Chapter Eight
Kate pushed open the rusty black gate of the Magnolia Hill cemetery with a screech.
She had managed to get away from the farm by offering to walk into town to do errands for her mother.
Predictably, Mrs. Kerwyn had fussed at the proposition, but she had finally acquiesced when Kate pointed out that the sugar canister was nearly empty and that she wasn’t actually ill any longer.
Kate had considered asking Edmund for a ride, but she didn’t want to take him away from helping Dad.
Now that it was March, with the ground beginning to thaw, it would soon be time to plant, and her father was keenly feeling Ray’s absence, though he would never admit it.
The prodigal was back at Ruby’s, and Edmund was again dividing his time between the two farms. Several days a week, he arrived at the Kerwyns before dawn and stayed well past dark.
Kate let her eyes travel over the tranquil space.
If it hadn’t been a cemetery, she would have thought it quite beautiful.
A couple of big weeping willows and various pines stood tall at the far end, while a giant pin oak in the very center shaded a lonely bench.
An army of daffodils had popped up along the fence line and were likewise invading inward, a few growing between the headstones themselves.
It seemed a sad irony to Kate that something so fresh and new and lovely as a daffodil could grow amidst the crumbling graves, beneath which lay decaying bodies.
She let out a deep breath. The cemetery somehow seemed bigger on the inside.
She had come with the intention of looking for any deceased members of the Espo family.
The idea had come upon her a few days ago while she was sweeping, and she had not been able to get it out of her mind since.
If Rosemary’s story was true, wouldn’t her parents’ graves be here?
She would at least have names to go on then. But where to start?
She set her grocery basket on the bench beneath the oak.
The most logical choice was to do it in as organized a way as possible, so she returned to the gate and began walking along the row bordering the fence.
This method worked with the first and second rows, but when she attempted the third and fourth, it became harder, as the stones began to lose their orderly neatness.
When she eventually reached the “old” section, which contained graves from the 1800s, it became nearly impossible to proceed in an organized fashion, so Kate did the best she could to wander around the obelisks and other markers, whose engravings were hard to make out.
There were a few giant marble mausoleums—one of them for the Merriweathers, of course.
Kate did not see the point of spending that much money to mark the spot where your bones would lie and rot, but, then again, she didn’t understand most of the things people with money did.
After searching for over an hour, Kate had covered most, if not all, of the graves, yet she had not come upon a single Espo.
Perhaps Rosemary had been mistaken about the name?
That or they were not buried here. She returned to the bench and sat down wearily.
There was St. Peter’s Cemetery, but that had been filled decades ago, and also a small cemetery on the outside of town that serviced the non-Christians.
Had they been buried all the way out there?
Her mother, she knew, would worry if she wasn’t back soon.
But having escaped from her chores, she felt a sort of desperation to at least discover something.
Perhaps there was someone in the cottages on Magnolia who could tell her more or at least confirm the existence of an immigrant camp.
She checked her wristwatch. Nearly three. She would have to hurry.
Kate cut across Liberty Park and proceeded down Chestnut until she came to Magnolia.
Harriet and Rosemary’s cottage was midway along the street, so Kate turned left toward the lower end.
She approached the cottage closest to the Muellers, but when she got to the door, she hesitated.
What was she going to say? “Hello? Do you remember an immigrant family whose father died in the mine accident and whose mother died of diphtheria, leaving a bunch of orphaned children?”
She backed down the steps and stood in the street. Perhaps she should go home and rehearse what to say. But, she countered, who knew how long it would be before her mother let her come back to town? No, it had to be now.
She forced herself back up the two steps and rapped quickly on the door.
After a few moments, it was opened by an elderly man with a hunched back. “Yes?”
Kate shifted. “Hello. My name is Kate Kerwyn, and I—”
“Who?” The man held a hand to his ear.
“Kate Kerwyn!” she shouted.
The man pondered this for a moment and then squinted at her. “What is it?”
“I’m wondering if you could tell me about any of the families who lived at the end of this street around the time of the mining accident!” she shouted.
His brow creased. Clearly, he had either not heard or had not understood. Kate repeated herself several more times until he finally seemed to grasp her meaning.
