Bitter Fruits of Labor

Morrison County, Minnesota, circa 1920

This is a picture of the old homestead on my Maternal Grandfather’s side. From the look of the slightly overgrown vegetation, it appears to have been taken sometime in the late summer.

I’m not sure of all the identities although I suspect that the man second from left is my grandfather and the man on the porch resembles his brother Oscar. Oscar was a dynamiter by trade; in the 1930s he worked on Mount Rushmore in South Dakota and on the Ford Dam (Lock and Dam No. 1) between Minneapolis and Saint Paul. He was also an amateur photographer, this image is from a collection of about thirty glass plates that he left behind. The women are probably their sisters. The other man may be my great-grandfather. The genealogy of this side of my family is muddy.

This homestead was the cause of some bad blood between the siblings after it had been left to decay. My Grandfather had been away working in various parts of the state and then he returned and fixed it up. His siblings thought they should profit from his labors and the rift caused by that misunderstanding fractured the family. This branch of my family tree was not much discussed with the younger generation.

I visited the homestead once in the late 1960s and it was again in ruins.

Fun in Montana

This is a FITK re-post

Monday, May 09, 2005



1958 was a watershed in my childhood.

It was the year of the great western family vacation: South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana and North Dakota, in our brand new ’58 Ford. The Dakotas and Wyoming were fine, with all the usual picture-postcard scenery and the tourist traps (yes, we did stop at Wall Drug!) But the high point of the trip, what made it transcend the ordinary, was a stay in Chinook, Montana, where one of my dad's brothers lived with his family, and where my dad’s sister-in-law, the widow of another of my dad’s brothers, lived with her son.

Now Chinook is a small town, a little east of Havre, on the north central plains. My Dad's brother had four or five kids, two boys, two girls and some other boy, now grown up, who had some kind of unexplained relationship to us. All of us cousins had fun together, visitors to this part of Montana were somewhat scarce at that time, none of my other relatives ever went out there. Montana was a lot wilder than Minnesota, we did things that were unheard of for this eight-year-old: playing poker till 2 a.m., fun games with liquid mercury(!), shooting off fireworks (and not ladyfingers either!), target practice, dropping water balloons on unsuspecting townsfolk, teasing their “pet’ magpies, and many other pranks. After three or four days of this, we went home and forgot all about our country cousins.

Ten years later. I was a student at the University. On Thursdays my last class was over at noon; I took the bus home. I was home alone, everyone else was at work or school. The phone rang. The operator's voice said: “Will you accept a collect call from ____, in Havre Montana?” It was my uncle. In a trembling voice he explained that his younger son, the one my age, had been ‘out hunting’ with his cousin… something happened… he had been shot to death… it was an accident.

As I grew older, the missing parts of the story began to get filled in. Montana was a wilder place than Minnesota. Fun with cars, and booze, and guns. My cousin who pulled the trigger spent the next thirty years drunk, and finally died from a fall, also while drunk. 45 years earlier his father had also died drunk, found frozen to death in a feedlot. His grandfather - my grandfather - had died drunk.

My uncle and aunt never got over my cousin’s death. When they’d come to visit they’d look at me closely, commenting that I was the same age as the son they lost.

Newlyweds

Another image from my great-uncle Oscar.

The two women on the left of my grandfather were his sisters and the women on the right was my grandmother at 19 (he was 27.) I had never seen pictures of them when they were young.

My grandfather always had a bit of a sour disposition but my grandmother was a beauty.

A beauty then and when I knew her—over thirty years later.

Stairway To Heaven

My maternal grandfather was a man of few words. Spoken words, that is. He was quite the reader, however, his newspaper was devoured in its entirety every day. His "secret stash" of reading material was kept in bookshelves which were cleverly built into the stairway to the second floor attic. this stairway was more like a ladder, very steep, tucked into a corner of the "cold parlor." The cold parlor was not heated in the winter when it served the function of a walk-in cooler. The stairs rose at about an 80° angle, with small shelves on the left of each tread. Grandfather's tastes ran toward Westerns, with Zane Grey being his favorite author. The attic was unfinished with rafters of rough-sawn wood which combined with the pulp in the paperback novels, gave this "library" a distinctive aroma, similar to an antique shop.

