Cameron King
Profile Story
KEENE, N.H.- Louwanna Newton has survived more than most, from being pronounced deceased to her entire middle school after barely escaping a tornado, to having a triple miscarriage in the parking lot of a BJ’s superstore. Her epic story reminds us that everyone, everywhere has an epic story.
It was not until Louwanna Newton, born in Hudson Massachusetts, at seven years old saw her first near death encounter. Her youngest brother, born Wane Cody in 1962 said was attempting to catch a blue bird out of a second story window when he plunged head-first down to the concrete. Louwanna Cody, 7 years old at the time, had left the window open before going to a friend’s house. Newton recalls receiving a sobbing phone call from her father, screaming incoherently. It wasn’t until the stifling moment that as Louwanna remembers as, “absolutely horrendous” that she saw her bloodied brother in her mother’s arms, everyone in the house screaming and filled with tears.
“I cried for days after” said Louwanna Newton, born in 1961 in Hudson Massachusetts.
“I just remember sitting there crying and screaming with my whole family. My mother was yelling, ‘Wayne! Wayne! Wake Up!’.”
Wayne Cody never quite recovered. Dubbed, “miracle baby” for surviving by the doctors, now he is 47 years old and living self-sufficiently with permanent brain damage and a permanent limp, Louwanna Newton recalls that incident as, “Her most vivid memory.”
Newton, who has expressed severe regret about leaving that one window open said she’s never been physically distraught like that. At seven years old she became so ill that she joined her brother Wayne in the hospital during his 17 day coma and four month recovery phase before coming home. Louwanna had been diagnosed with her first round of whooping cough and severe pneumonia.
“I’ve been through a lot, and it seems like it hasn’t stopped since I was seven.” Said Newton.
Newton’s father headed the family of five children. And while Louwanna Newton admitted that she didn’t quite grow up in the most lavish community, “my parents always found a way to figure it out, despite us being on the edge eviction all the time.”
Newton also recalls that near one Christmas her family was indeed struggling. “Figuring out how to pay the bills was a priority, but we had no money my parents still figured out how to buy my brother and I two brand new bikes for Christmas.”
Though there are many bright spots in Louwanna’s life, she remembers the worst memories a bit more clearly. On her way home after being picked up from school in Marlborough, Massachusetts when she was 10 years old, her and her father saw a multi-car wreck on the highway, directly in front of them that all started with a flipped 18 wheeler. Newton recalls venturing out with her father to see if people were ok. What Louwanna saw would stick with her forever.
“Half of his head was gone. He was sitting there with half of his head decapitated. The truck driver that is.”
Shortly after that traumatizing event, and a short stint in Shegrin Falls Ohio, Newton’s family moved to Deerwood, Minnesota. At 12 years old Louwanna suddenly found herself in the care of a neighbor’s home, as her parents went back to Massachusetts to take care of Louwanna’s deathly ill grandmother.
With her brother and sisters old enough to take care of themselves Louwanna found herself and her younger sister passed on to the care of a neighbor. “They fed us hours after they had ordered takeout for themselves. They were nasty people. Sometimes I’d sit there just watching them eat, expressing no remorse. They’d eventually give me and my sister some cold pasta right before bed.”
After surviving several more ordeals through whopping cough, and rheumatoid pneumonia, Louwanna’s family elected to move back to Massachusetts after the passing of her grandmother. The Cody family was on their way back to Massachusetts, just a few days before Louwanna’s return to school for 6th grade back in Massachusetts. The day was April 3th, 1974 and her family was caught in the famous Clover Leaf tornado in Cleveland. Newton recalls, “The hail was a big as grapefruits. It was like hell out there.”
After being stranded for several days in ruptured Cleveland, Ohio, Louwanna was presumed dead by her school and a moment of silence was held in her memorial at Hudson Middle School.
The next year Louwanna’s family once again found themselves in severe debt of their home mortgage and was forced to look at other options. Newton’s father looked no further than the woods. “We built a log cabin in the woods, just the 7 of us.”
A log cabin that still stands in the woods of Marlborough, Massachusetts today.” It has no running electricity but is rented out to adventurous families.” said Newton.
