Called to Washington
In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? John 14:2
When Anne arrived back in Italy, Mike told her about his being chosen for a residency program. If he accepted, he’d be back at Portsmouth Naval Hospital.
“I soon learned Mike was losing sleep over his lack of peace about that opportunity. We talked it over, and I didn’t have peace either. We prayed. We contemplated. We didn’t understand why God was laying it on our hearts to go to Washington state.
“Actually, we had always wanted to live in Washington—and we wanted to explore the many mountains there. Through prayer, we discerned this was more than just our desire—we very much felt God’s guidance in our decision. Turning down this residency was a bold leap of faith; there was no guarantee it would be offered again. We were firmly convinced God wanted us in Washington.”
Mike made the dreaded call, letting those in charge know he wasn’t saying no to the residency program. He was saying “not at this time.”
The couple’s prayers were answered when Mike learned his next billet would be in Washington state. He had agreed to an operational tour, a non-hospital assignment, where he would be attached to Submarine 9. From the Naval Bangor Submarine Base he would serve as a medical consultant. Mike, and two competent corpsmen, would be in charge of providing a range of health care services for 1,600 sailors serving on a combined twelve submarines.
Anne returned to the States to begin searching for a place for them to live. Back in Italy, Mike was left to deal with a company that contracted their services to move military families. Anne had no choice but to leave the details of the packing process to him.
A Place to Call Home
“I couldn’t wait to show Mike the rental I’d found for us. It was close enough to the submarine base that he’d be able to ride his bike to work. The house was small, but it would allow us to save money. There is no town called Bangor, and so our home had a Bremerton address. When Mike wasn’t working, we would hike through the Olympic Mountains.
“When our household goods finally arrived from Italy, I found out the moving company had taken Mike literally when he asked them to please pack everything—that’s just what they did. Everything stank! We soon discovered the reason—the contractors had packed the kitchen trash.”
Back to Indiana
Mike and Anne barely managed to get boxes unpacked before they were called to Indiana. Hospice staff was now providing Barbara’s care in a spacious hospital room.
“We gathered around Barbara. Mike’s brothers were there; Steve with his wife, and David with his girlfriend. Rex was there, of course, and so was Pastor Bob.
“Barbara was slipping in and out of consciousness. David and his girlfriend decided to speak with the pastor. At his suggestion, they waited until Barbara was lucid for a few moments to let her know they were planning to elope the following week. Her facial expression told them she had heard and that she approved.
“I was shocked at how small Barbara looked. She had dropped from a size sixteen to a size six. As I looked from her bed to her sons, I knew they were in shock. Mike, David, and Steve didn’t seem to understand their mother was in the process of dying. They’d seen her come back so many times over the years; I sensed they were expecting another comeback.
“I also sensed Rex knew his wife’s ability to rally had come to an end. When he left for a few hours, I figured he was dealing with his emotions by taking time to check on things at the office.
“We were caught off guard when Barbara’s hand shot into the air. I went to her side –‘”You’re ready to go, aren’t you?’” I asked. As we gathered around her bed, the hospice chaplain led us in reciting Psalm 23. Barbara’s hand again shot into the air, as if accepting an invitation toward heaven.”
Family members were visiting in a corner of her room, or outside in the hallway, when Barbara stopped breathing. It was early morning, July 21, 1994. She was fifty-five years old. Family members visited quietly around her bed for almost half an hour, and then notified a nurse.
Rex and his sons were emotionally exhausted, lost in grief. But they stood in a receiving line after the funeral service, acknowledging condolences and accepting hugs from the large gathering of family and friends who had attended the service held to honor their wife and mother.
Following the service, Barbara was laid to rest in the Mitchell, Indiana cemetery. It was there her family learned that two days earlier, Rex had purchased a family burial plot.
With heavy hearts, Anne and Mike reluctantly headed back to Washington. It had been a tough seven months, and they had relied on God’s grace to carry them through.
“The closer we got to home, the more I wondered what was in store the rest of the year.”
An Encounter with a Monster
When they left for Washington, Anne and Mike had brought their two Labradors, Max and Sam, with them. The space in the house felt confining, especially when Mike was home. But renting was allowing them to put money aside, and what they would come to call the Shack House was adequate. Identical large windows in the kitchen and living room let in enough light to make the space look deceptively larger than its 700 square-feet.
