Debbie Bumstead

Debbie Bumstead's father was a felon. Sounds scary, but his crime was avoiding the draft in the late 40s, and he only spent a few nights in prison. Dreamy, artistic, he was an idealist who failed at every turn, except in his influence on his three mild pale-haired children. He and his gentle wife gave Debbie and her two brothers enchanted childhoods full of freedom and peace with emphasis on crafting, philosophizing, and building things, both material artful objects like boats and toys and inner essentials like a sense of wonder.

Debbie’s uncle was a pedophile. Sounds scary, and it was. He used any child, under six boy or girl, he could get alone to gratify his sick mean pleasure. He wasn’t caught until late in his life, and even then he wasn’t punished with incarceration; he lived on to hurt more children even after his detailed confession and words of remorse.

These two men, brothers who looked incredibly alike, gave Debbie her early introduction into a world of good and evil. When Debbie reached the age of 14, she began to write observations of her home life, nature, emotions, in short vignettes that charmed her teachers.

She also wrote letters to a family friend, Dr. Earl V. Pullias (a famous educator/psychologist in Los Angeles) the third man important in her youth, who became her mentor. The letters back and forth between the two poignantly reveal the trials, joys, mysteries of a girl growing up and the wisdom of a kind knowledgeable man advising and encouraging a beloved child friend. Soon a collection of the letters will be published with the title: Dear Dr. Pullias.

Debbie Bumstead’s other publications, now available, are two memoirs and a novel. Apricot and The Dream Time are now in one volume: Apricot. In this uplifting autobiography Debbie records conscious memories of a quiet shy girl who finds life a little scary, but also full to the brim with beauty and joy. In this magic world there’s no mention of the sexual abuse, which remains buried deep deep away. Debbie’s novel The Destruction of Alice, though, becomes a metaphor for her own experience with sexual abuse and its complications through a woman’s lifetime.