Try free for 30 days
-
From Plain to Plane
- My Mennonite Childhood, a National Scandal, and an Unconventional Soar to Freedom
- Narrated by: Patty Bear
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from Wish List failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for $27.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also picked
-
Starvation Heights
- Dangerous Women: True Crime Stories
- By: Gregg Olsen
- Narrated by: Stacey Glemboski
- Length: 15 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1911 two British heiresses, Claire and Dora Williamson, read a brochure about a revolutionary fasting treatment that promised a lifetime of good health. The sanatorium in the village of Olalla, west of Seattle, was surrounded by a beautiful forest, sparkling waters and fresh air. The sisters agreed it sounded perfect and exactly the restorative holiday they needed. But within a month of arriving, under the supervision of Doctor Linda Burfield Hazzard, Claire and Dora began to realise the frightening truth – they were not patients but prisoners at the isolated sanitorium.
-
-
Shocking and sad.
- By Anonymous User on 06-08-2023
-
Half In
- A Coming-of-Age Memoir of Forbidden Love
- By: Felice Cohen
- Narrated by: Felice Cohen
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What if your first love was a forbidden one? At 23, Felice Cohen was--like other recent college grads--hesitant about entering the real world with the added stress of coming out in the early '90s. Focused on how to land a full-time position as a writer, falling in love was the last thing on her mind. But fall in love she did. With her boss, a woman 34 years older.
-
-
Such an interesting story
- By Chantal on 13-06-2023
-
The Sound of Gravel
- A Memoir
- By: Ruth Wariner
- Narrated by: Ruth Wariner
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ruth Wariner was the 39th of her father's 42 children. Growing up on a farm in rural Mexico, where authorities turned a blind eye to the practices of her community, Ruth lives in a ramshackle house without indoor plumbing or electricity. At church, preachers teach that God will punish the wicked by destroying the world and that women can ascend to heaven only by entering into polygamous marriages and giving birth to as many children as possible.
-
-
Very well written/read
- By Rezz on 01-01-2017
-
Zenith Man
- Death, Love & Redemption in a Georgia Courtroom
- By: McCracken Poston Jr.
- Narrated by: Lee Goettl
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In October 1997, the town of Ringgold, Georgia, was shaken by reports of a murder in its midst. A dead woman was found in Alvin Ridley's house—and even more shockingly, she was the wife no one knew he had.
-
Uncultured
- A Memoir
- By: Daniella Mestyanek Young
- Narrated by: Daniella Mestyanek Young
- Length: 13 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Behind the tall, foreboding gates of a commune in Brazil, Daniella Mestyanek Young was raised in the religious cult The Children of God, also known as The Family, as the daughter of high-ranking members. Her great-grandmother donated land for one of The Family’s first communes in Texas. Her mother, at thirteen, was forced to marry the leader and served as his secretary for many years. Beholden to The Family’s strict rules, Daniella suffers physical, emotional, and sexual abuse—masked as godly discipline and divine love—and is forbidden from getting a traditional education.
-
-
CHILLS!!!
- By Anonymous User on 10-01-2024
-
Girl Unbroken
- A Sister's Harrowing Story of Survival from the Streets of Long Island to the Farms of Idaho
- By: Regina Calcaterra, Rosie Maloney
- Narrated by: Rosie Maloney, Regina Calcaterra
- Length: 11 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They are five kids with five different fathers and an alcoholic mother who leaves them to fend for themselves for weeks at a time. Yet through it all, they have each other. Rosie, the youngest, is fawned over and shielded by her older sister, Regina. Their mother, Cookie, blows in and out of their lives "like a hurricane, blind and uncaring to everything in her path". But when Regina emancipates herself as a minor and escapes, her siblings are separated.
-
Starvation Heights
- Dangerous Women: True Crime Stories
- By: Gregg Olsen
- Narrated by: Stacey Glemboski
- Length: 15 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1911 two British heiresses, Claire and Dora Williamson, read a brochure about a revolutionary fasting treatment that promised a lifetime of good health. The sanatorium in the village of Olalla, west of Seattle, was surrounded by a beautiful forest, sparkling waters and fresh air. The sisters agreed it sounded perfect and exactly the restorative holiday they needed. But within a month of arriving, under the supervision of Doctor Linda Burfield Hazzard, Claire and Dora began to realise the frightening truth – they were not patients but prisoners at the isolated sanitorium.
-
-
Shocking and sad.
- By Anonymous User on 06-08-2023
-
Half In
- A Coming-of-Age Memoir of Forbidden Love
- By: Felice Cohen
- Narrated by: Felice Cohen
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What if your first love was a forbidden one? At 23, Felice Cohen was--like other recent college grads--hesitant about entering the real world with the added stress of coming out in the early '90s. Focused on how to land a full-time position as a writer, falling in love was the last thing on her mind. But fall in love she did. With her boss, a woman 34 years older.
