Mabel returns, part one

Leta could not remain on the couch. She kept leaving the living room to check her hair. Then she would go to the front door and look as far as she could down the street. After a few moments there, she would return to her seat at the couch. She would sit still for a few seconds and then start to fidget again. This would go on for as long as she could stand it, and then she would be up again, repeating what was quickly turning into a ritual. Meanwhile, her husband Bob was calmly smoking a cigar and reading the paper. After the third repetition, once Leta stood, Bob snapped the paper back.

“For Pete’s sake, Leta,” he said, “sit still. You’re worse than a child.”

Leta stopped where she was standing and twisted her hands.

“I’m just so nervous,” she confessed. “What if I don’t recognize her? What if she doesn’t recognize me? What if I don’t like her? Do I look all right? What if she doesn’t like me?”

Bob sighed loudly. “You won’t recognize her, darling. She left when you were a very little girl, and you have not seen her in more than 35 years!”

“Yes, of course, of course,” Leta agreed, pacing back and forth in front of the couch. “But—“

“—And she will like you. You’ll know each other. You’re sisters. Now, please sit down already.”

“You’re right,” Leta agreed and returned to the couch. A moment later she was up again.

“Did you hear that?” she inquired. “It sounded like a car.”

Then she ran to the front door, but the vehicle she heard was parking two houses down. Her shoulders slumped, but her husband was there. He put his arms around her gently.

“Come on, my darling,” he said gently. “They’ll be here when they get here. You’re getting yourself all worked up about this. It’s very unlike you.”

“I know,” she sighed, as he led her back to the couch. This time he sat beside her, holding her hand. “At first, I was so excited. When the telegram came from Louise saying that she and Little Leta were bringing Mabel back from Vancouver with them, I couldn’t wait to see her—meet her. I don’t remember here at all. A letter here and there over the years isn’t the same thing as actually seeing someone. I mean, she left us. She moved to Canada!”

“And now she’s coming to see you,” Bob said. “I think that’s pretty good.”

“I know you’re right,” Leta agreed. “I’m just….”

He squeezed her hand. “It’ll be fine.”

Over the previous five years, Leta’s sister Louise, her daughter Leta (whom they called Little Leta) and sometimes Louise’s husband Hiram had been taking annual trips with friends. They would pile four or five of them into an automobile and take up to three weeks to explore the country. Their first journey was to Chicago, some 245 miles away. The following year they went to the newly dedicated Smoky Mountain National Park in the East. The year after they had traveled to the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, Louise announced that their next journey would be all the way to Vancouver in British Columbia, Canada, to see their distant sister and meet her family there. While the sisters had corresponded over the years, none of them had seen each other since Mabel left Ohio at age 18, more than 35 years earlier. While Hiram wanted to join them, his employment prohibited him leaving for a month, so Louise, Little Leta, and two of Little Leta’s friends from university left in mid-June.

Two weeks after they were gone, Leta received a telegram that informed her that Mabel would be coming back to Ohio with her sister for a reunion. They would arrive in ten days. Initially, Leta did not know how to respond. She only knew that she needed to sit down. Before she could reach the sofa, however, the telephone rang. Her sister Nellie had also received a telegram.

“I can’t believe it,” Louise said. “After all these years. Will we even know what she looks like?”

“Louise said they were going to ask her,” Leta said.

“I wonder what made her say yes,” Louise said.

“She didn’t even come to Ma’s funeral,” Leta noted.

“Well…,” Louise responded.

Then there was silence.

They shared a few more related but not especially connected thoughts. Then Nellie excused herself to return to her cooking.

“We’ll talk more,” she said.

“Yes,” Leta agreed.

“Just imagine!”

Now, it was nine days later. The tourists and their guest had made good time driving across the country and had arrived the previous evening. Nellie was staying with Louise, Hiram, and Little Leta for the moment, but Leta hoped she would stay with them for a week. She wanted to get to know her sister.

To be continued.

Sister Mabel Mae Scott Facts and more

Mabel Mae Scott, my great-grandmother Leta's eldest sister, is a still a bit of a puzzle, partly because she left the family so early in her life and partly because according to the records I’ve uncovered she was born only three months after their brother Aaron. She moved far away (from northwest Ohio to Vancouver British Columbia) and then returned to the family’s lives more than three decades later. Some of the information is contradictory, and some of it still missing.

