Chapter 20
When Brady’s students arrive and rave about the coffee bar and egg sandwiches, the day seems to be on an upswing. But all the positive vibes dwindle, at least for me, once class resumes.
To ease back in, Brady plans for his students to practice techniques like tempering eggs for lemon curd and whisking a silky ganache.
I work alongside him during the lesson, assisting when he needs an extra hand, but I feel out of place.
I’m clumsy. Brady still won’t really look at me, and our interactions feel cold and clinical, as if I’m Allen and not the woman he kissed on the porch last night.
I don’t linger once class ends. I want to throw all my energy at something that feels safe and tangible, like finishing the application for the National Register of Historic Places.
It takes ninety days or more for approval, and I want to complete it before I head back home.
I realize that with the fire, housing Brady and the Scandinavian Trio, and relaunching the baking camp, Alice and I have had very little time to discuss the financial details of her impending foreclosure.
I promised her we’d figure it out, and I want to keep that promise.
We need to put a plan together before I leave for home.
I’m in my bedroom, laptop open, for only a few minutes when I hear a knock on the door. I spring to answer it, thinking—hoping—it’s Brady. But it’s Katrine. I hope I don’t look disappointed.
“I tried catching you after class but you left so quickly,” she says.
“Yes, sorry, I wanted to finish up that application for the National Register.”
“Want some help?” she asks.
“That would be great,” I say, realizing I don’t really want to be alone after all. “You said you wanted to see the ledger anyway.”
We sit on my bed, and I show her the artifacts we’ve collected so far—the ledger, the WLA list of workers, and the new photograph from Lenny, of the girls out front.
She studies each with true interest. Over her shoulder, I quickly review the ledger again, scanning for Linda or Brenda or Shirley, the names we found carved into the back of the Rosehill sign.
But Alice and I were right. They aren’t there.
“Is this all you need for the application?” she asks.
“It’s enough,” I say. “Ideally, I would find one of these farmerettes. There is a narrative portion of the application, and it would be nice to include a personal account. I’m not sure any of them could still be alive, though.
The odds are slim. I was going to comb through obituaries, but I never had time to do the research. ”
Katrine reaches for my laptop. “Well, we have time now,” she says.
The free obituary database through Ancestor Quest includes all published obits starting in 1930.
Katrine and I work through the twenty-two names—the women Alice and I cross-referenced, who appear in both Rose’s ledger and the WLA master list I received from Lenny.
We find obituaries for twenty. While most of the women married and adopted their husbands’ surnames, their maiden names are listed in the obituaries.
We match these to the names in Rose’s ledger.
Rose also kept note of her boarders’ hometowns and the universities they attended.
These details also help us match each obituary to the correct woman.
“So who does that leave?” I ask.
“Esther Monroe and Peggy Kelley,” Katrine says, reading the names from the ledger.
“So these two women are either still alive, or they passed away and we just couldn’t find their obituaries,” I say.
“Let’s Google them,” Katrine offers, already typing Esther Monroe into the search engine. It doesn’t yield anything promising, so she tries Peggy’s full name.
We scroll through the results, but the first hits are for businesswomen obviously too young to be our Peggy Kelley. We don’t find a good match until the bottom of the page.
“Okay, here’s a newspaper article from two years ago,” Katrine says, eyeing the screen. “It’s about a high school choir performing Christmas songs at the Walden Center for Senior Living in Green Point, Wisconsin. Where is that?”
“That’s about an hour away,” I say. “I drove through it on my way here.”
Katrine focuses on reading. “Okay, well, there’s a quote here from one of the residents, Peggy Gibson, about how much she enjoyed the visit. And she’s featured in a photo with her great-niece, Judy Kelley. So maybe her maiden name was Kelley?”
We study the picture. “It really could be her,” Katrine exclaims. “Hopefully, she’s still alive.”
I quickly call the senior facility in Green Point to figure out whether Peggy Gibson is still a resident. The receptionist says, due to privacy restrictions, they can’t divulge any information about residents, but they would forward my name and number to Peggy’s family.
