Lantern in the Dark

Utah

On this day, some time after breakfast on this particular day, some conversation sent Dad to tell about a desperate memory in his life, horrible time after his Pa died.  July to October slid down to harvest to a sharp, cold November.  The corn sown in May merged to hard gold on cobs, surrounded by brown stalks.  

Dad leaned back, resting his big worn work shoe on his knee. He cleared his throat, “I tell ya, Sis, those were hard times.  Oh they were hard. Pa and me had planted that field together, with Helen carrying the bag of seed corn.  He told me, Buddy!  No big handfuls thrown on the ground!  Take just this much, and he held my hand just so.  Then cast it easy like…yes, like.”

Dad looked at his big calloused hand, “Pa’s hands were big, but not ham-hocks like mine.  No, his hands shoulda been playing a piano…” Dad’s head tucked along his shoulder as he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket.  He wiped his nose and his eyes. 

“I shoulda known Pa was sick, shoulda seen it in the way he walked up the back porch steps.  How he reached for aspirin so many times.  But I didn’t.  Nine years old, that’s how old I was…nine years old when Pa died.”

His face turned away, like he was looking at the clock, like he had to be somewhere at a certain time.  But he wasn't.

Dad cleared his throat, I can still hear how he cleared his throat before he told a story.  “Well, I’ll tell you straight.  A boy who don’t have a pa anymore gets treated different at school.  Out on the grass, racing and playing around, a boy gets pushed around, teased, Orphan!...Orphan!  Aint's got no pa….  No pa to go over to those fathers and set them straight about their boys.  No pa to stand behind you..”

Dad is the boy holding the ball in the front, after his Pa died.  

Mom set a cup of coffee on the kitchen table by his hand, with her hand drifting along his shoulder softly, like a feather on straw.  Steam drifted up, disappearing in the kitchen. He leaned onto the table, big arms resting on the table.

Horses in the harness rig

Dad sipped hot coffee.  “Corn was ready for picking late that year, November.  It was cold, getting cold. Ma saw that snow would be falling in a week, and that corn had to be brought in quick.  So Ma harnessed our old horse, Salty we called her, and I hitched up the wagon.  Couldn’t do it by myself, too heavy, I’d turned ten in October, but that didn’t make me any stronger.”

Dad never had a full smile, it was always a half-smile.  Only his eyes could tell if he was really smiling.  His eyes never smiled as he told this story. His pale blue eyes shifted into a muddled grey.

“Now, Salty didn’t much like me, he cleared his throat, I didn’t like her.  She grumbled and shook her mane.  I pulled her, finally got her going.  I pulled her to where I left off picking the corn the day before.  My Pa’s farm gloves lay on the wagon bench from when he called in hay, like it was the day before.  The inside still smelled like him, and I liked wearing them.  Can’t tell you why, but I just did.

"They were too big for me and they kept dropping off, on the ground.  Took ‘em off, laid them on the bench like Pa used to.  I didn’t want to lose them in the dark.”

Another sip of coffee, then tilted his head back, eyes on the kitchen light.  “I had to pick the corn by hand, and I tell you, Sis…corn on the cob is hard on a boy’s hands.  Cuts from the day before and the day before that still stung.  I’d pick, shuck, and toss into the wagon, then pick some more.  Over ‘n over with Salty moving down the row.

"Wouldn’t get the field done, I could see that.  Maybe tomorrow…or the day after…  Then I looked around.  Dark,  oh it was dark... had sneaked in quick after the sun went down.  I was lost in that big black cornfield and I didn’t know how to get back.

"I grabbed Salty’s mane and burrowed my face into it.  I was crying.  I was so lost, so hollow.”

Mom pulled her chair over to Dad, and took his hand.

 

Dad cleared his throat.  “I tell you, Sis, and this is absolute truth:  If there had been a cliff nearby, I woulda walked right off it.  Right off it.”