What is old is new again, of course, so I was not really surprised when I ran across this image.

Magic Words

Most of us, if we have ventured forth into the world at all, have met a pair of Mormon missionaries.

This post will have nothing to do with the validity of the Latter Day Saints, their theology or sociology. This week I was approached twice, once on the street, and once at my door. I have to hand it to these guys (always a pair). They are invariably handsome, well-groomed young men, dressed conservatively (yet stylishly) in black. They are invariably polite, and actually quite pleasant. I’m certain that they may win a few converts just for their appearance and manners. The problem with them is that once you have heard their pitch, you either accept it and become a Mormon, or reject it.

And reject it. And reject it.

Let us backtrack a little now. My great-grandfather’s grandfather’s uncle helped found the Mormon religion. He was the number two man, he was the first baptized Mormon and he baptized the founder. He transcribed the book of Mormon from Joseph Smith’s translations. Every book of Mormon, on the first page, has the testimony of the witnesses. His is the first name: Oliver Cowdery. He was also the Judas of the Mormon church, he resigned in protest over certain shenanigans of the founder. (No need to enumerate them here, but these practices would definitely be #MeToo nowadays!)

All of this brings me to the point at hand.

What can a normal person do to rid oneself (in a civilized manner) of these pleasant but persistent pests? Four magic words. Four words, whose power is so great that the missionaries have been taught to flee from anyone uttering them, flee as if it were Satan himself uttering this foul blasphemy.

Trust me. It works.

The words?

“Oliver Cowdery was right!”

BTW, don't forget to smile!

After all, they really are very nice young men.



This is an updated (image added) FITK post from 2004

In My Grandparents' Room

Upsala, Minnesota, 1969

Up until the early '70s my maternal grandparents lived in a small farm house in central Minnesota. It was always a treat for us kids to visit, maybe not so much of a treat for my grandfather. The house's main floor had a kitchen and a "cold parlor", a room used only during the summer, but kept unheated the rest of the year. There were two small bedrooms upstairs, these were only used when the grandchildren would spend the night, they also were not heated in the colder months.

There was one other room, a room which adjoined the kitchen, a room which was a combined living/bed room. A oil heater, a bed, a few dressers, a chest and a couple of chairs were its furnishings. My grandparents lived a simple life, in a spartan aesthetic which comes with near-poverty. Grandfather read his paper and his Zane Grey novels in his rocking chair in this room. If the weather was bad and the kids couldn't be outside, they would play cards on the bed, while the grown-ups and our grandparent's neighbors would gossip in the kitchen. Sometimes, if the gossip was something the children shouldn't hear, they spoke in Swedish.

Après-Ski, Central Minnesota, circa 1920

Gunilla Bergman, unk., unk., Charles Anderson.     Photo by Oscar Anderson

My grandparents and friends on a chilly day in central Minnesota. It is strange to see them as young people- my earliest memories of them was when they were in their late 50's, already well weathered from lives of hard labor. The awkward posing hints that this was not a candid picture, although why the women were crouching is not clear. The dour expression of my grandfather seldom left his face, while my grandmother was a far more cheerful soul than this picture suggests. It may have had to do with the fact that the photographer was my grandfather's brother, who had a reputation of being a ne'er-do-well. I remember him as a sick old bachelor who lived on coffee and Snús.

My mother's greatest fear was that I would end up like him.

Drive My Car

Last week I received a box of old glass photo negatives from my only surviving aunt.

I suspect that they were taken sometime in the early 1900s. I do know that they were shot by her late husband’s uncle Oscar, my great uncle. I met him once, he was living with my grandparents for a time. He was quite old then, and not in very good health. He barely spoke to anyone. Oscar had been a construction worker—a dynamiter who worked on Mount Rushmore—and, for a brief time, a photographer. The negatives were a mixed lot, farm machinery, houses, flowers, and a few family groupings. There was one image that particularly caught my eye (click on it to enlarge it):

It is one of the very few pictures of my grandfather as a young man, the women behind him are his sisters and the woman behind the wheel is my grandmother, if it was 1917, the year they were married, she would have been about 19 and my grandfather would have been 8 years older.

