by Gayle Roper
Nodding and looking, I felt a zip of pain that there was no one I could ever give grandchildren to.
Finally I finished my pasta figioli and salad and Alma her lunch, and we got down to the purpose of our visit. We pushed everything to one corner of the table, and she unrolled a large chart. Lines and brackets were laced with names and dates, beginning with a single name in 1821, Karl Biemsderfer, and getting progressively more dense and complex as the years passed.
“Lots of fascinating stories here,” she said, indicating the upper reaches of the chart. “But your point of interest begins with this generation,” she said. “My grandfather’s.”
I looked where she pointed and read Dwayne Biemsderfer m. Rebecca Crum.
“I found their wedding announcement in the newspaper archives,” I said. “I was looking for Biemsderfer birth announcements and found this instead.”
“Old Dwayne was quite the looker,” Alma said. “I’ve seen sepia photos of him and Rebecca. Even in those formal pictures, he looks very handsome. I can’t say much about Rebecca though. The severe hairstyle of the day didn’t do much for her.”
“Maybe she had personality,” I suggested.
“That’s a kind thought.” Alma shrugged. “I don’t remember Dwayne and Rebecca well enough to comment. They died when I was pretty young.” She tapped another set of lines. “Now here’s Dwayne’s brother, Harold, who married Julia Miller and had five children—my aunts and uncles. There are lots of people for you to trace in this branch of the family, but it will be more difficult and time-consuming because most of them have moved away from Lancaster County. They’re literally all over the world because several of them are missionaries.”
I stared at Harold’s name and the list of descendents that trailed from it. If I had to try and locate all those people, I’d be forever trying to solve Pop’s mystery. Of course, I would have the pleasure of traveling all over the world. Look how much fun I’d had since coming here.
“And this,” said Alma, finger snapping against the chart, “is the baby of the family and the apple of everyone’s eye, at least according to Grandfather Dwayne and my father. Here’s Madeleine Biemsderfer who married Enos Lehman.”
“What?” I stared at the paper, goosebumps on my arms. I reached out and put my finger on the name, as if that would make it more real. “Enos Lehman? Like in Lehman Biemsderfer?”
It couldn’t be coincidence, could it? Dear Lord, don’t let it be just coincidence!
Alma looked at me speculatively. “I knew you’d jump at that name, so I checked carefully. They married in 1920, well after Lehman Biemsderfer was born. And their children are listed here. Elizabeth who married Harlan Yost and Joshua who married Kay Proust.”
“Of course Pop wouldn’t be listed even if he were Madeleine’s son.” I put my hand to my chest over my rapidly palpitating heart, patting my fingers against my upper rib cage, trying to tamp down my excitement. “Children born on the wrong side of the blanket don’t make family trees.”
“True,” Alma granted, her fingers rubbing over Madeleine’s name and freeing the paper of nonexistent wrinkles.
“I need to know more about Madeleine,” I said as much to myself as to Alma. “I need to know more about Enos.”
“Then you need to speak with Aunt Lizzie. She can tell you as much as anyone about her parents.”
“Aunt Lizzie is Madeleine and Enos’s Elizabeth? Aunt Lizzie?”
Alma smiled. “Don’t get too hopeful, Cara. The repeating of the name Lehman doesn’t have to mean a thing. And it certainly doesn’t prove a thing.”
I nodded. “I know.” But it did. I knew it did. I felt it in my bones.
“Tell me about Madeleine’s line of the family,” I said. “What do you know of her parents?”
Alma traced her finger back a generation on her chart to Joshua and Lottie Biemsderfer. She tapped their names for a few minutes while I waited, trying to curb my impatience.
