“But that doesn’t seem fair, Mr. Wilkinson. The Club owns and operates a large dam and lake. This is of interest to everyone in the area. People have a right to be informed, and that’s the job of a newspaper.”
“Yes, quite. I understand that, Julie. It’s just that I can’t promise you much cooperation from anyone here.”
I swallowed hard in an effort to keep my voice steady and calm. “Well, thanks for doing whatever you can.”
By Wednesday, the post-flood issue was written and set in type. My fifteen pages of copy had been chopped by the Editor into four different reports and in some places rewritten. There was no byline. I kept my disappointment to myself, aware that Miss Cruley strongly resisted my growing role on the paper. She accepted me as a proofreader, errand girl and researcher, but not as a feature writer.
On Thursday Dean Fleming made the final adjustment of the press and then called us all together for the big moment. The sheets were in place. The special issue of the Sentinel would be eight pages, double our usual size. An extra three thousand copies would be printed.
Dean turned the switch. As the big press clomped down on the newsprint, he let out a cheer. Miss Cruley clapped softly, a smile tugging at her mouth. There was a big lump in my throat as I stifled back a sob. The Editor stood there unmoving, tears in his eyes.
Spencer Meloy’s study served as both office and meeting room. Its drabness was lightened only by some bookshelves, a bedraggled philodendron plant and a faded red scatter rug. Material things apparently were not very important to the gangling young pastor.
Even on such short notice, six of us high school students had gotten there for this Saturday morning flood meeting called by Meloy.
Margo was there. She had a crush on Spencer and, in her honest way, admitted it. Graham surprised me by coming. He had not been that active with the canteen. Neal Brinton was also there, his interest in Margo stronger than ever. The big surprise was that Meloy had prevailed upon Alderton’s mayor to send one representative, a burgessman. Also on hand was Mrs. Janet McIntyre, president of the Ladies Association.
Spencer arranged us in a circle and opened the meeting with a true story about a twelve-year-old girl. Carrying a baby and dragging two toddlers behind her, she had knocked timidly on a neighbor’s door at three in the morning that Sunday the flood struck. The children—drenched, hungry and crying—had pleaded to be taken in. Neither their father nor their mother had returned home that evening.
“We’re still searching for the missing parents,” Mr. Meloy reported as we sat there, silent and numbed by the story. I noticed that when the pastor got emotional, his dark-rimmed glasses tended to slide slowly down his nose.
“But I thought all the missing had been accounted for,” Margo ventured.
Spencer shook his head. “Unfortunately, there’s no way those statistics can be final in the Lowlands, where people come and go all the time. Am I right, Neal?”
“I’m afraid you are, Pastor,” was Neal’s reply. “It’s hard to believe that parents would abandon their children like this, but they do.”
“This is just one of the many human dramas taking place every day in the Lowlands,” Spencer Meloy continued. “These problems are not just due to the flood. They’ve been there a long time, like an open sore on the body of our town.”
“I do not quite see,” Mrs. McIntyre said impatiently, “where our discussion is going.”
“Then let’s get to the point,” the pastor continued. “Whose responsibility is the plight of these needy Lowlands families? The church’s? But Baker Memorial is just one of a dozen churches in town. The town’s? But the town is already rocking under the totality of its economic and flood problems. The state of Pennsylvania’s? The federal government’s? Yoder Steel’s?”
“Has anyone approached the elder McKeever about all this?” I asked.
The burgessman and Mrs. McIntyre looked at me sharply, as if they thought my question brash.
Spencer seemed amused. “No-o, Julie, not that I know of. You believe in going to the top, I see.”
“Why not? That way, we could at least find out what Yoder Steel’s willing to do.”
There was silence. None of the adults seemed willing to pick up my idea. Then the burgessman spoke up. “I think we should appeal for more assistance from government agencies, like the WPA.” He then divulged that a local campaign was already underway for citizens to write letters to President Roosevelt in Washington—not only asking for more flood relief but also requesting federal funds to make Alderton flood proof for the future.
“Even if Washington comes through with major repair help,” Spencer Meloy protested, “that will be weeks, probably months away. There are human beings in the Lowlands who need help now.”
The final consensus of the group was that yes, Baker Memorial should do something in the Lowlands, and calling on families there had to be the first step.
“We’ll go two by two,” Mr. Meloy stated, “and always in daylight. Say that we’re from the church and want to help out.”
“But what can we do for them?” Margo questioned. “I mean, the people there could think that all we’re trying to do is get them to go to church.”