Hearing Dad say these words snagged in my heart and cut right through it. Desperation and sorrow incarnate. My God, a boy in the dark alone, holding his Pa's glove. Oh, Dad.

Silent, the kitchen was silent.  Even the clock stopped beating, I swear.

Dad leaned to put his big arms on the table, pushing the coffee cup away.

 “Heard a sound and it got louder.  Couldn’t tell where it came from at first.  Then I saw a lantern light, coming close and calling, ‘Buddy!  Buddy!’ Ma had come lookin’ for me.  She called my name and I called hers.  Don’t think I was ever gladder to see someone as I was to see her.

"I held onto Salty as Ma set the lantern on the bench.  I wanted to grab onto Ma and hug her forever, but I didn’t. I was supposed to be the man of the family, and I couldn’t let myself be weak like that.  But Ma hugged me instead.

"Ma’s face was in part shadow, but I could tell she’d been crying’.  'Now, you get on up there, Bud.  And you eat those biscuits and bacon I brought you.'  

"Ma grabbed Salty’s harness and guided us home, with the lantern sittin’ by me, lighting the cornrows back to the barn.  She sent me on into the kitchen while she unhitched and settled Salty with feed in the stall.

"Yup, Ma brought me back home.  She called me Bud the rest of her life.”

Dad stood up, placing his John Deere cap on his head.  Just so.  He always angled the hat like that for as long as I can remember. He gave Mom a loud smacky-kiss and went out the porch door. The golden corn fields in rows stretched out from the house, and the combine was there waiting.

I asked Mom if she had heard this part of his life before.  She shook her head.  “No, first I ever heard it.”

Helen and Bud on Pa's car running board

I am sorry about the time lapse between these posts.  Sometimes dredging up stories told to me are difficult.  The voices of those I loved have to ring true.  I am glad you like them or find them a slice of history you would like to find out from your own family.  Find those stories of your own and hold onto them.

Going on, Going forward

Marie and Lewis; Left to right Rose Mary, Irma (my mother), and Minerva
about 1928

Oh, Bobby!  My Bobby!

Those words were never spoken aloud, by Lewis and Marie Cardiff.  They knew if they did, they would never stop crying.  And all the parents in their small town, who had lost babies and children to diphtheria, would never stop either.  The streets would run with tears.

Minerva was a baby when Bobby died in 1922.  Marie hugged her tighter than a tick, afraid to let her go.  Lewis took her and rocked her through the late hours at night.

Another child was born in 1925, Rose Mary.  Marie and Lewis had silently prayed for a boy, but those words also were never spoken aloud.

Life on a farm is about life and living.  Crops were planted in spring, harvested in early fall.  Cows birthed calves, giving milk for them and the Cardiff family alike.  Horses, hogs, gardens:  all were life and living.  Going on, going forward.

Cars were now on the streets, “…dirty nasty things,” Marie Cardiff said some seventy years later.  Electric lines were appearing and some folks had phones.  Going on....

Lewis and Marie with last child,
Vada 1940

From his field south of the town, Lewis heard a sound, one that he prayed he would never hear again.  World War…bombs…planes…sounds that still froze his being.  

A plane wobbled from the south, its wings near to breaking off.  The nose dipped down and landed in Lewis Cardiff’s field.

Marie carried Rose and dragged Minerva to the field. What is that?  A plane? 

The entire town poured into the field and surrounded the plane.  They had never seen one, read about them, but now, here it was.  A plane in Lewis Cardiff’s field.

Robertson Aircraft Company lettered the side of the crumpled plane.  The nose was in the mud and the tail was up in the air.  One wing was punctured and the rudder was askew.

Next thing people knew, the pilot leaped out of the plane with Don Robertson, the owner’s son.  “I tol’ you this heap was a piece of shit, you knew it and I knew it.  You bastard!  Coulda killed us both!”  He stomped to the road and roared, “Where’s the goddam train!” 

