by Leslie Gould
Silas shrugged. “He said he was tired and wanted to go home. He’ll talk with you soon.” I hoped he wasn’t headed over to the bishop’s to talk about Marie staying at Aenti Suz’s. I wouldn’t put it past him. He certainly seemed willing to choose what rules he wanted to follow.
The old Jessica would have been eager to hash things out as soon as possible. But the new Jessica just shook her head a little and scooped Ruby into her arms. Motherhood had softened her fiery temper.
Over the next two days, I cared for Marie and Caden, texted Nick now and then, and tried to stay out of Mamm’s way. Gordon returned to work, not wanting to use up all his sick and vacation days in case he needed them later.
It took both Aenti Suz and me to care for Caden and Marie. I was also trying to help Mamm with her housework and cooking so she would be more amenable to having Marie on the farm, but I still expected Bishop Jacobs to show up at the Dawdi Haus door at any moment.
On Tuesday, I called Rita, telling her I needed another couple of days off. She wasn’t happy with me, so I kept the call short and professional and managed to get off the phone before she started to complain.
On Wednesday morning, as I colored with Caden at the table while Aenti Suz was off helping a widow in the district, Marie had a call on her cell phone. She glanced down at the screen and then up at me. “It’s the doctor.”
I held my breath as she answered it.
She said “I see” a couple of times and then looked up and made a writing motion with her hand.
I stood, scooping up Caden and the coloring book and the red crayon, and went to Marie’s side, handing her the book and crayon.
Marie jotted a few things down on the last page and then said, “Thank you.”
After she ended the call, she met my eyes. “They have the results back from the endoscopy. It’s cancer.”
“Oh, Marie.” I collapsed beside her. She took Caden from me and held him tight. His eyes grew wide, but he didn’t fuss, as if sensing the seriousness of the moment.
I pointed toward the coloring book, which had fallen to the floor. “What’s next?”
“The hospital doctor referred me to an oncologist. Someone from his office will call me today to make an appointment. They may do surgery and then chemo. Maybe even radiation. We’ll have to see what the oncologist recommends.”
I reached for my sister’s hand. I wanted to say, “You’ll get through this. You’re young.” But there were no guarantees. So much depended on whether the cancer had spread.
A sob rose up in Marie, and I let go of her hand and pulled her close.
She leaned her head on my shoulder. Another sob shook her, but then she was still. Softly she said, “I want to go home.”
“Why?”
She looked toward the front door and said, “Mamm’s coldness is getting really hard to take. Vi and Arden’s too. I could hear them the other day when they were on the porch, but none of them have come to see me.”
“Aenti Suz and I want you here.” The farm wasn’t where I wanted to be either, but I did want to take care of Marie. And Aenti Suz made the aloofness of the other family members bearable.
She met my eyes again. “You have your boards to take. I don’t want you giving them up for me.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll still take them.” Belatedly, I remembered that I needed to send my résumé to Nick’s boss.
“What about your job?”
“I called my supervisor and took a few more days off. I’ll probably go ahead and quit—I’ll have a nursing job soon anyway.”
“I don’t want you to quit before you have another job,” Marie said. “I’ll be all right.”
She couldn’t take care of Caden and get any rest, let alone have surgery and go through chemo. I squeezed Marie’s shoulder. “Let’s take it one day at a time.”
Marie dropped her voice and glanced toward the front door as if Mamm might come charging through it. “If it’s not practical to go home, I’m wondering if we should go to Randi’s house.” That was Gordon’s mother. “It wouldn’t be as stressful there.”
If Marie decided to go there, would Randi be okay with me staying too, or would I need to stay at Aenti Suz’s and drive back and forth? On one hand, the practical one, it made no sense that Mamm had a six-bedroom house to herself while we were all crowded in the small Dawdi Haus. Of course, on the other hand, the Amish one, it made perfect sense.
