The Waiting
Page 1
“I found The Waiting to be one of the most eloquent, moving, irresistible true stories I have ever read. It begins with a sudden and terrible crime against a completely innocent schoolgirl that could have sentenced her to a life of tragedy. But Minka was no ordinary girl. After giving up the child the crime caused her to have, she began to search and wait for decades for the moment she knew somehow had to come—the moment when she would at last be reunited with her daughter. Authors Cathy LaGrow and Cindy Coloma, with the help of the families involved, have eloquently captured this magnificent story of tragedy overcome by love, hope, and perseverance. Most readers will discover, as I did, that as the pages turn, they will shed more than a few tears but they will also find their faith in humanity restored and their hearts more than a little bit lighter.”
HOMER HICKAM
#1 New York Times bestselling author of Rocket Boys/October Sky
“The Waiting will engross you. It is a powerful story of love and fulfillment, told with amazing detail and sparkling prose. Rarely has a book moved me so completely.”
BILLY COFFEY
Author of When Mockingbirds Sing and The Devil Walks in Mattingly
“A poignant story, masterfully told with heart. Minka’s journey comes to light in this beautiful work. And it is a story to be treasured.”
LIS WIEHL
Bestselling author and FOX News legal analyst
“The Waiting is a story of a life conceived from one horrible act and a mother’s love. Minka chose the best for her daughter, only to discover a family that was greater than she ever imagined. The beauty of this story is that it’s about an ordinary life, yet an extraordinary love. As someone who met my own birth father at age twenty-eight—and who has adopted three children—I couldn’t stop the tears from flowing. Families are created in different ways, but The Waiting reminds us that love conquers heartache and that the smallest flame of hope can lead to answered prayers. I highly recommend this book!”
TRICIA GOYER
USA Today bestselling author of over forty books, including Plain Faith: A True Story of Tragedy, Loss and Leaving the Amish
“Every woman’s nightmare. Every mother’s wonder. . . . Author Cathy LaGrow’s captivating family memoir is rooted in silence and shame, where grief is denied and hope is an unspoken prayer. The Waiting is a stirring testimony of God’s goodness and grace to a troubled young girl and an inquisitive aging woman.”
KAREN SPEARS ZACHARIAS
Author of Mother of Rain
“An amazing story that proves God hears our prayers and does sometimes give us the desires of our hearts. Written with heartfelt, poetic prose, The Waiting will move you as you read about this unlikeliest of reunions.”
TRAVIS THRASHER
Bestselling author of Home Run and Never Let Go
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The Waiting: The True Story of a Lost Child, a Lifetime of Longing, and a Miracle for a Mother Who Never Gave Up
Copyright © 2014 by Cathy LaGrow. All rights reserved.
Cover and jacket photographs taken by Stephen Vosloo. Copyright © by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.
Postcard background copyright © gorGolovniov/Shutterstock. All rights reserved.
Unless otherwise noted, all interior images are from the personal collections of Minka Disbrow, Brian Lee, Ruth Lee, and Rodney Schoen, and are used with permission.
Photograph of Mark Lee in space courtesy of NASA.
Photograph of parade float courtesy of LaCrosse Tribune.
Portrait of Minka and Ruth taken by Stephen Vosloo. Copyright © Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.
Photograph of ripped paper copyright © Pickfive/Shutterstock. All rights reserved.
Designed by Nicole Grimes
Published in association with the literary agency of Books & Such Literary Management, 52 Mission Circle, Suite 122, PMB 170, Santa Rosa, CA 95409.
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, King James Version.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
LaGrow, Cathy.
The waiting : the true story of a lost child, a lifetime of longing, and a miracle for a mother who never gave up / Cathy LaGrow, with Cindy Coloma.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-4143-9190-8 (hc)
1. Disbrow, Minka, 1911- 2. Lee, Ruth, 1929- 3. Christian biography. 4. Adoption—Religious aspects—Lutheran Church. I. Title.
BR1700.3.L34 2014
277.3'0820922—dc23
[B] 2014005504
ISBN 978-1-4143-9592-0 (ePub); ISBN 978-1-4143-9206-6 (Kindle); ISBN 978-1-4143-9593-7 (Apple)
Build: 2014-04-04 09:40:24
For Minka, who waited
Contents
Preface
Part One: Loss Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Part Two: Longing Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Part Three: Legacy Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Afterword
Author’s Note
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Photos
Preface
SHE’D HAD ONLY THE PHOTOGRAPH, all these years.
The old woman had viewed the cherished black-and-white image thousands of times in secret. She knew every detail by heart. There was the wisp of a baby with a sweet, sleeping face, always the first place her eyes went. And off to the side, gazing at the baby, a young mother, her damaged hands lying across the skirt of a good dress. Those same hands, now thickened and spotted by age, held the precious photograph carefully.
Had she really been so young once?
