by Gordon Ryan
Katrina picked up Tom’s plate and placed it in the sink. She leaned on her arms, hanging over the sink for several moments while Tom remained silent, watching her and knowing her thought process. Finally she turned around and leaned back against the sink, her arms folded across her chest.
“All right, Thomas. I’ll take the children and go with Momma and Poppa. They’ll be leaving in October, Momma said. But we’ll be gone six months, Thomas. Six months. They aren’t planning on coming back until April. That’s next year. Think about it. You’re going to miss us, Mr. Banker.”
Tom stood and stepped to the sink, where he took his wife in his arms. “I miss you already, Katie, just thinking about your not being here. But thank you, darling. Thank you. I know it’s for the best.”
“I hope so, Thomas. I sincerely hope so.”
“Oh, by the way, Katie,” Tom said as he started to exit the kitchen, “did you get a chance to visit Stan Telford’s wife?”
“I certainly did,” Katrina said, brightening. “It was such a moving experience. You didn’t tell me that you had arranged for her to stay at Mrs. Brown’s Rooming House, Thomas.”
“Well, she had no way to get back and forth between the hospital and Park City. The company is taking care of it, Katie.”
“Right,” she said, grinning at her husband. “Anyway, I caught her in the foyer of the hospital and she invited me up to Mr. Telford’s room. It was interesting. She went immediately to the window and pulled the drapes all the way back so her husband could see.”
“Could see what?” Tom asked.
“That’s just it, Thomas. As you know, he broke both his legs in that accident and is in traction, so he can’t get out of bed. He was straining to see his son.”
“Why didn’t the boy come in with his mother?”
“He’s only nine. Holy Cross rules prohibit children under fourteen from visiting the patients’ rooms. Mrs. Telford told me that young Robert is staying with her at the boardinghouse and attending school here in Salt Lake. Every day, after school, he comes to the hospital and waves to his dad from outside.”
Tom laughed. “That’s great, Katie.”
“Thomas, that’s not the story.”
“Excuse me?” Tom said, a puzzled look coming over his face.
“Sister Mary walked in while we were helping Mr. Telford lean forward so he could wave to his son.”
“What did she say?” Tom asked.
“Nothing, but she saw what was happening and immediately left the room. In a few minutes, we saw her talking to little Robert. The two of them went into the ground floor of the building and to our surprise,” Katrina said, clasping her hands together, “she appeared in the room a couple of minutes later.”
“So?” Tom said.
“So, she had Robert hidden under her habit. She’d snuck the young lad into his father’s room! Thomas, it was wonderful. Mr. Telford had tears in his eyes and hugged his son for a long moment. Sister Mary winked at me and left us alone for a while.”
“Aha, the infamous ‘rule-maker’ and ‘rule-breaker,’ Sister Mary Theophane,” Tom said.
“That’s exactly right. I’ve never met a woman like her, Thomas. And I probably never will.”
“One of God’s true servants,” Tom agreed.
“I’ll bear witness to that. It was a fine moment,” Katrina said.
Tom took the boys to Lake Blanche in Big Cottonwood Canyon—one more fishing trip before the voyage to Norway. This time, young Benjamin was included, his first venture into the mountains with the “men” of the Callahan family. Katrina had objected, but finally gave in at the pleadings of PJ and Tommy. Tom had simply sat in his parlor chair before the open fire and watched his sons cajole their mother into relenting. Tess had opted out of fishing, deciding instead to remain at home and have the run of the house without interference from her brothers.
With the tent set, dinner disposed of, and their other foodstuffs stacked off the ground, “to keep the bears away,” the older boys had warned Benjamin, the Callahan men sat around the fire the first night out, listening to the fire pop in the stillness of the night. Seven-year-old Benjamin nestled on the log close to his dad, watching with big eyes as his older brothers played with sticks, pushing the burning embers around and jumping back as the sparks flashed upward.
“Dad, tell Benjie about the bear that ate the two boys up here last year,” Tommy taunted.
