4 Quotes & Sayings By Freda Utley

Freda Utley was born in Madison, Wisconsin. At the age of 22, she became a registered nurse. In 1942 she married a U.S. Army Air Force pilot, and they moved to California after he was discharged from active duty Read more

She was a patient at the famous Menninger Clinic in Topeka, Kansas for four years, where she earned a master's degree in nursing. In 1948, she earned a degree from The University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration. Freda Utley worked as a public health nurse for the Los Angeles County Department of Health from 1949-1951, and as an emergency room nurse at St.

Joseph Hospital from 1951-1956. Utley began her writing career in 1953 with her first book, "The Painted Lady." Her many books include: "The Painted Lady" (1953) "The Painted Lady Returns" (1954) "The Painted Lady Goes to War" (1955) "The Painted Lady Goes to Town Again" (1956) "The Painted Lady Goes Hollywood" (1957) "The Painted Lady Goes East" (1959) "The Painted Lady Gets Married" (1964) "Tony and Zoe: A Love Story" (1975) "Trouble Comes to Town: A Tale of Two Cities"(1983) "On the Road to Glory: Or How I Became a Grandmother and Learned to Be an Actress and Enjoyed It"(1988)

1
What had been a region of model farming became almost a desert, for more than half the population was exiled or sent to concentration camps. The young people left the villages, the boys to go to the factories if they could get jobs, or to become vagabonds if they couldn’t.*** An echo of the tragic fate of Russia’s German Protestant population reached the world when the Mennonites flocked to Moscow and sought permission to leave the country. Some of these Germans had tried to obey the government and had formed collective farms, only to have them liquidated as Kulak collectives. Being first-class farmers, they had committed the crime of making even a Kolkhoz productive and prosperous. Others had quite simply been expropriated from their individual holdings. All were in despair. Few were allowed to leave Russia. They were sent to Siberia to die, or herded into slave labor concentration camps. The crime of being good farmers was unforgivable, and they must suffer for this sin.*** Cheat or be cheated, bully or be bullied, was the law of life. Only the German minority with their strong religious and moral sense–the individual morality of the Protestant as opposed to the mass subservience demanded by the Greek Orthodox Church and the Soviet Government–retained their culture and even some courage under Stalin’s Terror. . Freda Utley
2
Why is it that we who have enjoyed the human free­doms which our forefathers fought so hard to win and to bequeath to us, do not, with the example of Russia before us, realize the horrors of life without freedom? Why is it that we cannot understand that there is no such thing as embracing Communism as an experiment? It is a one-way street, ending in a cul de sac of secret police terror, firing squads for the intellectuals and leaders and concentration camps and slave labor for the masses. There is no turning back; there is no escape. Freda Utley
3
Perhaps the breaking of the human spirit into submissive, thoughtless robots is the most terrible feature of Stalin’s Russia. Humanity is bowed down. Every one cringes before his superiors, and those who abase themselves seek outlets in bullying and terrifying the unfortunates beneath them. Integrity, courage and charity disappear in the stifling atmosphere of cant, falsehood and terror. Freda Utley