Hubbard aims to see book become film

By AMY R. KAUFMAN

article created on: 2010-02-04T00:00:00

Through her Judaism, Lydia Wakefield Hubbard has found the strength to carry out her avowed mission: to help others who have endured sexual abuse.
    
After years of exposure to Jewish sacred texts and through her travel to Israel and studies with Rabbi Joshua Stampfer of Congregation Neveh Shalom, Hubbard said she realized that she “belonged with the Jews.”
    
A member of Congregation Shaarie Torah for the past 22 years, she converted to Judaism with Rabbi Yonah Geller. Hubbard, a Jewish Federation of Greater Portland Lion of Judah for 10 years, is an active supporter of federation, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and other Jewish organizations.
    
In fact, it was at an AIPAC dinner that Hubbard met the Hollywood producer who is now advancing her quest to reach “the abused people of the world.”
    
In November 2002 Time magazine featured Hubbard in a story on the therapeutic value of personal histories.
    
After suffering from depression for 27 years, Hubbard said she found solace in revealing the trauma of her youth in “Feet Running and Bare,” a book that is now in its second edition.
    
She told Time, “Psychiatry offered me treatment, but telling my story finally provided healing.”
    
Now in her 70s, Hubbard is working tirelessly to take her story to the screen.
    
“I survived something that a lot of people don’t survive, and I have a gift and I can help a lot of people,” she said. “I could have said, well, I wrote the book, that’s enough.
    
“That’s not enough. It needs to reach as many people as possible.”
    
About two years ago, when she attended an AIPAC dinner in Los Angeles, that dream took a step closer to becoming a reality, she said.
    
The dinner was held at the estate of Hollywood producer Steve Stabler, Hubbard  said.  She was sitting in the front row, and she recalled that Stabler stood up and identified himself, then “greeted the VIPs” at the next table.
    
“I got up from my table and went and shook his hand,” she said. “I introduced myself and told him, ‘I have a story.’”
    
Stabler said, “If you have something, send it to me,” according to Hubbard.
    
It was some months before she contacted him, Hubbard said. She sent him her book, and then he requested a two-page synopsis. Three months later, she said, they met at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and last year she attended a series of meetings with him in Los Angeles.
    
“He set me up with an entire team,” she said. “He told me it was going to be a hard road, but he said, ‘There’s no question but that you should be out there.’”
    
Now that she and screenwriter Jana Godshall have completed a screenplay based on the book, Hubbard said she is “looking for an agent to pursue companies that fund films.”
    
Hubbard, a registered nurse with a bachelor of science degree in nursing from Linfield College/Good Samaritan School of Nursing, said she believes sexual abuse “happens in all walks of life.”
    
“It’s hidden and secretive, but it occurs,” she said. “Some people push it under the rug and never talk about it. Some people are not up to it. It takes a lot of guts, and I was born with guts.”
    
Hubbard and her husband, Bill, of blessed memory, raised five children during their 59-year marriage.
    
For more information about Hubbard’s project, please contact her at 503-223-5242.