Tom smiled and put his arm around Benjamin. “Better we send you out into the woods to look for that bear, Tommy,” Tom replied.
PJ laughed and pushed his younger brother. “Yeah, Tommy, you’re so brave, go find that bear and skin it,” he challenged.
The bantering, ghost stories, and teasing continued through the evening until Tom finally thought that Benjamin had earned his place and put a stop to it. Long before nine o’clock, Benjamin had fallen asleep on the ground, wrapped in a heavy woolen blanket, and PJ had gone to the tent and curled up in his bedroll. Only Tom and eleven-year-old Tommy remained, sitting next to each other by the dying campfire.
“Dad, why are there so many more stars in the mountains?” Tommy asked, looking upward into the sky.
“There are the same number as in the city, Tommy,” Tom replied, “but with fewer city lights to block our vision, we can see them better.”
The boy accepted the answer and sat quietly beside his father. Tom’s thoughts drifted to the one and only time his father had taken him and his older brother, John, to fish and camp out overnight on the Shannon River, a few miles from Limerick. He had few such memories of Ireland and fewer still of good times with his father.
“Why can’t I stay with you, Pop?” Tommy asked, breaking the silence.
“What do you mean, Tommy?”
“When Mom takes Tess and Benjie to Norway with Grandma and Grandpa, why can’t I stay? PJ’s staying home.”
“PJ’s entering the Boy Scout program, Tommy. You know that. He’s actually going to stay most of the time with Uncle Anders and Aunt Sarah. I think he’d really like to go on the trip, but he wants to become a Scout.”
“Well, I do, too.”
Tom smiled and pulled his son closer to him, hugging the lad. “You’re not old enough, Tommy. Besides, Mom will need you to help with Benjamin and to carry luggage. You know that Grandpa is getting along in years.”
“I know, I know,” Tommy sighed. “That’s what Mom said when I asked her. But I still don’t see why I can’t stay home with you and PJ.”
“There’s always got to be a man in charge of the family, Tommy. On this trip, that’s you. I’m counting on you to take care of your mother and Tess and Benjamin. But speaking of being in charge, what’s with the letter from your principal the other day? Mom said you got in trouble for fighting at school.”
“Aw, it’s nothin’, Pop. We were just foolin’ around, and Eddie Ward started crying when he got pushed down. I wasn’t fightin’.”
“You know, Tommy,” Tom laughed, “of all my sons, you remind me the most of myself at your age. And that’s not a compliment. Of course, there are some differences. When I was your age, I was already working in my father’s store. You, on the other hand, seem to take life as a lark. I don’t see you taking much responsibility.”
“PJ does all that stuff, Pop,” Tommy said easily, standing up and picking up another stick, poking it into the fire.
“Well, PJ’s not always going to be part of your life, Tommy. You’ve got to accept some responsibility for yourself. You’re part of our family, and you have to carry your load.”
“But you said I was like you, Pop,” Tommy smiled at his father.
Tom nodded and smiled back. “That’s what you’ve got to watch out for, son. Well, how about some sleep? Big fish are out there in the lake shaking in their boots ’cause we’re gonna get ’em tomorrow.”
“I always get ’em, Pop. PJ might as well keep sleeping,” Tommy laughed.
The two rose and Tom picked up little Benjamin, carrying
him to the tent and laying him beside PJ under the multiple woolen blankets Katrina had insisted they bring. As Tom and Tommy settled down into another set of blankets, Tommy pulled off his boots and bunched up his jacket for a pillow.
“I’m the man on Mom’s trip to Norway, right, Pop?”
“That’s right, son. Only don’t step on your grandpa’s toes in the process.”
“And Pop ...”
“Yeah, Tommy?” Tom said as he pulled the blankets up around his neck.
“I like being like you were.”
“Ummm,” Tom mumbled as he smiled to himself. “I like it too, Tommy. Good night.”
“Night, Pop.”