This is what I’ve uncovered:

• Mabel Mae Scott was born May 3, 1882, the daughter of David Scott. This information is according to her death certificate. I do not have a birth registration. There is no mother listed in the death certificate. Her brother Aaron was born on March 26, 1882. Both of his parents (Julia Snyder Scott and David Scott) are listed.
• In 1896, David and Julia Scott were divorced.
• In the 1900 census, Julia Scott was the head of household that included her son Aaron (age 18), and daughters Nellie (12), Louise (10) and Leta (6). If she had lived with them, Mabel would have also been 18 years old.
• In 1900, Floyd Worthing, the man Mabel who would become Mabel’s husband, was married to Alice May Dodge and living in Minnesota with her and their two children, Aimee (age 3) and Arnold (age 6 months).
• On May 27, 1901, Floyd Worthing acquired 160 acres in the Crookston area of Minnesota (near North Dakota).
• The 1921 Canada census shares that Mabel, Floyd and his son Arnold emigrated in 1904.
• Mabel’s sister Leta married Robert Fields on September 17, 1937.
• The Toledo Blade published a story shortly before Labor Day in a year after Leta was married to Bob Fields (her last name in the article) that Mabel was reunited with four of her siblings (Aaron, Nellie, Louise and Leta) in Toledo after a 33-year separation. I have an original and two copies of the article, but the date of publication is not included. Online archives do not go back this far for me to look up at this time. I will need to go to the Main Branch of the Lucas County, Ohio (in Toledo) public library to look at the newspaper archives when next I am in that area.
• Leta has a little bookmark in her Bible from Mabel that says she received it in St. Petersburg, Florida in February 1954.
• Floyd Worthing died in Vancouver on May 4, 1954.

From this information, I can make several reasonable suppositions:

• Mabel, along with her father David and brother Fred (who was younger) left the Scott household before 1900.
• After 1900 and before 1904, Mabel married Floyd Worthing. I have not uncovered any records of Floyd’s first wife (Alice) or their daughter after the 1900 census.
• The 33 years that the siblings had not seen each other was inaccurate. They had not seen each other for at last 35 years. If the reunion took place in August/September of the year after Leta married Fields, then this would have been 1938, and Mabel would have been 56 years old. If this was 33 years after she left, this means she left in 1905, when she was 23 years old. However, she was in Canada in 1905.

This leaves me with some questions:

• If Mabel’s birth date really was May 3, 1882, then who was her birth mother?
• Where was Mabel in 1900?
• What happened in her life between the time she left her parents’ home and married Floyd Worthing?
• Where and when did she meet and marry Floyd Worthing? If this happened in Minnesota, then how did she get there? Why did she go there?
• What happened to Floyd’s first wife and daughter?
• Did Mabel break off all contact with her family or did she stay in touch over the years?

While I will continue to research this information as I write, what I have certainly does give me ample opportunity to fill in the blanks. And this is why I am a bit relieved that I am writing a fictional biography. While the facts are helpful, the story is a literary representation of my great-grandmother’s life.

And, yes, I am taking into account that dates get confused, people do not always share all the facts, and truth is sometimes harder to ascertain than one imagines.

Missing Albert

Even before June fourth arrived, Leta started to dread it. One morning she looked at the calendar, and realized that in only a few days, her beloved Albert will have been gone for two years. Was this, she wondered, how her mother felt after her father left? Actually, the feelings may have been similar, but the situation was different. Although both men abandoned their wives, their children and their homes, Leta’s father had only run away. There was always a possibility that he would return, and he did. Albert, however, was dead; he would never come back.

She never said anything, but she became irritable and distracted. She missed him terribly, both physically and emotionally. She missed their long conversations, his easy laughter, sharing a glass of their homemade alcoholic brew, his tender kisses, and his warm body against hers in their bed. She missed how the four of them—Al, herself, and her children Vivian and Dale would sit at the table for breakfast and look forward to the day.

