The Far Away Brothers: The Journey of Twin Teenage Migrants

To solve a problem one must understand what caused it and address its root causes. That is a hard thing, requiring work and effort and creative thinking. Why not just make the problem illegal?

We have been trying that and it does not seem to work. "Just say no" to sex or drugs, prison sentences for drug possession, throwing a pregnant teenage daughter out of the house--none of these ever solved anything.

Illegal immigration has become the issue of the day under the present administration. Migrants have been arrested, abused, sent back, and yet more come. Build a wall, we are told, that will keep them out. I doubt it. There is a reason why people leave their homeland and family, and the reasons are rarely trite.

In her timely book The Far Away Brothers , Lauren Markham tells the story of  the twin Flores brothers who flee El Salvador to join their undocumented migrant brother in America. We learn about their lives in El Salvador, about their families, the challenges they faced on their journey north, and the multiple difficulties of their lives in the United States.

Markham, who has reported on undocumented immigration for a decade, spent two years researching for this book, plus she draws from her experience working with immigrant students at Oakland International High School. She chose to write about twins to illustrate how each immigrant has their own motivation and individual response to the experience.

In the past the draw to the United States was for economic opportunity and security. Today migrants leave their homes to escape the domination and violence of the gangs who have taken over power. Last year 60,000 unaccompanied minors entered the United States, most from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador--the 'murder capital of the world'.

When one of the Flores twins is targeted by their uncle's gang he decides he must leave to survive, and his twin brother joins him. The boys' family puts their livelihood at risk by offering the their land as security to raise money for transport to the border. They falsely assume the debt can be paid off quickly once the boys get jobs, but the interest blows their debt up to $20,000.

The journey leaves its psychic scars; one twin has nightmares and cannot talk about what he had seen.

To stay in America the boys must be in school, under their older brother's authority. Somehow they must also earn money to start paying off their debt to the coyotes. They are teenagers, too, who are finally 'free' and they don't always handle that freedom well. Readers may not always like the boys, but hopefully they will understand their fears, confusion, and motivations.

The author is not afraid to offer a paragraph on American policies that have contributed to the Central American 'catastrophe', by supplying weapons and by creating free-trade deals that hurt small farmers. Then there is the legacy of large corporations that bought up land for farming, controlling resources and the economic benefits.

As Markham writes, "People migrate now for the same reason they always have: survival." Investment in improving educational and economic opportunities, addressing the root causes of migration, would be a better use of federal funds than building a wall.

I read Enique's Journey by Sonia Nazario about ten years ago. Here is what she had to say about The Far Away Brothers:

“Powerful…Focusing primarily on one family’s struggle to survive in violence-riddled El Salvador by sending some of its members illegally to the U.S.,…[this] compellingly intimate narrative…keenly examines the plights of juveniles sent to America without adult supervision….One of the most searing books on illegal immigration since Sonia Nazario’s Enrique’s Journey.” —Kirkus

I received a free ebook through First to Read in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The Far Away Brothers
Lauren Markham
Crown
Publication Date: Sept 12, 2017
Hardcover $27.00
ISBN 9781101906187

Remembering 9-11

On the morning of September 11, 2001 my son and I were in the dining room, homeschooling, when my husband called the house from his office. He told me to turn on the television. I asked, what channel? And he said any channel.

Chris and I went into the living room and turned on the television. We saw the World Trade Center tower with smoke coming out of it. And within a few minutes we knew what had happened. And then we saw the plane hit the second tower.

We were riveted all morning and past lunch time, watching the horrors unfold before us. In the early afternoon I went to the local grocery store, just a few blocks away. I felt like I was moving in a dream, detached and groggy. I realized I was in shock.

Our son pulled together his most precious objects into his back pack. His baby blanket. His signed first edition of The Longest Day by Cornelius Ryan. Mementos. My husband remembered commuting to New York City on a train filled with people who worked in the World Trade Center, and wondered. How many weeks did uncertainty and fear rule? I don't remember. But America changed that day, and we have reeled unmoored ever since.

I wrote a series of poems.

The Day After the World Changed

By Nancy A. Bekofske

September 12, 2001

I awoke in darkness.

What kind of world would I find today?

