Holly Thompson Rehder memoir: From teen bride and mom to Missouri State senator

By the point Holly Thompson Rehder was in tenth grade, she had already known as thirty totally different homes residence — most of them constructions that have been both dilapidated, or in run-down cell residence parks. A fairy story it was not; but the Republican state senator, who shares her upbringing in her upcoming memoir, “Cinder Lady: Rising Up on America’s Fringe” (Bombardier Books) likens it to at least one.

“Cinder lady is a reference to the Drew Barrymore Cinderella film ‘Ever After,’ during which that Cinderella … frees herself, which is strictly the place my story brings you to as we speak,” Rehder, 53, instructed The Submit.

Rehder’s life story covers the landmines of dependancy, abuse, poverty and instability that marked her childhood along with her mom and two sisters. It typically included uprooting the household in the midst of the night time, when her mom would depart a husband or a boyfriend who had develop into bodily abusive.

There have been instances the household was cut up up, and she or he discovered herself sleeping on the sofa of a good friend, or an aunt or uncle.

One night time, she watched her stepfather chase her half-naked mom across the cell residence park, aiming a butcher knife at her again. “When the police lastly got here and arrested him, all I might take into consideration was the truth that Mama wasn’t going to press expenses,” stated Rehder, who realized, at 14, that she wanted to flee. “I knew my solely approach out was to marry my boyfriend and depart, and I put that plan in movement.”

At age 15 in 1984, she was married. By the point she was 16, she had a baby. Rehder held her daughter Raychel within the hospital room for the very first time, proper after giving beginning — and knew that she couldn’t proceed down the identical path her mom had chosen.

“I spotted that this can be a human relying on me for all the pieces however breath and I can’t give her the life that I’ve had for the final 10 years,” stated Rehder. “I used to be simply decided. I didn’t care how lengthy it took me to get my GED, what number of jobs I needed to work, however we have been getting out of that.”

It took awhile, however Rehder ultimately earned her GED. After 17 years she completed school, getting her diploma from Southeast Missouri State College in mass communication. She divorced her first husband when she was 22 years previous, and married her second husband, Raymond Rehder, a yr and a half later. They’d two youngsters, and owned a cable set up enterprise collectively. (The couple divorced in 2021, after 28 years of marriage.)

It was her function as a small enterprise proprietor navigating authorities purple tape that led her to run for the Missouri state Home in 2012.

In 2020, she ran and received the state senate seat she presently holds. Within the spring, she sponsored a invoice — now tabled — coping with the rights of sexual assault survivors.

“I’m a sexual assault survivor,” stated Rehder, when introducing the invoice. “My mom had gone via [this] many instances, rising up, after which as an grownup, and my sister additionally, so I’m very acquainted. It’s very private to me.”

Her subsequent purpose, she stated, will likely be to run for greater statewide workplace in Missouri — she hasn’t determined which one but. “Proper now, I like what I’m doing.”

Rehder stated there’s a stigma in our tradition about individuals who develop up in abusive houses or in generational poverty. They typically repeat the cycle of changing into teenage dad and mom.

“I by no means gave up on myself, I by no means gave up on the concept I needed to pull myself out of the downward course my life was going. I would like different girls in these conditions to know you aren’t alone and you can also make it out,” says Rehder. “There are really forgotten individuals on the market in our nation — [people] dwelling in despair who we overlook in tradition, coverage and in politics. I do know as a result of I used to be certainly one of them for a really very long time.”