A few more years later down the road and Louwanna Newton in 1994 is kidnapped. “I had a cracked out ex- boyfriend that I met just after I got this bartending job at a bowling alley.” One night while Louwanna Newton slept at her home in Hudson, Massachusetts she was awoken by Dennis Marley who had been smoking PCP and crack-cocaine kidnapped her at gunpoint and locked her in his laundry closet at his apartment nearby.
“I was terrified, but at the same point I had to keep cool.” Newton said. She lay quiet, never having experienced one of Dennis’ fits of rage such as this one. Hours later, in the early hours of the morning, Newton decided it was time for decisive action. “I got into this hole in one of these old laundry chutes and kept pushing through till I got somewhere.” Without waking her ex-boyfriend that had lain asleep only feet away, Louwanna Newton called the police from a side apartment’s telephone.
“It took about eight cops to finally restrain him. He wouldn’t give in, but he ended up serving 10 years.” Said Newton. She also has a restraining order on him.
In 2001, Newton had finally worked her way up to not only managing the entire bowling alley, but also serving as its entertainments area bartender. “We had these massive weekly pool tournaments each week, there must have been at least a hundred people each week.” Said Newton.
It wasn’t until a busy Friday night, where Louwanna was tending at the bar, when she heard it. “This woman wheezed the loudest I’ve ever heard, and then hit the floor. Right in front of her husband and son. I had to do something it was my bar.” Newton recalls rushing over to a woman, the name of which escapes her to this day, but giving her mouth to mouth. “I wasn’t CPR certified or anything but I knew what to do.”
Newton remembers a crowded bar surrounding this wife and mother. “I picked her up and walked her over to the front of the alley shouting for someone to call 9-1-1….she never survived though, she died right there.”
Suffering two aneurisms, the woman on Louwanna Newton’s back was already dead. With over 100 witnesses to verify.
Fast forward four months later and Louwanna Newton, newly divorced but keeping her last name, gets arrested for selling a few grams of marijuana in the parking lot of her employer, the bowling alley.
“4 months in jail and you know what they told me? That I was being made an example of.” Said Newton.
Louwanna, now a custodian for a cleaning company called UNNICO said, “I’ve been through a lot. I was recommended for psychotherapy because after I had an early triple miscarriage in that parking of a BJ’s superstore after coming back from a weekend at Foxwoods. I cleaned up, I went shopping, then realized it wasn’t over.” Newton’s boyfriend at the time then took her to the nearest hospital for the fourth miscarriage, and was then told that she had been four months pregnant with quadruplets.
“In that parking lot I didn’t know what was happening, subconsciously I just pulled my pants down and let nature take its course. I didn’t know what it was so I cleaned up and then went shopping for what I originally came for. Then I realized I had to go back to the hospital.”
Louwanna Newton who has had a total of 16 pregnancies said, “Every time I went on birth control, it just happened that I got pregnant. Just like my mother too. She even had a miscarriage while she was walking down the aisle.”
Newton, a strong advocate for women’s rights is saddened by her losses. “My first born child was a twin. I’ve told him that he’s got a brother waiting for him in heaven.”
Newton has two children that live within distance of her current home in Swanzey, New Hampshire. She hasn’t traveled further than Minnesota and admits that throughout her younger years, she has taken drugs. Louwanna’s oldest sister, Linda Cody, lives with intense schizophrenia, while her older brother Bill, and younger sister Lisa are the siblings she most speaks with. Wayne Cody, the, ‘miracle baby’ lives by himself in Massachusetts and sadly isn’t as frequently in touch with Louwanna.
Louwanna’s oldest son has a regressive brain disorder from eating contaminated plastic products when he was 16 years old, which has ceased his brain development from maturing. While at 32 years old, Louwanna said, “He still acts as if he’s 16, getting caught up in bad decisions and being very selfish. He wanted me to drive him to New York at 2 A.M. when I had to be up for work at 5 A.M. He just doesn’t get it.”
At 50 years old Louwanna Newton shows as much fight as ever. During a recent pass by Carle Hall, Newton was heckled by a group of students who shouted, “I’ll kill you!” In response, Newton went up to this young man’s face told the young man to quit smoking because it was bad for his health.
Overall, Louwanna Newton said, “I’ve lived a strong life. At the end of the day I look back on things and say it may have been a struggle, but life’s been very good to me.”
