by Leslie Gould
In the days that followed, Joe realized that Faith seemed more settled than she used to be, not as easily irritated. Perhaps she feared before that her younger siblings wouldn’t grow into capable adults, and she felt responsible to teach them. Now that she was learning to trust God, she was able to let go of them and enjoy life. She wasn’t motivated by fear anymore.
On a spectacular Saturday two weeks later, with a sapphire-blue sky warming the farm, Joe had finished repairing the trough in the barn and was on his way to the house when he spotted a Pontiac coming up the road.
He walked quickly around the side of the house. The car stopped, and a woman climbed out of the back seat while the driver retrieved a bag from the trunk.
The woman’s blond hair hung loose and wavy around her shoulders, and she wore a skirt and sweater.
“Martha!” he yelled, running toward her as much as he could with his cane.
She turned toward him, her mouth forming the word Joe.
When he reached her, he dropped his cane and wrapped his arms around her. “You’re here!”
“Jah,” she answered. “I am. I’m finally home.”
Martha was home. Out under the oak tree in the pasture, she told Joe she didn’t want to return to Chicago—or Illinois at all.
As the sun lowered in the western sky, she took his hand. “I want to join your church with you.”
His heartbeat hadn’t slowed since he’d seen her step from the car, but now it raced even faster. “Are you sure?” He’d never felt so alive in his entire life.
She squeezed his hand. “The reason I’m not on my way to the Pacific is because you’re going to be a daddy.”
Joe gasped.
“The baby is due the end of October. Nine months from our wedding night.”
He wrapped her in his arms again, feeling as if his heart might burst. She was safe. They were going to be parents. A baby. A miracle that had brought Martha back to him. He felt as if he must be dreaming.
Joe’s leg healed day by day, while Martha’s middle expanded. Faith, Hope, and Charity became sisters to her and came to love her as much as they did Joe.
They all celebrated, in a quiet way, when the war in the Pacific ended in August 1945. But they were shocked that nuclear bombs had been dropped and wondered what that held for the future of the world. Both Joe and Martha hoped that their friends, including Major Russell, would soon be coming back to the United States.
The devastation from the fighting around the world was horrific, and the recovery took years. For Joe and Martha, each day on the farm and in their Amish community brought healing from what they’d seen on the front line. Baby Augustus, named for Martha’s father, was born the end of October, just as Martha had predicted. They called him Gus. She and Joe joined the church the next spring and Charity and Abe moved out soon after that, going back to help Abe’s uncle.
Hope began courting a man from New Holland who had fought fires with the CPS in Montana. They married the next year. And just when it seemed Faith might remain with Joe and Martha forever, she started courting a widower with four children. It was the hardest for her, out of all the sisters, to leave the Bachmann farm. But she did, marrying the man, mothering the children, and having three more.
Major Russell tracked Joe and Martha down in 1948, showing up at the farm on a cool spring day with Lt. Madison, who was now Mrs. Russell. The two had married and were on their way to Philadelphia, where the major had been assigned to an army hospital. Lt. Madison seemed surprised to see Martha in a cape dress and Kapp, living without electricity and, at that time, without an indoor toilet, but after a tour of the farm, including the new dairy herd, they both praised them for their hard work. Through the years, the couples exchanged cards and saw each other from time to time.
Baby Suzanne, named after Joe’s mother, was born when Gus was four. Martha had several miscarriages and a stillborn baby after that, which nearly broke her heart. Martha never worked as a nurse again, but she served neighbors, friends, and family with her advice and skills. Many times she and Joe were called when there was a farm accident. Other times she went alone to care for someone who was ill. Gus learned from both his parents about medicine, and as he grew older, Joe taught Gus all about farming and caring for the land too. And Gus and his father loved to sing, including Englisch hymns and other songs.
Meanwhile, Suz learned from her mother about cooking, canning, sewing, quilting, and gardening. When Suz fell in love with Jake, a Mennonite boy, her parents, aunts, and uncles all hoped it was a passing fancy.
When Gus, who was twenty-four and hadn’t joined the church yet, decided to go with Jake to Vietnam to fulfill both of their conscientious objector duties, both Martha and Joe grew concerned. They worried about Gus’s safety and also his emotional well-being. Both knew the horrors of war and didn’t want their son to witness what they had. They were nonresistant, so of course they were against the war, but they were also against sending boys to fight in a conflict they believed the United States had no business getting involved in.
They pleaded with Gus to join the church and stay home, but in the end they left the decision to him. He chose Vietnam, where he and Jake worked in a Mennonite clinic in the highlands of the country. In the fall of 1970, the Viet Cong attacked the clinic, and Jake was killed. The clinic was immediately closed and Gus returned home, a traumatized young man, while Suz was left with a broken heart. Their parents cared for both of them, giving them time to heal.
A couple of years later, Gus joined the church and then married Missy. Arden and Amos were born in 1974. Gus built the Dawdi Haus for his parents and Suz moved in with them. Even though they were still relatively young—in their early fifties—both Joe and Martha had health problems.
