Local writer honors mother with memoir

By Natalie Pollock

Staff Writer

Teri Leonard Michaud, writer, teacher and one of seven children in her multi-generation family, wishes her mother Rita had lived long enough to read Teri’s memoir about the remarkable woman who found a way to raise her children by herself, despite long odds. Her book “Where Are All The Kids?” chronicles her family’s survival from the year shortly after she was born.

“The stories poured out of me. This is really my mother’s story. Mom was a good storyteller. She would have loved to see this book,” Michaud said.

A more current photo of the Leonard siblings from left to right: Kitty Langan, Carol Parker, Shawn Leonard, Teri Michaud, Noreen Leonard, and Kevin Leonard. Courtesy photo

Teri Michaud had worked as a teacher and reading specialist at Whiting Lane School and other places before retiring in 2019 after 30 years. But her book begins when she was just two years old in the 1950’s. Her parents Rita and Bob Leonard had been married for six years by then and eventually gave birth to five children in that time, followed by a set of twins. One of the twins died at a month old.

They were a devout Catholic family. Bob ran a successful family business in wall coverings. After a few years, however, he descended deeper and deeper into alcoholism. His father, too, had been an abusive alcoholic.

“Kevin (a brother) climbed onto the bathroom radiator, looking for bad guys, shooting his squirt gun out the open window. Hey Mommy, why is Daddy lying in the bushes (two stories down), smiling and singing? ...Rita kept her tone light, hiding her anger…He’s fine. He’s smiling.

Get back in the water (to Carol) so I can wash your hair…Then I’ll curl it (bribing her),” Michaud wrote in her book.

To protect her children Rita told her husband they needed to split up, and she talked with their priest about how she could protect herself from him. The priest said there was no mechanism within their religion that would allow them to live apart permanently, even though she and her children were living in a dangerous situation that could become tragic.

Subsequently the family moved out of their house so they could rent it out and moved into an apartment that Bob owned. He had stopped drinking for a short time but then resumed and became abusive. Even though she could not get a divorce, she was determined to raise her children to adulthood, even without his financial support.

“She still loves dad but is determined to leave him. O

Teri Michaud is an author and public speaker who recently wrote a memoir about her time growing up in a family that had overcame challenges. Photo by Natalie K. Pollock

ne night she hears a knock on the back door. He had crashed his truck into the front door. Tore off the door with its nails and glass. He grabs mom. My aunt (who had come to help out with the children) jumps on his back,” she said.

He moved out and got an efficiency apartment. Rita and Bob were still talking to each other. Her mother asked friends and relatives to help by taking the children for a while. Teri was seven years old when she went to live at their insurance agent’s home.

“My mother found good people to take care of all her children. She had to get out of the house to rent it. Then she goes to live on my aunt’s back porch. The first people who took children (on a short-term basis) were ‘just in town.’ The second group was spread all over the state,” said Michaud.

Rita borrowed a car and visited each child every week. Depressed but undeterred, Rita went to law school but never became a practicing attorney. Instead, she took a job with Child and Family Services, the precursor to the Village for Children and Families. Then she was able to rent an apartment with Bob’s sister. But soon she was told that she could only stay there with three children. She pleaded with the landlord. Her daughter stood up to him and showed him how well maintained the apartment was and pointed out that the children were quiet and well-behaved. He relented and let them stay for a few months longer. At that point they were able to return to their family home.

“We were together again for the first time. I have always been afraid to be alone since then,” said Michaud.

Her parents eventually legally separated. Her father moved to Florida. He came to Hartford for a heart

Teri Michaud’s book “Where Are All The Kids?” is available on Amazon and wherever books are sold. A former teacher in town, she has given talks at the West Hartford Public Library among other venues. Photo by Natalie K Pollock

transplant, and her mother let two of the children visit him. Carol, the oldest, did not want to see him but when she received Teri’s book she forgave him. She gives talks about parents who are alcoholic. Teri had no relationship with him going forward. He remarried so her parents had to get divorced.

The siblings have all remained close, are college-educated, have careers, own houses and some have children of their own. Michaud enjoys spending time with her two daughters and five grandchildren, speaks at libraries, book clubs and events, and has written several books and articles. She was awarded the Josie Rubio Scholarship for her micro-fiction “The Hitchhikers” from the Gotham Writers Workshop in New York. She calls her latest book “creative fiction” as she has changed some names in it. She continues to live in West Hartford, with husband Gary Michaud.

Cheryl Dyer is a childhood friend and they have remained close. They met in seventh grade, and Dyer remembers Michaud as “funny, irreverent and hysterical.”

She added, “Teri’s was a chaotic family, but it seemed fun to me. She would come to my house after school, and she loved my Pop-Tarts. Her mom could not afford them. At her house she would put a slice of rye bread in the toaster for me. She and her siblings were very independent kids. To this day I am close to her family. Teri; Kitty and their husbands went to Cozumel with us for a week.”

Cheryl and her husband Jimmy retired early to a cottage on Lake Bashan in East Haddam 

and Teri’s family would visit.

“They all had a great sense of humor. The most obvious thing about them was that they are fiercely loyal to each and still stick together. You are not friends with just one of them – the whole family

comes with the package. I never understood how Teri’s mother could do what she did. She loved so many kids and had a high tolerance for chaos. We all respected her, as did all her kids,” said Dyer.

Michaud spent four years writing about her mother’s difficult split from her father.

Picture here in the 1950’s/ early 1960’s are Teri’s siblings (l to r) Kevin, Carol, Teri, Noreen, Shawn and Kitty with their mother Rita Leonard. She found ways to support and raise her six children at a time when doing so without a husband was inconceivable. Courtesy photo

“My mother’s story is amazing. The poverty, loneliness and grief that tortured her made her stronger. Her story will encourage other people in dangerous situations about what the

y can do. At her time women did not know they could move forward on their own to keep their children safe from addictions that could lead to violence,” said Michaud. WHL

Learn more about Teri Michaud at www.teriwrites.com. “Where Are All The Kids?” by Teri Michaud is available on Amazon.