One Quarter and One Half

My late grandfather (on the right) and I have about 25% of our genes in common.

This photo was taken when he was about a third of my age. Looking back at yourself-not-yourself through an old photograph is, for me, strangely calming. Here is a man, part of me, looking ahead in life, looking forward to what I’ve already left behind. The life of a farmer/laborer during the twenties and thirties was not exactly trend-setting. A semi-skilled worker, a man without pretense, but an honest man. A man of the 19th century, who lived long enough to find himself out-dated in a world that had rapidly changed.

But those genes! Even with a diet of white bread and Snüs he lived well beyond his expectancy—the blessing/curse of most Scandinavians. “Too dumb to know when to die” I’ve heard it said, but the fact remains that the three-score and ten rule is, barring calamity, about 20% low for this ethnic group. It makes estate planning especially daunting.

Here’s to you Charlie Aaron! And to your pal in the photo (with that jaunty hat it might well be “Poker Charlie”.) And here’s to you, my great-uncle Oscar, the family ne’er-do-well, whose pictures are all that remain of that fine summer day, so many, many years ago.

From the Oscar Aaron Anderson archives.

Dreaming of the Dead

Those late-morning-sleep-in dreams seem to be the most disturbing kind. I dreamt of the dead today, at one point in the dream my grandfather spoke to me at length about his tastes in pickles. It may have been the longest sustained discussion I ever had with that taciturn fellow. Meaningless, yet somehow comforting.

That dream morphed into a house-party, a party with a wide group of friends, people in varying degrees of nakedness- have you ever noticed that in sex dreams you are usually weightless?- but that part of the dream was not significant, (thank goodness my grandfather had disappeared by then!) It was the ending, if a dream can ever really have a proper end, that really got to me.

My long-departed friend Debbie was there, in a separate room, we began speaking, I knew that she was dead, but it was still nice to talk with her, she said she was doing well and she somewhat ominously stated that she would be back to see us all on the "thirtieth."

I had to leave her, but I leaned over her and began kissing her gently on the forehead and cheek. I felt that if I kissed her on the mouth, which I wanted to do, I would have had to leave that land of dreams which we shared and join her, forever, in the land of the dead.

Circle Of Life

Watching the Superbowl.
Halftime.
Some old men playing "Start Me Up."
(With cardiac paddles?)
That guy playing guitar.
Where have I seen him before?
My grandfather.
Spitting image.
MY GRANDFATHER PLAYS GUITAR FOR THE ROLLING STONES!
Scary.

Fun In Montana

1958 was a watershed year in my childhood. It was the year of the great western family vacation: South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana and North Dakota, in our brand new '58 Ford. The Dakotas and Wyoming were fine, with all the usual picture-postcard scenery and the tourist traps (yes, we did stop at Wall Drug!) But the high point of the trip, what made it transcend the ordinary, was a stay in Chinook, Montana, where one of my dad's brothers lived with his family, and where my dad's sister-in-law, the widow of another of my dad's brothers, lived with her son. Now Chinook is a small town, a little east of Havre, on the north central plains. My Dad's brother had four or five kids, two boys, two girls and some other boy, now grown up, who had some kind of unexplained relationship to us. All of us cousins had fun together, visitors to this part of Montana were somewhat scarce at that time, none of my other relatives ever went out there. Montana was a lot wilder than Minnesota, we did things that were unheard of for this eight-year-old: playing poker till 2 a.m., fun games with liquid mercury (!), shooting off fireworks(and not ladyfingers either!), target practice, dropping water balloons on unsuspecting townsfolk, teasing their 'pet' magpies, and many other pranks. After three or four days of this, we went home and forgot all about our country cousins.

