A couple’s road trip to recovery
GORHAM, Maine — Opening up about a deep, dark secret from one’s past is never an easy thing for a person to accomplish.
But for Houlton native and author Shonna Milliken Humphrey, spreading the word about her husband, Travis James Humphrey’s childhood sexual abuse while he was a young boy at the prestigious American Boychoir School in New Jersey has become a mission.
“Dirt Roads and Diner Pie” was released earlier this summer and tells the story of Travis Humphrey’s struggle to confront the long-reaching effects of childhood sexual abuse and the impact it was having on his marriage.
A musician and former lead singer of the United States Air Force Band, Travis lived for 30 months (1988-90) in a culture of childhood sexual abuse while studying at the American Boychoir School.
Both Travis and Shonna are graduates of Houlton High School — Shonna in 1991 and Travis in 1995. The two met by chance in 2000 while both were living in Washington, D.C. and were married a year later.
Told from her perspective, “Dirt Roads and Diner Pie” tells the story of how the couple struggled to come to terms with the sexual abuse her husband endured as a young man and how a month-long road trip throughout the southeastern United States helped save their marriage and helped her husband find peace.
Shonna said she felt the time was right to tell her husband’s story, knowing full well how difficult it would be for family and friends to hear. She first told her husband’s story back in 2013, when she wrote an essay for The Atlantic magazine.
“The first essay was the hardest,” she said. “It was the first time Travis had said in any public forum, ‘this happened.’ It was the hardest, but it was also very healing for him. All the things he feared – not being believed or people minimizing his experience – they all happened, but as he said later when the dust settled, ‘It really wasn’t that bad.’”
The couple were content to leave their story with that essay, but when they learned about a movie in production in 2014 starring Dustin Hoffman and Kathy Bates that featured the American Boychoir School, they Humphreys felt more needed to be done to spread the word about the abuse that went on at that school.
“That movie got tons of initial media attention, and Travis was upset that the school would have a promotional vehicle and recruitment tool, so he asked me to write about the issue again in 2014 for Salon — this time addressing the movie’s impact,” she explained. “Shortly after, I received a cease and desist letter from the film’s production company.”
That’s when the couple hired a lawyer. It is also when Travis Humphrey started feeling angry.
“He’s such a gentle, even-tempered man, but I remember him slamming his fist on the lawyer’s table, ‘Nobody, calls my wife a liar,’” she said. “At that visit, we learned that Travis had a short list of very ugly options. Our lawyer also advised us that because I am a writer, we were in a unique position to shift the power dynamic and own the narrative.”
Actually sitting down and writing that narrative proved to be much more powerful experience than either expected.
“There is a lot of shame – misplaced, wrong shame – accompanying child sex abuse, especially for little boys,” she said. “Trav did not want to stay quiet, and after learning about the brutal, lengthy, and unfair process involved with a lawsuit, he also did not want to move in that direction.”
Instead of having to prove something happened, which the couple said was a nearly impossible task so many years after the fact, in her book, Shonna essentially said, “Given the school’s well-documented decades-long history of child sex abuse allegations, sex abuse cases settled both in and out of court, deaths allegedly associated with the sex abuse at the school, and the school’s unwillingness to take responsibility for the children hurt in their care,” and let the readers – not a team of insurance litigators – decide who was more credible.
“Basically, given those circumstances, we said ‘Go ahead and prove it did not happen,’” Shonna said. “It was a power shift for Travis.”
The project took roughly two years to complete, and in that time the Humphreys travelled throughout the southeastern United States.
“When one man lives a good life, has a wife and family, earns a good living doing what he loves – when that man stands up and says, ‘You can and will outlive your pain,’ it offers hope to other men dealing with their own demons,” she said. “So, it was difficult, but worth it. It all happened, and it can’t be changed, so the best thing to do is deal with it and maybe make it easier for someone else to be brave.”
Releasing such intimate details of their lives to the public was difficult, the author said.
“Despite the nature of our professions, Travis and I are generally private people,” she said. “Audiences know what they hear when he’s singing, and readers know the words I write. Neither of those things – what Trav sings and what I write – are who we are. In that sense, yes, it was hard to make our private lives more public.”
However, she said it has been worth whatever discomfort the couple experienced.
“Every week, I usually receive communication from someone – or someone who knows someone – who has a similar experience,” she said. “Statistically, that’s one in six boys and one in five girls. It is more common in the United States than hunger.”
Shonna said there was some apprehension on how the book would be received in her hometown.
“While we no longer live there, our families do,” she said. “Our biggest fear was any negative impact on our families. The nice part about small communities like Houlton is also that people come together to support their own. Ultimately, that is my hope. Tim and Dorene (Travis’ parents) experienced a parent’s nightmare. My hope is that the community will surround them with compassion and love.”
The Humphreys now reside in Gorham where Travis continues to pursue his musical career. He has recorded four studio albums – “YellowCat Blues” (2002), “Cowgirl Romance” (2006), “Dirty Beautiful World” (2010), and “The Roadhouse Gospel Hour” (2014) – which feature a blending of country and blues.
Shonna has had works of nonfiction appear in the New York Times, the Atlantic, Salon.com Down East magazine and Maine magazine. For two years she wrote regular food, restaurant and lifestyle columns for the Maine Sunday Telegram. She holds a master’s degree in nonfiction writing and literature from Bennington College.
Her book is available in bookstores nationwide and also online at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Target and Walmart.