Two years and two husbands later, Leta dreaded each day. Whether she spent the night in the bed she shared with her husband Leech or on the living room couch, morning arrived like a slow burn, gradually dragging her into another day of silence, grunts, avoidance and gloom.

If I can make it through the day, Leta told herself, I can make it.

The fourth was a Tuesday. Going into it, she slept fitfully with Leech snoring loudly beside her. The previous evening he had arrived home from work as usual, eaten his supper, and then left for four hours. When he returned, he strode right up the stairs without a word to her; she, however, had been waiting for him. She needed him to sit with her or talk to her or even acknowledge her, but he didn’t. When Albert went out in the evening, he would return with a cheerful greeting, give her a quick kiss, ask her how everything went while he was away and inquire about the children. If he was home early enough, he would talk to them, too. Once he had checked in, he would tell the story of his own evening. He would tease them; they would laugh.

Leta rose early. The room was dark, and while she could hear the alarm clock ticking, she could not see its face. She put on her robe and slippers and walked to the window. The drapes were closed. Leech hated to have the sun glare in. She looked at him, a pile of bedding, underwear and body all wrapped up together on the bed. The mass seemed to growl a warning at her, but she turned away and opened the drapes anyway.

If there was a moon, it was setting on some other side of the house. The sky above her was a dark blue with a few stars. She watched for a few minutes and could finally make out the light edging its way into the day.

She closed the drapes and left the room. She looked in on each of her children. Dale was splayed across the bed with all of his covers hanging off to one side. His pajama top was hiked up around his neck and one arm was twisted in what appeared to be a highly uncomfortable position. He wheezed when he slept, taking quick breaths and exhaling much more slowly. She closed the door and looked into the room across the hall where her daughter Vivian slept. Vivian slept on her right side, her body elongated but taut. If she slipped out of bed, one could barely tell she had been in it, so pristine did she leave the bulk of the bedding. Her breathing was light and quiet.

Leta closed the door and stood in the hallway for a long time. She had neither the will nor interest in moving. It was as though someone had emptied her and left her shell in this situation—confused and unhappy children, an irritable and absent husband, an ugly house. When she finally moved again, she made her way to the kitchen, like she did every morning. The light was creeping in slowly, but for the moment, the house was gray and dingy, leaving the walls, furniture and floors indistinguishable from each other.

She walked through the gray morass and into the kitchen, where her energy gave out. She dropped into a chair at the table. She felt deserted. She felt alone. She felt as if she was swallowed by the mass around her and became part of it. What she was living was not the life she lived with her beloved Albert. It was some other nonlife, an existence of an aching emptiness. She was breathing, and that was all she felt she was.

This was not her life.

Lies and More Lies, part ten

Leta moved in a daze, but deliberately. While she had felt many times before that she should just leave everything and walk away, this time she was actually doing it. The words of the woman in the butcher shop had served as a force she could not overcome. Her already weak and conflicted marriage was predicated by a lie. Her husband Leech told her that this was his first marriage, and for that, she forgave him again and again his mistreatment of her, his inconsiderate habits, and his difficulty with her children. However, the tenuous acceptance had been shattered by only a few words: “I’m Goldie. I was married to Leech. We have three children.”

Upon learning the information, Leta gave instructions to her daughter Vivian to go right home and walked out of the butcher shop. She hailed the first streetcar that drove past and got on. It was fairly crowded, but a kind gentleman gave her his seat. She sat carefully. She looked at the other passengers, a car full of strangers. Then she collapsed in on herself—alone, distressed, uncertain. Her unhappiness clung to her like the heavy humid air, and all she wanted to do was ride until her neighborhood, the city, and her life faded away. In her mind, she no longer had children or home. There was just her deceitful husband’s swollen face with its vast emptiness looking at her. He said nothing. He simply breathed and waited for her to abandon her dismay and anger, and be his devoted, obedient wife. She closed her eyes to hide from him, but he followed her there with that same arrogant expression. It was as though he was taunting her, waiting for her to say something or do something that he could respond to. But she would not give him that satisfaction.