Space in the bedroom was so tight, Anne and Mike had to squeeze between the bed and the wall. They had a folding kitchen table; there wasn’t enough room to leave a table permanently set up. The largest space was the front porch.
While in La Maddalena, Anne had volunteered to work with animals. Spaying and neutering were rare practices on the island, resulting in large numbers of feral cats and dogs. She and many other Navy wives donated time to raise funds to get animals spayed or neutered at twenty-five dollars a pop. Her experience resonated with a local veterinarian’s clinic, where Anne accepted a job offer. Working would be better than being home all day, and it would allow her and Mike to set aside additional funds.
Working was okay, but getting out of bed for her 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. shift wasn’t easy for Anne, who kept late hours. Only her love of animals and determination to save money helped her leave a warm bed each morning.
To offset the early start to her day, Anne looked forward to walking her dogs each afternoon.
"As soon as I got home from work, I’d put a leash on Max, our 115-pound yellow Lab, and on Sam, our seventy-five-pound black Lab. The house wasn’t large enough to afford them adequate exercise, and it was truly a toss-up as to whether they or I most looked forward to our walks.
“I liked walking because it was easy on my knees. Biking would have been okay, but it was impossible for me to control both the dogs and the bike.
“It had taken me some time to find a good place to walk the dogs. I wanted to stay away from heavy traffic and yet have a safe road. Before taking the dogs out the first time, I mapped out a route that would keep us away from highway traffic.
“When we headed out that first afternoon, I noticed what appeared to be an old abandoned house. It was just off Clear Creek Road, around the corner from the rental, but not visible from the Shack House. A couple of windows were boarded up, and there were remnants of a fence. Visible from behind the house was an old, beat-up, faded blue pickup. It looked as though it belonged in a junk yard.”
Anne explained that as she and her dogs continued their walk, they were met by five large, mangy dogs, charging down a well-worn path. They were far from friendly, and she struggled to handle Max and Sam’s leashes while trying to position herself between her dogs and the attack dogs.
“I yelled at the top of my lungs and kicked at whichever dog was closest to me. And then I realized the five dogs didn’t care about me—they wanted to exercise their power over my dogs. It took me a good fifteen minutes to get far enough down the street to where the crazy animals didn’t try to follow us.
“I remember my throat being dry and my voice hoarse from yelling. Max and Sam and I went through the same encounter on our way back. But the next day, I was better prepared.”
Anne mentally and physically braced herself for the two encounters with the five crazy dogs. She would draw her dogs’ leashes up tight, work to position herself between them and the five surly mutts, and use pepper spray. The next day, she did the same thing. But pepper spray and kicking didn’t do much to deter the mangy mongrels from their obnoxious behavior.
Anne didn’t want to give up walking her dogs. Walking them on Highway 301 wasn’t an option either. They needed the exercise, and Anne wasn’t about to give up her outdoor time, particularly after spending hours in the vet’s office.
“In spite of the hassles, I found comfort in the sameness of the routine, and truth be told, I felt I had become adept at handling the attack dogs. Over a period of weeks I realized the time I spent fighting them off had grown much shorter.”
Then one afternoon, the routine changed. As Anne and her dogs approached the old run-down house, she noticed a scraggly, unshaven man, standing in what was left of the yard. She could hear him yelling at the dogs. Maybe this would be an opportunity to make her afternoon walks more pleasant.
“Hi, I’m Anne Schlegel and I live just down the way there, off of Clear Creek Road, in the small rental house,” she said.
The man, whose body odor suggested he hadn’t showered for some time, never took his eyes off her as she spoke. Slightly nervous but determined, Anne continued.
“I walk past your place every afternoon to get to the side street, and I was wondering if you would mind keeping your dogs fenced in so they wouldn’t run out here and try to tangle with my dogs.”
Anne saw the hair standing up on Max’s back. Sam began tugging at her leash as she took a step back. In the next moment, Anne heard a string of filthy language that caught her off guard. Its volume grew in intensity, as did the look of hatred on the man’s face. His eyes might as well have been on fire. His lips curled as he continued to spew rage and anger.
“Why you . . . “
Anne didn’t wait to hear the rest. Never had she seen someone come totally unglued in such an ugly manner.
