No. 80

Chas. My Person

Stewart King c/o

John C. Davant, Attorney

501 Cleveland St.

Clearwater Florida

January 9, 1938

Dear Stewart

The letters from your uncle Charles were dwindling. He was less forthcoming with details, I had to rely on your mother to give it to me, to help me focus on the details.

Your mother said that Charles in the winter of 1886 was teaching his children Longfellow, as if he had time for that, so I didn't believe her all the time, your mother. Apparently, she assumed, as things warmed up and he was able to get out, Charles was spending more time at the Grand Army of the Republic hall, where he was later introduced to Mrs. Garlock, an attractive widow, was with the committees for the ladies and an old officer by the name of Lydick, who was flirting with her. Charles wrote that she was most entertaining and a much-needed flower in bloom in winter, as if he had time for that, so I didn't want to believe her, your mother.

Your mother said, popping in a pill, that for once Charles was doing something right by teaching his children himself and not relying on Esther’s father, “Mr. Keil”. Longfellow was a good choice, she said, and reminded me that I didn’t know any of it. A shame, she said, for by reciting it daily it would allow me perhaps some correction to my speaking impediment. I was told it was permanent unless I could be immersed in special schooling at the capital city.

 Her comment about my shame interrupted a scene in my head that I was just forming, of Charles by the fire with his family, with plenty of supplies, wood, and berry preserves, rolling off Longfellow from memory.

Yes, for Charles and for me, I felt a kinship in the cards dealt.

Later, I recalled the day my mother pushed me into a crowd near the plank off the ship to America. I was six years old and was pushed into the cargo area.

The night before our separation, this hard break, my mother placed a rosary around my neck and tucked it down under my collar. She was in a hurry and panting a little bit and I didn't know why, because I thought she was sleeping next to me all this time.

The next morning, my dear mother and I inched onto the down ramp with the others. Like beads ourselves, being pushed and pulled, cramming all of our petition into the narrow gate, trying to get out of the bucket.

Years later, in helping you with vocabulary, I discovered the word "anticipation" and I remember how cleaning up with dishes didn’t bother me so much that night for I was able to look right at that old time and place a word to that old child in me.

I was choked up to reunite with my father and sister after the gate, as I thought they were to be there waiting, but in a flash I had instead a panic to reach for my mother, my life, my sweetness. The people speaking in ugly tongues tied my ears and nose in knots with their stinky, crusty flesh. The sound of a crowd crushing, crunching, as if grinding their teeth.

Right before this, she gripped my hand to the point of pain, but as the crowds got thicker, she pulled me close, crouched down in front of me. Said my name forcefully, but not as if I had done something wrong, but as if I was called to go or come in another direction. She called my full name, Wilhelmina Roos, and I turned, I reached out my arms, thinking I was going up.

But God’s will be done, my mother closed her eyes and shoved me off.

I pulled at her coat, claiming one button, and began to wail at once. Was spun around and thrown out until squashed against a wall. Wet my pants. Waited for a uniform.

He eventually came, that man. He asked the right questions to discover my native tongue. He lifted me in his arms, which he immediately regretted for my wet bottom. Thinking for sure he would drop me, I began to choke him. But he only sighed and looked to the clouds, which helped me, for I followed his way and looked up also, and for that split moment, I knew that I had made a friend. Then he looked straight to get through the crowd, but not at me, he did not try to comfort me, which was the right thing to do, but he looked straight and moved with force. Good that he did look straight, for I could finally see, from this new vantage point, what a clog breaking looked like and what the flooding into a world of promised affluence looked like and yet again with people on top of people it was much worse than I thought.

 He took me to the business side of the desks. They pinned a note to my coat with the label "Dutch".

They searched by coat pockets and found a piece of paper that I did not know was there: my name and the address of my father in Iowa and a relative in Brooklyn, whom they were apparently never able to find, either, over this time—the time of events is a blur here.

I understood enough to know, at the end of a few days, that mother was not on the list of parties who got off the ship.