“Lottie was supposed to be a kind woman, and her pictures indicate she was quite lovely, made for the old-fashioned gowns and hairstyles. Joshua, on the other hand, was a stern man, the product of a strict German family, when strict meant rigid and unyielding. That he married the charming Lottie is amazing. I have some letters he wrote to her before they were married. He went West for a time, trying to determine if he’d seek his fortune as a rancher. If he was intimidating in person, and everyone seems to agree that he was, on paper he was a true romantic. The letters are beautiful and full of genuine passion. She drew him back, the flame attracting its smitten moth, and he returned to claim her as his bride and settle here. They were married for fifty years before he died, a truly long marriage for those days when people died younger than today.
“Family legend has it that he was besotted with their daughter Madeleine because she was so like Lottie. He pampered her and loved her, but instead of growing up spoiled, she grew up as charming as her mother. If Madeleine was your great-grandmother, the pregnancy must have broken Joshua’s heart. And his background, that old rigidity, and the mores of the day must have made it almost impossible to allow knowledge of the pregnancy to be public.”
I sat mesmerized as Alma talked about these people who may have been my ancestors, my family, every bit as much as they were hers. I kept swallowing, trying to control the teeming adrenaline attacking my stomach.
“Oh, Alma,” I said, almost breathless with speculation, “what if Madeleine had Pop before she and Enos married? What if Joshua didn’t approve of them as a couple, and they decided to take things into their own hands?”
Alma looked at me with kind, intelligent eyes. I knew she’d already thought of several possible scenarios of her own.
“What if,” I said, “he was marching off to war? After all, Pop was born in the middle of World War I. It could have been one of those I-might-never-see-you-again things, you know?”
“I’ve thought of that,” Alma said. “And it’s definitely a possibility. The other thing that was happening historically was the influenza epidemic, in which thousands of people died. I’ve wondered if that somehow played into this situation, though I haven’t figured out how.”
I had a scenario immediately. “Maybe Enos had a brother who was Madeleine’s first love and he died of the flu before they could marry.” I could see the pathos of the scene as clearly as if I were writing it—which was sometimes with more clarity than if I witnessed it. “Then she had to give away her baby, her only real link to her true love. Enos, devastated by the death of his brother, came alongside Madeleine to comfort her at the loss of both her love and her child, and she fell deeply in love with him. Happy ending.”
“I can see why you’re a successful novelist.” Alma laughed gently at my excitement and handed me a glass of watered-down Coke. “Take a drink, my dear. It’ll calm you.”
I blushed but I didn’t back down on my imagined plots for Madeleine. I wanted desperately for my great-grandmother to have been happy. “I must visit your Aunt Lizzie.”
Alma nodded. “She lives at Tel Hai Retirement Community in Honey Brook. I’ll call her and tell her you’d like to visit. Then I’ll call you and tell you what she says.” She turned concerned eyes to me. “I don’t think you should just show up, you understand. Aunt Lizzie is old and frail and has a bad heart.”
“Of course. I certainly don’t want to give her a heart attack.”
Then I looked at Alma, my heart on my sleeve. She stared for a moment, trying to understand my expression. Then she nodded and pulled a cell phone from her purse.
I grinned happily as she dialed. Not wanting to seem too impolite in spite of the fact that I listened with an intense excitement that sent little zaps of anticipation zinging thorough my entire body, I busied myself rolling up her marvelous chart.
After their initial chitchat, Alma told her briefly about me. She then put her hand over the phone and said, “She’ll see you any night but Friday.”
“How about tonight?” I fluttered m
y hand over my heart. Nothing like being pushy.
A moment later Alma hung up and looked at me.
“Well?” I prompted. My lungs seemed unable to pull in air for the great paralysis that had taken possession of them.
Alma smiled. “Tonight around seven.”
Air whooshed out as I recovered my ability to breathe again. “Thank you, thank you, thank you! You have no idea what this means to me.”
She patted my hand. “I wish you well. And—” She paused and studied me, “I think I’d enjoy being your aunt or cousin or whatever it is we might be to one another.” She held the rolled document out to me.
“For me?” I stared from it to her, stunned by her comment, suffused with affection for her and all the others I hadn’t yet met.