The taste of dust was in my mouth;

My eyes were red and dry.

The dull rhythm

Of a building’s dance of collapse

Resounded in my ears;

The dance burned into my vision,

Like the sun too long observed,

The slow gathering of downward motion,

Story after story,

Thousand of stories,

Stories that ended that day.

Would I ever again wake

And not wonder,

What kind of world

Will I find today?

Will there be chaos today?

Reversal of fortune, vulnerability?

Bloody War?

Dancing in the sky?

The Slow Dance

A needle pieced an eggshell.

Hell burst out golden red.

A magician’s gathering of slow smoke filled the air.

The war god’s companions, Fear and Panic,

Graced with their presence heroic exploits,

Coupled with shocked incredulity.

I write the reflection of time,

The house of cards raining down,

Raining a civilization into chaos.

Precious papers flew for miles,

Sturdy walls became dust.

Women and men flew like birds.

Their arms became wings,

The air rushing about them

Full of the dust of their lives,

Their world’s residence.

Other became bowels,

The secret heart buried deep.

The incredible beauty of summer sun

High in a blue, empty heaven was

Obscured by unnatural clouds,

Belied truth, for night had fallen in the land,

millions lost in darkness.

Flickering images told the story

Of a slow dance, the timeless, fragile beauty.

All time compressed into a few seconds

As each floor fell into the next,

Beam buckling inward,

Desks and file cabinets and hopes and security

Instantly reduced

To cockroach shells,

Settling into a covering like new snow.

Twisted, broken, the grand dames

Mere rubble, reduced to an essence.

Repeated over and over

This dance craze of the day,

The slow decay of seconds

Etched into the mirror of our eyes.

What We Imagine

Our child is in the white hospital bed.

There are tubes and alien machines surrounding him.

We watch and wait.

There is red blood, vivid on the white sheets

Like a beautiful rose.

No, our child is in the schoolroom,

There is a blinding light;

Wisdom is not so enlightening as this light.

There is a flash of heat.

There is ash.

No, our child is playing with friends.

There is coughing.

There is headache.

Our child goes to bed.

Our child breaks out in death.

No, our child is called.

Our child bravely leaves his only home

His only family.

Our child is trained to kill.

Our child falls, he thinks of home, he thinks no more.

No, our child wakes up in the morning.

Our child sees the rain.

Our child remembers the old life,

The days before fear,

The security of knowing there were those

Who would always protect him.

Our child awakes in the morning.

Our child imagines

There is no one to protect him.

Conversation

They talk of weddings and college.

They talk of jobs and money.

My ears burn in resentment.

I want to talk about death.

I want to talk about how

I became a zombie that day,

Detached from my motions,

A robot moving without a heart.

I want to talk about war

And rumors of war,

And about peace

And the illusion of peace.

I want to talk about the children

And about fear; especially about fear.

How it sleeps with you in your bed,

Nestles into your ear, whispering, whispering

Late into the night.

I want to talk about fear taking residence.

They talk about life.

I want to talk about death

And dancing. The dance of the towers

And the dance of politics

And the dance of death that day,

Surreal and strange, the snow of death,

After the golden red fire of impact.

They talk about money and work,

And I want to talk about the dread

Of war settling into our living rooms

Each morning and evening, visiting

With images of destruction and hate,

Daily becoming less alien,

More familiar and cozy.

Words circle ‘round like a hurricane

Ripping the façade away

Baring the essential passions

Like a bone.

World Trade Center ruins, photo by Spencer Platt

The Spires

Organ-pipe spires, thin and reaching,

Airy and proud.

The remnant backbone of life,

The skeleton of power.

Architecture of hope,

110 stories high,

made of hollow bones and glass,

housing a world’s hope.

Broken spires, still proud and tall

Rising above the chaos below,

Directing vision upward

Like a beacon.

When I consider how our son's life was framed by world events, I shudder. This was not the world I wanted to give my child. I am not ignorant. I know my parents grew up with the atrocities of WWII and lost friends in the war. And my grandparents had the War to End All Wars. My great-grandfather's nephew died in a death march in the Pacific. There is no end to the atrocities and hate we humans can embrace. We are a family bent on fratricide.