In unison the silent townspeople pointed to the station a mile away, and the pilot stomped all the way there, raising his fist at the plane and shouting a variety of obscenities.  Some gasped, some roared with laughter, and the more holy ones smirked inwardly.

Mr. Robertson waited for a second train heading to St. Louis, Missouri, pulled into the station.  The tightly packed crowd moved with him, over one hundred souls.  Like yellow ducklings with their mama, they followed the poor man, who was wondering what the hell his pa would say when he heard about this.

A day later another plane circled the field, where the crumpled wreck sat.  The new plane chose to land in the Cardiff pasture next to the house.  A pale and defeated Don Robertson exited the plane, followed by the new pilot, Charles Lindbergh. 

His name whispered through the re-gathered town.  Daredevil Lindbergh? Air mail?  

early flying years

The town had foreseen that Don Robertson would drag his tail back to the damaged plane. En mass the ladies brought out boxes of fried chicken, pies, more fried chicken and more pies.  Tables were lugged by the men unwillingly straggling after them. The men also set the rusty table up around the crumpled plane. The tables would later be moved to the replacement plane.

Don Robertson and Chas. Lindbergh examined the plane wreck, determining that it was useless. 

Then Robertson shouted to Lewis Cardiff so that all could hear, “This here plane is simply broke.  But,” and he looked at the chicken-eating crowd, “We’re fixing it up.  And, there’d better be every last piece o’ metal and the like.”

A Time of Wonder

He landed in the Nebo Cemetery in Illinois.

October of 1911 was a time of wonder.  The streets in the rural town no longer had to pick up horse manure (well, some manure) as many families had access to a car.  Roads were improved, made wider, and all who had a car could whiz the fifteen miles to the county seat in a matter of an hour or so.

God bless Henry Ford. God bless Thomas Edison.  God bless Alexander Graham Bell.  God bless....all the many others who followed after them.

Theodorus was a young man and still out searching for knowledge and adventure.  A younger brother Leo was still at home, in high school.

Leo was sixteen years old at the time when an unfamiliar sound was heard.  While the entire school was eager to break out and follow the sound, Miss Cromwell—the very strict Miss Cromwell--told all to sit down.  All obeyed, except for Leo.  He needed to visit “the necessaries”.  With that, Leo raced down the six flights, passed the place for necessaries and followed the sound.

Long legs ran in the family and Leo made use of them, arriving at just about the same time as the source of the sound touched down.  A plane—no one in the county had ever seen one, touched one.  But here it was.

The pilot was Cal R. Rodgers.  It had been only eight years after the Wright brothers made history, and a plane sat in the middle of Arch Wells’ hay field, just north of Hunter Cemetery.  

Rodgers had been promised $50,000 from William Randolph Hearst for flying from New York to Los Angeles, navigating by following the Charles & Alton Railroad tracks.  Rodgers had received about ninety hours of instruction from the Wright brothers before setting out on the first trans-continental flight.

Source

“Why the heck is he here?”  That question reverberated through the town.    No one knew.

Then the story came out.  Rodgers was part of a big advertising campaign for Vin Fiz, a new bottled fizzy drink.  Larger towns had already paid a fee for Rodgers to make a stop in the towns so the locals could see the landing and the plane.  The next few towns further down the track didn’t have the money, and the Vin Fiz needed gasoline. 

The town obliged, running with cans of gasoline.  The entire town evacuated to Arch Wells’ hay field, except of course the school kids, who missed an opportunity of a lifetime.  The shop keepers ran, leaving the doors wide open.  Even the bank tellers ran, leaving the cash drawers open.  Every one ran, seeing a part of history in a plain old hay field.

Laura Peck heard the buzz of the engine and saw the Vin Fiz fly over her house.  She dropped her dishtowel and took off running, hiking up her skirts as she ran.  She was a tall lanky woman with skinny long legs and sassy attitude who didn’t care who saw them. 