Her tidy apartment was quiet, as usual, with a warm ocean breeze filtering through the open windows. But the silence no longer echoed emptiness. In recent days the space had been filled to overflowing, like her heart.
She was ninety-four now, undeniably old. And after all this time, along with everything else that had been restored, her letters had come back to her. So many pages, hundreds of them, written over years and years.
The trauma of that long-ago time covered her memory like a fog, but she remembered the pain revealed in the words—the pain and the love. She remembered those well. They had been her constant companions for nearly eighty years.
Her bent fingers reached for the pages, and time unspooled.
Her hands stopped at a letter bearing a signature other than her own, a letter she’d never seen before. This one was written by the dear Reverend, long dead now, like nearly everyone else mentioned in these letters.
She read, and the words opened the door to another time, another century. Another August day, like this one and yet nothing like it at all . . .
Board of Foreign Missions
Ev. Luth. Synod of Iowa
And Other States
Office o
f Secretary
Rev. W. F. Kraushaar, M.A.
Aberdeen, South Dakota
April 3, 1929
My dear madam,
I have an unfortunate girl in my congregation that expects to give birth to a child about the end of this month. I have investigated her case and am convinced that she was the victim of a dastardly crime of assault. She comes from a good family and has been staying with relatives in Sioux City. Could you take her in and help her when her time comes? Her family is not wealthy, but they will pay whatever your regular fees are.
I must mention too, that her people want her to give her baby away since the father is a fugitive criminal, but the girl seems rather inclined to keep it, possibly you can give them the best advice. Do you find good homes for such children? Of course, they would prefer a Lutheran home.
I would greatly appreciate an early reply.
Faithfully yours,
Reverend Kraushaar
Chapter One
AUGUST 1928
FOUR AND A HALF HOURS before her life would change forever, Minka stood in a dusty parking lot, twisting her handkerchief as she willed her family to hurry up. If they took much longer, she might just pick up her ankle-length skirts and run all the way home.
Her stepfather, Honus, leaned against the black side of the family’s milk truck, blocking out the white D in Sunnyside Dairy, his hands jammed into the pockets of his summer suit. It was not yet noon, but the air was already thick and hot. Around them, engines loosely clattered as men cranked up Model Ts. Women called out good-byes to one another and gathered children before climbing inside their cars.
Minka’s sister, Jane, and their mother were still on the circular brick steps of Zion Lutheran Church, visiting with friends. On any other Sunday Minka might have lingered too, joining in conversations if she felt bold enough, speaking whichever language was being used—English, German, or Dutch. The church community, largely made up of immigrants, had finally voted ten months earlier to conduct all services and business meetings in English, but once they were outside, people’s native tongues were loosed.
Today, Minka had fidgeted through the entire service. She couldn’t wait to get back home.
Minka DeYoung was sixteen years old, taller than average and as thin and straight as a stalk of wheat. Her fine brown hair was cut in a loose bob and pinned back on one side with a frilly ribbon. Her gaze was lively and intelligent, though she often ducked her head bashfully and, like other people who fought shyness, had a habit of holding herself very still in public. Minka knew her nose and ears were too large for her face; she didn’t realize her delicate cheekbones were beautiful. She was always careful not to draw attention to her hands, which had been damaged long ago.
Honus removed his fedora, but rather than fan his face with it, he held it in both hands and squinted at the pale sky, watching a thrush flap its way to the top of the church’s steeple.
Minka glanced toward the church. Her mother had moved to the bottom of the steps, but Jane was still deep in conversation, leaning close to her friend Jette and smiling about something. Minka wished they’d hurry.
This afternoon was the event she’d been waiting for and thinking about for weeks: her sewing class picnic at Scatterwood Lake. Back home, a new dress waited on a hanger, freshly pressed. She would put on just the right jewelry and redo her hair, and then, for a few hours at least, she’d be like a normal teenaged girl, not a full-time worker who split her time between the family dairy and a meatpacking plant.
But Minka couldn’t do a thing until her mother and Jane hurried up.
One row over, a car rolled by, carrying a banker from First National. Its paint was an exquisite dark blue, shiny enough to reflect trees. Minka’s eyes followed it. She loved beautiful things, even if they weren’t hers.
Honus nodded to the banker behind the wheel. The man returned the gesture.
“Dat is one of de new Fords, called Model A,” Honus said to Minka.
“Are they better? Than the tin lizzies?” Minka asked. She usually managed to contain all the questions that popped into her head when adults were talking—she’d been raised with perfect manners, after all—but excitement about the picnic loosened her propriety with her stepfather.
“Dey are supposed to haf a ride . . . not so bumpy. Dey are fast. But also duur . . . expensive, I think.” Think came out sounding like sink. Like Minka’s mother, Jennie, who’d sailed to America just months before Minka was born, Honus had emigrated from Holland. He would speak with a thick Dutch accent all his life.