And yet somehow I trust that there is also a strain of mercy and compassion that survives, and sometimes even thrives. Stories of sacrifice and courage also came out of 9-11.

There is only one race, the human race, I was taught when I was a girl. The Big Blue Marble photograph of Earth reminds us that we are stewards sharing one miraculous, small Eden.

I continually pray for peace.

Leading Tones: Reflections on Music, Musicians, and the Music Industry by Leonard Slatkin

"Reflections' is a great description of Slatkin's second book. In a series of essays, Slatkin addresses themes and concerns regarding the music world and his experience.

The book is divided into four sections, titled Living With Music, Six of the Best, The Business of Music, and Wrapping Up. Included are two "interludes," The Mind Wanders and Lagniappe.

The Ten addresses Slatkin's favorite pieces to conduct, with several pages of commentary elucidating his choice. His 'desert island' choices include Beethoven's Symphony No 3, "Eroica", and Elgar's Symphony No. 2, which are being played in his final season (2017-18) with the DSO.

Six of the Best offers brief essays on musicians and conductors Slatkin has known and worked with, starting with Eugene Ormandy. Ormandy's "Philadelphia sound" was a favorite of my husband, and we often quipped that we moved to Philly just for the orchestra. The other five include violinist Nathan Milstein, pianist John Browning, the great violinist Isaac Stern (who I saw in performance with the Philadelphia Orchestra from a balcony seat over the stage!), Gilbert Kaplan, and the popular John Williams.

Pieces for a Lifetime sums up Slatkin's 50+ year career. He was the conductor of the St. Louis Orchestra when in April 1971, they premiered first live performance of Jesus Christ Superstar when it was still a 'rock opera.' (In October 1971 my then-fiance and I saw the rock opera performed in Columbus, OH.) Slatkin next moved to the National Symphony Orchestra before becoming music director at the Detroit Symphony Orchestra (DSO).

Under Slatkin, the DSO introduced twenty-nine world premieres, including the Arab-American Mohammed Fairouz's Cello Concerto, Desert Sorrows January 2016. The cellist was the amazing Maya Beiser, who is Jewish, and the premiere was performed at Congregation Shaarey Zedek, a Conservative synagogue. The synagogue is our favorite "neighborhood concert" venue, with ease of access, wonderful sound, and inspiring architecture. We were at the concert, an exciting, inspiring, and most memorable experience. The response was ecstatic.

The Business of Music considers the changing audition process. Stop the Music offers Slatkin's experience and insight into the Minnesota Orchestra strike, and how he used the experience to bring back the DSO after its strike.

Because we were not yet living in the Metro Detroit area I was unfamiliar with the DSO strike. But my husband and I are the happy beneficiaries of Slatkin's post-strike innovations, including attending Neighborhood Concerts, enjoying the DSO to Go app, and watching the televised Livestream concerts. For a reasonable donation, we can hear and view all the concerts, along with thousands across the world.

Other sections of the book include articles he has written, humorous stories, critic reviews, and "Slatkin on Slatkin."

I enjoyed reading Leading Tones and I learned quite a bit. The book is very accessible to non-musicians. Slatkin's personality and style is very approachable.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through Edelweiss in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

Leading Tones
by Leonard Slatkin
Amadeus Press
Publication Date: September 12, 2017
ISBN: 9781495091896, 1495091899
Hardcover $27.99

from the publisher: Leading Tones is a glimpse into several aspects of the musical world. There are portions devoted to Leonard Slatkin's life as a musician and conductor, portraits of some of the outstanding artists with whom he has worked, as well as anecdotes and stories both personal and professional. Much of the book discusses elements of the industry that are troubling and difficult during this first part of the 21st century. Auditions, critics, fiscal concerns, and labor negotiations are all matters that today's conductors must be aware of, and this book provides helpful suggested solutions. Leading Tones is intended not only for musicians, but also for the music lover who wishes to know more about what goes into being a conductor. 