Leta rode the streetcar to its last stop and stepped onto the street. Across the street was a small park, so she walked to an empty bench. There she sat from afternoon until evening. The park was filled with children and families, laughter and food, but she paid no attention. Instead, her thoughts battled each other. Her husband told her he had never been married, but he had been. He told her he had no interest in children, and he meant it; he had no interest in his own three children, which he abandoned to the horrors of the world. Did he even work where he said he worked? Did he own the house or was he lying about that? He obviously hadn’t lived there as long as he told her had. What else was he keeping from her? There were no satisfactory answers. Because of this, Leta could not figure out what she should do. She now possessed knowledge that could—that should—change everything, yet the question remained, What am I going to do?

Some time after the sun set, she finally left the park. She took two streetcars to get to a blind pig that she knew her husband would not patronize. She was really thirsty and asked the barman for a glass of water. She emptied it in one long drink while the barman watched her. She knew she looked terrible from sitting outside in the sun all afternoon and evening, but she didn’t care. She merely wanted to quench her thirst and arrest the shaking that seemed to be rising from the deepest part of her.

“Another,” she said as she put the glass down.

The barman complied. This one she took more slowly. When she finished, he asked her if she wanted yet another, but she felt as though that need had been satisfied.

‘Whiskey,” she said. “Straight up. Make it a double.”

 “Someone has had a hard day,” the barman noted.

She lifted the glass to her lips. “You don’t know the half of it,” she said, and then took an entire shot in one mouthful.

The libation coated her insides with a warm comfort, and she immediately began to relax for the first time that day.

When she finally returned to the house, she was feeling light-headed. The lack of food, the unsatisfying amount of water and the three double whiskeys she had been drinking for the past three hours had taken their toll. The house was quiet, but she barely noticed. Instead, she sat on the sofa, slipped off her shoes, and then stretched out.

Her life was about to change.

Lies and More Lies, part nine

"I'm his wife," the woman told Leta. "Was his wife. This is his daughter."

Leta and her daughter Vivian were standing in the butcher shop, waiting their turn. Leta was looking at cuts of pork to determine which she might like to prepare for their supper. In an already too eventful Saturday, after hearing the butcher greet Leta as Mrs. Hoose, the stranger, who was with a little girl who looked just like her, had just approached her and introduced herself as Goldie Hoose.

The little girl looked at Leta with large brown eyes.

“Pardon me?” Leta inquired. Vivian had moved closer, and both the butcher and the other customer had stalled their transaction to observe the introduction.

“I used to be married to Leech Hoose,” the woman continued. “He left us—me and our children—in November. Our divorce was finalized in February.”

“I don’t believe it,” Leta said. “My husband was never been married before he married me. He’s lived in the same house for years.”

“No, you’re mistaken,” the woman insisted quietly. “He was married to me. We have three children—two boys and a girl. This is our girl.”

Leta looked at the woman incredulously.

“I heard he got married again,” the woman said.

“But he told me….“ Leta protested. “Why are you telling me this?”

The woman’s face became more focused. “I thought you should know,” she said to Leta with a controlled bitterness. Then, before Leta could speak again, she turned away. “Come, Maddy,” she told the little girl.” She took the little girl’s hand and walked toward the door.

Leta started after her. She needed more proof. But Vivian grabbed her arm.

“Ma.”

Everyone in the shop watched the first Mrs. Hoose and her daughter walk out the door and disappear. After they were out of sight, Leta realized her head was pounding. It was as though her brain was expanding to her skull and contracting back, in time with her pulse. The butcher and the other customer were looking at her. Vivian had released her, but was also looking at her. Leta knew that the woman was telling the truth. No woman would like about such a thing. Being divorced was to be disgraced. In her own life, even though she had married her successive husbands almost immediately, she had experienced disdainful looks, social rejection, and even discrimination. For the former Mrs. Hoose, with three children, the status was detrimental. It was apparent in the way she walked and held herself.

Even though she wanted simply to collapse onto the floor, Leta knew that she must remain strong. She raised herself to as high as her stature would allow her.

“Vivian?” she said without looking at her daughter.

“Yes, Ma,” her daughter answered.

“Take the groceries and go home.”

“But what about the roast?”

“Just do as I tell you,” Leta answered firmly. “Do you hear me?”

“Yes, Ma.”

With that, Leta pulled her pocketbook to her hip, straightened her spine and walked deliberately out of the shop.

To be continued.