THE HOUSE ON PLUM STREET, continued

 

Ours was a happy home. Lottie played the piano and she, Papa and Mama all sang. Our father had a strong bass and Mama, a beautiful contralto. We had lots of company, too, who joined in the singing and fun. During the long winter evenings we played games – several card games, as well as dominos and Authors, in which Alfred or Lottie used to recite a line of poetry, and the others tried to guess who wrote it and its title. Another time, it would be arithmetic or spelling or puzzles.

 

Mother read incessantly, knitting all the time as she read. Lottie and I read a good deal, and Alfred did too when he was home. Papa was still going up into the woods in the wintertime, and he longed to be home with his family.

 

In 1892 we moved to Dixon, Illinois, where he bought a store building in what was then called Dement Town. He had a bakery and grocery store. Alfred helped during the summer and after school by driving the delivery wagon. Lottie had her first beaux there, and Annie Grant came to us there.

 

Our mother was ailing, and went to Chicago to consult with Uncle Jared, who told Papa that she had nephritis (a kidney disease), and would not live many years. Business was fine in Dixon, and Papa was happy to be with his growing family, but Mother’s health was declining and she missed her “Ma.” After a visit to EauClaire, she did not improve.

 

 

GREAT CHALLENGES AND CHANGES BEFALL US

 

UNCLE HECTOR WAS A MINISTER at the First Baptist Church, where we children had our first experience in churchgoing. In EauClaire, we had only the little Sunday School nearby. The next spring at the close of school, Papa shipped our furniture, plus a fine horse which Uncle George bought, back to EauClaire. Mama and Annie, with all of us children, followed by train. Alfred and Lottie had to travel at least two and a half miles to school, and the next year I did, too. Alfred and Lottie skated almost all the way in the wintertime, and I loved watching them start off. They skated beautifully!

 

In the spring of 1896, Papa signed a year’s contract to run the Owen Boarding House for the lumber men at Withee, fifty miles from EauClaire. Annie went, too, although by this time she was taking charge of us children, with Papa’s help, for our little mother was failing rapidly. Alfred attended school in Withee, two miles from Owen - where we were – and I did, too, for a year because the country school in Owen didn’t had a seventh grade. Then Alfred went to live with Grandpa on his farm outside EauClaire, either walking five miles to school or sometimes catching a ride. Grandma Hepburn had died early in September, and Alfred was a great comfort to Grandpa.

 

Mrs. Barbour was the country school teacher in Owen, and she made a place for me in school there. Many a time she called on me to take over as she was often too ill to finish out the day. I got along fine with everyone but Muriel, and she behaved beautifully after I said, “Muriel Leland, you take your seat and behave or I’ll go right home and tell Papa!”

 

Mama went to EauClaire in October, and soon Papa followed, returning to tell us that Mama was in a nursing home there. One day Papa phoned Lottie, asking her to bring Muriel, Percy and me to visit Mother. She lived only a week after that.

 

How wonderful Annie was, taking charge of all that extra work all that time. Maggie Patterson, a young girl whose home was near us in EauCLaire, helped Annie and stayed on until we left. Uncle Hector came up for the funeral services and he and Papa returned to Dixon to sell the store he still owned. Papa was a practical man – honored, respected, and loved by his many relatives – so Hector was shocked when Papa said he wanted to get his house in order because in a vision he had five minutes before Mother’s death, he had seen that he would die soon. Papa’s plan was to sell the store and buy a house in Dixon for us, if Uncle Hector would consent to be our guardian. Hector scoffed at first, then, knowing Papa, was compelled to reconsider, and promised to do his best.

 

What a wonderful man Uncle Hector was! Papa bought a two-story house and empty lot just a block away from the parsonage where Uncle Hector lived. Papa lived until April 25, when he died of a ruptured appendix after only a week’s illness. He had been father and mother to us during the five months since Mother’s passing. I was an emotional child, and after Mama’s death was not very well, so Papa took me out of school. When I objected, he decided to teach me himself. He did such a good job that when I returned to school and was told by the Superintendent to repeat the seventh grade since I had no report card, I was transferred back into the eight grade after only a week. I detested that Superintendent because of the way he smiled when I told him my father had taught me the seventh grade.