LEONARD SLATKIN has conducted virtually all of the leading orchestras in the world. Currently music director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, he has held directorships in New Orleans; St. Louis; Washington, DC; London (with the BBCSO); and Lyon, France. He has also served as principal guest conductor in Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, and Cleveland. Slatkin's more than 100 recordings have garnered seven Grammy awards and 64 nominations. Other awards include the National Medal of Arts, Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor, Austria's Decoration of Honor in Silver, and the League of American Orchestras' Gold Baton Award. He is the father of one son, Daniel, and lives with his wife, composer Cindy McTee.
His previous book is Conducting Business.

Seven Years of Joys and Challenges

Hillsdale United Methodist Church

Gary served seven years at Hillsdale UMC. It was a moderate sized church with a good mix of senior citizens and middle age adults, and enough young families to keep a youth group going. It was the largest town in a county of about 40,000, with a population of under 9,000. It was home to Hillsdale College, a conservative Liberal Arts college that did not accept Federal funding.

Scene from downtown Hillsdale looking east

Downtown Hillsdale, MI

Hillsdale, MI

Downtown Hillsdale

We were not used to being in a small town in a rural area. There were adjustments.

We had to go to Jackson or Adrian to see the movies we preferred, like Remains of the Day. After Walmart moved into the area, other smaller retailers closed. I had to leave town to buy many clothing items, shopping at Jackson, Adrian, and at an outlet mall in Indiana.

Doctors did not stick around very long. Our family doctor left his practice after a lawsuit, and we left the pediatrician because of his inappropriate behavior; he later lost his license.

At least there was a hospital in town, which proved important when our son developed pneumonia in the winter of 1990 when he was three years old. I was up all night with him, resorting to cold baths, but his fever would not go down. In the wee hours of the morning I woke Gary and we took Chris to the hospital, just at the end of our street.

He was hooked up to an IV and almost immediately felt better. He was hauling it around after him, unable to stay in bed. He shared a room with a toddler who was alone most of the day, except for visiting time when his entire family came and sat in the room talking to each other. Chris and I ‘adopted’ the boy. When he stuck his finger into an opening for medical equipment and couldn’t get it out, I alerted the nurses and Chris and I comforted him.

After one night staying in the hospital with Chris, sleeping on a chair, I developed a cough. I was diagnosed with bronchitis and sent home. Jean Elliot, Dorothy Lape, and other ladies from the church came to stay with Chris, singing him hymns and teaching him a prayer.

Chris was angry when we left the hospital without his roommate. He had always wanted a brother, and believed that we had gone to the hospital to bring that baby home.

I was aware how lucky we were that we had medical care to cure our son’s pneumonia, especially since Gary’s grandfather died of pneumonia in 1939.

Kite flying in the back yard

Sand box play

It was wonderful to have the open space for Chris to explore and play in. We found all kinds of critters in the yard to study, including peeper frogs, bunnies, deer, Milk Snakes, toads, and Praying Mantis. One year we found a cocoon and put it into a terrarium Chris bought at a garage sale. The next spring we watched the moth emerge.

Me with the moth

When we moved from Philly to Michigan we had to buy winter coats, boots, and heavy gloves!

Sledding in the back yard

Making snow men in the back yard

There were local parks and a rearing pond to explore. We saw fox and turtles and fish. One day a jet plane buzzed low over our heads! We don't know where he came from, but we could see his face in the window. Chris went to day camp at a nature center when he was older.

Chris and Gary

But the downside of the great outdoors was allergies. Just before my mother passed we learned that Chris had allergies to ragweed, tree pollen, and grass pollen. We were supposed to give Chris an allergy-free home, but the parsonage had no air conditioning. I went to the Trustee liason with a proposition: if they would pay half the cost of two air conditioner units, we would pay the other half and leave them when we moved. I was told that no one needed air conditioners in Michigan! Our son’s health concern made no difference. So we spent $1,000 we could not afford to buy window air conditioners on a credit card.

The first fall I joined the choir and handbell choir, led by Janet Lee who had taught music in Clawson, MI; she had replaced my high school choir teacher Denzel Balmer after she left the position. I found I could not deal with handbells. First, I was not used to counting. As a choral singer I read music and noted where I came in by the other parts. And in the small practice room, the sound hurt my ears! I have always had very sensitive hearing.

Janet Lee, me and Gary

I had to leave the choir after Chris was too old for nursery school so I could sit in church with him. But when the church held a Valentine concert talent show, Gary and I sang Do I Love You? from Fiddler on the Roof. We did a joint reading of Benjamin Bunny by Martin Bell, and I helped at other times with two-person scripture readings or story sermons.

