SAFE

Mrs. Huddleston shuddered when he entered her subway car—dreadlocked, baggy jeans, boom-box under one arm, dance-stepping to a beat only he could hear through his ear-phones. Quickly she placed her purse and magazine down on adjacent seats. As he walked past her, he thought, now there’s a brave grandmother, riding the subway by herself, handbag just like the one my grandma carried. Wonder if she has peppermints in hers too? He smiled at her, revealing teeth with inlaid gold designs. She turned away and picked up her belongings.

Seeing her anxiety, he closed his eyes, relaxed, and let the Big Band sounds of Bennie Goodman wash over him, hoping he appeared non-threatening. If he could tell her about himself, his burgeoning music career, would she listen?

He might be all right, Mrs. Huddleston thought, but a widow her age had to play it safe. Most of her friends took taxis now—or never went out. But Mrs. Huddleston refused to give up her few pleasures—museum exhibits, noon concerts, lectures, and today, lunch with her oldest friend.

She was thinking she might treat herself to wine today when the subway car shuddered to a halt. Glancing out to see which station, she saw only blackness. Then the car jolted forward again. Maybe it had just come up too quickly on the train in front.

No. Something was definitely wrong. Although the train was coming into a station, there was a haze that prevented her from seeing the platform. Smoke? A fire? As the train lurched to a stop, a mechanized voice squawked: “. . . slight problem. . . leave quickly. . . . do not use elevators or escalators. . . . take the stairs. . . do not panic.”

Heart beating wildly, Mrs. Huddleston stood and moved towards the open door, but others pressed hard against her, and she stumbled. A hand grabbed her elbow, steadying her. Him. The dreadlocked man.

“Let’s go, ” he said, pulling her through the door and onto the platform. “Stairs,” he said, moving her forward. The smoke grew thicker; people moved faster, pushing and shoving. She panicked and would have fallen without his support. Yet all she could say was, “Where’s your music?”

“Back on the car, ” he said. “No extra baggage in an emergency.” She clutched her purse. “Just hold on to that,” he said. “We’ll be okay.” Would they? Hundreds of people pushed up the stairs. How many flights to the street?

By the sixth flight, she was gasping for breath and could go no further. “Leave me,” she said, sinking down on the stairs, a boulder in the stream of rushing people.

“Nothing doing,” he said, pulling her up, committed to the safety of this woman who reminded him so much of his grandma. Facing her, he grabbed her hands and continued climbing the stairs backwards, hauling her along. Other people shoved past them, swearing, but he refused to let go. If he could just distract her from her fear.

“What’s your name?” he said, looking into her frightened eyes. “Tell me about your family.”
“I’m Mrs. Huddleston,” she cried, “but I have no one. Nobody cares. Leave me.”
“Right now, you have me,” he said, "and I care," continuing to pull her.

Then suddenly they were on the street, inhaling great drafts of fresh air. Ambulances were everywhere. He walked her to a gurney and sat her down.

“Here you go, Mrs. Huddleston,” he said as a paramedic approached. “Take good care of my friend,” he told the man. Then he danced away down the street.

SuzAnne C. Cole
2 Trophy Lane.
New Braunfels, TX 78132 561 words
Phone: 830-625-3309
E-mail: SuzAnneCC@aol.com

SHAKING THE FAMILY TREE

“Dad, I thought you ought to know that our family name is probably not Cole. I’m not sure yet what it really ought to be, but I have some ideas. Love, Brad”

When the forthcoming birth of his first son fanned our oldest son’s interest in genealogy, we encouraged him as he combed through census lists, contacted distant cousins, and exchanged information on websites. But we certainly hadn’t expected the history he eventually pieced together.

My husband’s great-grandmother, Tennessee Cole, was the daughter of Henry Cole, a judge in Izard County, Arkansas. At sixteen, she had a son out of wedlock, whom she named Edward Cole. Family history reported the name of Edward’s father as simply Ben with no last name. Tennessee and Edward lived with her parents until Edward was nine. Then, she married McCame LaFevers; shortly after the wedding, the LaFevers, Edward, and Tennessee’s parents moved to Indian Territory (Oklahoma), settling in McAlester. (Later, McCame LaFever’s probated will listed Edward as a stepson, so their marriage was probably not a delayed recognition of a biological son.)

Edward eventually married and had five children, including two sons. The younger son, Roy Edwards Cole, was my husband’s father. In 1917, the older son, Kenneth Elmore Cole, changed his name to “Kenneth Elmore Norwood Cole,” and from then on, always spelled his first name as K.E.N.

