A Childhood Lost

Kenneth Dale Dimmitt had just retired from a 21-year career in the United States Armed Forces when he learned that he was in the final stages of leukemia. His time was limited. On December 23, 1985, three days after checking into the hospital in Fort Worth, Texas, he was told to go home to celebrate an early Christmas. The doctors knew it would be his last with his children. Unfortunately for his young, unsuspecting family, this final Christmas celebration would also be his next to last day on earth.

His 13-year-old son, Alan–the future founder of Liberty Youth Ranch–recalls that it seemed odd to be celebrating Christmas a day early. However, as a young teenager, he was easily distracted with the unusually large number of presents under the tree. It was Alan's best Christmas ever! Alan was overjoyed to receive every gift that a 13-year-old boy could possibly need or want. He did not realize at the time that his father was having a great deal of difficulty breathing, even with the aid of an oxygen tank. Alan does recall that, as the Christmas celebration progressed, he became confused as to why his once strong and powerful dad was crying, why his dad wouldn't help him set up his new train track, and why he couldn't show him how to play his new pin-ball game. It wasn't until the ambulance arrived to take Alan's dad back to the hospital that he knew something was seriously wrong.

Later that day at the hospital, Alan would have his last conversation with his role model, his best friend, and the only protector he had from an abusive stepmother. As snow fell outside, father and son sat together on the hospital bed and watched the Dallas Cowboys on television. When visiting hours were over, Alan begged his stepmother to let him stay at the hospital, but she wouldn't let him. Alan knew that, if anything happened to his dad, he and his older brother would not stand a chance of surviving the intense abuse his stepmother committed against them when his father wasn't around. As Alan left the hospital, the last words he remembers his father saying were, "Son, be a good boy and you stay out of her way for me." Alan wondered if his father shared the same fears. He would never get the chance to ask.

The following day, on Christmas Eve, Alan's father, just 39 years old, died. Less than 24 hours earlier, Alan had thought he was celebrating his best Christmas ever. Now, he realized, it was his worst. Alan and his older brother, Jerry, knew they would have to find somewhere else to live, that they would never survive their stepmother’s abuse without their father’s protection. They tried desperately to locate their biological mother with whom they had had only limited contact, only to learn that she was missing–missing for so long that she was presumed dead and the Fort Worth Police Department had closed her file. Alan’s only hope was lost!

Alan’s loss and grief continued to deepen as his stepmother decided to auction off the family ranch and all of the family's belongings, including Alan's Christmas presents. Strangers came into his bedroom and put stickers with numbers on all of his toys, baseball cards, clothes, tennis shoes, and even his prized baby books with pictures of his daddy and mommy when he was first born.

At first, numb with grief, Alan couldn't understand what was happening, but when people started showing up for the auction, Alan realized that everything was going to be sold. Cautiously, he sneaked his baby books, father's cowboy hat, and a few family pictures out of the house with the garbage, and hid them at the end of the street in a gutter. He went back for a second trip and tried to sneak out the American Flag that had been presented to the family by the United States Military at his father's funeral, but his stepmother caught him. He was severely punished.

After everything was sold, Alan's stepmother took all remaining assets and fled to Mexico, leaving the boys behind. The only belongings that Alan inherited were those precious few treasures that he had hidden in the gutter.