Laura scrambled over the woven wired fence, catching her dress on the two strands of barbed wire.  She didn’t give a damn, tore her dress up the back, and took off. Laura Peck was known for her spirit and devil-may-care-take-a-chance.

Maybe that was something Theodorus inherited?  That led him to Detroit?  We'll never know.  

Anyway....

The commotion and excitement was high on the hay field and everyone made sure to touch the flimsy plane.  Local photographers made huge profits that day.  It was a day to always remember.

Rodgers had a lot of confidence.

Huge profits were had by many people.  When all had settled down and life returned to normal, it was discovered that the bank had been robbed, the grocery store as well.  A side of beef was missing from the butcher shop. 

Apparently, ransacking and thievery did not need to be invented.  Also, Rodgers missed the deadline by nineteen days, which meant Hearst did not give him the $50,000. 

One U.S. Patent employee, Charles H. Duell had recently announced that all that could be created had already been created.  The year had been 1899.  Since that date to 1911, Mr. Duell had been proved incorrect many times over.

...Just Ten Miles Away...

Source: saavem

When Marie gazed out her kitchen window, she felt a bubble of indescribable joy grow within her.  Her kitchen window in her house was a portion of the joy.  Too long all windows belonged in a distant cousin’s house, where she was paid to clean, cook, and care.

Lewis emerged from the barn, a laughing two-year old son on his shoulder.  Her husband and her son.  Marie’s heart burst at the sight of them. 

Dinner was steaming hot on the table when Marie finally sat down next to Lewis.  A six-month old baby girl Minerva tugged at Marie’s breast, as Lewis dished out a plate for Bobby, his little boy.  If a photo could have been taken, it would show a glow around the table, ringed with laughter and great happiness.

It was the summer of 1922, a glorious summer when the crops were good, Lewis and Marie were rejoicing over their life together, and the children were healthy.

Marie Cardiff holding baby Minerva; Lewis Cardiff holding Bobby; their dog, Spot

Like a summer storm rolling across the flat fields, diphtheria moved over towns and farms all across the country.  Over 100,000 children would die that year from this horrible disease. 

Bobby woke up feverish one morning, coughing, and crying, “It hurts, here!” pointing to his throat.  Immediately baby Minerva was sent away, to a relative’s farm out in the countryside, away from town.  Doctor Edwards was summoned and confirmed the worst fears of diphtheria, which was affecting too many children in the area.  The next seven days were text-book in the progress. 

For all those nights and days, Marie worried over little Bobby, with Lewis at the foot of the bed.  His face was a mask of pain, remembering the death and dying behind him in France.  Day by day, Bobby struggled to breathe, his throat swollen and his eyes desperate.   Finally, his little heart gave out. 

Bobby Cardiff,  b. 1920- d. 1922

Folks said that Marie’s screams could be heard a mile away, but then, a lot of mothers were heard screaming during that long month.

 

In a day or so, Lewis boarded the train, carrying with him a lead-lined coffin containing his dead little boy.  Taking the four hour train trip to his family’s home cemetery in Oakford, Illinois, Lewis sat in the cargo boxcar holding the coffin under his arm.  Slowly teardrops covered the top of the lid.

When Lewis returned to his farm after five days, Marie was stone-faced and quiet, so quiet.  Her breast milk had dried up, requiring that Minerva be fed by a friend.  Marie’s dark hair had started turning silver white.  They sat side by side on their marriage bed, holding hands, silent.  They would not talk about Bobby again, until 1941.

Her home and her family, Marie had to hang onto them even tighter.

Add captionSource: EveBlackwood

What happens now?

Theodorus Peck, 1927?, during Good Times

Over the decades after Theodorus had died, my father spoke very little about his own father, hardly at all.  It was a door he had nailed shut, never opened unless a sudden flash of a memory appeared. 

