There was a soft knock on her door, and she glanced at the time on the clock. It was almost 9:30. Before she could open the door, Cassie ran to it and pulled it open. Outside stood Greta with her baby in one arm and a goofy grin across her face.
“Are you busy?” her friend asked.
“We’re getting ready for bed.”
“You can’t go to bed just yet.”
Liesel put her hands on her hips. “Why in the world not?”
“Because there’s a surprise waiting outside for you that you can’t miss.”
“A surprise?” Liesel looked back out at her window. “What are you talking about?”
“I can’t say another word,” Greta said. “I promised I’d keep it a secret.”
Cassie’s smile was almost as big as Greta’s.
“It seems like everyone is keeping secrets.” Liesel reached for Cassie’s hand. “Do you want to go outside with me?”
Greta stepped forward. “Oh, no. She needs to go to sleep.”
“But she can’t stay here by herself.”
“I’ll be right across the hall.” Greta tousled Cassie’s hair. “You’ll let Tante Greta know if you need anything, right?”
“Right.”
“Are you certain, Greta?”
Her friend gave her a little shove. “Go.”
Liesel leaned down and kissed Cassie on the cheek. “You go right to sleep.”
“I will.”
“No messing around near the window.”
“I’ll stay on my bed.”
“Promise?”
Cassie nodded her head as Liesel stepped out of the door.
“Go down to the apple orchard,” Greta said. “He’ll be waiting for you there.”
“Jacob?” she asked, but Greta buttoned her lips closed.
Liesel shook her head at her friend’s silliness, but still she was intrigued. As she walked down the stairs, she glanced up one more time to make sure Cassie had left the door propped open in case she needed to call out for Greta—and then she laughed out loud at herself and her worry over Cassie. When had she started fretting so much about this child? Parents were supposed to worry about their Kinder, not friends. She may want to be Cassie’s mother, but unless Jacob decided to pursue something more, she was Cassie’s caretaker and friend.
Still, she couldn’t help but worry.
The street was quiet when she stepped into it, the stars beginning to twinkle overhead. The freight train spouted off its whistle as it cruised through their village, but it didn’t stop tonight, traveling off to another city beyond her world.
She could no longer imagine her life without Jacob, but neither could she imagine leaving the Colonies. If Jacob asked her to marry him, she would be happy to be with him yet she would grieve leaving her home. She would never tell him that, of course, but he would probably guess at her reluctance to move away.
Ahead of her, something glowed in the orchards, glittering like the stars in the sky. Enthralled, she walked faster now, her eyes on the dozens of lights scattered among the trees. Candles sprinkled throughout the orchard. She’d never seen anything so breathtaking, with the flames dancing in the night.
“Jacob?” she whispered.
And then he was there, right beside her. “Are you hungry?” he asked.
“Should I be?”
He took her hand and led her gently through the labyrinth of lights until they came to a blanket stretched out between the trees. On it was a bottle of rhubarb wine along with cheese and crackers and a bowl of strawberries.
“How did you do this?” she asked.
He smiled down at her. “I had a little help.”
“It’s marvelous,” she said. “But why did you do it?”
She sat down on the blanket, and he poured her a glass of wine. “I have an important decision to make, and I wanted to see if you could help me with it.”
She sipped the sweet wine. “How can I possibly help you?”
He sat across from her, folding his arms around his knees. “When I was in Chicago, I received some reward money…and I’m trying to decide how to spend it.”
She tried not to sigh but couldn’t hide her disappointment. She didn’t want to talk about money tonight.
Jacob didn’t seem to notice. “One option is that I travel on to Spokane and set up a home for Cassie and me.”
The breeze blew across her face, rustling the leaves around them as she tried to smile. “It would be good for you and Cassie to have a home.”
“That’s what I was thinking as well,” he said, scooting a little closer to her. “Of course, the other option is that we find a place a little closer to the Amanas.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “I would like it if you and Cassie were closer.”
“How close, Liesel?”
The wine splashed out of her glass, onto the blanket, and she set the glass down. “Are there any other options?”
“There is one more option,” he said, a smile washing over his face. “Niklas Keller and the other Elders have asked me if I’d like to join the Amana Society.”
“What?”
“They would like me to live here in Homestead and take care of their bookkeeping.”
“Jacob—” Her thoughts raced, trying to form words. Niklas and the others had asked Jacob to stay. He didn’t have to leave the Amanas…and neither did she.
“I would have to give my reward money to the Society, of course, so I won’t have any left over to purchase a home. Cassie and I would live as part of the community.”