“. . . or I’m gonna kill you!”
“For a moment, I froze. I couldn’t move. And then I heard words.”
“Run, run!”
Anne recognized the voice. It belonged to her Maker.
“I spun around, pulled hard on the dogs’ leashes, and took off running as fast as my knees would allow. I was running to get away from a monster. I hadn’t run in a long time, and now I sensed my life depended on my knees not giving out. I was breathing with my mouth open, and my throat was burning. As I struggled to keep from panicking, I could tell my heart was pounding in concert with my feet as they hit the pavement.
“I had no idea how far I had run when I heard a vehicle behind me, coming closer.
And then she again heard a voice. “Get in the ditch, quick, in the ditch.”
Recognizing her master’s voice over her heavy breathing, Anne pulled tight on the leashes as she dropped into the weed-covered ditch. She felt heat from the vehicle’s engine, and heard gravel flying behind her. Spent, except for what energy adrenaline allowed her to muster, she pulled Max and Sam into the ditch with her. Right then, the vehicle flew over the top of the pit.
It was the faded blue pickup!
Heat and exhaust fumes stung Anne’s eyes. The underbelly of the truck had missed her by mere inches. Dirt and gravel were embedded in her face. Terrified, she was shaking uncontrollably.
“I decided if I stayed hunkered down the crazy man would keep going. And he did keep going, long enough to slam on the brakes and spin the truck back in the direction from which he had come. I heard the truck heading toward me again. I knew I had to get out.”
With one last burst of energy that surprised even her, Anne managed to pull herself and the dogs up onto level ground. A van came down the road, toward them.
The pickup had hit the edge of the ditch, and the monster was throwing the truck in reverse, working to get the driver’s side front tire back on level ground. Ready to collapse from exhaustion, Anne frantically waved her arms. She let out a deep sigh of relief as the van slowed to a stop.
The driver yelled at her, “Quick, get in,” and opened the back passenger door. Too panicked to think, Anne obeyed his frantic words.
Grateful to be alive, she did as he commanded.
The pickup slammed to a stop. Just as the van door closed, the driver spoke.
“That idiot has a shotgun, and it looks like he intends to use it.”
Anne’s rescuer used his cell phone to call 911. From her crouched position, she could tell he was keeping an eye on monster man.
With shotgun in hand, her would-be-attacker soon came around to the driver’s side of the van. Anne heard the chilling sound of a shell being loaded into the gun’s chamber.
“I’ve called the police. You can put the gun down,” the van driver said.
“I couldn’t believe how authoritative the driver sounded, and yet, he was cool as a cucumber. Then I heard the sirens. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the monster running away from the van. I didn’t think my heart would ever stop beating so fast. I had all I could do to catch my breath.”
Once the van driver assured Anne the police had her tormentor under control, Anne glanced first at her rescuer, then at his passenger. She knew if they hadn’t come along, she might have died that afternoon.
Before continuing their trip to the airport, the couple drove Anne and her dogs the short distance to her house. The police came right behind them, to get a statement from Anne.
At the house, Anne answered the police officers’ questions honestly. No, the man had not pointed a gun directly in her face. Before they left, both officers advised her to be prudent and avoid him in the future.
They needn’t have worried. Max and Sam had just had their last walk down Clear Creek Road.
“I was still shaking when the officers drove out of the yard. I finally went in the house. The place I had worked so hard to make a home now felt like prison. The light coming through the windows seemed to offer up my whereabouts to the world. I couldn’t close the blinds fast enough. As I stood in the dim light, still shaking, I wished Mike were home.”
When Mike’s commander heard about Anne’s experience he called, offering to pull Mike off the boat from his sea trial. Anne told him not too, that she’d be okay, and that Mike would be home in a few days anyway.
“As I hung up the phone, I wasn’t sure I would ever be okay."
***
Anne’s breathing was labored as she finished recounting her experience. I was momentarily speechless. When I did speak, I told Anne how thankful I was that she had survived—there was nothing in my experiences to help me grasp the desperation she must have felt the afternoon of that last walk down what she thought to be a safe route. And I had to wonder whether it was bravery, or something else, that kept her from agreeing to have Mike immediately come home.
Chapter Nine
Chapter Nine
Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version,
copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a division of Good News Publishers.
Used by permission. All rights reserved.