Ten years later. I was a student at the University. On Thursdays my last class was over at noon; I took the bus home. I was home alone, everyone else was at work or school. The phone rang. The operator's voice said "will you accept a collect call from ____, in Havre Montana?" It was my uncle. In a trembling voice he explained that his younger son, the one my age, had been 'out hunting' with his cousin...something happened...he had been shot to death...it was an accident.

As I grew older, the missing parts of the story began to get filled in. Montana was a wilder place than Minnesota. Fun with cars, and booze, and guns. My cousin who pulled the trigger spent the next thirty years drunk, and died from a fall while drunk. His father had died drunk, found frozen to death in a feedlot 45 years earlier. His grandfather - my grandfather - had died drunk. My uncle and aunt never got over it. When they'd come to visit they'd look at me closely, and always commented on the fact that I was the same age as the son they lost.

Magic Words

Most of us, if we have ventured forth into the world at all, have met a pair of Mormon missionaries. Now this post will have nothing to do with the validity of the Latter Day Saints, their theology or sociology. This last week I was approached twice, once on the street, and once at my door. I have to hand it to these guys (always a pair). They are invariably handsome, well-groomed young men, dressed conservatively (yet stylishly) in black. They are invariably polite, and actually quite pleasant. I’m certain that they may win a few converts just for their appearance and manners. The problem with them is that once you have heard their pitch, you either accept it and become a Mormon, or reject it.

And reject it. And reject it.

Let us backtrack a little now. My great-grandfather’s grandfather’s uncle helped found the Mormon religion. He was the number two man, he was the first baptized Mormon and he baptized the founder. He transcribed the book of Mormon from Joseph Smith’s translations. In every book of Mormon, on the first page, is the testimony of the witnesses. His is the first name: Oliver Cowdery. He was also the Judas of the Mormon church,  he resigned in protest over certain practices of the fledgling church. (No need to enumerate them here) All of this brings us to the point at hand.
What can a normal person do to rid oneself (in a civilized manner) of these pleasant but persistent pests? Four magic words. Four words, whose power is so great that the missionaries have been taught to flee from anyone uttering them, flee as if it were Satan himself uttering this foul blasphemy. Trust me. It works. The words?
“Oliver Cowdery was right!”
 
...Oh, and don't forget to smile! After all, they really are very sincere young men.

An Aneurysm

In 1931 my father’s mother died of an aneurysm caused by undiagnosed high blood pressure. My father’s father took this very hard and remained pretty much intoxicated for the remaining twelve years of his life. My father’s siblings: three girls and four boys, were thrown into the world and left to fend for themselves. The younger kids were “passed from pillar to post” while the older ones went into the army and/or got married.

My grandfather was not a bad man. He just couldn’t figure out a better way to deal with his grief. My family history is full of gaps, gaps that were never discussed. My grandmother’s aneurysm was not just a rip in an aorta, it was the ripping apart of her family. Most of the kids turned out well, although one of the sisters kept marrying alcoholics. One sister died of the very same thing that killed her mother. One of the boys died like his father—drunk. The others lived long full lives, nothing great, but they did managed to rear their children to adulthood and their family circles were not ripped asunder.

The circle can be broken. My grandfather was not a bad man. He just could not get over the loss of his wife, my grandmother.

Feelings

This is chapter 36 of The Inheritance, a serial fiction novel on FITK



Monday Morning, August 3, 2020, Seattle

“I dreamed about Jo last night,” said Mareka, “I dreamed that she was in a dark cloud, and I huffed and puffed and the cloud went away. Do you think I cured her? Should we call her?”

Mary smiled as she looked at her daughter over the breakfast table.

“Let’s let Jo sleep in today, she’ll call us if she is feeling better. Speaking of feelings, how are you doing? Let me touch you,” said Mary as she felt her daughter’s forehead, “Feels good. Let me know if you feel hot or achy.”

Sean came in holding a sheaf of printouts.

“I’ve done a voice to text conversion of the conversations we had about Emily’s paintings the other night,” he said, “I’m tempted to just send them en masse to the editor. You were channeling Emily, weren’t you, Kiddo?”