“I’m sorry this is so stressful,” I said. I was. Marie had never had a strained relationship with Mamm, never given Mamm a moment of worry, until she left the Amish, joined the Mennonites, got a job at the shelter in downtown Lancaster, and married Gordon.
“I’m not going to call Gordon and tell him about the cancer yet. I’ll wait until after work.”
“He’d want to know,” I said. “As soon as possible.”
“I’ll wait and see if he calls during his lunch break then.”
Caden began to fuss.
“What about Mamm? When will you tell her?”
Marie frowned. “After I tell Gordon, I guess.”
After lunch, as I put Caden down for his nap, Gordon called Marie. When I came out of the bedroom, Marie was off the phone but resting on the couch with her eyes closed.
I’d never missed Dat more than I did as I stared down at her. I stepped out onto the front porch, closed the front door softly, and sat down on Aenti Suz’s single step, turning my head toward the sun.
Tears stabbed at my eyes, but I wasn’t one to cry. I quickly blinked them away, but a lump formed in my throat. A wad of emotions. It wasn’t like a globus pharyngeus that could leave a scratchy or throbbing sensation in a person’s throat.
As early as I can remember, science and medicine fascinated me. When I was eight or nine, Dat taught me the periodic table. He told me that everything on earth was made from those elements. “God gave us what we needed for building everything from tables to barns to feeding and caring for our bodies.”
As he taught me the elements, I named the chickens after them. Hydrogen. Helium. Lithium. Beryllium. Boron. Carbon. The names went on and on. I began reading about the individual elements in our set of encyclopedias. Then about food in Dat’s nutritional magazines. Then I started reading his medical journals.
For my twelfth Christmas, he gave me an oversized Gray’s Anatomy, which he’d found at a secondhand store. Mamm, her face pinched, clearly hadn’t approved. When she wasn’t around, Dat and I studied bones—long, short, flat, irregular, pneumatic, and sesamoid. Then joints. And muscles. The cardiovascular, lymphatic, respiratory, and nervous systems. Endocrine, digestive, and urinary systems. Skin, fascia, and connective tissue.
During the day, Dat would point to different bones on his body and I’d give him the name. Clavicle. Tibia. Scapula. He’d talk about the larynx, trachea, and bronchi as we walked through the woods. One time at supper, he began talking about the digestive system, but Mamm put a stop to it, insisting it wasn’t “table talk.” I’d laughed. How could it not be? Our bodies were digesting our food as we spoke!
She was not amused.
Every bit of information fascinated me, especially blood. It delivered nutrients, the elements our body needed, through our body, and then it carried away metabolic waste from those very same cells. It also carried electrolytes, gases, proteins, glucose, and hormones. Red blood cells carried oxygen, while white blood cells fought bacteria, viruses, cancer cells, and infectious diseases. And platelets helped blood to clot.
We were wonderfully made.
Every time someone in the family had a cut or a scrape, I was there to clean and bandage the wound, satisfying my curiosity of what happened to the skin, how much the wound bled, and how long it would take to heal.
Dat taught me all he knew and checked out books from the library to feed my insatiable appetite. He shared his love of the land with Jessica, his love of music with Marie, and his love of medicine with me. He nurtured each of our interests and did all he could to encourage
us. No doubt that was why he allowed me to take the CNA course. Perhaps he thought it would be enough for me—or maybe he knew it wouldn’t.
I’d never know.
When I packed for Pittsburgh after Dat died, I searched everywhere for the copy of Gray’s Anatomy. I’d kept it in Dat’s study, on the same shelf as his set of encyclopedias. It wasn’t there. I asked Mamm if she’d seen it, but she acted as if she didn’t know what I was talking about. I chalked it up to her grief. I hoped someone hadn’t given it away or, worse, disposed of it. I was devastated that the book was missing and that I’d have to leave for Pittsburgh without it.
The clopping of a horse’s hooves interrupted my thoughts. Aenti Suz was coming up the drive.
She stopped the buggy on the way to the barn and called out, “Stay there. I’ll join you in a minute.”
