Ruby Franke’s oldest daughter Shari outlines abuse in new memoir: here’s everything to know

Shari Franke, the oldest daughter of YouTube family vlogger and convicted child abuser Ruby Franke, revealed what it was like growing up with an abusive parent in a disturbing memoir which hit shelves Tuesday (January 7).

Throughout the book, titled The House of My Mother: A Daughter’s Quest for Freedom, Franke details the decades of abuse she experienced at the hands of her mother and later her business partner Jodi Hildebrant. Back in February the two of them were sentenced to up to 30 years in prison after pleading guilty to four counts of aggravated child abuse, including trying to convince Franke’s two youngest siblings that they were evil, possessed by demons, and needed to be punished.

Franke’s memoir reflects on the more extreme aspects of her mother’s behavior. Her mother physically abused her, she says, after playing a wrong note on the piano. Sometimes it was more psychological — such as threatening to pull Franke out of school if she didn’t quit her high school track team.

Part of the book also discusses Franke’s two-year sexual relationship with a married church official in his 40s named Derek, which began when she was 18. She says that he made her be intimate with him in order to prepare her for marriage.

Here are three other newly revealed facts from Franke’s memoir.

Ruby and Hildebrant’s relationship

After Hildebrant became the therapist to Franke and her little brother Chad, she moved into Franke’s bedroom when she left for her first year of college at Brigham Young University. Franke wrote that her mother and Hildebrant were the only people allowed upstairs, as they even cut off Ruby’s now ex-husband Kevin Franke.

Hildebrandt and Ruby slept together in Franke’s bedroom, describing it as their “sanctuary.”

At one point, Franke nuck back into her bedroom noticing that it was filled with candles and massage oils. “The room was bathed in the soft glow of candles,” she wrote in her memoir. “The air was heavy with the scent of lavender and vanilla wafting form the massage oils on the dresser.”

“I quickly grabbed what I needed and got the hell out of there, feeling like I had just walked into someone else’s honeymoon suite,” she continued.“The only thing missing was rose petals on the bed.”

She recalled Ruby then leaving her old bedroom at 5 a.m. trying to quickly tie her robe with “messy hair” and “flushed cheeks.”

“What the hell was going on?” she asked in her memoir. “Why was Ruby sneaking around in the middle of the night like a teenager trying not to get caught by her parents? Were they really doing candlelit massages in my bedroom?”

Franke reflected wrote that the two women rarely left the house “except for the occasional ice cream pilgrimages to Dairy Queen.”

“Their dietary habits were a cardiologist’s nightmare — a steady stream of sugar, saturated fat, and fried foods, liberally garnished with Jodi’s sole contribution to our household: gallons of ranch dressing,” her memoir read.

Her last interaction with Ruby

Prior to Ruby and Hildebrant’s arrest, Franke had released a statement on her Instagram Story addressing the many claims of her mother’s abuse.

“I know that there are many rumors circulating online about my family. While it is true I am not in contact with my immediate family, and don’t support the extreme beliefs of ConneXions, please remember that this is my real family,” she wrote at the time.

During their last interaction, Ruby was in the process of legally disowning her as Franke was scrambling to transfer all of her savings into an account not in her mother’s name. Franke was also getting her mother to sign over the title to Franke’s car into her own name.

As Ruby begrudgingly handed over the documents, she said that she saw the Instagram Story. “Can you promise not to talk about this any more on social media?” her mother had asked her and Shari’s reply was “No.” The two of them have not interacted in-person since that day.

Franke wears her mother’s wedding bands

Following her mother and Hildebrant’s arrests, Franke was able to head back into her family home to collect some of their belongings, such as passports and journals.

At one point she walked into the master bedroom, where she noticed both her mother’s first engagement ring and an “upgraded version” her father had gifted Ruby a few years earlier. “Almost without thinking, I slid both bands onto my fingers,” Franke wrote. “Ruby didn’t deserve those rings. Not after what she’d done.”

“When I slip those rings onto my finger, it’s not of nostalgia or lingering affection for Ruby,” she continued. “They’re not mementos of happier times or symbols of a mother’s love. No, these rings serve a far more crucial purpose. They’re a contract I made with myself, a constant reminder cast in metal. With those rings, I bind myself to the truth.”