"It can take months before some of the boarding school girls trust Leona Kitto enough to reveal their stories of abuse.
She won't reveal details or names. But she cries when she thinks of their stories - and how they mirror her own.
She holds the girls, and she tells them: �That feeling will never go away. But we still got to heal and we got to go on.�
Leona wiped tears from her eyes as she sat in the Wholeness Center, a domestic violence and sexual assault shelter in Flandreau.
�I went through that in my younger days,� she said. �It's a hard feeling. I'll cry every time. But that crying kind of heals me. I learned to think that way. We have to let the hurt feelings out.�
Most of the students at the Flandreau Indian School call this 66-year-old woman Grandma. They've come to know the dorm assistant who covers the 3 p.m.-to-midnight shift.
Leona isn't a counselor, but in the evening hours, it's just her and the girls, alone with their feelings.
Leona understands their stories of sexual and physical violence at home. She was beaten by her mother and sexually abused by male relatives."
Get the Story:Jodi Rave: Leona Kitto's tears tell a painful story, but they help heal the girls she comforts (The Missoulian 9/24)
South Dakota tribal-city police department a national model for handling domestic abuse (The Missoulian 9/24) Relevant Links:
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