Although Martha cared for others and encouraged them to live in a healthy way, her own health failed. Eventually, the doctors diagnosed her with congenital heart disease. She died soon after. Joe died a few years later.
Their lives seemed too short, but they were devoted to each other and to others. And they passed on their strengths to their children. The pain of what they saw during World War II never left, but instead of scarring them, it compelled them to do all they could to love and serve those around them.
20
Leisel
Aenti Suz stopped under a streetlight in the church parking lot as we completed the loop back to the church.
“So my grandmother was a nurse.” I sighed. “I’m so glad she survived the war. They were so in love.”
“Jah,” Aenti Suz said. “World War II brought my parents together and changed all of our lives.”
I nodded in agreement. It had set our family on a new trajectory. Jah, they stayed on the farm, but I couldn’t help but wonder how Martha’s influence had shaped my Dat and Aenti Suz, and, in return, influenced my sisters and me. Still, I was surprised Martha chose to live Amish, especially when Joe was so willing to leave.
“Did she ever regret it?” I asked.
“Oh, I’m sure there were times she did. Once I saw her looking longingly at an Englisch woman driving a station wagon.” She laughed. “And once she mentioned how nice it would be not to hang the wash out in the winter, but you have to remember that she grew up with no electricity and with a wringer washing machine. And her grandfather never had a car, of course. It wasn’t as if living Amish was a drastic change for her, not like it would be now.”
“But wasn’t it hard for her to give up her nursing career?”
“No, it really wasn’t,” Aenti Suz said. “Back then, most women stopped working once they married.”
“What about the Amish in the community? Did they accept her right away?”
“At first people in the community were suspicious of her, but then a neighbor mangled his arm in a hay baler and she saved his life. Another time, a neighbor was horribly ill and Mamm went over with her stethoscope, diagnosed him with pneumonia, and contacted an Englisch neighbor to take him to the hospital. She probably save
d his life too. Others in the community sought her out after that. Sometimes, when we were old enough to stay by ourselves, she and Dat would go out in the middle of the night to check on a neighbor. Or Gus would go with Mamm instead of Dat.”
“What about you?” I asked. “Were you interested in medicine?”
She shook her head. “No. For the longest time I fainted at the sight of blood. I got over that, but I was never good in an emergency. I’m better now, I think.”
“How about Jake?”
She smiled a little. “He wasn’t exactly made for medicine either. But it was a better match for him than fighting, so he did his best.”
I thought of Joe and Martha and their years together on their farm. They’d both died long before I was born, and I really hadn’t been told much about them over the years. Now I wondered if Mamm had discouraged talk about them because of their service during World War II. I know she didn’t want Dat talking about his time in Vietnam or Haiti or any of the other trips he took.
“Will you tell me more about them? And about you and Jake?”
Even in the dim light, I could see Aenti Suz’s face contort.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“No, it’s fine.” She turned toward the front door of the church. “It’s hard for me to talk about him, but I’m fine answering your questions.”
“Do you have any regrets?” My voice was low. “About Jake?”
Aenti Suz shuddered a little. “Do I have any regrets? Jah. The problem is, I’m not sure if I have one or a million.”
“What would the one regret be?”
“That I didn’t go to Vietnam with him.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“There were other Mennonite women working at the clinic. I wish Jake and I had married and gone together.”
The idea shocked me. “Is that what Jake wanted?”
“We’d talked about it.” She clasped her hands together. “Things were so odd during that time. Jah, Vietnam was a war zone, but missionaries and medical people came and went all the time. Other people did too. Businessmen. Adoption workers. It wasn’t prohibited in any way. There had been an incident nearly a decade earlier when some American and Canadian medical providers had been kidnapped, but the compounds where the clinics were located were relatively safe—or at least that was the thinking when Jake and Gus decided to go.”
“Did your parents not want you to marry Jake and go to Vietnam?”
“They were surprisingly resigned to letting me make that decision. They knew I didn’t plan to join the Amish. They knew I planned to marry Jake. They didn’t seem to think we should wait.”
“So why didn’t you marry and go with him?” I asked. “Were you afraid?”
Aenti Suz shook her head. “I wasn’t afraid of the danger—I was afraid of being judged.”
“By whom?”
“Our community.”
“But you were leaving it.”
Aenti Suz smiled a little. “It doesn’t make any sense, I know.” She exhaled. “I didn’t know any women who’d ever done such a wild thing.”
“Except your mother,” I challenged.
“Right,” Aenti Suz said. “But I had no idea of her story at the time.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, I knew she was an army nurse, but I didn’t know any of the details. It wasn’t something they talked about or that the bishop wanted them to talk about.”
That made sense. “But what about the ancestor Marie told me about? Annie, right? The one who cared for soldiers during the Civil War and then married a man who was Brethren.” I snapped the fingers of my free hand. “And how about that great-great-Aenti who Ruby is named after? Didn’t she go to Valley Forge? And then marry an Englischman? They both took huge risks too.”
Aenti Suz nodded. “You’re right. But I didn’t know about those stories at the time either.”
I took a step backward. “When did you find out about them?”