Children stayed in worship service until the Children’s sermon, after which they left for Sunday School. That first Sunday when Chris was in worship and he saw his daddy walking down the aisle to the front of the church, Chris called out to Gary. He was very upset when his daddy ignored him, complaining and making a fuss. It took some time before Chris accepted that his daddy had a public role and could not be ‘daddy’ during that time. I kept Chris busy by drawing pictures, but he was bored. When the worship committee did a survey several people complained that the pastor’s kid was too distracting. It was a sign that there were communication problems in the church. People did not talk openly to solve issues, but 'gunny sacked' and nursed grudges. As Chris grew older, he started drawing cartoons based on our dog Kili. Kili the preacher. Kili the superhero.

The parsonage was a long, huge ranch. When we moved in we painted it, getting reimbursed for the cost of paint by the church, and wallpapered a kitchen wall. We had brought our portable dish washer from our Philadelphia home, as there was none in the parsonage, and also our new refrigerator since the parsonage one needed replacing. (Looking back, we had saved the church money and yet my request for help on the air conditioning was rejected!)

The linoleum kitchen floor was hopeless. Not only was it ugly, someone had scrubbed it with steel wool and it could not be waxed. When my mother-in-law came to visit, she tried to wax the floor again. It was hopeless. When our son dropped a strawberry on the floor, it left a permanent pink stain!

The detested kitchen floor!

I begged for a new kitchen floor every year. I even worked on their pride. I had joined a Great Books Club. We were reading the Norton Anthology of Short Stories. When I hosted the Club at the parsonage, I mentioned that all those Presbyterian Church and Hillsdale College members were going to see the horrid floor! To no avail. It was not replaced until right before they asked for a new pastor. The flooring I had chosen was installed in the large kitchen, the long hallway with laundry area and two closets, a half bath, and stairs for $800.

Meantime, the church had a beautiful, new fellowship room with a kitchen, grasscloth wall paper, and carpeting, because of a gift. It was nicer than the parsonage kitchen. A later gift was used to redecorate a Sunday School classroom used by the Fifth Grade class I was teaching. It was over-the-top, gaudy, and ornate because it the room was also used by bridal parties at weddings. 

The basement family room with my quilt space and a tv and play space

The church leader who had asked what I was going 'to do' at our meet and greet was still pressuring me on what to do. First, we joined their social group. They were older families with teenage kids and dual incomes. We didn’t have the money to go to Toledo for dinner and a show, and we needed a babysitter and often could not find one, so we rarely joined their outings. That did not go very well with them.

Then I joined their unit of the Methodist Women, but I did not fit in well. I dropped out when I was asked to start a new unit for younger adults. There were about 8 or 12 women all in their 20s and 30s, and most were stay at home moms like me. We got to know each other and even had a Halloween party. After a year they decided to join the established groups with the older women.

I was 'barefoot and pregnant' and Gary a Phillies Fan Mime for Halloween.
I had a pillow under that apron. Really. And a blond wig.

The same woman leader pressured me to befriend a woman whose interest in the church was lagging, wanting me to keep her from leaving. I would call the lady for a friendly chat but she was shy and cool. At one point I crossly told that leader it wasn’t my responsibility to keep people in the church, and that people should go to church where they felt happiest. Yep, that didn't go well either.

Gary was in charge of the youth group. The kids loved to have lock-in overnights. One night the kids were running through the church when a boy put his hand through a door window. It was a traumatic experience and the young man was changed by it, becoming more focused and dedicated to his Christian walk.

The older parishioners were very friendly to us, and Chris talked about all his ‘little white haired grandmamas’ who fussed over him and sent him birthday cards. Dorothy Lape invited us to dinner in her home. She had a WWI souvenir handkerchief her father had brought home and asked me to make a quilt with it, which she framed.

Chris

I will always remember Althea Walton. We were sitting next to each other at a women’s banquet and talked about how Nasturtium and Violets were edible. To prove our point, we each ate a flower from the centerpiece, with gleams of mischief in our eyes. Althea later gave me a memento, a jelly jar vase that belonged to her mother, and which she used to fill with Dandelions. And she gave Gary a down jacket that belonged to her husband, which he uses to this day.