-
-
Such an interesting story
- By Chantal on 13-06-2023
-
The Sound of Gravel
- A Memoir
- By: Ruth Wariner
- Narrated by: Ruth Wariner
- Length: 9 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Ruth Wariner was the 39th of her father's 42 children. Growing up on a farm in rural Mexico, where authorities turned a blind eye to the practices of her community, Ruth lives in a ramshackle house without indoor plumbing or electricity. At church, preachers teach that God will punish the wicked by destroying the world and that women can ascend to heaven only by entering into polygamous marriages and giving birth to as many children as possible.
-
-
Very well written/read
- By Rezz on 01-01-2017
-
Zenith Man
- Death, Love & Redemption in a Georgia Courtroom
- By: McCracken Poston Jr.
- Narrated by: Lee Goettl
- Length: 9 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In October 1997, the town of Ringgold, Georgia, was shaken by reports of a murder in its midst. A dead woman was found in Alvin Ridley's house—and even more shockingly, she was the wife no one knew he had.
-
Uncultured
- A Memoir
- By: Daniella Mestyanek Young
- Narrated by: Daniella Mestyanek Young
- Length: 13 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Behind the tall, foreboding gates of a commune in Brazil, Daniella Mestyanek Young was raised in the religious cult The Children of God, also known as The Family, as the daughter of high-ranking members. Her great-grandmother donated land for one of The Family’s first communes in Texas. Her mother, at thirteen, was forced to marry the leader and served as his secretary for many years. Beholden to The Family’s strict rules, Daniella suffers physical, emotional, and sexual abuse—masked as godly discipline and divine love—and is forbidden from getting a traditional education.
-
-
CHILLS!!!
- By Anonymous User on 10-01-2024
-
Girl Unbroken
- A Sister's Harrowing Story of Survival from the Streets of Long Island to the Farms of Idaho
- By: Regina Calcaterra, Rosie Maloney
- Narrated by: Rosie Maloney, Regina Calcaterra
- Length: 11 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
They are five kids with five different fathers and an alcoholic mother who leaves them to fend for themselves for weeks at a time. Yet through it all, they have each other. Rosie, the youngest, is fawned over and shielded by her older sister, Regina. Their mother, Cookie, blows in and out of their lives "like a hurricane, blind and uncaring to everything in her path". But when Regina emancipates herself as a minor and escapes, her siblings are separated.
-
Midnight Calling
- A Memoir of a Drug Smuggler's Daughter
- By: Lynn Walker
- Narrated by: Paige Reisenfeld
- Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Lynn was the carefree daughter of a Miami undercover narcotics agent—until her dad snuck out of their house in the dark of night without so much as a glance back. She never understood what happened to him until she was in high school, and he was in prison for drug smuggling. By then, Lynn had developed a massive drug and alcohol habit of her own. It was the perfect setup for her to latch onto the only connection to her dad that remained once he was paroled from prison—cocaine.
-
Unspeakable
- Surviving My Childhood and Finding My Voice
- By: Jessica Willis Fisher
- Narrated by: Jessica Fisher
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Using the written word as her witness statement, Jessica Willis Fisher tells a lacerating story of finding her voice after two decades of silence and an unforgettable story of risk and faith.
-
-
Amazing
- By Merryn Wilson on 01-05-2024
-
The Edge of Innocence: The Trial of Casper Bennett
- By: David P. Miraldi
- Narrated by: Steve Wannall
- Length: 12 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Edge of Innocence is a work of narrative nonfiction based on the 1964 murder trial of Casper Bennett, a man accused of drowning his wife in a bathtub of scalding water in Lorain, Ohio. Bennett's sensational trial pitted an aggressive, mercurial county prosecutor against the author's father, a civil trial attorney who had never before defended anyone for murder.
-
Homeless to Hopkins
- By: Christopher L. Smith
- Narrated by: Timothy French
- Length: 6 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Despite the terrible nights, I still woke up, got dressed, and went to my only refuge, my high school. This was my life, often alone, cold, sad, and hungry. My youth was different than most, but this was my reality.
-
American Black Widow
- Dangerous Women: True Crime Stories
- By: Gregg Olsen
- Narrated by: Karen Peakes
- Length: 10 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Colorado, 1976. When Reverend Mike Fuller and his beautiful wife, Sharon, arrive in the sleepy town of Rocky Ford, local residents think something’s off about the new couple. The God-fearing minister is gruff and cold, while charismatic Sharon has her husband wrapped around her finger.
-
-
Too long.
- By Anonymous User on 06-08-2023
-
On the Ledge
- By: Amy Turner
- Narrated by: Amy Turner
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1957, when Amy Turner was four-years-old, her father had to be talked down from a hotel ledge by a priest. The story of his attempted suicide received nationwide press coverage, and he spent months in a psychiatric facility before returning home. From then on, Amy constantly worried about him for reasons she didn't yet fully understand, triggering a pattern of hypervigilance that would plague her into adulthood.