It was in the home of a nice officer (the one who spoke Dutch) as he took me to his home for the night and a meal. A nice Dutch lady there, perhaps his wife or sister, gave me a bath. She knew the lullabies to soothe me, while combing out my tangled hair, checking for lice, I suppose. She was not rough with her brush and chased it with her other hand, which was holding a towel, and she squeezed out the water. She made me blow my nose. The next day an investigation began. I heard them say my mother's name was not on the exit list.

 My father, who had arrived in America months before, had expected my mother and me to stay a few weeks with a relative in Brooklyn. When they could not find us, he did what he could to contact the authorities, and it was discovered that I must belong to him.

The authorities would not release me to any kin in Brooklyn, which I later understood upset my father. When he finally arrived, I hardly recognized him, but he did kiss me affectionately. I wanted to stay with the officer. I heard music there. A nice meal there. Even so, I cried again and clung to the leg of the officer, perhaps thinking he was still looking for my mother. This outburst infuriated my father, who from that moment on, treated me with our shared and forever after confusion.

His downing down over my mother (or perhaps just me) was a refrain. When I was more mature, just a few years later, we parted ways about my memory of that day on the ship.  

My mother and I had to stay behind in Holland and let my father and older siblings move to America because my mother's parents were sick. The plan was for them to join us, but they got sick on purpose, someone said, and this separated my parents on purpose. When her father died, my mother got on the ship with tormented spirits, because leaving her grieving mother to live with relatives that were of limited means was too much.

I mentioned this version to my father: she drowned on purpose and was corporally corrected. His hand spun me so hard I thought that I heard the beads hit the floor and scatter, but they didn't. The beads were still in my undergarments. But it was what I heard. It was a gift that I heard that sound. For I never wanted to hear it, the scattering.

In a few days my father refused to educate me, even stopping his lessons from the newspapers, when he would read to me. Said I should find work in exchange for boarding and that I should learn a trade. Did not help me find a trade or a husband. Said I should go to the convent. Stopped going to Mass.

I saw what I saw: She shut her eyes tightly before she pushed me.

Your mother wanted to know why I would carry the battered wooden rosary when there were more ornate ones. I thought she must know something and agreed that I could improve my place. When I finally bought a finer one, she wanted me to explain this indulgence.

That button, the one from my mother’s coat. It was wood. The day after my sacrament of Confirmation, I attached this coat button to my rosary with a hearty thread, knowing it was contra. And over those years with your mother, I don’t know when it happened, gradually I suppose, but I would run through the beads, praying for that whale who was holding my mother, to motivate her to accept her call to be my mother, if that was needed. And nearly every time I turned full circle around the button, she somehow got out of the beast and was above me, or with me, and, I don’t know if this was true, but I felt my petitions were no longer important at all, and I could take on another bead, another portion, another step, another cross.

In my imagination to banish my mother to the belly of the whale, I was not only hurting her, but was wounding our Lord, like my father was nearly every violet hour, and here I was in truth treating her and my father no different than that button, as an option, and add-on, something ornamental, something useful, a category. Looking for a piece of wood to throw on the fire.

Stewart, listen to me child! I kept on listing the options that suited me: I kept dreaming of justice for Carrie Dawson, hoping for the horses in Kanona for the Boy Henry, waiting for rest and riches for Charles, and putting off joy for a more hearty and creative family for you and me. Stewart, you must stop looking for a piece of wood to throw on the fire, son!

If our Savior was born in a feeding troth, then I could be separated from my mother and be dutiful to yours. Oh, eventually I knew a correction was coming. Those few moments I had with Charles were enough. But then not enough! Lord, what was my portion? I felt it, but did not understand it, and I deserved to know why. Do you not agree?

But why did she push me? And now what? Even if I did have the answer, now what? What then? What was to become my new concern? So, I thought that this person was the one I wanted. Mine!

Ecce!! Imagine the look on my face to find me again on the ship, being pursued by God, refusing to pick up the wailing child.

— Miss Minnie

2025 Copyright Christine Friesel