The pastor was thoughtful. “Remember, Margo, some of those families were fed by our church canteen. So mention of that can be your entree. Find out what their needs are. Friendliness is the key.”
The pastor then passed out a list of Lowlands families for us to visit. Margo and I quickly decided that we would work together as one of the teams. Mrs. McIntyre and the burgessman asked to be excused from making calls. Neal Brinton suggested that he serve as an advisor.
Margo and I chose a Tuesday afternoon for our venture into the Lowlands. There were three teams in action. Neal Brinton drew rough maps to help the six of us find the families on our lists.
Margo was tense when we met after school on Tuesday. As we walked over Railroad Bridge, she explained, “It’s not the Lowlands families I’m afraid of. After all, I’m a part of this area myself. But there’s one street I avoid. It’s listed as Washmer Street, but everybody calls it Saloon Street. Just one bar after another. And drunks everywhere. We have to go along that street to get to the first family on our list.”
When we turned onto Washmer Street, I was struck by the drabness of the drinking joints. Peering in as we walked by, I saw that each had a long bar without even a mirror behind it; there was only a row of bar stools, a few crude tables, rickety chairs, and a bare floor. On windows were scrawled words in foreign languages: Sot. . . Bier . . . Pivo.
“It’s almost empty now,” Margo said, “but when each shift ends at Yoder, most of the men are so thirsty and exhausted they head straight for here. Those few with cars are usually the ones who come to the Stemwinder.”
The conversation broke off when we suddenly came to a chasm in the street where rushing waters had carved out the pavement in a jagged line—under paving, foundation and all. We stared into a hole nearly ten feet deep. Beyond was the section of Alderton hardest hit of all. A series of flimsy shacks had been sheared off their foundations. Several had broken up completely. Household articles still lay in the debris—an old ice chest, a smashed stove, bent pots and pans, ripped mattresses, broken furniture, parts torn off cars and trucks. Everything was coated with that awful blanket of mud. Since it was now over two weeks after the flood, we wondered why no cleanup crews had yet appeared.
Carefully we detoured around the crevasse. Because many street signs were down, it took us half an hour to locate the first name on our list: the Balazes. Their home was the third in a row of six houses, all attached. The front steps had been washed away, glass in one window was gone, and some soggy mattresses were propped up against the porch wall to dry. Otherwise this house seemed to be intact. I noticed a large bow of soiled white cloth hanging from the front door of the adjoining house.
At our knock a pink-cheeked, stocky young woman timidly opened the door.
“We’re fr
om Baker Memorial Church,” I began. “I think you and your husband came to the canteen there—”
A look of fear leapt into her face. “They said the food was for free.”
“Oh, yes. It was free,” I answered hurriedly. “We just came to see if there’s any way we can help you.”
Astonishment now crossed the face in the doorway. “Vahtyousay? You vanthalpus . . . but . . . Isdoityhere . . .” In the midst of her fluster, however, half in embarrassment, half with pleasure, she motioned us to enter.
One glance told us that the front room was their living room, dining room and bedroom, with a small kitchen in the back. There were no bathrooms in these houses, only privies out back. Electricity had come to this section of town, but still no sewer lines.
In the front room, two iron bedsteads were ranged against the wall, but the mattresses and bedding had obviously been ruined. An old round oak table stood in the center, a bare lightbulb dangling over it. On one windowsill was a tin can in which a single red geranium struggled for life.
We sat around the table, each of us wrestling with the language barrier.
“My name Sonja. Come to America to marry vith my Karesi.”
We learned that Sonja’s husband was a breaker at Yoder, earning $32.24 a month. Of this, $14 a month was due Yoder for rent. The only way they could afford this was to bring in another couple, along with two unmarried workers, who all shared the cost.
Sonja said she was from Czechoslovakia—and nineteen years old. I was startled. Just a year older than I! She looked thirty!
Even with Sonja’s broken English, she managed to convey something of her story: “My country very bootiful. So clean. Lots flowers. Big farm in country, near Hiboka, nice l’eel town. Ve vork plenty hard by fields. Lots of hops for make kachna— vaht you say?—beer. Ve like Svatek—how you say?—holiday. Eat good—hams, big, pink, juicy, from own pigs. And geese and beeg barrels beer. Lots music, alvays singing.
“We love our country, but lots trouble. Bad men come take away men for service in army. Czechs vant free. Karesi and I afraid—so all right, ve come to America to be free.”