“For you. It’s a copy.” She patted my hand again as I reached to take it. “Just be careful, Cara. I don’t want you to build too many castles in the clouds and then get hurt. We don’t actually know anything yet.”
I nodded. I understood her concern although I wasn’t certain I could prevent the castle building.
“You don’t mind if I pray for you, do you?” Alma asked. “For God’s leading and protection over you?”
“Not in the least,” I said. “I’ve been praying about this search ever since I learned there was something to search for. I’ve even been praying that I find that my family prays.”
“Well,” she said, “some of us pray anyway.”
“The missionaries,” I said.
“And a few others of us.”
We walked out of the restaurant side-by-side, an easy camaraderie between us.
God, I want her to be my aunt or whatever she’d be. Can she be my aunt? Please?
When Alma halted beside her car, I stopped with her.
She reached to give me a quick hug. “Let me know what you find out, even if we aren’t the right family, okay?”
I nodded and stood watching as she drove away. I climbed into my car, putting the family tree—my family tree?—carefully on the passenger seat. My stomach was still teeming, and my heart was hammering like the tympani at the “Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God” section of “For unto Us” in Handel’s Messiah. I knew I was on the right track. I couldn’t wait to tell Todd. And Ward and Marnie, I added belatedly.
I drove across the street from the Olive Garden to Park City Mall and went shopping for a dress suitable for a formal garden party. It didn’t take long to realize that everything I was attracted to was beige, tan, cream, or champagne. My favorite dress was a soft cream silk that looked great on me, but I wouldn’t allow myself to buy it. I was not going to be bland even if it killed me.
I finally settled on a coral column dress that fell from my shoulders to my ankles, skimming my body lightly. I bought new dress sandals in gold, not bone or taupe, and earrings of gold and coral that swayed and twisted below my ears. No little gold buttons for the special night. I decided I would carry the beautiful cream cashmere shawl that Pop and Mom had given me for my twenty-fifth birthday, the fabric so fine and delicate you could see through it. Surely cream was okay for a shawl.
As I was leaving the store with my wild purchases, I passed the men’s department. I wandered over to the ties and studied them. A wide splash of tans, browns, corals, and crimsons caught my eye. I thought of the monochromatic outfits Todd wore and the ties with the tiniest of patterns. I grabbed a wild one and bought it before I could change my mind. If I had to get rid of beige, he had to get rid of overly buttoned down. It was only fair.
As I drove toward home, I decided I couldn’t wait until evening to tell Todd about my time with Alma. I grabbed my cell phone from my bag and dialed his office. Mrs. Smiley answered.
“Mrs. Smiley, this is Cara Bentley. May I speak to Todd, please?” I tried for Bentley imperiousness so she would comply but ruined it by saying meekly, “That is, if he’s not with a client.”
With a click of her tongue, Mrs. Smiley put me through.
“Cara, what’s up?” Todd’s voice was rich and vital, and I thought I’d rarely heard a more pleasant sound.
“I met with Alma Stoltzfus,” I said. “And—”
“And you’re vibrating,” he interrupted.
“I am not.”
He laughed. “Where are you calling from?”
“I’m on 340. I just got off the 30 Bypass.”
“Stop in and tell me what happened. It’d be much better in person.”
“I’m not interrupting anything important?”
“I don’t see another client for about an hour.”
I was still giddy when I pulled into the parking area behind his office and got out. It was strange and wonderful that though I only knew one person in Bird-in-Hand and he was male, I not only felt free to call him, but he actually asked me to stop at his office on a nonappointment basis. I felt like one of my heroines.
It was obvious when I walked in, though, that Mrs. Smiley did not share my elation at the unscheduled visit.
“Miss Bentley, Mr. Reasoner does not receive visitors while at work,” she informed me. “Only scheduled clients.”
“I’m a client,” I said, ignoring scheduled. “Remember? Just tell him I’m here, please.”
She picked up the phone, announced I was there. She stood and moved toward the inner office. She knocked and opened the door.