 

A few months later, the Superintendent visited the eighth grade class as we were reading Evangeline, and the teacher asked me to read. The last line I read was “As out of Abraham’s tent young Ishmael wandered with Hagar.”

 

“Who was Hagar?” he asked me. When I answered, “She was Abraham’s sister,” he smiled again, and I didn’t like him any better. That night Alfred and Lottie answered my question about Hagar.

 

Annie was wonderful to all of us that year and we loved her, but it was a sad year for all five. Lottie and Alfred studied very hard. Before Mama died, she had talked with Alfred, telling him to get all the education he could, “So you won’t have to work as hard as your father has.”

 

 

I RAN AWAY FROM SHAWTOWN, where I’d been staying with the Fennessays during Mama’s last days, to spend an afternoon alone with her the day before she died. Papa had gone to town on business, and the nurse left Mama and me alone. I have remembered those two hours all my life. When Papa returned, Mama asked to let me stay, but I had nearly fainted the week before when Mama, in her novely voice, had sung “I have read of a beautiful city.” The doctor had advised Papa to have me stay somewhere else, to he made me go back to the Fennessay’s house. He was strong – Alfred is so like him – and could do the thing that was best, no matter how difficult.

 

Papa, too, talked separately to each of us in those few short days of his illness. When he talked to me, he told me to be good, mind Lottie and Annie, go to school, and, above all, to take care of my health. Both parents worried about me, because I was the only one who had serious illnesses. (?) Mama said, “Ethel’s like me,” and I got the idea that I would also die at 39. She was so young and beautiful. All the aunts and uncles said none of her daughters could compare to her! Muriel was very pretty, though, and I can still see her laughing eyes.

 

 

OUR HOUSEHOLD IS BROKEN UP

 

WHEN SCHOOL CLOSED IN THE SPRING OF 1898, Uncle Hector took Muriel up to northern Wisconsin to the town where Uncle Dan was preaching, and took Percy to EauClaire, where he would live with Uncle John and Aunt Mayo until he was 14 and ready for high school.

 

When we broke up housekeeping, Lottie went to live at Garnett's, a boarding house on the South side run by Lucy and Lydia Garnett. Lottie’s first job was as a stenographer at the Grand Detour Plow Company (later to become J.I. Case), and she roomed with Lydia.

 

Alfred was a bookkeeper in Madison, Wisconsin at the Peoples’s Electric Company. It was a seven-week job and with his first paycheck, he bought me a little gold spoon, which remains my dearest treasure. It is market with my name on the front, and “August 31, 1898” on the back – the date of my fourteenth birthday. After the seven-week stint in Madison, Alfred returned to Dixon to work as a bookkeeper at the Grand Detour Plow Company, too, where he stayed until the fall of 1901. Then he moved to Concord, Ohio, where he had earned a position coaching basketball in the gymnasium at Muskingum College. Alfred had worked hard at the YMCA in Dixon to become fit, practicing night and day. On his was from Dixon to New Concord he boned up on basketball rules so he’d be able to referee at games. He was there for a year and made a good record.

 

I had gone to North Dixon to live with the Gus Wendel family my freshman year. I was unhappy being separated from Muriel and Percy, and seeing Alfred and Lottie only occasionally. I would glimpse them at church and on rare red-letter days when Mrs. Wendell asked them to Sunday dinner, or when Miss Lydia invited me to go home with Lottie. It was a real wrench

 

When summer came Uncle Hector took me up to EauClaire, where I was to live with Aunt Lizzie. She was a widow with two daughters at home. The oldest daughter, Ida, was a year and five months younger than I, and Mildred, only five. It was a happy family and I loved them all. Ida seemed as old as I, and we were two giggling teenagers together. I had a miserable attack of quinsy (peritonsillar abscess) soon after I arrived, and Dr. Thrane was wonderful to me all through my high school days, bringing flowers when I was ill and – at my insistence – presenting me with a bill each year, though for an absurdly small amount.

 

Aunt Lizzie was adorable but after only three months with her another change came. Aunt Sarah became ill, and a family conclave was held to decide what should be done. Lizzie, as the only widow, was selected to move in with Aunt Sarah and Uncle George. As their farm was five miles out in the country, I would be found a home in town, near the church and high school. Uncle Hector found just the family: the Packers. Mr. Packer was a Baptist minister who traveled through northern Wisconsin, and his wife wanted someone to stay with her for company.

