No. 17
Mrs. Lafayette to Mrs. Quinn (Give us Today)
Mrs. Quinn
908 E Jefferson
Louisville, Kentucky
July 30, 1940
Dear Mrs. Quinn,
Win was about 73 or 74 years old, born in Holland in 1868. Her name was Wilhelmena “Minnie” de Boer.
While I waited for Win to return from the hospital, I kept burning things and clearing out the farmhouse. I believed that she was going to have to go back to Iowa, or travel to Chicago to live with me, if I could find a new place for two, with my daughter, perhaps, but my daughter would probably say no. But whether or not Win would travel to Iowa, well, that decision had to be mine, because she would need a helpmate, and the only way I could be a helpmate was to read her many letters and determine if I could like her, if I could care for her, and if she would be difficult, if she had family, if she could be unyielding, and if she would, well, at her old age, be willing to submit. I was ten years younger, and I had two arms, so I think she had no choice but to follow me.
Here I was prying into her life to see if she was crazy, bearing false witness, which would have to end, and it would, I promised, someday soon.
I would never leap into imagination like she did, believing in the elders, the deacons, the saints and the miracles, but I did respect her readiness to believe, her readiness to accept gifts, and understood that if she was coming with me, that I would have to convert to Catholicism, which seemed like something I could do, as her driver, once a week, and pretend to understand Latin. Well, I could sing it at least.
So here are those letters that Miss Minnie de Boer wrote to Stewart, a young man whom she wanted to influence, but alas, I do believe it was rather hopeless. At the time Win must have known that it was hopeless, as an old sinner begins prayer after exile. She was odd in that way. Judge for yourself, Mrs. Quinn, but it reminded me of my own mother, the Caring Mother Evangelist, as she marketed herself, or as they called her, visiting prisons, thinking words had anything to do with it.
Minnie—I only knew her as “Win”—but Stewart knew her as “Miss Minnie,” and the clerk man called her “Win. ”
Wait a minute. At this last moment, Mrs. Quinn, I think I will confide in you and turn on my side a bit. It is best, I think now, with a view of our Lady, to start with the stories Win batched with twine especially for Stewart. This shows, I think, how she cared for Stewart, before he was sent off to boarding school, when he believed.
We start with the stories Win made up about the clerk’s elders, which would also be the same ancestors of her employer, Ruth, and of course the elders of the boy Stewart.
Win wanted Stewart to have them as she recorded them. Their final ending was indeed to boomerang right back to her, unopened, and later, with me in the mix at the farm, one time promising to burn them.
Obviously, for where we are now, we did not toss them in the fire. We—Miss Minnie and I—now give them to you.
She is by my side, Win, and in her bed, after a fresh bath. And we are all smiles as I let her lick the envelope.
Mrs. Laura Lafayette
2025 Copyright Christine Friesel