-
Damaged
- After the Coma, After the Headlines, the Story of a Family
- By: Janet Smuga
- Narrated by: Zoe Fletcher
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Damaged is a story of survivor's guilt coupled with resentment tempered by love. It reveals the changing dynamics of a family faced with an injury no one could heal. Nancy Klein was in the first trimester of her second pregnancy when she made headlines as "Coma Mom." This intimate memoir, written by Klein's sister, reveals all that happened to her and her family after the news cycle moved on. The family: a mother who never gave up hope, even when hope was long gone, and a father who couldn't live without his wife's love.
-
The Great Stewardess Rebellion
- How Women Launched a Workplace Revolution at 30,000 Feet
- By: Nell McShane Wulfhart
- Narrated by: Bonnie Friel
- Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It was the Golden Age of Travel, and everyone wanted in. As flying boomed in the 1960s, women from across the United States applied for jobs as stewardesses. They were drawn to the promise of glamorous jet-setting, the chance to see the world, and an alternative to traditional occupations like homemaking, nursing, and teaching.
-
Broken Faith
- Inside the Word of Faith Fellowship, One of America's Most Dangerous Cults
- By: Mitch Weiss, Holbrook Mohr
- Narrated by: Vivienne Leheny
- Length: 12 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1979, a fiery preacher named Jane Whaley attracted a small group of followers with a promise that she could turn their lives around. In the years since, Whaley’s following has expanded to include thousands of congregants across three continents. Based on hundreds of interviews, secretly recorded conversations, and thousands of pages of documents, Pulitzer Prize winner Mitch Weiss and Holbrook Mohr’s Broken Faith is a terrifying portrait life inside the Word of Faith Fellowship, and the harrowing account of one family who escaped after two decades.
-
-
Interesting content
- By Anonymous User on 01-01-2024
-
The Teacher's Pet
- By: Hedley Thomas
- Narrated by: Hedley Thomas
- Length: 18 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If you thought you knew the story of The Teacher's Pet, get ready to be shocked. Hedley Thomas takes you behind the scenes with a blow-by-blow account of one of the most intriguing and enduring murder mysteries of our time - the crime, the podcast investigation, the sexual exploitation of teenage students, the courtroom drama - and how justice was finally delivered.
-
-
What a journey!
- By Anonymous User on 12-11-2023
-
The Colony
- Faith and Blood in a Promised Land
- By: Sally Denton
- Narrated by: Ann Richardson
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
On the morning of November 4, 2019, a caravan of women and children was ambushed by masked gunmen on a desolate stretch of road in northern Mexico controlled by the Sinaloa drug cartel. Firing semi-automatic weapons, the attackers killed nine people and gravely injured five more. The victims were members of the LeBaron and La Mora communities-fundamentalist Mormons whose forebears broke from the LDS Church and settled in Mexico when their religion outlawed polygamy in the late nineteenth century.
-
-
Not what I expect
- By Rachael M on 08-05-2023
-
The Amish Wife
- Unraveling the Lies, Secrets, and Conspiracy That Let a Killer Go Free
- By: Gregg Olsen
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1977, in an Ohio Amish community, pregnant wife and mother Ida Stutzman perished during a barn fire. The coroner’s report: natural causes. Ida’s husband, Eli, was never considered a suspect. But when he eventually rejected the faith and took his son, Danny, with him, murder followed. What really happened to Ida? The dubious circumstances of the tragic blaze were willfully ignored and Eli’s shifting narratives disregarded.
Publisher's Summary
Famous Shunned Mennonite's Daughter Finally Breaks Her Decades-Long Silence
In 1972, Patty Bear’s father, Robert Bear, was excommunicated from their church and subsequently shunned by members including Gale, his wife. For Amish and Old Order Mennonites, known as “Plain People”, shunning is a biblical practice meant to bring wayward members back into the community’s fold.
But Robert Bear was enraged. Within months, the tranquil life Patty and her five siblings had enjoyed on a bucolic Pennsylvania farm was upended as their father’s anger gave way to abuse.
Raised to be a silent, submissive, and obedient Mennonite woman, Gale stoically turned the other cheek as Robert hit, humiliated, and gaslighted her. Even as Robert’s tactics escalated to tormenting Patty and her siblings, depriving the family of money and food, tirading publicly against them and hiring a PR agency to portray him as a presumed victim, Gale and the children remained silent. The campaign garnered explosive news coverage: Good Morning America, People Magazine, The Washington Post, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and The New York Times were among the dozens of outlets that portrayed Robert as an innocent victim of a coldhearted wife and a misguided church.
In From Plain to Plane: My Mennonite Childhood, a National Scandal, and an Unconventional Soar to Freedom, Patty Bear reveals the truth about what the Bear family silently endured for decades and how she managed to break free - ultimately entering the US Airforce Academy and becoming one of a tiny percentage of female pilots and airline captains. Her story illustrates how trauma can sometimes be a path to liberation. Equal parts vivid and dark, heartbreaking and heroic, From Plain to Plane demonstrates abusers’ insidious methods, how easy it is to manipulate public opinion, and the resounding power of speaking up.