Brad’s research revealed that, living in Izard County at the time of Edward’s birth, was a prosperous clan called Norwood. Benjamin Franklin Norwood, of Norwood, Arkansas, the son of a wealthy merchant, had at least four wives and many children. Brad thinks it possible that Edward, acknowledged or unacknowledged, was one of these children. Perhaps Edward revealed that well-kept secret to his older son Ken on Ken’s 18th birthday. Then, maybe Kenneth chose to acknowledge his biological grandfather by adding Norwood to his name. (“Norwood” first appears as part of Ken’s name on his draft card.)

We may never know for certain, although Brad continues his research. We do know that Kenneth left McAlester as a young man and spent the rest of his life in Arkansas, not far from Norwood. He developed the subdivision in which he lived and named it “Kenwood,” perhaps as close to “Norwood” as he dared get.

Edward Cole apparently never shared the secret of his father with my husband’s father. Or maybe he did, and Roy, in many ways a very private person, chose to keep that knowledge secret. Since Roy died many years ago, we’ll never know.

Incidentally, if the “wages of sin is death,” as Scripture would have it, you couldn’t prove it by Tennessee LaFevers Cole. She had at least eight children with McCame, and we have a photo of her sitting in a rocking chair in an ankle-length dark floral dress with her white hair in a neat bun. The caption on the back reads, “Granny LaFevers on the occasion of her ninety-eighth birthday.”
What difference does this history make to me, a Cole only by marriage? Well, my sons and grandsons are Coles, and Cole is the last name I use. However, there are times when, as a writer, I’ve occasionally thought about submitting some of my works under a pseudonym. I haven’t because I’ve never found a name I liked. However, now I think I may have—doesn't Anne Norwood have a pleasant ring?

SuzAnne C. Cole
2 Trophy Lane.
New Braunfels, TX 78132 597 words
Phone: 830-625-3309
E-mail: SuzAnneCC@aol.com

IMAGINING MY GREAT-GRANDMOTHER

Amelia Groskinsky, born 1873, died September l883.
Sarah Groskinsky, born 1875, died September l883.
William Groskinsky, born 1877, died September 1883.
Lara Groskinsky, born 1881, died September 1883.

I sit here trying to imagine what September l883 must have been like for my great-grandmother, the mother of these little children.

I never knew Christina Hoelzel Groskinsky, who died four years before my birth. I have a photo of her, though, a solid dowager in a velvet dress and a coronet of braids, leaning forward without a smile. My mother feared this grandmother, for she was a grim, cheerless woman who refused to speak English or play with her grandchildren. And when they became teenagers, she fought bitterly with them over trifles of deportment and dress.

But as I examine the genealogy pedigrees my mother's sister, a Mormon, has sent me, my heart aches for this unknown great-grandmother. What would it have been like to lose four children to diphtheria in one dreadful month, your world narrowed to their beds, dripping water into their mouths, watching them struggle for breath? Did she have friends or neighbors, anyone to share the nursing, pray with her, hope for miraculous recoveries? What of Carl William, their father? September in Iowa, grueling labor for a farmer from first light to last, scant time to relieve or comfort one's wife, time only to gobble a meal and return to the fields.

A family story says he drove into town for medicine, but while he was gone, two of the children died. Christina would have witnessed their death agonies alone. Did she weep then, wrapping their bodies in quilts to be carried to the graves their father dug? She couldn’t have mourned long, hurrying from graveside to the bedsides of the surviving children until there was another small death—and then another.

Finally the fever broke in her remaining child. Perhaps he sat up and asked for soup or water. She might have staggered to the door then and realized that harvest had passed, barns were full, but the house was empty. What would a home once filled with the noise of five active children sound like with only one?

Four years after the epidemic, Christina bore another son, Elmer Charley Groskinsky, my grandfather. But Albert could not risk his heart to another sibling, and he and Elmer were never close. So both Christina, bereft of daughters for so long, and her youngest son were delighted when, five years later, at forty-three (Carl was fifty-nine), Christina safely delivered her last child, Carrie.

How then would she have felt when diphtheria also struck down Carrie when she was eight—old enough to help with housework, old enough to laugh with her mother at the ways of men while darning their socks and patching their overalls?

My mother says Christina was cold, harsh and unloving. Perhaps the sight of her daughter-in-law’s brood strangled her with jealousy. Maybe, knowing how transient the life of a child could be, she could take no joy in the health and beauty of her own grandchildren.

What of Elmer? My grandmother used to tell me I was his favorite because I reminded him of that lost little sister; only now do I realize the pet name he gave me—Cooeyanne—combined "Carrie” and "SuzAnne." I never talked to him about Carrie, or the siblings he never knew, or Carl, or Christina. I wish I had. Now I have only black and white photos and data—names and dates, births and birthplaces, marriages, deaths, and gravesites. And a mother and grandmother’s imagination.