Even before Katrina, the children, and the Hansens left Salt Lake City for Norway, union problems mounted, plaguing mine operations. Utah Trust Bank and the other mine owners found themselves locked in a war of wills with their hired labor. The take-it-or-leave-it approach that had previously kept the miners in line was no longer working. The miners were sticking together, and production had come to a standstill. In previous times one mine owner would simply import additional labor, or offer a few pennies more a day to some other mine’s workers. But shortly after the turn of the century, mine owners had formed an association that precluded such plundering of another man’s workforce. Additionally, the miners had banded together to present a united front in their demands for increased wages and improved, safer working conditions. Times, the mine owners had discovered, were changing.
The Alta Club, on Brigham Street, was the assembly point for a cluster of cigar-smoking men who gathered together of an evening to proclaim their rights and grumble about the ignorant immigrants who had the gall to call a halt to work. Nevertheless, the union movement continued to make a significant impact on mine activity, and consequently, on mine revenues. Utah Trust Bank, holder of multiple notes on many of the area mines, as well as many minority share positions, found itself in a cash flow dilemma. Clearly, a crisis was brewing.
William Spry, a moderate Republican in the Reed Smoot camp, was elected governor of Utah in 1908. He had worked tirelessly to bring some reform to the mining industry, including the safety issues—the same issues over which Tom and Anders Hansen had conferred so many years earlier. The truth was that during the intervening ten years since that discussion, few improvements had actually been made.
But mine issues and labor union issues were not the only problems on Governor Spry’s agenda. A weak and ineffective system of health laws existed in Utah, and people by the thousands were routinely sick and many died as a result of food poisoning or water contamination. The demand for improved and expanded water and sewer systems had long since outstripped the development and available funding.
At the same time, costs of medical care were increasing, principally in the area of doctor’s surgical fees, which were on the rise. Sister Mary Theophane and Holy Cross Hospital struggled to maintain their high level of service, while retaining the dollar-a-week insurance plan that had been implemented many years earlier when the miners were fewer and the range of diseases was limited. Fighting against the misleading cry of physicians to control costs, with the finger pointed at hospital fees, Sister Mary and several of her associates took the battle seriously and confronted the physicians in public meetings. Long a proponent of order and respect for the medical profession, Sister Mary nevertheless understood that the cost of a three hundred dollar surgical procedure, which lasted an hour or two, was certainly more responsible for the high cost to the patient than the hospital’s charge of ten to twenty-five dollars a week, depending on one’s room, with food and care provided. This message she intended to make public, and she did so at a meeting of the State Medical Society, earning condemnation from those physicians who felt threatened by her description of the relative costs.
Under the guidance of Tom Callahan and Robert Thurston, Utah Trust Bank continued during these hectic days of growth in Utah to make its way successfully through a morass of financial dealings. Robert Thurston’s son, Mark, had returned from his education at Harvard in 1908, and he immediately assumed responsibility for managing most of UTB’s stock investments. His economic instincts and his understanding of the need to diversify the bank’s holdings was perhaps the only thing that kept UTB prosperous during the disruptive mining strikes and high costs associated with keeping the mines open, even in the face of lost revenues.
The biggest challenge to UTB holdings, at the time Katrina Callahan took the children and left for Norway, was an impending problem with Utah Copper and a threatened strike by workers at the company’s Bingham Mine. For most of 1911, management and the miners had been jostling for position. What made matters worse was that several factions were vying for the right to represent the miners. Perhaps the only advantage held by management and mine owners was the fact that the mine workers were comprised of several ethnic groups that didn’t always agree on strategy. The discord among the miners had worked to the advantage of mine owners. Yet, there were some among the owners and management, notably Tom Callahan and some who sided with him, who felt that labor relations needed to be improved and that a place needed to be made on the governing boards for the workers’ representatives.
All owners and management, however, were in agreement that resisting the outside union agitators, who seemed satisfied only when they had stirred discontent among the already frustrated miners, was the single most important objective.
As Tom, Robert, and Mark rode toward a meeting with Governor Spry, the issues had reached a boiling point. Shots had been fired in Bingham Canyon, and armed Greek miners had taken up defensive positions on the canyon walls. The situation had already resulted in the deaths of several participants, and both sides were quickly becoming callous to the injury and insult to their opposite number.
Ushered into Spry’s office, Tom shook hands with the governor.
“It’s good to see you, Tom,” Governor Spry said. “And you, Robert.”
“Thank you, Governor. I don’t know if you’ve met Robert’s son, Mark Thurston. Mark is Vice President of Investments at UTB.”
“Welcome, son. Please have a seat. Thanks to all of you for coming. I wanted to talk to you before meeting with the larger group this afternoon.”
The group took seats around a small conference table, and the governor’s assistant placed a silver coffee service in the middle of the table. Tom poured himself a cup and sat back to listen to the governor.
“So, Tom, Katrina and the children have gone abroad?”
“Yes, Governor, she’s accompanying her parents on a trip to the Old Country. I think you know Lars Hansen, Katrina’s father.”
“I do, indeed,” the governor said, turning in his chair to point toward his desk. “The workmanship that man has accomplished on my desk is nothing short of artistry. I admire his skills.”
Tom nodded and sipped his coffee. “He’s made his mark in this valley all right. They’ll be in Europe till next spring, Governor.”
Governor Spry looked at Robert, a question in his eyes.
Robert nodded. “Yes, Governor, Alice is down in St. George with her sister.”
“So then,” Governor Spry commented, “we’ve circled the wagons, gotten the women and children to safety, and are prepared to deal with the attack, so to speak.” The governor rose and started to pace the room. “Right. Let’s put the cards on the table, gentlemen. Utah Fuel broke the back of the United Mine Workers in Carbon County back in ’04. Now, some of your group would like to do the same thing to the Western Federation of Miners up there at Utah Copper. That’s not what I’m after. I want a fair and impartial settlement of this thing,” he said, looking directly at Tom as he paced by. “No shenanigans. Now before you get your nose in a knot, I know that you aren’t a lone voice in the wilderness, and that you can’t commit the consortium to which you belong, but you have spoken in favor of improvements, and for some reason,” he smiled, “it’s my understanding that profit is not the only consideration of UTB.
Am I correct in that assumption?”
Tom smiled and took another sip of his coffee.
The governor held up his hand. “Don’t answer that, Tom. It was unfair of me to ask. I’m just frustrated over recent developments and the way we seem to be going. We’re not a frontier any more, gentlemen. We need to recognize that the safety and security of our base working force is vital to our economy and to the future of our state. I don’t oppose a profit motive. That’s what made America great. But in Europe, for centuries, that profit has been taken at the expense—at the health, mind you, and often the lives as well—of the workers who bring in the product. That needs to change, and you, Tom, and the other owners like you, need to come to the table and accept the necessary changes.”
Robert shuffled in his chair, and Governor Spry halted his pacing. “Mr. Thurston? You have something on your mind?”
Robert shook his head. “Governor, I’ve sat in a few meetings where Tom has been roasted by his fellow mine owners. It seems from my perspective that he’s being pummeled by both sides.”
Governor Spry paused for a moment, and then laughed out loud. “I’m certain he has, Mr. Thurston. Perhaps that alone would qualify him to run for governor. But, look, gentlemen,” he said, standing behind his seat, “we must find a way to resolve these issues. Many more important things need to be done if we are to bring Utah into the twentieth century—taxation, health, sanitation, employment, housing—all these issues will result in a public mutiny if we can’t, as elected and community leaders, find answers for our people. Even Senator Smoot has seen the need and expressed his concern. If he hadn’t been battling for so long, just to be seated in the United States Senate, he might have made some headway on these issues.” Governor Spry continued to pace the room, pausing to occasionally make a point, and to jab his finger into the air.