Suzanne Stewart
Staff Writer
The first 18 years of Beth Turner’s life were a bit rough, to say the least. Turner, nee Thompson, grew up in a poor family in Marlinton. When she was nine, she discovered the body of her father, Howard, who had taken his own life. By the time she graduated from Pocahontas County High School in 1986, she would also have lost her brother, Kendall, in the same manner, and her mother, Thelma, to cancer.
A young life filled with so much tragedy could break a person, but Turner set out to live her life and make something of herself. She was also determined to find answers as to why her father did what he did. For 40 years, she gathered all the information she could and learned more than she could have ever imagined.
All of that led to her book, “Inheritance of Grit,” which she wrote with ghost writer Ryan Armstrong.
“My book is about how I learned to forgive and how I learned to accept him for who he was,” she said. “It’s not to tell everybody else this is what you need to do in order to forgive someone, but for me, I had to understand. The only way I could understand my dad was to get as close to him as I could.”
Turner compiled medical records, talked to her father’s only surviving sibling and even traveled to Germany where her father had been stationed in the military.
“I wanted to touch the same soil that he did,” she said. “I spent the last six or seven years really talking about him with my uncle because my dad’s family never really talked about him to me. I was talking to my uncle and I said, ‘listen, if I have the question and you know the answer, I need to know the answer. It doesn’t matter if it’s good, bad or indifferent. I don’t want to be protected from the honest truth.’
“I was on this journey and a hundred percent in on it, so by doing that and reading records and talking with my uncle, I understood how my dad came to be an alcoholic and the struggles he had in life,” she continued. “I came to appreciate those, instead of not understanding them. By appreciating them, I felt like emotionally, I went down that road beside him.”
When people experience tragedies such as Turner has, some prefer to not talk about them or share their stories with others, but for Turner, sharing the stories – while painful – was also therapeutic.
“Me talking about it helps and I hope that my story can be inspiration for other people to try to understand,” she said. “Lots and lots of people have gone through this. I had to understand to forgive and I had to emotionally feel as close as I could what my dad went through. I had to learn to have sympathy for him and that was my freedom. That was my forgiveness.”
“My dad was not this horrible person,” she said. “The Christmas before my mom died, I just looked at her and said, ‘I don’t understand why I’m going to be the only one left.’ You go through life wondering what your purpose is, and I try to be a good person every day.
“I feel like, now, I really know what my purpose is and that was to find out all of this, to grow within myself, but I also connected with two brothers that I didn’t know I had and that was the beautiful thing that came out of this,” she continued. “My dad had two sons. One, I don’t even think he knew he had because he was born in Korea.”
Turner also discovered a sister and so she has gained three siblings, as well as nieces and nephews, all because she was seeking answers and trying to heal herself.
“That’s how the book evolves into the greatness that came out of it,” she said. “I have family. I lived thirty-five years with no family and all of a sudden, my life now includes nieces and nephews and two brothers.
“Last May, my two brothers and a sister were all able to get together for the first time and I took them to the cemetery in Staunton where Momma and Daddy and Kendall are buried,” she continued. “It was the first time we were all together.”
Despite all the tragedy she experienced as a young girl, Turner remembers the good times and the love she had from her mother.
“I can’t say enough good about the mother I had growing up,” she said. “She was such a driving force behind me and encouraging me. The other thing I feel so fortunate about is I never had to wonder if my mother loved me. I think a lot of people do. I’m so fortunate. I carry my mom with me every single day of my life.
“As hard as it was then, it’s just as beautiful now,” she continued. “I tell my husband sometimes, I don’t know what I’ve done so right to deserve all that I have. The love that pours into me every day and the support system that I have and have had. I feel so good in my life right now.”
It was a hard, arduous journey, but after 40 years of research and healing, Turner is proud to have “Inheritance of Grit” to share with the world. It may be a difficult read, especially for those with similar experiences, but Turner said she hopes it helps readers find comfort in knowing they are not alone and that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
“If it helps one person out of a billion people in the world; if it inspires one person, then my goal has been met,” she said. “It all just starts falling into place. I sit here every day and almost pinch myself. I grew up and lived eighteen years in Marlinton and now I live in this major metroplex [in Texas]. I have a great job. I have a phenomenal family here.
“I sit here and think, ‘golly, I’m this little girl that grew up in Marlinton and now all of a sudden, I’m out in this big world,’” she continued. “I’ve made it happen. I’ve done this for myself and it’s a very rewarding feeling.”
Turner admits there are still bad days, and she misses her parents and brother every single day, but she also remembers all the good things in her life and all that she has done in their names.
“One thing I decided when I left Marlinton was, I was going to live my life for all of us,” she said. “I do things that would have brought joy to everybody.”
“Inheritance of Grit: A Metaphorical Memoir of a Daughter’s Resilience, Determination and Grace” is available on Amazon.com