Unfortunately, if I want to include a personal narrative with the application—a primary source of sorts—all we can do is wait. So I hedge my bets on Peggy and decide to put the application on hold for now. While we tidy up the space, Katrine puts the ledger back into the manila envelope.
“What’s this?” she asks, slipping a black-and-white photograph from under the ledger’s leather cover.
“That was in there?” I take it from her. “I didn’t see it.”
“It was tucked in the back here,” she says.
Katrine moves closer, and we huddle to inspect the photo. It’s of a toddler with light hair, wearing an apron much too big for her, the center pocket filled to the brim with eggs. The girl is smiling, windblown hair in her face.
“That’s the same little girl in the group photo,” Katrine notes. “The one Rose is holding.”
I notice the same thing. I turn the photo over and read a handwritten note:
Lucy at the henhouse, 1945.
“So this is Lucy!” I exclaim.
“Who’s Lucy?” Katrine asks.
“I actually don’t know for sure.” I quickly tell Katrine about my great-great-grandmother’s recipe for Lucy’s Victory Cake. “If this is Lucy, who is her mother? It has to be one of these women in the photo, right?”
We stare at the picture again, trying to spot a resemblance in the sea of faces.
Our concentration snaps when my cell phone rings—it’s a number I don’t recognize. When I answer, a woman introduces herself as Judy Kelley, Peggy Gibson’s great-niece.
“The staff said you just called,” Judy says. “I’m actually here this afternoon visiting Peggy. Fortunately, it’s one of her lucid days.”
“She has dementia?” I ask.
“Yes. It comes and goes. Today, she has clarity. I asked her whether she was in the Women’s Land Army and lived at the Rosehill Boardinghouse, all the details you left in your message.
I had no idea about this time in her life, but she really brightened when I mentioned it.
It seems she is the Peggy you’re looking for. ”
My heart leaps. I give Katrine a thumbs-up, and she smiles. “Oh wonderful. She may very well be the last farmerette still alive.”
“This was your grandmother’s boardinghouse?” Judy asks hesitantly.
“Actually, my great-great-grandmother’s boardinghouse. I’ve been staying here and uncovered quite a history. I would love to talk to Peggy sometime soon, if you think she’d be open to a chat?”
“Yes, but like I said, she has good days and bad days. And they don’t run on a schedule, per se. It’s hard to plan ahead of time.”
“I understand,” I say, knowing I’m leaving tomorrow and wondering when I’ll even be able to come back.
“How far away are you?” she asks.
“About an hour.”
A pause. “Any chance you could come soon, as in this afternoon? I find when she is like this, she stays coherent for a few hours. But as the day progresses, she fades.”
Peggy is over one hundred years old. What if she passes away soon, and I miss my chance to talk to quite possibly the only living person who remembers the boardinghouse?
“I’ll be there,” I say.
On the hilly ride to Green Point, we drive through small towns, much like St. John’s Ferry, with obvious European influences.
The historian in me wants to stop in each one.
One town is Cornish—its early settlers immigrated from Cornwall, England, and the quaint but formidable limestone buildings reflect this heritage.
Another was settled by Norwegians and boasts statues of trolls throughout the city streets.
Yet another village looks like a mini Switzerland, with gabled roof buildings and restaurants advertising a Swiss potato dish called rosti.
On this peaceful drive through the Midwest countryside, I realize that it’s possible to travel Europe without ever leaving Wisconsin.
When Alice, Hannah, and I arrive at Walden Center for Senior Living, Peggy’s great-niece Judy meets us and escorts us to her room.
Peggy sits in a wheelchair near the window.
Beside her are a cup of tea that has gone cold and a butter cookie with one bite taken.
Her hair is short and white, sticking up at the crown. She wears a curler in her bangs.
“Peggy, these women are here to see you,” Judy says in a firm but loving tone. “They want to talk to you about the Women’s Land Army.”
Peggy turns from the window and smiles warmly at us.
“Rose, is that you?” she says to Alice.