“I guess so! It just comes out,” Mareka said, between bites of cereal, “I dreamed I cured Jo last night.”

“She hasn’t called yet, we won’t know if Mareka is a heal—”

Mary was interrupted by her phone. I was Jo.

“Hey, how are you doing?” asked Mary, “We were just talking about you.”

“The fever broke last night,” said Jo, “I’m feeling 100% better.”

Sean and Mary looked at Mareka, who was still busy with her breakfast.

---

In the apartment above the Khorosho Tavern, the two Russian agents were wrapping up their analysis of the contents of Barbara Merrit’s computer and hard drive.

“She really is a nut-case, isn’t she?”

“Outside of the images from DuPage, nothing of what she’s got has any basis in fact. She certainly doesn’t know anything about our activities. I’m recommending that we deactivate the investigation.”

“Should I turn off the tracer I installed in her laptop as well?”

”No, let it run, it may prove useful, we can check it from time to time.”

“Will do.”

---

Barbara Merrit was still confused about her ‘lost night.’ She had gone through her notebooks and daily planner. There was a gap in her memory from the previous Friday until she woke up on Saturday. She was going through her things for the umpteenth time when her land line phone rang. The caller ID read: M.DUPAGE.

“Hello Marcel. What do you have for me?” Barbara found that when dealing with Marcel it was better to cut to the chase to avoid his flowery chit-chat.

“I've found them.”

“Found who?”

“Sean and Mary, and their daughter.”

“Well they have to have been somewhere,” said Barbara, “Why is that important?”

“The so-called nanny, Jo Sanford, is living with them in North Seattle.”

“So their old ménage à trois is still intact?” said Barbara, “What about the mystery woman, AKA Emily Carroll?”

“I spoke with Jo last week, she was evidently hiding something.”

“What? What was she hiding?” Barbara’s patience with Marcel was beginning to show, she waited for a reply then said, “What do you have for me that I can use?”

“There’s no need to get mad at me, I’m only trying to help.”

“I’m sorry, Marcel, I’ve had a tough week-end. I think I may have been drugged.”

“Like the dude in The Big Lebowski? Maybe you should go to classier parties; I can discreetly fulfill your most demanding desires.”

“Good-bye Marcel,” Barbara said as she hung the phone up with a resolute slam in its cradle.

“The Big Lebowski, hmpf,” she snorted, “And who does he think he is, he’s almost old enough to be my father, my grandfather, for chrissakes.”

Looking down at her phone and the notepad lying next to it, Barbara Merrit had a strange feeling. She got a pencil from the drawer and began to carefully shade the notebook’s top sheet. “Just like The Dude and Jackie Treehorn,” she thought. The graphite revealed a place name and an address: Khorosho Tavern 12548 Lake City Way NE.

Now, finally, she had a clue that she could use to begin to solve the mystery of her lost week-end.



Next Chapter: School Days

Cold Comfort Farm

In the depth of this miserable winter (-40° windchill today) I yearn for a summer's day.

A day when I was a boy in my grandmother's kitchen, a small 12'x12' room in a country farm house. That kitchen was a room that was bursting with love, even though that word was seldom, if ever, uttered there. There was a round oaken table where many hours were spent playing card games: Five Hundred, Whist or, if old "Poker Charlie" happened to stop by, Smear.

Next to it stood the cupboard which held the good china, one of the few luxuries that my Grandmother possessed. Beyond that was the doorway which led into the entry. The pans for washing up were kept there, hanging by the screen door. The hand-pump was just outside, bringing up ice-cold well water, seasoned with a strong flavor of iron, and drunk from a copper cup hung on a hook fashioned from an old coat hanger. Spread around the yard were apple trees with apples so sour they couldn't be eaten- except after being baked into a pie. The potato patch was my Grandfather's domain—he grew Kennebecs—enough to last through the next winter. Running up to greet me with a stick in his mouth was Skipper, a dog who never tired of playing fetch. There was a wood pile on the south side of the barn, with a vegetable garden by the driveway on its north side. Down the road a half-mile or so was a creek with a mossy coolness under its bridge, making it a good place to wade.

