TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Writing Wrongs

CANDACE C. MUNDY/TAMPA TRIBUNE

Children's Home in Tampa. She had been in foster care for almost 10 years before she was adopted. Ashley, now 22, recently graduated from Eckerd College. She has written a book of her memoirs called "Three Little Words" which was just published this month. IN PHOTO--Ashley recently visited The Children's Home and had the opportunity to return to the cottage she lived in and talk with a couple of the kids who currently live there (unable to use their names). Also seen in photo is Evangeline Reid (standing beside Ashley), a primary care leader, and Xann (cq) Leseberg, a primary support worker

ADVERTISEMENT

By ANGELA DELGADO, The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 23, 2008

TOWN 'N COUNTRY - Ashley Rhodes-Courter wasn't used to being the center of attention.

In the span of nine years, Rhodes-Courter had been taken from her mother, separated from her younger brother and placed with 14 foster families; one abused her for nine months.

Had someone tried to predict her future, they likely wouldn't have painted a pretty picture. But Rhodes-Courter did not let her tough upbringing bring her down; instead, she used her experience to persevere and turn her life into a lesson for others.

Although Rhodes-Courter has given numerous speeches, been interviewed on talk shows and was named one of Glamour magazine's Top Ten College Women, it was a 2003 winning essay the New York Times magazine published that led her to write her memoir, "Three Little Words."

The book, which debuted in January, is the most in-depth account of her life as a foster child and adoptee.

"I hope it sheds light on the foster care system and that it inspires people to foster or adopt," said the red-haired, brown-eyed, 22-year-old woman. "I hope it acts as a good tale for change. I don't want it to be a pity story."

Rhodes-Courter was born in North Carolina in 1985. Her mother was 17, and she chose to name her baby girl after a character in the soap opera "The Young and the Restless."

Rhodes-Courter said she remembers how her mother's twin sister dropped out of college to help take care of her, and she likened the experience to "teenagers playing house."

By the time her mother turned 21, she had three children. When Rhodes-Courter was 3, her mother's boyfriend was arrested for forging checks. When her mother was implicated and arrested for his crime, the children were taken into temporary care.

And so began the next nine years of Rhodes-Courter's life.

Rhodes-Courter said she remembers many of the homes. She stayed in some for less than a week. As she moved, she carted her belongings in a garbage bag.

"If you ask any foster kid, garbage bags for us double as suitcases," she said. "Oftentimes we would wake up at a different place from where we went to sleep."

When she researched her past for her memoir, looking through old case files, her memories became more vivid, and she learned why she was removed from certain homes.

One home she didn't have a problem remembering was one in Plant City where the foster parents abused her and the other children. When she arrived at the 1,200-square-foot mobile home, she said she and her younger half-brother, Luke, became two of 16 foster kids living there.

The foster parents beat the children, locked them outside and starved them, Rhodes-Courter said. She said she spoke up but was branded a liar when the other children wouldn't speak out of fear. She was later removed from the home, without Luke. Today, Rhodes-Courter keeps in contact with her brother, who was adopted.

"I felt so guilty for leaving them all behind," she said. "I was so furious they were allowed to have kids over and over."

Years later, Rhodes-Courter took legal action against the abusive couple, who had adopted eight children. Her adoptive father, Phillip Courter, said the couple had their rights to foster and adopt taken away. The adopted children were placed back into foster care.

It took Rhodes-Courter three more homes before she arrived at The Children's Home, 10909 Memorial Highway in Town 'N Country.

She lived there from 1995-97 before Phillip and Gay Courter, a filmmaker and best-selling novelist, respectively, came into her life. The couple had two college-aged sons and they had a case of the empty nest syndrome, they said.

They heard about Ashley through a friend, and after an arduous process, The Children's Home connected her with the Courters. Rhodes-Courter lived with them for nine months before July 28, 1998, adoption day, the day she uttered the infamous "three little words."

Those words were "I guess so," and they were in response to the judge asking her whether she approved of the Courters officially becoming her parents.

Rhodes-Courter said that when she watches the tape of her adoption she cringes.

"I just had completely given up faith and hope," she said. "I didn't have a wonderful idea of adoption being this permanent thing. I thought this adoption thing is crap because on the second day they'll send you back."

The next few years were trying for Rhodes-Courter and her adoptive parents. Rhodes-Courter tested the Courters, seeing how far she could go before they decided to give up on her, just like everyone else.

"We met her lonely and frightened, very fearful of how her life was going to go," Phillip Courter said. "We had some challenges, I have to admit."

Rhodes-Courter isn't a teenager anymore, and she has long realized the Courters are in it for the long haul. Their love for one another wasn't immediate, like fairy tale movies portray, but their love is real now.

"There's no difference with the way I love Ashley and the way I love my other kids," Phillip Courter said. "She is just so much fun and such a delight to be around. So many people say 'Ashley was lucky to have found you,' and I say, 'We're the lucky ones to have found Ashley.'"

Her parents supported her decision to pursue the abusive couple from Plant City legally, they helped her shuffle through numerous files when she researched for her book and they gave her the kind of love a scared 12-year-old needed.

"I'm just so proud to be their daughter," she said. "I want everybody in my life to meet them. I beam with pride when I think about how successful and happy they are and how happy they've made me.

"It's just wonderful to have people there forever, no matter what," she said. "Family is just something that's there forever."

Rhodes-Courter recently graduated from Eckerd College with a degree in communications and theater and is touring the country lecturing on adoption. Her book was recently No. 1 in children's books about homelessness and poverty and No. 2 in children's books about orphans and foster homes on Amazon.com.

Rhodes-Courter isn't sure what lies ahead; another book, perhaps? What she does know is that she wants to have a family.

"I'd like to have a happy and successful family and be a good mother, give my kids a life I didn't have initially," she said.

Reporter Angela Delgado can be reached at (813) 865-1501 or adelgado@tampatrib.com.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT