Now I Know --The Private Memoirs of Robyn Stanyar

This surprising telephone message was the first introduction I had to Robyn Stanyar, alias Mrs. Claus, and it resulted in a unique friendship unlike any other I had experienced in my life. A common love of Maltese dogs, and the need for someone to care for my mine when I worked, resulted in my battling fifty-mile-an-hour Arctic winds, by car, to meet the person behind this message.

Upon arrival at her residence I was quite surprised to see an aged, 1915-style, two-storied, wooden homestead still miraculously standing in the fierce winds. Paint was peeling from the roof and walls, and ornaments from Christmases gone by, bounced and tinkled animatedly in the wind. The view to the right side of the house revealed a garage that had obviously taken the full blast of these Arctic winds because stripped of all its paint, it now sagged dangerously with a twenty-degree lean, making entry inside it for only the most daring. I tried mentally to match up the vision of the harsh weather elements and the dilapidated, but quaint, surroundings of what lay before me, with the sweet, gentle, elderly voice I had heard on the telephone, but I could not. It puzzled me how anyone of her age and apparent gentleness could survive alone in these unbelievable conditions; but then I did not know Robyn.

The doorbell rang and suddenly, there stood Mrs. Claus! You’ve seen her a thousand times on Christmas cards – an elderly white-haired lady with the most appealing eyes and smile that could only belong to a Mrs. Claus. Instead of reindeer standing beside her there were a dozen adorable small dogs all yapping and vying excitedly for my attention. I knew then that I had found the real Mrs. Claus, and the right person to mind my canine "babies."

From that first visit I learned that Robyn had always wanted to be a wild-animal trainer but instead she had followed her mother’s dream of becoming an opera singer. This resulted in her traveling as a young girl with her mother to Hollywood, California, to take dance, music and voice lessons, and then later on to France, and Italy, to study opera singing with a world-renowned Italian maestro. Unfortunately, Robyn’s operatic career came to a sudden halt in Europe with the outbreak of World War II. From being wined and dined by royalty in Paris she was suddenly thrust into the onerous presence of Hitler and Mussolini, and then in an extraordinary turn of events, she and her mother had to flee for their lives. Robyn survived the terror of being shot at by Nazi planes and ships, hiding out in bomb shelters, vicious rapes, suicide attempts, near fatal illnesses, divorce, widowhood, drug and alcohol addiction, poverty, the alienation of family, plus intolerable nightmares and panic attacks that lasted for over fifty years ─ until she found true peace.

Her life was constantly enshrouded by the powers of darkness, counteracted by the grace of God’s love working through exceptional people just doing His will ─ many unknowingly.

As I started to write her story and her life’s events unfolded before me through audio tapes, letters, photographs, legal documents, and countless newspaper articles, I

began to realize that I was writing the biography of an extraordinary lady. Despite the terror, indignity and shame of her earlier life she courageously chose to reveal it all, so that others may learn the true meaning of life and how to attain that ultimate peace that had eluded her for so long. She says, "No longer do clouds of darkness and spiritual deceptions torment me anymore because finally, now I know."