Cheryl Seelhoff For Newbies

[debrand]

http://www.homeedmag.com/seelhoffvs.welch/truth.html

Cheryl Seelhoff was mentioned in another thread and I thought some of you would appreciate a link to information about her.

Gregg Harris is the father of Joshua Harris who wrote, I Kissed Dating Goodbye. In the article, Gregg sounds like a despicable man.

[jaelh]

http://www.homeedmag.com/seelhoffvs.welch/truth.html

Cheryl Seelhoff was mentioned in another thread and I thought some of you would appreciate a link to information about her.

Gregg Harris is the father of Joshua Harris who wrote, I Kissed Dating Goodbye. In the article, Gregg sounds like a despicable man.

Didn't she reinvent herself as Heart? (debrand, you know who I mean,no?)

[Brainsample]

Drop down - to about 3/4 of the way through the article. There is a whole subsection on Gregg Hariris.

homeschooling.gomilpitas.com/articles/ravage-of-home-education-p2.htm

What Raymond Moore had to say was not too flattering. Also some interesting stuff about Mike Farris and Brian Ray.

[GenerationCedarchip]

There's also some information on Seelhoff in Quiverfull by Kathryn Joyce. I felt so sad for her when I read that book. Folks like Mary Pride and others in the homeschooling community really come off looking quite vicious in that book for what happened with Cheryl Seelhoff. So much for "staying sweet".

[Brainsample]

There's also some information on Seelhoff in Quiverfull by Kathryn Joyce. I felt so sad for her when I read that book. Folks like Mary Pride and others in the homeschooling community really come off looking quite vicious in that book for what happened with Cheryl Seelhoff. So much for "staying sweet".

It think that it was equally vicious all around.

I guess it was pretty well known that Cheryl was having the affair, and I'm told that many people did reach out to her in a loving and Christian way to confront her about it and to call her to make things right (whatever that would have entailed, in terms of living the right way as a Christian). None of that makes what Welch, Pride, Harris, Faye, and whomever else Cheryl brought charges against. The homeschooling convention speaking circuit definitely had their big sharks, and Cheryl apparently swam with them pretty well for quite awhile.

The affair started, and I guess it was fairly obvious. It was up to the homeschooling convention coordinators to decide if they wanted to feature Cheryl or not, and if they didn't like how she behaved, they could have cancelled her as a speaker. That was not enough for the bunch that trashed her online, some of which was legitimate, but that whole thing regarding publishing the private letter from the pastor was not. It was one of the first tolls of the bell indicating that homeschooling was not just about encouragement and education but was also a way to make a lot of money. Sharks smell blood, and they fought for the meat.

But some who knew of matters early on did try to get her to stop the affair, etc. Some claim that there was never any abuse in Cheryl's first marriage -- that this was concocted to make her affair seem more understandable.

Perception, perception. I guess that it's safe to say that people on all sides of the drama made moral errors, as we human beings tend to do, especially where money is concerned.

[Austin]

Well, I still wouldn't say "equal". IIRC, some of this had already started with those fine Christians being concerned that Cheryl hadn't "been honest" with her readership of her homeschooling magazine about her racially mixed marriage. And IIRC, harassment occurred over this issue before the homeschool conference in Columbus.

[tehgoobster]

From the article:

This was not the first time the publisher of The Teaching Home had a worry about Cheryl. A year prior to the CHEO convention she phoned its Executive Director, Michael Boutot, after learning that Cheryl's family is biracial. Welch felt that Cheryl had purposely hidden this, and the public deserved to know that she was in an interracial marriage.

Why on earth would she believe that the public deserved to know that? Seriously, what would it matter to anyone who wasn't a blatant racist? Ugh!

[GenerationCedarchip]

It think that it was equally vicious all around.

I guess it was pretty well known that Cheryl was having the affair, and I'm told that many people did reach out to her in a loving and Christian way to confront her about it and to call her to make things right (whatever that would have entailed, in terms of living the right way as a Christian). None of that makes what Welch, Pride, Harris, Faye, and whomever else Cheryl brought charges against. The homeschooling convention speaking circuit definitely had their big sharks, and Cheryl apparently swam with them pretty well for quite awhile.

