Mary's House offers women a chance at recovery, rebirth

Mary's House offers women a chance at recovery, rebirth
By Chandra Broadwater, Times Staff Writer
In print: Sunday, June 29, 2008


BROOKSVILLE

It was early Easter morning in 2006. Wendy Anderson lay in an Ocala field, bloody and battered, while paramedics pushed on her chest to get a heartbeat. Someone had heard her screams in the darkness and called 911. Police arrived to find a man on top of her naked body, raping her. She had been stabbed and hit in the head. Anderson had put herself in the path of danger with another round of crack cocaine and liquor. Home was a seedy motel room. She needed a ride, and got into a car with a strange man. That she survived his brutality is a miracle. That she is now getting her life back together is a testament to a special place many miles from that attack, in a peaceful, tree-shaded renovated farmhouse off Howell Avenue in Brooksville. A place called Mary's House. Anderson, 41, has been here since April. She's sober now and leaves no doubt how she feels about Hernando County's first and only women's shelter.

"I shouldn't be alive," she said. "But for some reason, I am. I know it's God's will that I'm at Mary's House."
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