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I moved to Ashland thinking I would be a well-known, household name, a face you always recognize when walked by on the street. I was a glamorous actress in New York City. Bright lights, busy streets, hurried people, that was my life. Ashland back in then was a main dirt road that led through town and a park that led to the theater. Beautiful Lithia Park. The last place I put on an act.

My husband and I packed up and arrived here in early September. It was a late casting at the theater on my first Oregon Halloween. I was strolling through the park with my Shakespeare script and lost in the world of my Victorian life. I would have never heard the man walking so close behind me. While I was dancing and repeating to myself, he attacked.

He slammed me to the ground and looked me straight in the eye through his mask. A knife suddenly rested tightly against my neck. A demand to give up my name to him was presented. I opened my mouth and filled his ears with these words of Shakespeare: "If you p***k us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?" As I finished the knife opened my neck. My mouth open to scream and he covers it tightly.

He did what he wanted with me: stripped me of my clothing and violated me. I was left in the middle of the most beautiful place to die. Papers flung everywhere, clothing discarded, my head in a puddle of blood, I waited to die. ‘Just let me die now!’ I screamed to the god I didn’t believe in, but no, I had to suffer. I watched the leaves of orange, yellow and reds fall from the tree. The sun started to come up and I closed my eyes as the pain was taken away. Gone, I was gone.

I still dwell here in Ashland over a hundred years later. Rested up top a naked tree on Halloween night you’ll be able to see me. I wait for that man to return, or maybe his son. To show him what it was like to be left in pain and to loose everything you had.

“And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?”