She wanted to both squeal and drop onto her knees and thank God for His goodness, but she couldn’t seem to do either.
“Are you all right, Liesel?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know.”
“What do you think I should do?”
She swallowed hard. “I think you should stay.”
He reached forward, taking both of her hands in his. “That’s what I was hoping you would say.”
Then he took her into his arms, pulling her close to his chest, and her body warmed with his touch. She’d never known what it was like to be held like this. To be loved. And now she never wanted him to let her go.
Slowly he tilted her face up to his. “I spent a bit of the reward money before I left Chicago.”
His lips were inches from her ear. “On what?”
Gently he unfolded her fingers, and she felt the coolness of metal in her palm. She looked down, and in the candlelight, she could see a silver ring with flowers engraved around it. “It’s beautiful, but—”
“I know you can’t wear it, but I still wanted you to have it so you don’t ever forget my promise.”
She tried to say something, to ask about his promise, but she couldn’t speak.
“The Elders agreed that I could join the Society, but they also agreed to make an exception to one of the rules for me.”
“An exception—” she whispered. “Which rule?”
“I told them I couldn’t join unless the woman I loved agreed to be my wife.”
Her heart seemed to stop.
“I also explained that I couldn’t wait another year to marry her.” He pulled her to him again, kissing her softly, and she went limp in his arms. “Liesel Strauss, would you consider becoming my wife?”
She closed her eyes as he stroked the back of his hand down her cheek. There’d never been a sweeter moment than this one. She didn’t want it to end.
Opening her eyes again, she looked into his face, candles glowing on every side of them.
“I will go wherever you go, Jacob,” she said, recalling the words from the book of Ruth, before he stopped her with a kiss.
“This is home, my love.” He sat back and smiled at her. “I will never ask you to leave.”
Behold the work of the old. Let your heritage not be lost, but bequeath it as a memory, treasure, and blessing.
Christian Metz, 1846
Epilogue
Two years later
On the bench across from her, Sophie Keller rested her head on the swing, breathing in the aromas of the ripening fruit and summer blooms on the trees. Her friend looked beautiful, dressed in a pale pink dress with puffy sleeves. Sophie’s skirt was gathered tight with a fancy buckle decorating her thin waist, and bursting out of her tea hat was a mass of pink and yellow tulle, feathers, and lace.
Sophie smoothed her gloves over her lacy dress and closed her eyes. “I still miss it here.”
“I miss you being here.” Liesel watched Cassie lift up Sophie’s young daughter to reach a handful of grapes overhead. “Aren’t they sweet?”
Opening her eyes, Sophie followed her gaze across the gardens. “I wanted our children to grow up together.”
“They’ll grow up together,” Liesel replied. “They just won’t see each other as often as we’d like.”
Sophie sighed, pushing the swing again. She and Conrad rented a home in Cedar Rapids, but Conrad now handled all the legal work for the Amana Society. Whenever he traveled to Amana, Sophie and little Meredith visited Liesel and Cassie for a day or two in Homestead. Liesel wished Sophie still lived here, working in the gardens beside her, but she savored every moment of their visits together.
The two girls fell into the grass, giggling together before Meredith dropped a grape into the red-stained mouth of her six-year-old friend.
“They’ll be the best of friends, won’t they?” Sophie asked wistfully.
Liesel laughed. “I think they’re already the best of friends.”
“Sometimes I worry…” Sophie leaned back again. “I worry about raising Meredith in the outside world.”
Liesel grasped for the right words to console her friend, but she couldn’t imagine raising her daughter outside either. “You will guide her, and you will pray.”
“Ja. I pray every day for her.” Sophie took off her gloves and put them on her lap.
“You are a good mother, Sophie.”
“And so are you.”
Liesel’s hands traveled to her belly and the bulge hidden under her loose calico dress. “Thank you.”
“You should come visit me in Cedar Rapids.”
“I can’t.”
Sophie looked down at Liesel’s hand, still resting on her belly. “Liesel Hirsch, are you—”
“Hush,” she whispered. “Jacob doesn’t know yet.”
“Good heavens, Liesel. Why not?”
“After what happened to Katharine…he’ll worry too much.”
“He’ll be angry if you wait too long.”
“Mama!” Cassie shouted.
Her daughter ran up to her with a cluster of grapes in her hand and kissed her cheek as she held out her bounty. Liesel’s stomach rolled at the thought of eating the fruit, but her heart was full.
“Thank you, sweetheart.”
Cassie hugged her neck. “You’re the best mama in the whole world.”
