My email address is: phylandal@qwestoffice.net.
October 7th, 2008 at 9:16 am
Your story was very sad, im a little younger then you but its interesting how I found the general theme of your story to be so similar to my own. I remember having those same feelings. School, Holydays etc.
October 11th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
It’s sad to read stories like this. I feel sometimes like nobody would possibly understand what the church was like - and how I was raised - that I don’t even bother trying. When I do tell people, it shocks them and makes them angry.
I grew up in the church as well. I went to Imperial Schools (in Pasadena, CA) for 10 years, starting from its reopening in 1980-81. Having experienced kindergarten in a public school, and having to be kept out of holiday activities, I do remember some of what that’s like. But going to the church’s school for 10 years wasn’t my idea of a good time, either. Either way, the most I got out of it was fear- be afraid of God, be afraid of the ministers, be afraid of your parents. It’s amazing we’re not all locked up in looney bins at this point.
I no longer go to church. My last walk inside a church was the Feast of 1994. I pretty much don’t buy into organized religion. I’m not willing to do what some guy with a suit and tie tells me to do- I can read the bible just as well as he can. As long as I am a good person, that’s all that matters.
October 11th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
OMG Zada.. I just read about the paddle. My mom was best friends with the minister’s wife in our congregation. She was a mean lady, LOL. She had somebody make her a thick wooden paddle with holes in it… this is in Los Angeles, so maybe you all made her this paddle? (poor thing!) Supposedly the holes made the thing move faster or hit harder.. and she used it on her daughter plenty! Well somewhere (maybe from you? Just teasin!) my mom decided we needed a paddle.. only I think ours was smooth wood with no holes. My dad broke it on my behind once. After that, I dont’ think he spanked me again. My mom kept it up til I was 16. Nice, huh?)
Imperial Schools was all about the corporal punishment. Parents had to sign a waiver giving permission to let their kids be spanked. My dad didn’t sign it, but they didn’t care.. they spanked anyway.
October 23rd, 2008 at 9:17 am
Wow, your story really rings true with me, as all your experiences mirror my own. I still have the paddle made by a carpenter church member that my mother used on us kids all those years ago.
One difference though with me was that I truly believed at the time that the church was 100% right. It wasn’t until I was attending Ambassador College in 1973 that I began to question if this was the true church. At least when I finally woke up, it was easier to reject all religion since I had been already taught that all the other religions were wrong.
October 23rd, 2008 at 2:00 pm
I stumbled across this site this afternoon and read your story. I didn’t grow up in WWCoG but married someone who was raised in the Church since the age of 4 and left at he age of 20. He has told me seveval stories of his childhood that are similar to the things you mentioned here. I still find it shocking to know that you and others were treated like this in the name of “religion”. Thank you for sharing your story.
November 3rd, 2008 at 10:20 pm
Zada, I have copied a portion your letter “I was scared to tell her, and with good reason. She talked to the minister in her Church, and to my shock, she was allowed to continue talking to me and seeing me. ; She told me that if the minister had told her to cut me out of her life like she had her brother, she would have. Nothing that the Church had done up to this point hurt me as much as hearing my mother say that to me.”
As a reminder that I’M NOT THE ONLY ONE!!!!!! It was your mother in this case but my father in mine.. I TRULY thought that he was not going to talk to me after I left the church.. I am in my 40’s now and I still have not bared my thoughts of this betrayal !!! I am of course now an agnostic and could not imagine giving my children the thought that ANYTHING IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THEM!!!!
I hope to someday confront my father with your words .. so that he knows it’s REAL and not just a random thought from HIS daughter..
THANK YOU ..
I LOVE MY FATHER .. But I’m still working on the scars.. they affect EVERY PORTION of my life.. I have to now raise children .. who have an open mind and will not be interned into a CULT but yet have spirituality.. It’s a hard line to walk.. I hope you are doing well with your walk
November 22nd, 2008 at 10:51 am
Comment removed: preaching/proseltyzing
December 21st, 2008 at 12:32 pm
How moving Zada. I was young during the Garner Ted years and wasn’t spared either under the doctrine promoting child abuse (GTA had a booklet promoting it). That the existing organization or the splinter groups haven’t “sighed and cried” in proportion to the severity of regular beatings we had as children is yet further proof of their lack of integrity, their poverty of reason, and their utter ignorance…and heartlessness.
I hold the leaders responsible. They are like war criminals. And they soldier on dependent on the groups of followers who depend on being controlled.
I don’t think I’ll ever get over it. I have too much heart for that…and a memory for the decades of abuse.
Religion is dead to me. I’m glad to be alive and thriving in the real world. I am heavy with sadness for the sufferings of so many. May the chains of ignorance and abuse continue to be broken, and may the leaders go to the hell of their creation. They are as despicable as Hitler. I don’t live a live of rage, but will mindfully cast them into their fitting place of torment.
A Free Man
(Secular Humanist, Bright, Mensan
Former AU grad, AU faculty)