Instead, I followed the buggy and helped Aenti Suz unharness her horse. Then we fed him, and I brushed him down. The feel of the brush in my hand and the rhythmic motion of it against the horse’s flanks calmed me, along with the comforting smell of the barn.
As we worked, I updated Aenti Suz on Marie’s condition. When I finished, I said, “I’m really missing Dat right now.”
When I’d finished and put the brush away, Aenti Suz put an arm around me and pulled me close. “You three girls are stronger than you think.”
When I didn’t answer, not sure if I agreed, she said, “Two generations ago, there were three other Bachmann sisters who faced uncertain times together, without the assistance of their parents. Well, their father was alive at the beginning, but he soon fell ill.”
We walked together out of the barn into the afternoon sun. A flock of starlings swooped upward, startling me.
“Do you remember your great-aunts Faith, Hope, and Charity?” Aenti Suz asked.
I shook my head.
“All were married and lived in different locations around the county. They came to visit when they could.”
I remembered hearing their names before but had no memory of them. “Are you sure I ever met them? Was I even alive?”
“Let’s see.” Aenti Suz wrinkled her brow. “I guess not. You were born in 1995, right?”
I nodded.
“Charity lived the longest, and she passed away in 1994, just before you were born.”
“What’s their story?” I asked.
“Well, it’s actually my father’s story—Joseph Bachmann.”
An image of Mr. Weber flashed through my mind. “You know, I’ve wanted to hear more about Dawdi Joe. Dat told me he served during World War II.”
“That’s right,” Aenti Suz said. “He was the youngest in the family and the only boy. My grandmother was sure he was another girl and chose the name Joy for him. When he was born, they decided on Joseph and called him Joe.” She smiled. “It’s my father’s story, but his sisters were a part of it as well. Their mother had died, and he’d just been drafted.”
“Drafted? Into the military?” I thought of Nick’s desire to join the Air Force. Join. He certainly wasn’t being drafted.
“Joe went into the Civilian Public Service as a conscientious objector to avoid having to fight. As a CO, he didn’t have to join the military, but it was still a big deal for a farm boy who’d never been outside Lancaster County.” We’d reached her front porch. “Would you like to hear the story?” Aenti Suz asked.
“Jah.” I opened the front door a crack so I could hear Caden when he awoke and Marie if she needed me.
“First, some background information,” Aenti Suz said as I sat down in the chair next to her. “Some Anabaptist men of fighting age faced horrible experiences during the War to End All Wars, which was later deemed World War I.” She explained that there were cases of men being imprisoned, but the worst account was of four Hutterites from South Dakota who reported to serve at Fort Lewis in Washington State. However, when they refused to wear army uniforms, they were imprisoned in Alcatraz and thrown into solitary confinement. Later, they were sent to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, where two of the men died from exposure.
That particular Hutterite group, fearing the war wouldn’t actually be the one to end all wars, fled to Canada to avoid any future military conflicts. Other Anabaptist groups, in response to the persecution that had taken place, did all they could to come up with a future program for those with nonresistance beliefs.
“In October 1940, the United States, in response to the war in Europe, reinstated the draft, and by December of that year a group of Anabaptists had worked with the government to create the Civilian Public Service,” Aenti Suz said. “By the time Pearl Harbor was bombed a year later, there were already CPS camps around the nation. Two years later, Joe Bachmann turned eighteen and was drafted.”
4
Joe Bachmann
April 1944
When Joe’s draft number came up in the spring of 1944, his father drove him in the family wagon to a church in Lancaster to meet with the Selective Service Board. Joe had only been to town a few times in his life, but Dat seemed to know exactly where he was going. Automobiles zipped around the wagon, and a few blocks away a trolley clanged along its track. In the distance, a train whistle blew. Joe’s head turned from side to side, taking in all of the sights and sounds. He loved the family farm and land, but he found the city exciting.
Soon, his father parked the wagon next to a flowering lilac bush, and Joe jumped down and tied the horse to a hitch. Together they walked toward the church.