They watched the car turn onto Jay Street and disappear. So many things had changed in the decade since the Great War ended. There was still a hitching post on the other side of the church building, and some farmers came to church by horse and buggy. Minka remembered when that was the only transportation anyone had.
A few years back, she and her siblings had gone to a picture show for the first time. As they’d watched people and scenery move silently across the white cloth screen, her mouth had dropped open and stayed that way until her tongue dried out and she’d had to swallow painfully. Jane and John, always quick to tease their sister, hadn’t so much as nudged her. They too had been staring, goggle-eyed.
Every month seemed to bring a new innovation. Most homes in Aberdeen, South Dakota, now boasted electric lights indoors, and a few had a newfangled mechanical box for cold food storage, an improvement over root cellars, so long as the toxic chemicals used for cooling didn’t spill onto human skin. There were radios in living rooms, and skirt hems that ended more than twelve daring inches above the ground.
Honus’s house had an indoor bathroom, a luxury to which Minka and her family had quickly—and gratefully—grown accustomed. Before moving in with him, they’d lived for twelve years at Uncle’s farm on the prairie, where Jennie worked as housekeeper and conditions were more primitive. Three years ago when Uncle retired, Honus Vander Zee came calling, and shortly thereafter, with no announcement or fanfare, Jennie had gotten married.
The marriage gave Jennie’s children a permanent home, but it upended the only life they’d known. Honus was starting up a new dairy and needed strong workers, and he believed that high school was “for city kids who haf nothing else to do.” When each DeYoung child reached the age of fourteen, he or she was put to work milking cows full-time. Minka’s older brother, John, soon escaped to the navy.
In the parking lot, Honus cleared his throat.
“It will be a hot day.” He looked at his hat, eased it through his hands. “Hotter den yesterday, maybe.”
“Yes, sir.” Minka lifted her arms away from her body. She didn’t want to start sweating in her church dress. During the sermon the sanctuary had rippled with a sea of paper fans, and Minka had kept shifting on the hard wooden bench, thinking of her new dress, the waiting lake, the hours of freedom in front of her. She couldn’t resist bringing it up. “Maybe it’ll be cooler by the lake this afternoon. At the picnic.”
“Ja, maybe.”
Minka didn’t know that her mother had convinced him to let her go. Honus hadn’t married until he was nearly thirty-five years old, and young women were a mystery to him. Raised in Europe, he had absorbed the austere attitudes of a different century regarding children, work, and rewards. From his perspective, duty trumped pleasure—and there was plenty to be done at the farm every single day. Any time away created more work that needed making up.
Sometimes on warm Saturday evenings after milking chores, Honus would lean through the kitchen doorway and say in his quiet way, “Come go for a drive.” Since bedtime came early at the dairy, there wasn’t time to freshen up or change out of work overalls. Minka and Jane climbed into the stuffy back of the milk truck, and Honus drove them and Jennie to the ice cream shop in town. After buying one malted shake in a tin canister and requesting four paper straws, Honus brought it to the truck and passed the shake around. When they’d each had an equal number of sips and the last bit of ice cream was gone, Honus ret
urned the canister and drove home. To him, such an impractical treat—likely more than he’d gotten as a boy—was enough.
As clusters of the congregation moved toward vehicles, Minka spotted girls from her sewing group. She watched the friends wave to one another before climbing into their cars.
Across the parking lot, Minka overheard a girl named Dorothy call out to a friend, Clara. “We will get you in an hour!” Dorothy slammed the door to the already-rumbling Model T.
Minka clenched her fists and blew air into her cheeks. Her eyes jumped to Mom and Jane, who had yet to move, and then up to Honus, still leaning contentedly against the side of the milk truck. He usually didn’t allow dawdling; despite Reverend Kraushaar’s sermons about the Sabbath, there was work to do every day of the week. But Honus merely glanced at Minka, deflating the hope that he’d wave her mother and sister away from the church steps.
Though every day of her life was consumed with heavy labor, work had never bothered Minka. Her bony frame masked a surprising stamina. Often, the longer she worked, the more invigorated she felt. She knew that her natural gifts were physical, and she was proud of them. Maybe she couldn’t light up a room just by walking into it, like Jane, but she could work as long and accomplish as much as anyone she knew, including adults.
It was the loss of her education that scraped at Minka’s spirit. She’d been raised poor but with self-respect. Even as a child, running barefoot in the summer dirt at a farm that wasn’t her family’s own, she’d carried herself with a sense of dignity, had felt as worthy and capable as any other girl. Now, at sixteen, Minka felt ashamed. What if milking cows was all she was good for—what if an uneducated milkmaid was all people would ever see when they looked at her?
This afternoon’s picnic would allow her to once again feel “as good as.” Her heart pounded, partly from nerves, partly from excitement. Perhaps if her mother and Honus saw that today’s outing didn’t affect her work, she’d occasionally be allowed to go on future adventures.