Those days seemed to go on forever and then, after supper, so did the good-byes. We would drive home in the sunset, with the barns and road signs along the highway lit up in a ruddy, golden glow. When we finally got home, the stars would be fierce pinpricks of light blazing in the black velvet sky high above us.

Fine Art

I recently acquired an oil painting, from the sticker on the back I deduced that it was from the late 1800s or early 1900s.:

The National Portrait Gallery of England has this bio of James:

James Lanham 1869-1907, James Lanham Ltd from 1907 onwards, High St, St Ives, Cornwall. Artists' colourmen, picture framemakers etc.

James Lanham (1848-1931) founded his business in 1869, trading as a general merchant. He has been described as well travelled, visiting the major art galleries of Europe, and he became an important part of the artists’ community in St Ives, holding regular Saturday afternoon tea meetings for leading artists. In 1912, Lanham sold the business to Benjamin Bramham, who in 1919 sold it on to Martin Cock, great-grandfather of the present owners. The Articles of Association from 1907 record the business as a wine and spirit merchant, house and estate agent, dealer in artists’ materials, general and fancy furnisher. Lanham was buried in Barnoon Cemetery in St Ives, where his gravestone gives his date of birth as 29 October 1848 and of death as 29 May 1931 (information from David Tovey, confirmed on site; however, note that the 1881 and 1891 censuses imply that he was born c.1843/4). Lanham was listed as a retired shop-keeper in the 1921 census. He left an estate worth £10,737, with probate granted to Helen, his widow.

James Lanham was listed in Cornwall directories as ‘Fancy Repository & tobacconist’ in 1873, and ‘Ale & Porter Merchant’ and ‘Wine & Spirit Merchant’ in 1883. The business did not become an artists' colourman with associated Gallery until 1887. The entry in Kelly’s Cornwall directory in 1889 reveals the very wide range of the business as ‘Artists’ colourman, china, glass and earthen ware dealer, general ironmonger & cutler, general draper & furniture dealer, & ale & porter bottler…, wine & spirit merchants’. Lanham’s Galleries were one of the few places where local artists could show their works. The artist Norman Garstin described Lanham’s shop in The Studio in 1896:

‘In the main street of St. Ives there is a shop, though I cannot help feeling that emporium best describes the variety of the goods and the far-reaching enterprise of the proprietor… from it a stream of colours that are ground in London, Paris, Dusseldorf and Brussels, are for ever trickling in slow rivulets, or flowing in rich streams, as the energy and style of the painters require, into the various studios of the town… As you advance through the shop the gloom somewhat deepens, but one is conscious of being closely surrounded by many things without which life would still be endurable. Just beyond use there is a little room [where] the colours and the canvases as yet are kept discreetly apart… On the left… there are stairs somewhat like the companion of an aesthetic ship, decorated with Florentine photographs, Botticellis, &c.; this leads on to the upper deck, to the gallery in fact. Here, under an awning that softens the strong glare of the sky-light, you find a very charming little show, always fresh and interesting.’

Whistler visited St Ives in 1884 and it is said that he encouraged James Lanham to stock artists' materials since otherwise he had to send away for paints. Alfred Munnings wrote in his autobiography of the beautiful canvases he obtained from Lanham's including one on 'an absorbent, china-clay priming… a tribute to the canvases prepared in those days at St Ives'. Lanham, 'that excellent artists' caterer', apparently made it his business to supply the Newlyn School of Painting, set up in 1899, which he visited once a week for that purpose.