 

I lived there for nearly three years until my graduation. They were fine people, and she looked after me through yearly quinsy attacks and other illnesses. I wasn’t allowed to attend school parties or other social affairs (which was the reason I enjoyed my college days!) I left for Dixon immediately after graduation in the spring of 1902 and had a joyous reunion with Alfred and Lottie, whom I had not seen in three years. Alfred was through his first year at Muskingum and working at the Grand Detour Plow Company. Lottie had been working there for five years and wanted to go back to school again. I was looking forward to college and hoping to attend in Madison. Alfred and Lottie decided they would go wherever Uncle Hector sent me for college.

 

 

NEW FRIENDS AND NEW FAMILY

 

Uncle Hector was serving as pastor in Vinton, Iowa and had been asked to give a commencement address at Central College in Pella, Iowa. He was favorably impressed with Pella, and decided I should enroll at Central College. He asked the college president Dr. Garrison, to recommend a family to house us: “just the finest Baptist woman you know,” with a daughter near my age, and I would be trained as the daughter was. He saw the great lack in my life of real home training. Dr. Garrison hastened to say that he knew who the finest woman in Pella was, but they were a Holland family, very reserved, and had never had a student in their home. I would be able to pay a little each week, but would be expected to help as a daughter would.

 

 

UNCLE HECTOR DIDN'T LACK CONFIDENCE in his persuasive powers or salesmanship, which he applied at once. Hector reported that Mrs. VanSpanckeren was a lovely as Dr. Garrison had said, and their daughter was a year and four months younger than I. Her name was Harriet, called Ettie with emphasis on the “Et.” Mrs. VanSPanckeren said sadly that she was sorry, but it would be impossible for her to have anyone extra in the house as her father occupied one bedroom; the maid, another; and Ettie and her three-year-old sister, Lottie shared a third; and one of the two little boys had to sleep on a cot when the oldest son, Bern, came home on weekends from managing store in Olivet.

 

“So you see,” Mrs. VanSpanckeren said regretfully, “ I just don’t have room.” It was decided that I would go to the college dormitory for the time being, and this pleased me mightily. I dreaded going into yet another strange home “where they might not even like me; and besides, that little girl was a lot younger than I and will probably want to tag me everywhere I go.” Uncle Hector smiled and said nothing.

 

Meanwhile, Alfred made plans to come to Pella as promised. He wrote that he had applied for a job in the gymnasium and they had accepted him with alacrity. With a year’s experience coaching at Muskingum he felt reasonably confident. Lottie, bless her heart, decided to improve her musical education (which was already excellent) at Central College as well.

 

A few days before our departure, we received a jubilant letter from Uncle Hector. It seemed that Mrs. VanSpanckeren had not been able to sleep for three weeks, troubled by the picture Uncle Hector had painted of a motherless girl is need of a real home life and the care and advice of a Christian mother. She kept thinking, “What if it were our Ettie?” until, after careful consideration, she wrote Hector that she had decided “that Ethel could sleep on a trundle bed and that if Ethel would consent “ – “I consent!“ – “to sleeping with her daughter, for it was a double bed, she would have me with them.”

 

She added, “The whole family voted on it, and when Bern came in from Olivet he too was asked and he voted yes, too.” After I had been there for a few weeks, she said that Bern said, when she asked him, “Oh, let the poor kid come!” 

 

 

THE THREE OF US, JOYFUL AT BEING TOGETHER AGAIN after three year’s separation, boarded the train at Dixon and headed west. At Vinton, Iowa, we stopped for the day at Uncle Hector’s, and he would continue to Pella with us for the introductions. For a few hours that day we even saw Muriel, who was there with Uncle Dan. We hadn’t seen each other for five years, except for a few hours when she and Uncle Dan passed through Eau Claire three years before, and she was 16 now and beautiful. We were shy, like strangers, but how our hearts yearned toward each other!

 

My heart was in my boots, worrying about going again to live with strangers. Alfred and Lottie were gently sympathetic and tried to cheer me. Mrs. VanSpanckeren had written a lovely letter inviting us all to her house that first night. She could put us all up, as her husband and Bern would be in Chicago on a buying trip.

