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My stepfather sexually abused

me when I was a child. My
mother, Alice Munro, chose to
stay with him
In the shadow of my mother, a literary icon, my family
and I have kept this story hidden for decades. It’s time
to tell what really happened in my childhood home.

Steve Russell/Toronto Star

Updated 2 hrs ago July 7, 2024 8 min read

By Andrea Robin Skinner Contributor

In 1976, I went to visit my mother, Alice Munro, for the summer at her home
in Clinton, Ont. One night, while she was away, her husband, my stepfather,
Gerald Fremlin, climbed into the bed where I was sleeping and sexually
assaulted me. I was nine years old. I was a happy child — active and curious —
:
 who had only just realized I couldn’t grow up to be a sheep-herding dog, a great
disappointment, as I loved both dogs and sheep.

The next morning, I couldn’t get out of bed. I’d woken up with my first
migraine, which developed over the years into a chronic, debilitating condition
that continues to this day. I longed to go home, back to Victoria to be with my
father, Jim Munro, my stepmother, Carole, and my stepbrother, Andrew.

On the day I finally did fly home, Fremlin took me to the airport by himself.
My mother was busy. In the car, he asked me to play a game called “show me.”
When I said no, he made me tell him about my “sex life,” prying me for details
of innocent games I played with other children. Then he told me about his sex
life.

ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW

Back in Victoria, I told Andrew what had happened, trying to make a joke of it.
He didn’t laugh. He said I should tell his mother right away. I did, and she told
my father, who decided to say nothing to my mother.

I was relieved at first that my father didn’t tell her what had happened to me.
She had told me that Fremlin liked me better than her, and I thought she
would blame me if she ever found out. I thought she might die. As relieved as I
was, my father’s inability to take swift and decisive action to protect me also
left me feeling that I no longer truly belonged in either home. I was alone.

I returned to the home in Clinton every summer for the next several years. My
stepfather’s volatile moods dominated our lives, and I spent many days at the
auction barn down the road, with the animals who were waiting for pickup.
When I was alone with Fremlin, he made lewd jokes, exposed himself during
car rides, told me about the little girls in the neighbourhood he liked, and
described my mother’s sexual needs. At the time, I didn’t know this was abuse.
I thought I was doing a good job of preventing abuse by averting my eyes and
ignoring his stories.

When I was 11, former friends of Fremlin’s told my mother he’d exposed
himself to their 14-year-old daughter. He denied it, and when my mother asked
about me, he “reassured” her that I was not his type. In front of my mother, he
told me that many cultures in the past weren’t as “prudish” as ours, and it used
to be considered normal for children to learn about sex by engaging in sex with
adults. My mother said nothing. I looked at the floor, afraid she might see my
face turning red.

By the time I was a teenager, I was at war with myself, suffering from bulimia,
insomnia and migraines. I was a high-achieving high school student with a
strong wish to help others. But my private pain was taking a toll. In university,
my grades plummeted as bulimia took over my life. I dropped out of an
international development program at the University of Toronto and gave up
:
 my dream of working abroad. By the time I was 25, I couldn’t picture a future
for myself.

One day, during that period, while I was visiting my mother, she told me about
a short story she had just read. In the piece, a girl dies by suicide after her
stepfather sexually abuses her. “Why didn’t she tell her mother?” she asked me.
A month later, inspired by her reaction to the story, I wrote her a letter finally
telling her what had happened to me.

The sisters and Alice, from left: Jenny, Sheila, Alice and Andrea.

Courtesy Munro Family

As it turned out, in spite of her sympathy for a fictional character, my mother

had no similar feelings for me. She reacted exactly as I had feared she would,
as if she had learned of an infidelity.

She called my sister Sheila, told her she was leaving Fremlin, and flew to her
condo in Comox, B.C. I visited her there and was overwhelmed by her sense of
injury to herself. She believed my father had made us keep the secret in order
to humiliate her. She then told me about other children Fremlin had
“friendships” with, emphasizing her own sense that she, personally, had been
:
 betrayed.

Did she realize she was speaking to a victim, and that I was her child? If she
did, I couldn’t feel it. When I tried to tell her how her husband’s abuse had
hurt me, she was incredulous. “But you were such a happy child,” she said.

An excerpt from Andrea’s letter to her mother.

Meanwhile, Fremlin acted quickly. He told my mother he would kill me if I

ever went to the police, and wrote letters to my family, blaming me for the
abuse. He described my nine-year-old self as a “homewrecker,” and said my
family’s failure to intervene suggested they agreed with him. He also
threatened retribution:

“Andrea invaded my bedroom for sexual adventure” — I had asked Fremlin the
night the abuse took place if I could sleep in the spare bed in the room he
shared with my mother — “ … for Andrea to say she was ‘scared’ is simply a lie
… Andrea has brought ruin to two people who love each other … If the worst
comes to worst I intend to go public. I will make available for publication a
number of photographs, notably some taken at my cabin near Ottawa which
are extremely eloquent … one of Andrea in my underwear shorts …”

(I’d forgotten about the photos until I read this letter. I was 11 when most of
the pictures were taken.)

