Bitter Harvest: A Woman's Fury, a Mother's Sacrifice Read Free Page A

into her college years.
    Pam was perhaps prettier than her younger sister, her features softer and more feminine than Debora’s. Pam’s hair was almost as dark as her father’s, and she was small-boned. Debora was more solid, but “square” rather than chubby; she was growing up to be a cute girl rather than a pretty one, given her round face and the slight bump on her nose. Her forehead protruded above her eyebrows, a feature that would become more pronounced as she grew older and that gave her a slightly masculine look. Moreover, she was something of a chameleon; all her life, her appearance and weight seemed to change and blur continually, so that even acquaintances sometimes failed to recognize her. One thing was constant, however: Debora’s hair was wonderfully thick and wavy, a gingery-auburn color. She wore it long and hanging down her back, sometimes naturally wavy and sometimes absolutely straight.
    The Joneses moved to Metamora, Illinois, a hamlet even smaller than Havana, when Pam was in her last year in high school. Debora spent her freshman and sophomore years in Metamora’s small high school, where her academic excellence shone even brighter. But the family stayed in Metamora for only two years. Bob was moving up in the parent company, Roman Meal, and eventually stopped driving a bread route and became a district manager. The family moved to a house at 3122 North Sheridan Road in Peoria when Debora was about to begin her junior year. For most teenagers, that would have been an unfortunate time to move, and going from a high school in a little town of a few thousand to one in a city with almost 200,000 people would be terrifying. Not for Debora.
    Asked if she had ever felt frightened inside even though she was capable of keeping up a fearless façade, Debora shook her head firmly. “I always felt confident,” she remembered. “I always felt I could accomplish anything I set out to do. I was never scared—not until later… .”

    “Debi” Jones rapidly became a popular member of the class of 1969 at Peoria High School. Even then, she had developed the wonderful sense of humor that drew people to her. Extraordinarily witty, she could turn anything into a joke—to the delight of her fellow students, and occasionally to the annoyance of her teachers.
    The late sixties were turbulent years for teenagers, but Debora never wandered from the path she had set for herself—or, perhaps, that her mother had set for her. Harry Whitaker, who was the principal of Peoria High in the sixties, would remember her twenty-five years later as an outstanding student. “She seemed to follow all the rules. She didn’t take drugs and she didn’t drink. She was rather an aggressive girl,” he commented. “You could tell she was going to be successful.”
    Debora had entered Peoria High in the 1967-68 year, and 1968 was the year of the Illinois Sesquicentennial, celebrating the 150th anniversary of the state’s admission to the Union in 1818. “I remember we read Spoon River Anthology in English in my junior year,” she said later. “It was part of Sesquicentennial.” Although her intelligence was turned more toward science and math, Debora enjoyed reading Masters’s work, and tended to choose epic books with historical links after that. She would always be a prodigious reader, able to lose herself in a novel so completely that the rest of the world faded away.
    Debora was a cheerleader for Peoria High, served on the Student Council, and was a National Merit Scholar. The list of accomplishments after her name in the Peoria High yearbook, The Crest , was as lengthy as those found under top students’ pictures in yearbooks all over America. She sang in the Concert Choir;, she was a Music Accompanist, a member of the French Club, Music Workshops, Senior Services, and the Crest business staff. She was a superlative athlete as well, so much so that her steady boyfriend, Greg Short—who was on the varsity football and