 

When we got off the train in Pella, a tall, beautiful golden-haired woman, dressed in navy blue with a large blue hat with a white ostrich feather, came toward us. Smiling, she extended her hand to Uncle Hector. Then she looked at Lottie and me and said, laughing, “And this is Ethel, our new daughter! And you are Lottie!” As Lottie was nearly six years older than I, one can tell the difference at just 18, but can you imagine how pleased I was? She had Bern’s horse, Jim, and his rubber-tired road wagon, as it was called in those days.

 

Baggage and all, we were soon at the VanSpanckeren home. (This house in south Pella became the “old VanSpanckeren house,” to distinguish it from the ‘Cole house,’ where the family moved in early winter of 1905.) Up the front walk came one of the most beautiful girls I’ve ever seen. Her complexion was really peaches and cream, with lovely light brown hair and a sweet, shy smile that won my heart completely. This was Harriet, or “Ettie.” We locked arms and went up to our room together, friends at once and, providentially, friends to long life’s end.

 

I can see each member of the family as I met them that day. Hine, at eleven, was husky, wore knee trousers and came just up to my neck. He came in, threw his cap on a chair and said with a broad smile, “Hello there, Ethel!”

 

Seven-year old Warner came next, the thinnest child I have ever seen, with very dark hair and blue eyes and totally unlike his brother. Warner was very shy, and as he spoke he backed up to the wall and put his hands behind his back. Little Bessie was an adorable three-year old they called “our little Dutch baby.”

 

Mrs. VanSpanckeren (Mrs. VS) was concerned just once that following week, when Ettie and I were cleaning our room. When we washed the window I stood outside on the little balcony while Ettie washed the inside. When we had the window shining, and I went to step back in, it was locked.

 

“Say please,” Ettie said.

 

“Please,” said I.

 

“Say pretty please,” said Ettie.

 

“No!” said I. We were having great fun, and it went on until I spied Hine below in the yard. I asked him if he had a ladder, and when he answered yes, I said, “Go get it!” Ladder in place, I climbed down and marched back up into the room to confront Ettie. This worried Mrs. VS a just a little, she told us later that she worried that we might both be stubborn and not yield to each other on occasion. But we were just having fun – playing a game, and I think Mrs. VS never worried again.

 

Bess had just turned three, and what a dear little blonde Dutch baby she was with her lovely blue eyes and sweet prattle! Everyone in the family adored her, but she was Ettie’s special pride and joy. Every day it was Ettie’s task to put her to sleep.

 

How pleased I was to one day hear Bess say, “I have TWO sisters – Ettie and Ethel!” As she grew older, she and Warner were pals, for Warner was the delicate one of the family and was often home with her, not well enough to go to school. They played very well together, and indeed, there was never any serious quarreling among the VanSpanckeren children.

 

I loved it when we were all around the table together and the Holland maid, Nellie, attended us. There were five children, as my family too had been five, and I entered into the gaiety and felt right at home. Alfred and Lottie lived in the neighborhood and stopped in often, for they, too, enjoyed this delightful family and were charmed by the mother and father who presided so charmingly. Your Grandmother Ettie will tell you many tales of her childhood in the old South Pella house.

 

 

SUNDAY AFTERNOONS FOUND THE HOUSE FULL OF MUSIC, with Ettie playing the piano and her father’s clear tenor often joining her in hymns and popular songs. For a number of years Mr. VanSpanckeren was the principal tenor in the Baptist church. When he was younger, he had sung the principal part in the opera U.S.S. Pinafore, which had been presented by the prominent singers in Pella. Bern often talked about it, saying how well received it was. Somewhere there is a picture of all the participants, including my Bern as mascot, a little boy of five in a sailor suit.

 

The day after our arrival, Lottie went to the dormitory until she could find a room in a private home, while Alfred found a place to room not far away. That day Bern and his father returned from Chicago, and I shall never forget Mr. VS’s kindly greeting. He passed out gifts to his wife and each child, and finally handed me a box of candy, saying, “And this is for our new daughter!”

 

Bern was nineteen, with lots of very blonde hair, very fair skin and rosy cheeks – and such blue eyes! None of the children, however, had eyes the color of Mrs. VS’s – a lovely violet color which I have seen only one other time. Her hair, too, had a more rich golden color that any of the children’s.

 

 

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