Outside the Frame

"The stories about raising Jon are both heartbreaking and affirming for anyone who is currently going through raising a person who is non-verbal with autism and seizure disorder or has been a big part of a person with autism's life."


This book came about after a 33-year marriage disintegrated. By the time divorce came around, author Ellie Duley had a master's degree, a business, and had written a book but still felt a little empty. To make meaning of her life, she started writing down different antics that she remembered from raising Jon. Memories came flooding back while recalling the tougher times and the fierce love and protection that she felt raising both her kids.

Ellie Duley's career was put on hold for the first 20 years of Jon's life. When asked why she felt compelled to write this book, she stated, "I think I wrote this to affirm (if only to myself) that those years weren't wasted. I know they weren't, but something made me want to tell the stories of raising Jon. This therapy helped me though a tough time."

In the early years, Jon learned to ski with his family, stole French fries, blocked others' access to many slides, and learned to deal with his mother's breast cancer. He also played with his poop and tried to eat raw meat off the floor of a local grocery store.

This book project started as a labor of love, and the author recalls receiving a great deal of support from people who knew her in the past when the going was tougher. Jon was a bit of a mystery, so it seemed that people close to them were eager to see how the raising of Jon unfolded. This feeling of gratitude for the support of these wonderful people kept the author going in raising a non-verbal child to a semi-independent adult who lives at a group home in a wonderful community in Maine.




About the Author

Ellie Stewart Duley led a remarkably unremarkable life until her time raising her son Jon who was born with autism. Raised in the suburbs of western Massachusetts, Duley attended the University of Maine only one month after her family moved to Virginia. After college, Duley married and remained in Maine where she still lives with her 8-year-old Newfoundland. Somewhere along the way, Duley received her master's in school counseling and worked in public schools as a counselor before divorcing in 2017.