“No, I’m Alice. Rose’s granddaughter.”
I introduce myself, and Hannah too.
“You look so much like Rose,” Peggy says, her speech slow and shaky. “Where is she?”
We look to Judy to assess whether we should mention that Rose has long passed away, but she shakes her head.
“She couldn’t make it today,” Alice says instead.
It is technically the truth.
“Aunt Peggy,” Judy says. “Can you tell these ladies about Rosehill Boardinghouse?”
Peggy’s eyes light up. “Rosehill,” she begins. “Yes, I lived at Rosehill for three summers. In 1943, 1944, and 1945.”
As Peggy begins to talk, Judy reaches for a coloring book and crayons and hands them to Hannah, who eagerly opens to an empty page.
“You stayed there while working for the Women’s Land Army?” I ask.
She nods. “There were twelve of us. Though not the same twelve every summer.”
Alice shows Peggy the photograph of the farmerettes, the one by the sign. We brought it in hopes of jogging her memory. “Is this you in the photo?” Alice asks, pointing to the tall, athletic woman in the back row.
Peggy’s eyes narrow, then widen. “Yes, that’s me,” she says.
“And this is Clara, and Sarah,” she adds, pointing to other girls with a shaky finger.
She rattles the names off by memory, the same names we read in the ledger.
And then she goes on to tell us so many vivid details, about arriving in the back of a truck, meeting Rose that first day, eating asparagus soup and egg-salad sandwiches, the hard labor of working the fields and milking cows and picking fruit and driving tractors, going to dances with soldiers and laughing and talking for hours.
“Were any of the farmerettes named Linda or Nancy? Donna, perhaps?” Alice asks. We still haven’t solved the mystery of the names inscribed on the Rosehill plaque.
Peggy shakes her head.
“What about Lucy?” I prompt, pointing to the little girl Rose holds in the photo. “Can you tell us anything about this girl?”
She closes her eyes first, and then beams. “Lucy,” she says with adoration.
“Who was she?” Alice asks. “Who was Lucy?”
“She was our baby, our little girl. We were all head over heels in love with Lucy.”
“Our baby?” Alice repeats.
“But Aunt Peggy, who was her actual mother?” Judy presses.
“Esther,” she says.
“Which one is Esther?” I ask, luring her eyes back to the photo.
Peggy frowns. “She’s not in the picture.” She crunches her nose and her bottom lip quivers. “Why isn’t Esther in the photo?”
“Maybe she’s the one taking the photo?” I offer.
Peggy shakes her head, confusion knitting her eyebrows. “No. It was a man from the newspaper. He took the picture.” Peggy’s left eyelid starts to twitch.
“It’s okay. Maybe she was sick that day,” Alice offers, trying to calm her sudden anxiety. “It seems like maybe you all helped take care of Lucy?”
Peggy pauses and seems to regroup. “Yes, we took turns watching her, feeding her, diapering her that first summer, and the next year, holding her hand as she walked, playing peekaboo.” The woman’s eyes begin to tear, and her smile sours. “And then we lost her.”
I steal a glance at Hannah. “Lost her?” I ask.
Peggy starts to cry. “She was stolen from us.”
“Stolen as in kidnapped?” Alice asks.
“He took her,” Peggy blurts. “He took her. He took her. He took her,” she repeats. Her voice grows deeper, guttural. She begins to tear a tissue into tiny pieces.
“Aunt Peggy,” Judy says firmly, rubbing her back. “Take a deep breath.” And then to us: “I’m afraid we may have lost her now.”
We watch as the woman who, a few moments ago, conveyed energy and strength and mental clarity morphed into a tired, despondent old woman staring out the window. Her distress seemed to have shut off her mental acuity like a light switch.
“Aunt Peggy,” Judy says, trying to get her attention.
Peggy turns from the window. “Oh, hello,” she says, seemingly startled. “Are you my nurse?”
And just like that, our visit with Peggy is over. We go home with even more questions about Lucy than when we arrived.
Namely, what exactly happened to her?