The photos of him growing up and changing into a man showed how he and his siblings handled grief by never allowing themselves to grieve.  The three of them posed for photos, three wooden soldiers with hands to their sides and awkward half-smiles pasted on faces.  The gray photos never permitted them to touch each other, to hold on to each other. Their eyes were still, frozen where grief had met them the day their father did.

Aunt Helen is the tall girl in the back row.  My father is holding the basketball.

“What happened to your pa?  Why’d he die?”

Those questions had been asked throughout my own growing years and answered only with a few words, usually provided by my mother.  So, it was only when grief had struck my father’s house twice more that my father allowed tears to fall and feel the bereavement long denied to him. 

Robert Peck 

First, death stole in, when my older brother, Robert, died at age 46 years with a brain tumor.  Then two years later, death returned like a thief and took a second younger brother, Bill, at age 44 years with blood poisoning.   

Bill Peck

My father aged in front of us and finally, nearly 70 years after Theodorus Peck died, Dad began to talk about his pa.

It was summer, a hot summer when we sat out on the back yard and listened to the night crickets start their songs.  Still dusky light slanted over the porch roof and bathed us in silver, black and white. The porch seemed to take a deep breath as a silence settled over us, heavy and filled with long held sorrow.  Mom’s hand snaked through Dad’s arm and interlaced his silver fingers with hers.

 

“My pa....” Dad began, and then paused, searching for words that were choked back before he could speak them.  Finally, he spoke, his voice a stranger’s voice.  “The night he died, my sister and I were upstairs in my Grandma Peck’s house.  The phone rang and I looked at her and said, “Sis, Pa’s dead.  They’re calling to tell us that he’s dead.”  
 

"She didn’t believe me, but I knew it as sure as I knew what day it was.  I heard Grandma say that they’d wait to tell us the news in the morning.”  Dad raised his head, his strong angular face lit with moonbeams, and we could see a slow snail trail of tears.

Mom’s hand squeezed his, as he continued to speak in that stranger’s voice.  “I got up as soon as it was light, went out to the back porch to watch the sun come up.  Pa’s work boots were there, where he had taken them off not two days ago.  I lifted them up, smelling Pa’s smell on them yet.  A piece of mud, dried in the sole’s instep, fell into my hand.  When he last wore those boots, the mud was soft.”  Dad’s head ducked down into the black night as he continued.  “I wrapped that piece of mud up in a handkerchief and ran home with it.  I kept it in my drawer for years....”  And the story ended.

Memories folded up in that handkerchief and drawer slowly crept out over time.  Not big memories, but ones speaking about the loneliness of a ten-year old boy trying to harvest the corn field by himself.  Such loneliness and despair swallowed up his youth.  And when his sons died, something had to break free.

My father slowly released parts of his grief over the remaining years of his life, but I know that when he closed his eyes at night, the images of his pa and two sons were the last to leave when sleep came. 

My father in about 1944

And then...

Happiness and Ever After should be a requisite in unexpected love stories.

After Amy’s family forgave her, throwing a big reception for the wedded couple, things settled down.  Theodorus informed his family about the wedding, and they were thrilled.  A little shocked perhaps, but thrilled. 

Amy in her modern traveling suit

His parents set about building a new house on a portion of farm land they deeded to Theodorus and Amy.  For Amy, this was beyond her hopes.  Living in a town or city in a shared bedroom with her two sisters and supporting the family had been her future.  And now, Amy would have her own home, her own husband, and even farm land.

Theodorus traveled ahead of Amy, kissing her good-bye passionately at the train station in Detroit.  “Soon!” was the word they whispered.

He arrived and inspected the progress.  Like Amy, a house of his own had also been beyond his hopes.  He sent a telegraph, and she arrived within days.

Theodorus with Helen

That was 1919.  In 1920, a daughter Dorus Helen was born to them.  Life was wonderful.  Theodorus was president of the town’s bank; his parents were prosperous with ever increasing farm land.  In 1922, my father Louis Edmund was born.  In 1925, William was born. 

