THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 30, 1996 TAG: 9606270042
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K3 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: REAL MOMENTS
SOURCE: BY WENDY GROSSMAN, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 94 lines
WHEN SHE was a kid in England, Sonia Schmitt, 25, never went home.
She couldn't.
If she did her dad would beat her because she reminded him of her mum, the woman he regularly beat to a bloody mess.
Sonia's mum had tried to run away with her two daughters several times. But each time he found her.
``He'd drag her home and beat her worse,'' Sonia says. ``There wasn't many places to hide with two children. My mum left on her own to gather strength to take him to court.''
But in England the court didn't let her mum say a word.
Her father got custody of the two girls when Sonia was 8. Sonia's mum wasn't even allowed to visit.
At night he hit Sonia. He would say that she did things that she hadn't. Sonia would say that was a lie.
Smack.
Her older sister, Sue, would always say, `Yes, Daddy, I'm sorry, Daddy.' Sonia couldn't do that.
Sonia didn't see her mum again until she was 16 years old. Her mum was visiting England from her new home in America.
``I've got to see her again,'' Sonia frantically told her sister, who knew where her mum was staying.
Sonia loved her mother. And she couldn't take being beaten any more. ``Many a time I didn't know if I'd make it to see the next day or end up in hospital,'' Sonia says.
She had three choices. She could take her father to court, but very likely they would make her stay with her father. She could do nothing. Or go visit her mum in America.
She called her mum and said she wanted to come to America.
``Sweetheart, your bed's already made,'' said her mum, who lived in Norfolk and had remarried. Her mum hung up the phone and fainted.
Every day for weeks Sonia carried a small bag of clothes with her to work. At lunchtime she gave her mum's best friend the bag. On the weekends Sonia would go over to house and pack the clothes.
``I had one suitcase that contained 16 years of my life,'' Sonia says. Clothes, address books, photos and her math, history and English books. She didn't have room for mementos.
In England, day trips to France are very common. You go to get beer, wine, cigarettes or chocolate. Sonia told her father that her office was taking a day trip to France. She handed him a blank passport application to sign his permission.
She went upstairs to her room and in the destination block wrote: UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
The next morning, she went into downtown London and turned the passport application in.
The following Monday, armed with a letter from her boss saying that she was taking a six-month leave of absence, she went across town to the United States Embassy and applied for a visitor's visa.
She told her father she was spending the night at her best friend's house and wouldn't be home until after work the next evening.
Then she gave her friend a letter to mail to her father, telling him where she was going and what she thought of him and his fist.
When she got to the airport, she called her friend and told her to mail the letter.
Her father reported her missing.
Sonia called the police and told them that her father knew where she was. Ask him for the letter, she said. It explained everything.
Sonia's mum made her call her father after she arrived.
``I thought yeah, sure, I'll call him. I'm over 1,000 miles away - he can't touch me,'' Sonia says pushing up her sleeves. ``But it was like he reached through the phone and grabbed me.''
You know you won't be happy there, he told her. Why did you do this to me? No one is going to like you there. Why would any one like you?
``Yes, Daddy.''
But she did like America. And she decided to see if she could stay. ``I finally found freedom,'' Sonia says.
She's with her mum, has a kind stepfather - whom she calls dad - and has a lot of friends.
She is the administrative manager for a chemical storage company in Norfolk. There she helps with environmental and regulatory compliance, and oversees the office. She is also an independent distributor for a firm that sells health products.
Last week she passed her citizenship test.
Later this summer she'll be interviewed by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. . Within the next six months Sonia will go down to the courthouse to renounce her English citizenship and be sworn in as a U.S. citizen.
On July 4th she's going to a huge family party. Her sister is flying in from England with her boyfriend to be there.
Happy Independence Day, Sonia. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
HUY NGUYEN/The Virginian-Pilot
At age 16, Sonia Schmitt, now 25, left her home in England - and a
brutal father - to join her mother in America. Last week she passed
her U.S. citizenship test. by CNB