On the sand dune at Warren Dunes State Park

We started camping with Chris. The first year we went to Warren Dunes State Park and the next year we went to P. J. Hoffmeister State Park, both on Lake Michigan. The first time Chris saw Lake Michigan, he went running, throwing of his clothes! He loved the beach.

On Chris's first camping trip he had an adventure he never forgot. He later dictated the story about his adventure to his preschool teacher.

After we arrived and had set up camp, Chris and Gary had gone over the sand dune to see the lake. When they returned, Chris was eager to show me all he had seen. As he ran ahead, leading the way, he slipped off the narrow path and into a dry stream bed. I couldn't reach him and had to leave him while I went back to get Gary. Gary was able to reach Chris and help him out. It was a frightening experience for a four-year-old!

Warren Dunes State Park where Chris found a hiding place

We visited cities all along the Lake Michigan shore, including Holland with it's Dutch Village and Grand Haven and the Coast Guard Museum. 

Chris and I at Holland, MI

the camper

Dad bought us a 1960s pop-up camper that had belonged to his boss at Chrysler. We kept it in the front of the house and a neighbor who was a church member complained it ruined her view. We couldn't afford the monthly fee to store it.

We invited Dad to go to New York with us, using the camper. We visited our family and our old neighbor Lucille Kuhn and saw Niagara Falls, Lockport and the Erie Canal locks, and Fort Niagara. We visited Mom's best friend, Doris at her house overlooking Lake Ontario. My Uncle Lee Becker took Chris to see the Grand Island Fire Station.

At Old Man River on the Niagara River, Tonawanda NY

Lockport, NY, an Erie Canal lock

At Ft. Niagara

Grand Island, NY Fire Station

We went to Philadelphia when Gary's first church in Morrisville had an anniversary. We saw Mark and Ellen Hostettor and took Chris to Longwood Gardens.

Gary with Mark and Ellen Hostetter at their retirement home.
Mark had been senior pastor at Gary's first charge in Morrisville, PA.

Chris and I at Longwood Gardens. Chris is in a jacket I made.

I learned my way around Hillsdale by going to garage sales. I would give Chris a few dollars to spend as he desired. He found books and toys, but also bought a wicker settee for his room and a 1950s bookcase!

Kili sleeping on Chris' wicker settee

One day when he was a tot, Chris asked to stop by the cemetery we often passed. We walked through it and he asked me to read the headstones. When we were going back to the car I asked him what he had learned. "Don't ever ever ever die," he replied.

Gary built Chris a sky fort for the back yard where there had been a garden when we moved in. We had a good garden for several years, but then the deer started eating it all, even the tomato plants!

The sky fort Gary built 

Chris adored his Pops. Dad would take him 'gallivanting' in his Dodge Ram truck.

Dad and Chris playing Shoots and Ladders

Chris had thrown over trucks for dinosaurs as his big interest. He read every book he could and became an expert. He loved to go to the Prehistoric Forest in the Irish Hills, a tourist trap built in 1963. It was closed and abandoned in 1999.

Chris went through a dinosaur craze and we often visited a dinosaur park
in the Irish Hills.

During his time in Hillsdale, Gary performed nearly 100 funerals, mostly because so few pastors would perform funerals for ‘strays’-- unchurched persons--and when the funeral parlors called he always said yes. We needed the money! One of the saddest funerals he presided over was for a man who died when his snowmobile went through the ice on Baw Beese Lake. There had been a warm spell in February, and as a police man he should have known better than to risk it. He left a bereaved wife and children.

I joined a quilt guild in Jackson, MI, Pieces and Patches. They formed in 1990 and was still quite a small guild, but a delightful group of women. I took over as newsletter editor, and using my experience went after advertisers to make the newsletter pay for itself.  When we moved I was told it took three women to replace me! We had a Christmas fabric exchange and I used the fabrics in the guild challenge to make a Christmas quilt incorporating a poem on fabric.

