Corporon acknowledges this particular speaking engagement will be more meaningful than the standard presentation she gives all over the country. Indeed, she expects this SevenDays® engagement will be challenging. “I may have trouble keeping it together at certain points,” Corporon said.
Yvette Corporon is part of the “New York side” of the close-knit Corporon family. When she visits KC, her regular host from the “Midwest side” of the family is Mindy Corporon, whose son Reat Griffin Underwood and father, William “Dr. Bill” Corporon, were tragically murdered in a hate crime at the Jewish Community Campus in 2014.
On the surface, Corporon’s presentation at the SevenDays® luncheon (Friday, April 13, Congregation Beth Torah) will be about her newest book, “Something Beautiful Happened: A story of Survival and Courage in the Face of Evil.” But the heart of the talk will be Yvette Corporon’s close personal relationship with Mindy Corporon and the intertwining of historical revelations with real life tragedy.
“The book is truly our story,” Yvette said.
A native and resident of New York, Yvette Corporon is a senior producer with the syndicated entertainment news show, “EXTRA.” She has three Emmy Awards to her credit and is currently nominated for another. Her debut novel, “When The Cypress Whispers” (2014), has been translated into 14 languages and was an international best seller.
Yvette and Mindy became acquainted at Corporon family gatherings held every other year in Pittsburg, Kansas. “We had many family reunions,” Yvette said. “That’s where I got to know Mindy and grew to love Dr. Bill and (wife) Melinda.”
“Mindy and I were both driven career women and also dedicated mothers,” Yvette said. “We kind of bonded over the minutia of our lives.”
The genesis of “Something Beautiful Happened” was Yvette in her youth hearing grandmother Yia-yia’s stories from World War II about a Jewish family she helped hide on the Nazi-occupied Greek island of Erikousa. Although everyone on the island was aware, no one ever gave the secret away and the family survived the war.
Yvette included that true storyline about a grandmother hiding a Jewish family from the Nazis as one element within her best-selling novel. The fictionalized version of her grandmother’s heroism somehow didn’t settle with her. Yvette became obsessed with completing the story.
With no intention of writing a book, Yvette began a search for descendants of the family her grandmother and fellow islanders had risked their lives to save. The undertaking turned into “a quest” involving years of time-consuming research, travel, dead ends and frustrations.
“It became an obsession and yet every time I hit a dead end and start to think I’ll never find these people, that thought maybe lasted a few minutes and I’d try something else.”
Throughout the process Yvette had the unflinching support of immediate and extended family. “Mindy and family were following me and cheering me on,” she said.
Almost unexpectedly and in no small part due to the assistance of cooperative individuals and organizations in Israel, a series of leads bore fruit. In the spring of 2014 Yvette ultimately located descendants of the Greek family in Israel. The discovery was an enlightening, joyful, tearful and spiritual celebration. Her grandmother’s story had come full circle.
Only it hadn’t. Three days after Yvette’s search came to a successful end, a neo-Nazi shouting “Heil Hitler” murdered Mindy’s father and son and a third innocent victim, Teresa LaManno, in Overland Park, Kansas.
“That tragic irony and the timing were just surreal,” Yvette said. “We tried to grapple with the reality, but it just wouldn’t compute.”
Her family was deeply stricken and confused. “They had watched my quest and I had drilled into my children’s heads those people are alive today because of the courage of my grandmother and others. They defeated the Nazis.”
Deep into the night of the Overland Park murders, Yvette was mourning with her 9-year-old son. “He was in tears and couldn’t understand,” Yvette said.” ‘But Mom, you said goodness survives. The Nazis were defeated and this couldn’t happen.’ ”
Yvette said finding some way of making sense of the timing and the how and the why of the killings became the impetus for “Something Beautiful Happened.” She sensed a “higher purpose” to bring understanding to what had happened to the family.
“I don’t understand hate. I don’t understand anti-Semitism. But I can, in the pages of the book, in some way make sense of the story. We don’t have the answers. We have the story.”
Yvette said she is proud of and inspired by Mindy Corporon for taking control of the narrative just as her grandmother did in Greece at the time of the Holocaust.
“Mindy shows how we need to stand united and drown out the hate,” Yvette said. “We can find light in the darkest moments. There’s never been a more important time than now to follow that lead.”
Yvette intends to emphasize that message when she comes to Kansas City. “We cannot allow Bill, Reat and Terri to go down as victims of a hate crime because that is not what they were,” Yvette said. “They will be remembered for their goodness.”