“My Mamm and Dat told me their stories after we buried Jake. And then my Aenti Faith told me about Ruby and Annie sometime after that. They were all so worried about me, and I think they were just trying to distract me. They didn’t realize that the stories reinforced my wish that I’d married Jake and gone with him.”
I reached for her hand and squeezed it.
“Because I didn’t have any examples to follow, I felt going with him would further ostracize me from my community.”
I still didn’t understand.
“Jake’s folks had a farm not too far away, so I would be living close by,” she continued. “The folks in our community already looked down on me for courting a Mennonite boy. I had this idea that everyone would talk less behind my back if I did everything as normal as possible, meaning waiting to marry until Jake returned.”
“You never seemed to me like the type of person who cared what people thought.”
“Oh, I did back then,” she said. “Not enough to deny my love for Jake, but enough to draw as little attention to myself as possible. I wanted to wait out the year he was gone, living with my folks, and then Jake and I would both join the Mennonite church together when he returned.”
“What made you decide to join the Amish church instead?”
“At first, I wasn’t sure I would. I had this idea I’d go ahead and join the Mennonites anyway and then travel with different mission groups, in honor of Jake. But then his parents were so heartbroken when he died that they sold their farm, moved to Indiana, and retired in a Mennonite settlement there. My Mamm’s health grew worse, and I began caring for her. Gus married and had the twins. About ten years after Jake died, I realized I wasn’t going anywhere.”
“How about when Dat went off to places to serve? Did you want to go with him?”
“At first I did, but I had our parents to look after. And then after a while I grew complacent and it didn’t seem as important to me.”
I inhaled deeply, thinking of how much I enjoyed assisting Dat as he recommended vitamins, supplements, and healthy eating to friends and neighbors who sought out his good advice. And how much, at one time, I’d looked forward to serving with Nick. I hadn’t realized I would be following in a family tradition.
My grandparents had both served in a medical capacity during World War II, yet I wouldn’t have anything to do with Nick when he decided to serve in the Air Force. Was I that closed-minded? Would I be content working in a clinic forever? Or being a doctor’s wife and not working at all?
Aenti Suz started walking again, and I shone the light at her feet. In the distance, the front door to the church was open. Nick stood in the light. I’m not sure if he saw us or not, but my heart ached at the sight of him. After a moment, he turned around and closed the door.
He was certainly following his dreams. At some point, I needed to figure out my own.
When had they changed?
Or, more accurately, when had I?
The next morning, as I washed my face in the ladies’ room, I thought about Aenti Suz and Jake and the tragedy of his death. My heart seized again, just as it had yesterday at the sight of Nick.
A few minutes later, I pulled my phone out of the pocket of my backpack and the slip of paper with the number of the wife back in Somerset came out with it. I groaned. Was I ever going to deal with that? I was sure she hadn’t forgotten me, just as I hadn’t forgotten her. Hopefully, she hadn’t gone back to the diner and found out I actually had her number. I really was the queen of avoiding conflict.
Aenti Suz was already in the kitchen, cooking scrambled eggs for the crew. I was surprised to see David flipping hotcakes. I greeted him and asked if the tornado had touched down on his farm.
“No,” he said. “We were a couple of miles north of its path.”
“Did you just happen to show up? Only to find Aenti Suz here?”
He smiled and shook his head. “Your Mamm left me a message. She said Suz was headed up here to this church. I hired a driver this morning to
see how I could help.”
I was surprised Mamm had called him. Did she contact him often? Nick sat at a table with the other nurse and the doctor who had stayed too.
After I filled my plate at the counter between the kitchen and fellowship hall, I stepped back to the stove to eat where Aenti Suz was scrambling another skillet of eggs, not wanting to join Nick’s group. Aenti Suz gave me a funny look but didn’t say anything.
When it was time to get our assignments, our leader sent me to the school, along with the doctor and Aenti Suz, while David stayed back at the church. Nick and the other nurse were sent to a different site.
We had one more day of triage. Aenti Suz greeted people, offered them a snack, and kept up with the paperwork as I examined patients. I continued to feel a surge of adrenaline, but not as intensely as the day before.
A boy had stepped on a nail while helping to clear debris. His mother had no idea when his last tetanus shot had been, so we sent him on to his general practitioner. Then we had a man who’d sprained his ankle. Most of his barn had been blown into his field, and he fell off the foundation as he was trying to untangle the remaining boards.
Just after noon, Nick joined us. He said the other nurse had headed home. Aenti Suz asked him when he needed to leave. “I’ll stay until supper,” he said.
“Until after supper, I hope,” she added, before he could answer. “In fact, I insist.”
He smiled at her. “Thank you. I will.” He glanced from Aenti Suz to me. “How late are the two of you staying?”
“We’re leaving when the van goes.”
“Tonight?”
I nodded. “I work in the morning.”
We continued on with our tasks. I asked Nick for a second opinion on a cut to a little Amish girl’s leg—if butterfly bandages were enough or if I should send her to a clinic to get it stitched. After we both consulted with the father, he decided butterfly bandages would do the trick.