Joe was quite a bit taller than Dat now, and he noticed his father’s shoulders hunched more than ever. Dat’s beard had been completely gray for as long as Joe could remember, and he walked with a limp from an accident two years before. A Model T had run the wagon off the road, and Dat had been tossed into a ditch on his hip. Thankfully Dat and the horse had survived.
Dat was seventy, much older than Joe’s friends’ fathers. Dat had married as a young man, but he and his first wife never had children. After she died, he married again and had three daughters and then Joe. For years, Dat had seemed ageless, but since Mamm passed away three years prior, Dat had seemed to grow old quickly. The accident hadn’t helped.
Dat hadn’t said much about Joe being drafted into the service except that, as in everything, Joe should aim to serve the Lord and do his very best.
Over the last two years, several of the other young men from their district, located in the heart of Lancaster County, had headed west to work in CPS camps—some in logging operations, some on farms, some to fight fires. A few had turned their backs on the teachings of their church and joined the army, but Joe knew he’d never do that.
Joe glanced down at his documents as they neared the church and said, “The board meets in a place called the ‘fellowship hall.’” The building was made of bricks, with a tall white steeple that reached up to the blue sky.
When they reached the front door, Joe took his hat off and held it in his hand as a middle-aged man with a round belly and a bald head swung the door open. “So you’re a Dutchy who won’t fight.”
Joe simply said, “I’m here to get my orders for the CPS.”
The man told Dat he wouldn’t be allowed in the meeting.
“All right.” He turned toward Joe. “I’ll wait in the wagon.”
Joe followed the Englisch man down a hallway and then into a large room where four other men sat behind a table. The fifth man joined them.
He was thankful for the CPS and hoped to be assigned to an agriculture camp. He’d been farming his entire life and had a knack for it. There were woods on his family farm, and he enjoyed caring for the trees almost as much as growing the crops. Anything in agriculture would suit him just fine.
But it was soon clear the Selective Service Board had a different idea for him.
“How do you feel about working in medicine?” a man wearing a suit coat and tie asked.
Working in a hospital certainly wasn’t his first choice. Joe was sure he was going to be sent to work on a psychiatric ward,
like others in his district had been. He squared his shoulders. “I’ve cared for the sick before but never the mentally ill.” He’d helped his sisters nurse their mother in the months before she passed.
“There’s a general hospital in Chicago, a Catholic one, that’s been turned into a hospital for”—Joe expected to hear the insane, but instead the man said—“for soldiers. They’re currently short-staffed and looking for orderlies. We’re sending you there. There’s a staff of Civilian Public Service men who stay in barracks on-site.”
They explained that Joe would be under the direction of an army officer, most likely a doctor, but that all of his assignments and transfers would be ratified by the Selective Service Board. “You will cease to have any rights, but you may be granted privileges,” the man with the tie explained. “Ones that can be taken away at any moment. You will have no choice as far as where you are assigned or for how long you will be at any one location. You will be transferred as needed for the good of our country.”
“Understood?” The man who’d greeted him at the front door had his arms crossed over his wide chest.
Joe nodded.
“Speak up,” the man said.
“Yes, sir,” Joe answered.
The man in the tie stamped a document. “Here are your orders and train ticket. Arrive at the station early. You can take a streetcar to the hospital once you reach Chicago.”
Joe must have had a puzzled expression on his face because the man said, “A streetcar is a trolley. You’ll find the right one outside of the train station.”
The man slid the paperwork across the table toward Joe. He took the documents and then thanked all of the men on the board.
They simply nodded their heads in return.
Joe didn’t look at the paperwork until he reached the sidewalk. He was to arrive in Chicago in two weeks and report to the hospital immediately. Chicago. He never expected to be sent to a city. He was a country boy, and a Plain one at that.
Once he reached the wagon, he squinted up at his father, shading his eyes, although he didn’t say anything, and hopped up to the bench.