I got a reminder of my former life as a TV news reporter yesterday. It came from an e-mail. I didn't know the sender but it didn't look like spam and it didn't have any attachments so I opened it. A woman had written to ask me if I could put her in contact with LC or Sharon Nolan. I didn't recognize the names. The sender was taking part in a quiet vigil in Covington, Kentucky - just over the Ohio River from Cincinnati - for a shooting victim named Betty Hamilton that she thought had died in a case of domestic violence. I'd never heard of her but it dawned on me that the sender thought I still worked at WCPO-TV in Cincinnati.
A Google search for LC Nolan showed the connection. The Nolans had lost their daughter when her husband beat her to death with a baseball bat in 2001. She was pregnant at the time. The Nolans have since become advocates for domestic violence victims and I interviewed them for a story in September of 2004.
I remembered this only because the first result in the Google search for LC Nolan was a journal entry I published on my web site about it, which would explain how the e-mail sender found me.
Then I remembered. I remembered how the Nolans clutched their daughter's memory probably more tightly than they held her when she was alive. I remembered how heartbroken they still were and always would be. I remember wishing I had met their daughter, who sounded like a loving, caring young lady who deserved a much better life than she lived. And I remembered the frustrations of trying to tell the story that I detailed in my journal entry that I won't regurgitate here.
I also remembered, sad as the circumstances were, how glad I was that I got to meet the Nolans and tell their story. The hardest people to approach are often the most rewarding to talk to.
I replied to the e-mailer that I had left Cincinnati three years ago and didn't take my Rolodex with me. The Google search yielded a couple of recent articles in the Cincinnati Enquirer that mentioned the Nolans. I passed the links on to her, explained that maybe the writers of the stories could help her and closed with an apology that I could not be more helpful.
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This is John McQuiston's blog, where you can subject yourself to his musings, his music, his photographs and even some of his professional work. John does not always write about himself in the third person.
- John
- Reporter, Writer, Video Biographer, Essayist, Photographer, Musician, Observer. On air, On-line, Whatever it takes to tell the story. These are some of mine. See more @ JohnMcQuiston.com
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2 comments:
I'm not sure if you are talking about the same betty Hamilton....but the only one I know is my aunt. She shot her grand daughter's father to protect her,and her mother from the constant abuse they were suffering from him. Unfortunately,she took her own life as well. I had not heard of the Nolans,until now,but I applaud their efforts to end the violence often inflicted on women by the men care for.
I'm not sure if you are talking about the same betty Hamilton....but the only one I know is my aunt. She shot her grand daughter's father to protect her,and her mother from the constant abuse they were suffering from him. Unfortunately,she took her own life as well. I had not heard of the Nolans,until now,but I applaud their efforts to end the violence often inflicted on women by the men care for.
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