In spite of the letters and threats, my mother went back to Fremlin, and stayed
with him until he died in 2013. She said that she had been “told too late,” she
loved him too much, and that our misogynistic culture was to blame if I
expected her to deny her own needs, sacrifice for her children, and make up for
the failings of men. She was adamant that whatever had happened was
between me and my stepfather. It had nothing to do with her.

I believe my mother answered her own question about the girl in the story. She
didn’t tell her mother because she would rather die than risk her mother’s
rejection.

Years passed. My father continued to have lunches with my mother, never

mentioning me. I asked him about these lunches before he died. He told me I
just never came up in their conversations. My siblings and parents carried on
with their busy lives. I tried to forgive my mother and Fremlin and continued
to visit them and the rest of my family. We all went back to acting as if nothing
had happened. It was what we did.
:
 The denial continued for the next 10 years. Inside, I was still at war with this
thing, this ugliness. Me. But gradually, through therapy, I learned that it wasn’t
my fault. I fell in love with a good man, got married, and had children. My
dream of being a sheep-herding dog wasn’t so impossible after all. I spent my
days running after my twins, and my evenings lying flat-out exhausted
somewhere around the house. Today, safeguarding the vulnerable is still the
driving force of my life. I help people who want to heal their trauma by
connecting with horses.

I ended contact with my mother after my twins were born. At first, I told her
only that I could never see Fremlin again, never have him near my children.
She explained how inconvenient it would be for her to visit me on her own,
since she didn’t drive. I exploded, and told her our relationship was over.

Two years later, when I was 38, I read an interview in the New York Times with
my mother, in which she described Gerald Fremlin in very loving terms. She
said she was lucky to have him in her life, and declared that she had a “close
relationship” with all three of her daughters, including me. For three weeks I
was too sick to move, and hardly left my bed. I had long felt inconsequential to
my mother, but now she was erasing me.

I wanted to speak out. I wanted to tell the truth. That’s when I went to the
police to report my abuse.

For so long I’d been telling myself that holding my pain alone had at least
helped my family, that I had done the moral thing, contributing to the greatest
good for the greatest number. Now, I was claiming my right to a full life, taking
the burden of abuse and handing it back to Fremlin.
:
 Andrea says she never reconciled with her mother.

Steve Russell Toronto Star

On Feb. 25, 2005, four months after the interview came out, Gerald Fremlin
was charged with “indecently assaulting” me sometime between July 1 and
Aug. 31, 1976. (Without Fremlin’s letters, the case would have been much
weaker. I had once tried to destroy them, out of shame, but luckily my sister
Jenny stopped me.)

On March 11, 2005, he pleaded guilty on arraignment, without a trial, and was
sentenced to two years’ probation. He was also ordered by the court to avoid
any activity that brought him into contact with children under the age of 14 for
two years.

I was satisfied. I hadn’t wanted to punish him. I believed he was too old to hurt
anyone else. What I wanted was some record of the truth, some public proof
that I hadn’t deserved what had happened to me.

I also wanted this story, my story, to become part of the stories people tell about
my mother. I never wanted to see another interview, biography or event that
didn’t wrestle with the reality of what had happened to me, and with the fact
that my mother, confronted with the truth of what had happened, chose to stay
with, and protect, my abuser.

Unfortunately, that’s not what happened. My mother’s fame meant the silence
:
 continued.

For years after Fremlin’s conviction, I was estranged from my family of origin.
They didn’t seem to understand the pain of abandonment I still carried, and
when I was with them, I felt I was on trial to explain myself. I needed to focus
on healing instead.

Then, in 2014, my sister Jenny reached out. She told me that she and my other
siblings, sister Sheila and stepbrother Andrew, had gone to the Gatehouse, in
Toronto, an organization that helps survivors of childhood sexual abuse. They
went to learn more about my separation from them. They wanted to better
understand themselves and each other, and to process their part in the silence
around Fremlin’s abuse of me.

The four siblings: from left to right, Andrea, Sheila, Jenny and Andrew.

Courtesy Munro Family

Until Jenny wrote, I had thought my disappearance was a relief to my siblings.

I was wrong. They were hurting too.

I was 49 years old when I went to the Gatehouse for the first time. Being there
gave me the courage to start opening up to my family. Now, eight years later, I
have them back in my life, and the healing continues. I belong to a whole
community at the Gatehouse for whom telling the truth is shame-busting
medicine.

As for my relationship with my mother, I never reconciled with her. I made no

demands on myself to mend things, or forgive her. I grieved the loss of her, and
that was an important part of my healing.

Children are still silenced far too often. In my case, my mother’s fame meant
that the secrecy spread far beyond the family. Many influential people came to
:
 know something of my story yet continued to support, and add to, a narrative
they knew was false.

It seemed as if no one believed the truth should ever be told, that it never
would be told, certainly not on a scale that matched the lie.

Until now.

Andrea Robin Skinner is a meditation and mindfulness teacher, specializing in

healing childhood trauma, at Horse Discovery Farm in Millbrook, Ontario
(www.horsediscovery.com)

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Alice Munro’s work was often dark, even violent — but that’s what
made her great

In the home of Alice Munro, a dark secret lurked. Now, her children
want the world to know

‘National treasure’: Canada’s short story master, Nobel winner Alice

Munro dead at 92

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