The painting is extremely delicate, the paint flakes off at the slightest touch. I scanned it and retouched it in Photoshop:

A closeup of the Victorian maiden, lifting her hair as she undresses (click to enlarge):

Dust-Catcher

I spent the morning on Craigslist, looking for out-of-the-ordinary Christmas gifts. I spotted an interesting sale that caught my eye at a place out in the country. The seller was an amiable older gentleman, probably in his mid eighties. He said that he and his wife were trying to get rid of some things; they were going to move somewhere a little easier to take care of. The item I was interested in had a story, it once belonged to his grandfather, and then his younger brother. He finally ended up with it; it had been collecting dust on top of a bookcase for years. He said that didn’t know too much about it:

It was just what I needed, yet another amplifier. This one was a bit different than any of my other ones, however. This was one of the very earliest audio amplifiers made for the consumer market, made in 1922 or 1923. It was suitable for a radio or microphone input and I would estimate it was designed to deliver about a watt or two of audio output to an old-style horn speaker. I had thoughts of buying and restoring it, but upon looking at the inside and seeing that it had been tampered with, I decided against it.

It would be a beautiful objet d'art, however, with its chromed hardware and finely finished cabinet. I could even configure it so the tubes would light up and be controlled by the massive switches. It was definitely not the cheesy "Magnavox" radio we grew up with in the fifties.



The seller had someone else coming to look at it, I suggested he ask for about $200, it would be probably worth three times that much if it was operational. I left him my number with an low offer and told him to give me a call in a week if he hadn't sold it.

Fifty dollars for a dust-catcher, no matter how cool, is about my limit.

My Back Pages

Of late there has been a small uptick of interest in my heritage. Despite rumors to the contrary, I did not descend from an alien space craft, I will use this opportunity to set the record straight.

This is a page from my family genealogy. It was researched and published in 1911 by the Frank Allaben Genealogical Company, which published many such books around that time. My Grandfather is on that page, along with his brothers and sisters and his ancestral line. He was 9th generation, therefore I am the 11th. The first, William the immigrant, came over from England in 1630 with the Puritans, not exactly a fun-loving bunch, and settled in the Boston area (Lynn), his progeny gradually worked their way westward, marrying and raising children of their own. So, if you make the assumption that the first four or five generations were of British ancestry, then gradually became diluted, by the time of my birth I reckon to have about 1.06275% English blood. Not enough to arouse the nose of Jack's Giant ("Fe-Fi-Fo-Fum, I smell the blood of an Englishman!") but the name survived. The most famous (or infamous) was "Major Jacob" a ne'er-do-well who, in the eighteenth century, disappeared one day only to return seven years later, put his gun in its usual spot and said "I've been out hunting." Court records indicated that he had gone to another state, married and had a child. When his new wife died, he returned home.
One of his nephews was the number two guy in the founding of the Mormon church. Another, barely related, family member changed his name to Sam Cody and became an
early aviation pioneer.

And me? For better or worse, Flippism Is The Key will probably be my only lasting cultural legacy.

Gypsy Woman

This is chapter 48 of The Matriarchy, a serial fiction novel on FITK



On Monday, Mary checked into what had been ADR, now a division of Amasales, the internet mega-retailer. After a few hours, she figured out that an Amasales IT had inserted a rigid time marker into the code, negating the ‘float’ which enabled the ADR software to work properly. It would take a few hours to fix, but Mary was in no hurry.  When she and Sean had returned to Seattle Saturday night, Mary found the information from Roger Ramsen’s computer in the old ADR dropbox, where Molly had uploaded it. Mary wanted to put it into the ADR system to crunch it against Billy’s information as well as compiling a dossier on each member of The Brotherhood. The process would be a good test of the system’s integrity.

Meanwhile, Sean spoke to their building’s rental agent about getting another apartment.  There was an open unit available, furnished, for which he had the agent prepare a lease. Sean also arranged for the delivery of those items he had shipped from Iowa; he was especially intrigued by what information his mother might have had in her computer concerning The Brotherhood in general and the Regelind Tobacco dynasty in particular. Despite the creepiness of The Brotherhood’s practices, Sean wanted to find out more about his paternal grandfather as well as any other relatives who might be hiding  in that branch of his family tree. He stopped into the Post Office to restart their delivery and picked up the mail which had accumulated during the time he and Mary had been gone.