Liesel smiled at her daughter, relishing her tender words. She couldn’t imagine being any more blessed in this world.
Meredith toddled up beside Cassie and took her hand before she nudged her other finger into Cassie’s chest. “My sister.”
Sophie winked at Liesel and then clapped her hands. “Yes, she is.”
“Want her home with me.”
“Some day,” Sophie said, ruffling the yellow bow in her daughter’s hair. “Some day she’ll come for a visit.”
In the breeze, a faint whistle came from the side of the kitchen house, and Liesel sat up a little straighter on the bench. The moment Cassie heard the whistling, she let go of Meredith’s hand and sprinted around the brick building. Seconds later, Liesel watched her husband lift Cassie and twirl her around in his arms.
Jacob’s hair was wet from his weekly lesson at the river, where he was teaching a dozen or so Amana boys how to swim, and his smile was wide. She didn’t imagine it could be possible, but she thought he was even more handsome now than he was two years ago, when she and Cassie visited him on the dredge boat.
They’d married within a month of the great flood, and during his first year in the Amanas, Jacob won the admiration of the Board of Elders with his meticulous bookkeeping. Now he was a respected member of their Society. No one talked about him being “worldly” anymore—at least, not in front of them.
In the first months of their marriage, she’d worried that he would grow frustrated with their plain lifestyle, afraid that one day he would leave the Colonies like her mother had, but she rarely fretted anymore. Jacob seemed contented with his new life, as if he had been reborn since arriving in Homestead.
Some days she still wished she could work in the Kinderschule instead of in the gardens, but in the meantime, she was content with the Kind—her hand rolled over her belly again—the Kinder God had given her.
Her eyes locked on her husband’s gaze as he moved toward them. She’d braided his ring into her hair and hidden it under her sunbonnet, but in his eyes, she saw love and hope and a quiet promise that he would never leave.
“You are blessed,” her friend whispered.
Liesel nodded. God was in heaven, and all was truly right with the world.
Author’s Note
I learned about the Amana Colonies during my high school years in Iowa and became intrigued by their communal living and faith. As I researched this novel, it was such a privilege for me to return to Iowa and visit these beautiful villages, and it was a tremendous honor to spend time with Amana men and women whose parents and grandparents built these Colonies.
I have opened each chapter in this book with quotations from some of the Amana “inspired testimonies.” In the 1700s, the Amana Church was known as the Community of True Inspiration, a name given by people outside the community who heard the Werkzeuge (Instruments) speaking testimonies inspired by the Holy Spirit. The Amanas believe these testimonies are God-breathed revelation, and these Words have blessed and guided their community for more than two hundred years. While the testimonies are woven into the core of their faith, the Amanas also believe the Bible is the preeminent source of God’s revelation to His children. Each inspired testimony was tested against Scripture in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to determine if the words were from God.
While the Amana people lived as a communal society for eighty years, a devastating fire destroyed the Amana flour and woolen mills in 1923, and then later in the decade, the Amana youth began to rebel against the Society’s rules. While the members still operated as a commune during this decade, many of the residents sold handiwork and produce to purchase items not available in the Colonies. The financial state of the tight-knit Society began to deteriorate as more and more outside workers were hired to provide for the community.
In February 1932, members of the Amana Society voted to reorganize. The Amana Church was separated from the profit-sharing corporation known as the “Amana Society,” and adult members of the communal society were given stock in this new corporation. In the Amanas, this period was known as the Great Change.
After the Great Change, every member was guaranteed a job within the new organization, but they no longer lived as a commune. Members had to learn how to cook, pay taxes, and purchase items for their homes—and many of the older members missed the companionship of cooking and gardening with their friends.
The Amana Society still exists today, as does the Amana Church. In 1934 George Foerstner began to sell refrigeration coolers in the Amanas, and this business grew rapidly over the years as it produced washers, dryers, dishwashers, ovens, and air-conditioning units. Amana Appliances, now owned by the Whirlpool Corporation, is located in Middle Amana.
As the Amana Church follows the Spirit’s voice today, the inspired testimonies continue to enlighten and instruct its memb
ers. And the businesses in the Colonies continue to thrive as visitors from around the world escape to these peaceful villages.
Thank you for joining me on this journey to the remarkable Amana Colonies. I pray that each of us, like the Amana people, would continue to listen and follow the “holy and mysterious rushing” of the Spirit’s roar.
Blessings,
Melanie Dobson
www.melaniedobson.com
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Love Finds You in Homestead, Iowa Page 26