Christmas Challenge Quilt by Nancy A. Bekofske

We were a few hours drive from our families and they visited often, and I was often with Chris at Dad's in Clawson. Gary's folks would come for church service, especially on Easter, and Dad and my brother Tom would come for Christmas and Thanksgiving.

Dad, Chris and I at the Detroit Zoo

Gary's folks, Herman and Laura Bekofske, and Chris

Dad, Chris and Tom at Dad's house

I learned a lot about the small town mentality. A teacher friend in the quilt group was still ‘the new teacher’ in the school, and she had been there 22 years! Folks talked about the ‘so-and-so house', referencing the original or previous owner, not who lived there currently. A women told me that people needed to know how to ‘pigeon hole me’, and I did not fit in until I became a quilter. I was warned to avoid places frequented by 'those people'. And I was informed about the rumor network and it’s hub at the bank, and that gossip was a valuable commodity.

Kili keeping me company as I quilt

One adjustment to parsonage life was the feeling of insecurity. As a stay-at-home mom, without a job and living in a parsonage, I felt vulnerable. If something happened to Gary, I had thirty days to pack and find Chris and I a new place to live! And I wished we lived in town, not on the edge of town. It would have been nice for Chris to be around more children his age. All my concerns—flooding, no a.c. for our son, being isolated-- came back to me when I was told, “So, you don’t like the parsonage?”

Gary, Chris and Kili

Kili was the joy of our lives as a family. She always knew when Chris was coming home from school on the Dial-a-Ride bus, and would sit at the front door, peeking through the low window. Kids asked Chris if she was a cat. Shibas are cat-like, independent and self-contained.

Chris and Kili looking out the front door window

Kili had been crate trained and was not allowed on beds or furniture, unless we put her special quilt on first. She would sit with her chin resting on her favorite chair until we put the bed down, and she would be in the air before we had finished.

Silly Kili

After six years it felt like we had become accepted, plus I had the quilt community. When Chris received his Third Grade Bible it was a proud moment for us all.

The next day a woman from Staff Parish Relations Committee came to Gary’s office to tell him that they were requesting a new pastor. Gary was stunned. There had been no complaints, no discussion with him. He signed the paper in agreement. When the congregation heard about the request, some were incensed and wanted Gary to fight it. People were coming to me, wanting to tell me what so-and-so had said, while others stared at me to see how I was reacting. I would not listen to the gossip but knowing we were talked about behind our backs was hurtful.

Chris was having a great year. Having been jumped a grade in school the previous year, he was now socially settled in and he loved his teacher. Mr. Willoughby taught a unit on Great Lakes Shipwrecks, and Chris found a new interest, collecting and reading the many books written about the Great Lakes Shipwrecks. We kept our feelings and the church troubles hidden from Chris. We did not want him to know what was going on for fear it would turn him against church.

I knew from experience what it was like to leave the only world you knew, and it made me sad for Chris. We had to carry on for ten months, knowing we would be leaving, keeping up appearances. I broke down in the end. Knowing some people disliked us and talked about us was too hard. Plus, we knew the people behind the request had been cold and unsupportive since the beginning.

One of the quilters also turned against Gary. She had been very friendly when we were in choir together, but became cold and snippy. She was an unhappy person who turned against every friend. She felt Gary did not give her the recognition she deserved.

I made a quilt top that represented how Gary and I were experiencing these ten months, our family in crisis and isolated, surrounded by the broken church.

The quilt top I made representing the broken church

Gary’s District Superintendent had failed him. He did little to support Gary and ensure his success. He told Gary not to worry about complaints that we did not attend high school football games and the pressure for Gary to have a higher profile in town, joining the Rotary. We discovered that these were serious issues with the people who raised the issues. We just did not understand how small towns worked. A few years later, charges were brought against this D.S. and he lost his elders orders. Like my Hillsdale neighbor Nan always said, “what goes around, comes around.”

When Gary was notified that the Bishop and Cabinet had decided on where he would go next we were excited finally to be able to imagine the future. We had seriously considered leaving the ministry—again—but without a house or income and a child, we had no idea how to do that. We put ourselves in God’s hands. When we learned we would be in Lansing, MI, we were excited. We met the church and they were very warm and gracious. The parsonage was so nice and in an amazing neighborhood.