In the pile of mail was a hand-addressed letter from one of his old co-workers at ADR. He opened it and discovered that it was an announcement for an ‘engagement celebration,’ to be held that evening at King’s Hardware—a Ballard bar. The letter was postmarked a week prior but there was no R.S.V.P. in the invitation. Sean sent Mary a text message:

Engagement Party 7 pm tonite for Eddie B@ Kings Hrdwr in Ballard. Who'd a thunk it? Are U up for it? 

Mary had just loaded her data on The Brotherhood and, with nothing to do for a few minutes, was able to answer right away:

That's the place with the patio in back? And the chicken wings? Count me in. I'll take a taxi from here and meet you at 7.

Sean TM’d his confirmation and then sat down with his laptop to go through his emails. with the letter from Þora and began to read:

 Hi Sean. Thank you for replying to my previous email. I think that the time has come to bring the uncertainty about Vilhjálmur to an end. There are special needs issues with the child and although I am reluctant to ask for your help I need to exercise all my options. Will you consent to a paternity test?  It may be possible to do at a distance, or you may have to come to Iceland. I wish you no harm, I only want to do what is best for the child.
Thank you,  Þora

Sean made a mental note to talk to Mary and the lawyers about this.

---

The meeting of The Brotherhood began with the usual call to order. The leader made no pretense of ‘business as usual’ and started directly into a discussion of the failed assassination attempt.

“Brethren: it is now eight hours since I should have heard from the operative. There was a storm in the area; perhaps his communication was affected by it. I don’t know the details.”

The group remained silent. Finally, one of the men spoke:

“What do you know?” he queried. “John, we’ve been behind you on this since Ramsen died, but the things you’ve tried have only made the situation worse.”

“The operative’s last contact was yesterday, 1800 hours our time. He was leaving Chicago, which would have put him in the target area by 0200 at the latest. He was to have reported back by 900 hours. There has been nothing about an incident at the farmhouse reported in the media or in police reports.”

“And the Kitsap plan? Is it on track?”

“The materials are in transit. They should arrive in Seattle sometime today.”

“We’ll give it another 24 hours. I move we adjourn until this time tomorrow.”

The motion was accepted and the meeting was adjourned.

---

The party at King’s Hardware  was already in full swing by the time Mary arrived. She spotted Sean on the patio and went over to him.

“How did it go today?” said Sean.

“No big deal,” Mary said, “Amasales IT thought they could ‘improve’ the algorithm by locking the clock. It was an easy fix.”

“And the dropbox files?”

“I did a mass analysis and dumped the results into a flash drive. I’ll look at it in the morning. How did your day go?”

“I’ve got the new lease, a unit on the other side of the building, a floor below ours. All it needs is your signature,” Sean said, “And I received another email from Þora. She needs some help.”

“A paternity test?” said Mary.

“Yes, at least that. She mentioned something about the child’s ‘special needs.’ I think you know what they might be.”

A woman dressed in a Gypsy costume approached the couple.

“May I read your palms?" she said.

“Is this part of the party?” asked Mary.

“Of course,” said the woman,  “Eddie thought it would encourage conversation.”

“I'll bite,” said Sean, as he surreptitiously slipped his wedding band on his ring finger.

The woman clasped Sean’s hand and began to trace the lines on his palm. After a minute, she frowned.

“I see a perilous trip and great danger,” said the Gypsy, “Difficult times lie ahead.”

“Looks like I’ll be going back to Iceland…” Sean thought, “Do you think she knows what she’s doing?”

Mary had been studying the woman carefully. “She’s not a faker, although she might know who you are, and is making a lucky guess, Mary thought, “Let’s see what she thinks of my fortune.”

Mary held out her hand. The fortune-teller held it for a moment, frowned, and then dropped her hand as if it were hot.

“You are expecting a child,” she said, “I wish you the best.”

With that pronouncement, the Gypsy woman abruptly left the table.

“I didn’t think I was showing,” Mary thought, “I’m starving. What do I have to do to get a plate of wings?"




Fiction