The affair started, and I guess it was fairly obvious. It was up to the homeschooling convention coordinators to decide if they wanted to feature Cheryl or not, and if they didn't like how she behaved, they could have cancelled her as a speaker. That was not enough for the bunch that trashed her online, some of which was legitimate, but that whole thing regarding publishing the private letter from the pastor was not. It was one of the first tolls of the bell indicating that homeschooling was not just about encouragement and education but was also a way to make a lot of money. Sharks smell blood, and they fought for the meat.

But some who knew of matters early on did try to get her to stop the affair, etc. Some claim that there was never any abuse in Cheryl's first marriage -- that this was concocted to make her affair seem more understandable.

Perception, perception. I guess that it's safe to say that people on all sides of the drama made moral errors, as we human beings tend to do, especially where money is concerned.

When I first read about this, that is what really stuck out for me. Some folks may not have wanted Cheryl as a speaker because they thought her affair set a bad example. However, the enthusiasm with which her former friends and associates seem to have gone after her (at least in Joyce's account) was pretty amazing. IIRC, there was a bit in there about how Mary Pride actually wrote to all of Seelhoff's subscribers to tell her customers what a horrible and ungodly person Cheryl was. And then, as others mentioned, there was the whole business, which struck me as racist, about how some seemed to think that the world needed to know about Cheryl's interracial marriage as if that somehow had a bearing on her capabilities in her professional life. Since I was fundie but not homeschooled growing up (fundies had taken over the school board), I had no idea there was such drama! :violin:

[Crackedeggs]

I remember watching a lot of this go down on various boards and sites; this was back when I was pregnant and looking for answers and information about various things and found the fundie world. I remember of ist I was on exploding into a war because of this Cheryl vs everybody else thing. She was on that list, as were a couple other hot shots, ( though i don't remember who they were) I also remember saying something in the fray about having left my first husband because of severe abuse, and being remarried, how could that be wrong, and getting attacked by everyone BUT Cheryl - she seemed really nice. Thing was, i went and read her old mag copies posted on line and of course in those she still touted the party line. It was all somewhat confusing to my young, hormonally addled brain LOL! I remember some posters making comments about how racially impure relationships were against gods will too.

Looking back now, i don't she how she possibly thought these people would NOT attack her if she separated from Clyde. but things were fairly new then, and the "stay if he hits you or even cheats on you" crap was just getting nasty at this point.

[Brainsample]

It was all pretty sad. I loved Cheryl's magazine for some of the elements and knew little to nothing about that world because I had no kids and didn't homeschool. I was so mad at what happened, I ordered gift subscriptions for several people (but they never sent the magazines). I didn't much care. It was sad.

I don't care much now, other than I hope that Cheryl and these others find peace and happiness and whatever fits them best. Apart from Cheryl, these other people have reputations that are just as bad and didn't need any more bad press because of this drama. Everyone has a theory of what happened, and this is one of the problems in our mobile society with the ability to communicate in limited forums like the net. There are several sides to the saga. Perspective is everything.

Sad. It could have ended in a much better way, whether Cheryl wanted to remain doing (the mag and conferences) what she had been doing or not.

[debrand]

Didn't she reinvent herself as Heart? (debrand, you know who I mean,no?)

Is this Cheryl?

http://heartforpresident.wetpaint.com/

[Austin]

Yes, that's her.

[MamaJunebug]

Is this Cheryl?

http://heartforpresident.wetpaint.com/

Egads. If my math is right and Claude was her first husband, she stayed with him after he fractured her skull and eyesockets with a tire iron in 1975 and had at least four of her nine children with him after that. (Page is from 2007, when her oldest is 36; thus the oldest was born in 1971; thus if she had a child every year in '72, '73, '74 and '75.

Which would indicate to me that she endured far more than many, and Pride and Company didn't credit her for that?

I wonder how Frank Schaefer has dealt with the fact that he was instrumental in giving Pride her big break in publishing/leadership. Poor guy.