“No, I don’t,” he said simply then stood there as if waiting for the next question.
“Well, thank you!” she shouted, deciding to give up.
“That all you wanted?” he asked, perplexed, as Kate made her way down the stone steps.
Kate merely waved and walked to the next cottage. This time, she knocked without hesitating. No one seemed to be home, however, so after several more knocks, she moved on to the next cottage.
At this one, a young boy answered. He was holding a baby, and a toddler wobbled beside him.
The boy explained that his mother had gone into town but that she’d be home soon if Kate wanted to stop back.
Kate contemplated explaining her errand for him to relate to his mother but then decided against it.
It was too complicated. With a sigh, she thanked him and moved on.
There was only one cottage left at this end of Magnolia, and as Kate trudged toward it, she decided this had been a foolish idea.
Still, she climbed the double stone steps and knocked.
This time, a young woman about her age opened the door.
Kate vaguely remembered her from school.
Constance, she thought her name might be.
“Indian Kate! What are you doing here? Want to come in?”
Kate’s face blanched. At being called “Indian Kate,” her resolve wavered.
She was tempted to pretend she had accidentally knocked on the wrong door, but she couldn’t even come up with false name.
“I . . . I know this sounds peculiar,” she faltered, forcing herself to proceed, “but I’m just going up and down the street asking people if they remember anything about the families who used to live down at the bottom of Magnolia. ”
“The foreigners?” Constance raised her eyebrows. “Chief Meyers got rid of all them. Cleared ‘em out. That was a long time ago, though. Why?”
“Who is it, Connie?” shouted a woman from inside. “Don’t stand there with the door open.”
Constance tilted her head toward the interior. “Better come in.”
With a sigh, Kate followed her in, as there seemed to be no other option.
It was very neat and tidy, and the front room featured an enormous radio, from which the sound of an orchestra emanated.
The smell of something cooking lingered in the air.
Pork chops, if Kate had to guess, and her stomach rumbled.
“Who is it?” asked the woman, coming into the room as she wiped her hands on her apron.
“It’s Indian Kate . . . I mean, Kate . . . Kerwyn, from school, Ma. She’s asking about the foreign families that used to live down at the end.”
The woman’s face crumpled in suspicion. “Why? We don’t know anything about them. They’re all gone now.”
Kate wished she could remember Constance’s surname. Ginter? Green? Gerber? She was pretty sure it was Gerber . . . “I’m a friend of Harriet and Rosemary Mueller, Mrs. Gerber,” she explained, deciding to guess.
“Oh, yeah?” Mrs. Gerber’s frown relaxed slightly.
“I . . . I was talking to Rosemary about the families that lived here around the time of the accident. The mining accident, I mean. Apparently, there was a man who died in it and whose wife died later of diphtheria. The kids were all taken in by a relative from Shullsburg.” She looked at her hopefully.
“Does any of this ring a bell? They were called Espo, I think. At least that’s what Mrs. Mueller seems to remember. ”
Mrs. Gerber’s lips twisted in thought. “Well, I do seem to remember something like that, come to think of it. There were so many sad stories, hard to remember them all.” She looked to Constance for help, but Constance, who would have been little more than a toddler, was of no assistance.
“I do think I remember that woman, though.”
Kate held her breath.
“Long black hair she had; always wore it up in an old-fashioned bun. Probably what they did back wherever she came from. Always creeping up here begging for milk—as if we had milk to spare!”
“Do you remember the name? Was it Espo?”
Mrs. Gerber thought for a moment and then shrugged. “Mighta been. Couldn’t tell ya. Rosemary knew more. She only had the one kid, while I was raising five. Didn’t have time. And Rosemary . . . well . . . she always was a little different. But I suppose you already know that.”
Kate silently acknowledged that Rosemary, with her big generous heart, was assuredly different.
“Not worth learnin’ their names,” Mrs. Gerber went on defensively. “There were packs of ’em comin’ an’ goin’. Filthy, they were. Lice-ridden. Hundreds of kids running around.” She drew herself up. “Disgusting is what I say. Thank God Chief Meyers and Sheriff Norris got rid of them.”
Kate could not get the image of what might have been her mother begging for milk from this kind of woman.