The pastor who had served in Hillsdale previous to Gary had left the ministry. I had heard some snide remarks about his wife ‘not doing anything’ or being a negligent mother because she had a home business. When we went to Lansing for the meet and greet, we met the pastor and his wife at we were to replace. They knew Hillsdale’s previous pastoral family and told me why they had left the church and parish ministry. I was amazed that we lasted seven years! Gary persevered and I just let things roll off me.

Chris and me

Dad, me, Tom, and Chris. Easter Sunday.

The church had a going away party with gifts. Gary was gifted the last quilt The Quilters had made, a Biblical Block Sampler.

Clair Booth, head of The Quilters, with Gary, Chris and I

in front of the Biblical Sampler quilt Gary received at his going away party

There were many good memories, but also hurts that we carried forward with us. The hardest part was the impact of the move on our son’s life. He did not remember any other home. I knew it would be bad. I had been through it myself. 

The World of Tomorrow by Brendan Mathews

The World of Tomorrow recreates America in 1939, the year of the World's Fair in New York City. It was a time of progress, dreams, and optimism, hot jazz and The Lindy Hop.

It was also a time of world political unrest, racism, and anti-Semitism. Father Coughlin had a radio broadcast from The Shrine of the Little Flower in Metro Detroit, spewing anti-Semitism.  Cab Calloway was playing in The Cotton Club to a white audience while black maids lined up on the street to be picked up for day jobs, hoping their employer didn't jilt them of their pay. Anti-lynching law petitions were circulating with little hope of impact.

There is talk about Roosevelt's "latest plans for the ruination of the country," taking from the rich to give to the undeserving poor "who still lined up for free soup and stale bread." The Fascism of Italy and Germany could be "exemplary," with business and government working together. Meanwhile in Europe, Hitler was taking over and Italy was embracing Fascism.

The mission of the World's Fair was to "showcase the abundance and industrial might of America's great corporations." Imagine a world with frozen food! A highway system and a car in every garage! And there was the promise of "Asbestos: The Miracle Mineral." But, the real draw at the fair was the Amusement Zone, and especially the Aquacade with women swimming in flesh-colored swimsuits so they appeared nude.

In Ireland, Francis Dempsey was serving a prison term for trafficking in banned books but is allowed to attend his father's funeral. Also at the funeral is his youngest brother Michael, released from the seminary he turned to after his true love married to solve her family's financial problems.

The boys are 'rescued', supplied with a car and a map to a remote cabin where IRA members make bombs. Francis accidentally sets off the explosives and is left with a shell-shocked Michael and the IRA's stash of money.

Frances comes up with a First-Class Pan: he assumes a false identity and with Michael they take a ship to America. On board he meets a wealthy New York City family whose daughter falls for his persona, the Scottish Lord Agnus MacFarquhar. Meantime, Michael's memory, speech, and hearing has failed, but the ghost of William Butler Yeats has become his new best friend.

The American gangster Gavigan, whose money Francis has stolen, rouses his retired henchman Cronin to tail Martin Dempsey, brother to Francis and Michael. Martin has been in America ten years, and has a wife and children. He is a musician in love with 'jungle' music. Gavigan believes that Francis deliberately killed his Irish contacts and stole his money. He wants revenge. Cronin is to bring Francis to him.

The Dempsey boys don't know that Cronin was mentored by the Dempsey patriarch, doing that which needed to be done for the IRA. Like cold blooded murder. He hated that Dempsey exploited his baser nature, which he has tried to overcome in his new life with Alice and her son, enjoying the simple life as a farmer. Gavigan threatens Alice's life if Cronin fails.

The set-up is long and perhaps overwritten, but it is full of color and vivid characters, and the writing clever with humorous insights. The story later heats up and drives to a heart-pounding and satisfying ending. I loved the Dempsey brothers.

The belief in an America as a place of fresh starts and miracles to come has become quite the nostalgic dream, or disdained hoax, to many Americans today. The novel takes us to a time when we still believed in a better tomorrow.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.

The World of Tomorrow
by Brendan Mathews
Little, Brown & Co.
Publication Sept. 5, 2017
Hardcover $28.00
ISBN: 9780316382199

I have two 1939 World's Fair handkerchiefs in my collection.