Helen and Louis "Bud"

Smiles on my grandmother’s face in old photos say everything:  Life is wonderful, Love is wonderful…

son Louis, Amy Peck, her mother-in-law Laura Peck, and  Theodorus with their new car

The Stock Market Crash of 1929 punctured the big balloon.  The bank was closed and land had to be sold.  But, still, Theodorus and Amy were together.

And, then…I hate those words.

Theodorus had never been a robust man like his two brothers.  Over the next two years, he began to grow more fragile.  He lived in constant pain, on aspirins.  Amy worried over him.  She unpacked her boxes of medical books and sought answers. 

In 1932, his doctor decided that Theodorus had to be admitted into a hospital. 

People seldom went to hospitals in a rural area.  Those who were admitted were suffering from serious life threatening issues.  This usually resulted in death.  Which is what happened.

Theodorus was taken by ambulance to a hospital over sixty miles away.  After his admission, plans were made for surgery, as a kidney tumor was suspected.  The night before the surgery, while Amy sat at his bedside, Theodorus suffered a massive cerebral hemorrhage.  Death came quickly.

Amy L. Peck as a widow

Amy was about 40 years old, and the only love of her life was buried.  The next decade for Amy and her three children would be harsh.   

Love's Labour Lost--almost, re-post from August 8, 2012

Theodorus Peck, 1918

Amy Nichols, 1916

This love story should not have been possible. 

One world was from the farmlands of Illinois, where Theodorus’ family were affluent landowners, bankers, and shop owners.  The other world was from the cities of Michigan, where Amy’s family were more gentile, educated, and ‘with prospects’.

The likelihood of their meeting was very limited, fate stepped in.  The key factor was the restlessness that filled Theodorus.

He was extremely intelligent and eager to see more than the rolling fields of corn.  Tall and lean with pale blue eyes, Theodorus was not a physically strong man; farming would have been a difficult life for him.  Theodorus “Dorus” was already 35 with no serious attachments.

With his parents’ blessings, Theodorus went on a “stroll-about the United States”.  The stroll went West to Utah and up to Idaho.  It took him through mountains, deserts, and ultimately to Michigan.

He had friends in Michigan from his growing-up years and from his travels.  They showed him different towns and cities.  One city was Detroit. 

Amy came from a town nearby, and had just received her Pharmaceutical Degree.  Finding a job in Detroit meant that she would receive a good salary.

Amy Nichols on her way to the Drug Store

What is a bit vague (from her reminisces) is about her family.  At one time they had been comfortably situated, but something about the father’s gambling and drinking had left them in financial straits.  There were three daughters and one son.  Amy was the oldest and was considered to be a ‘spinster’.  She was also brilliant.

Amy was so mentally gifted that she had begun studies in medical school to become a doctor.  She was the only woman in 103 men.  Two years into her studies, the family was nearly destitute.  With their pleas for help, Amy switched her studies to become a Pharmacist. 

Only part of the class photo, with Amy Nichols at the top

At the age of 28, Amy was behind the drug store counter, filling prescriptions and laughing with customers.  She was a big woman with a big personality—tall with brown eyes and an easy smile. 

Theodorus needed something from a drugstore, so his friends took him to this store as it was the closest.  Brown eyes meeting pale blue eyes, well, you can picture the exchange.

They began the courtship.    

Her family was not happy.  No, they viewed Dorus as depriving them of their source of income.

What to do?  They eloped.

When my grandmother said this to me, I was about 14.  My jaw dropped; I looked at my very traditional elderly grandmother, and these images did not coalesce.  “You mean—out the window, down the ladder elopement?”  She said, “Well, almost.”

When the dust had settled and days had passed, Amy’s family cooled down, considered their standing in the community, and held a reception for the newlyweds. 

Reception corsage

Their love story will continue on another posting.