“Mr. Reasoner,” she said as she unhappily ushered me into the office, “you must tell me when you change your schedule. How am I to keep the office running smoothly and efficiently if I don’t know your plans?”
“Mea culpa, Mrs. Smiley,” he said, trying to look properly contrite. The fact that I was standing behind her smiling broadly at his groveling efforts didn’t help his attempt to look apologetic. I wiggled my index finger back and forth at him in silent reprimand.
When we were finally seated side-by-side on the alcove sofa, I opened the family tree that Alma had given me. I felt like an ancient Christian unrolling a letter from the apostle Paul, looking for and finding clues to a new life.
“Todd, I’ve got to tell you! I think I’ve found my family!”
Todd’s mouth quirked in that half smile, and he shook his head. “You’re definitely vibrating, woman!”
I looked at him, exasperated. “I am not.”
He raised an eyebrow.
My hand pulsed against my collarbone and I relented a bit. “Okay, so maybe I’m excited.”
“Vibrating—and no maybe about it.”
“Excited,” I said with deliberation.
“Can’t face the truth, can you?”
“Can’t leave well enough alone, can you?”
We grinned at each other and kept staring long after the grins died away. His dark eyes captured mine, and I was trapped in their warmth just like a heroine in one of my novels would be. It was a ridiculous, wonderful moment.
Todd broke first, clearing his throat and saying, “So, tell me all about it.”
I blinked. “Right.” And I showed him Madeleine who married Enos Lehman.
“Lehman, Todd! Lehman!” My finger trembled just a bit as it pointed out the name. “Just like Pop.”
“But don’t forget that Lehman is a relatively common name around this area.” He bent forward over the chart, studying it seriously, giving the moment its due. “Just because your grandfather was called Lehman doesn’t mean he’s connected to Enos Lehman. Besides, when was your Pop born?”
“1918.”
“And when were Madeleine and Enos married?”
“1920.”
“Bit of a time discrepancy there. Isn’t two years after the event a long time before a marriage between the principals would take place?”
I frowned at him. “I don’t know. Maybe all it means is that we don’t have the right explanation yet.”
“Maybe.” He looked at me carefully. “But, Cara, it could mean a lot more than that.” His voice was soft but his point was hard. I knew he meant I needed to remember that there might be
no connection.
“Spoilsport,” I said unhappily.
“Cara, look at me.”
I tore my eyes from the family tree, my family tree. It had to be!
“Cara, don’t set yourself up for disappointment by believing so strongly with so little information.”
“Advice from my lawyer?”
“Advice from someone who cares and who also happens to be your attorney.”
We sat quietly for a couple of minutes while I tried to deal with my conflicting emotions. I knew he was right when he said I was jumping ahead without proof. I knew he was right when he said I was setting myself up to be hurt. I knew he was right when he said I didn’t have enough information.
But I didn’t want him to be right! I wanted God to answer my prayer and make these people mine. I wanted Alma to be my aunt. I wanted to be a Biemsderfer! My passion for wanting these things was unreasonable. I knew it. The need I felt was out of proportion, and I knew that too. But the yearning remained, filling my mind and heart with a craving of extraordinary intensity.
Was it genes calling to genes? Or was it that Ward and I were alone in the world? Or was it a weakness in me that required I get my dream, like a kid who demands a pony for her birthday and won’t be satisfied with less, even though she lives in a city in a fourth-floor apartment?
While I sat and lectured myself, Todd continued poring over the chart, studying it with deep concentration. He followed the lines of descent from Madeleine and Enos, until he got to the present. Suddenly he tapped his finger against a name.
“I know an Amos Yost,” Todd said.
I looked at the name Amos Yost, son of Elizabeth Lehman Yost, daughter of Madeleine and Enos Lehman.
I turned, my eyes suddenly hopeful. “Will you introduce me to him? He would be Pop’s nephew, my father’s first cousin.”
“If—”
“Right. If.”