As I listened, watching Sonja’s expressive gestures and the emotions written on her face, troubling thoughts were whirling through my mind. This idealistic young couple had come to America for the good life. How disappointed they must be! What could the church do but provide a few material things? Yet through Sonja’s fragmented sentences it was easy to glimpse needs that went deeper than that. Finally it came out that her concern was not for herself and her husband, but for the couple next door: they had lost an eight-month-old baby girl.
“Oh!” I exclaimed. “Is that what the white bow on their door stands for?”
“Ya!” Sonja described how the young mother and infant had been visiting a neighbor. The house had broken up, plunging the women into the surging water, the mother frantically hanging on to her baby girl. But debris in the rampaging water had smashed into the young woman, who must have momentarily passed out. When she came to, her baby was gone. The little body had yet to be recovered.
“Her name Janey,” Sonja told us. “But she not home now. She cry, then cry some more, can’t bear to be home.”
Since it was obvious that the Balazes must be having to sleep on the floor and decidedly doubtful that those mattresses leaning on the porch would ever be usable again, we wrote down opposite their name “mattresses and bedding.” One glance into the kitchen told us there was little food in the house, so groceries were also needed.
Our search for the next name on our list, the Griswolds, led us up a flight of rickety wooden stairs to a second-floor apartment. Two men slunk away when they saw us coming but left the apartment door open. Inside I caught a glimpse of broken windowpanes stuffed with papers and rags. A baby with only a shirt on—no diaper—was lying on a pile of rags on the floor. Sores covered the lower part of his body.
An old woman, who had only a thin covering of sallow skin stretched over her gaunt bones, was lying on one of the four beds in the room. An absurdly young mother, wearing red ankle socks, picked up the baby from the floor and began nursing him.
The young mother smiled at us. No, the Griswolds didn’t live there. No, she had never heard of them.
In the small, dark room the air was stale, the smells vile. The one attempt at decoration was a garish cross on the wall with the contorted figure of Jesus writhing on it.
Margo and I fled the scene. At home that night, I could only pick at my food as the memories of that afternoon clogged my mind and deadened my spirit. When Mother pressed for details, sudden emotion welled up inside me and to my embarrassment tears suddenly spilled out of my eyes.
It took two more trips to the Lowlands for Margo and me to visit all five families on our list. When the group gathered again in Pastor Meloy’s study to give our reports, everyone had horror stories to share along with heart-touching scenes. It came out that the Lowlands people had been surprisingly vocal about their needs. A long list of items was compiled and plans were made to supply as many as possible.
A lively discussion took place as to a summary of what we had learned. First, about the housing. It seemed that originally Yoder had built some three hundred tenement houses out of cheap pine boards with no insulation. Most were one story with four rooms; some two stories with six rooms. All were set on concrete slabs. For economy, each block had eight or ten houses joined together, with few windows for ventilation.
There were no trees and little shrubbery around the houses. The few growing things were black and withered from lack of care and the polluted air. Piles of trash and garbage were everywhere.
“I realize that what you saw in the Lowlands seems shocking and unfair,” Spencer Meloy said thoughtfully. “You need to understand, however, that company towns like this are everywhere. Some industries could not operate without them. And many immigrant couples would otherwise be homeless. The Lowlands is not the worst—nor the best.”
“What bothered me was that apparently not a single house was occupied by just one family,” I noted.
“That’s true. Yoder keeps its rents so high the families are forced to double up. Some couples run a boardinghouse for bachelor workers.”
Others pointed out that the men worked in shifts, some starting at six in the morning just as the all-night turn ended. As soon as one man got up to go to work, a sweaty, grimy man just returning from his shift would often fall into the same bed.
Mr. Meloy then explained something few of us had known. In steel making, the night and day shifts were a necessity: once a furnace was fired up, it had to run continuously. If ever allowed to cool, then its fire-brick lining almost always had to be renewed, an incredibly costly business. This was one reason for management’s all-out opposition to strikes, which would shut down the furnaces.
“But maybe strikes would result in better living conditions for these people,” I suggested.
“More likely, the loss of wages would cause even more suffering and hardship for them,” was the pastor’s retort.
“Doesn’t Yoder do any good things for its workers?” one student asked.
Spencer Meloy then told us about Yoder’s own volunteer fire department and baseball team, and the company-built hall with an auditorium on the first floor and a library on the second where night classes were held for the workers in various subjects like metallurgy, mining, engineering and mechanical drawing.
There was also a three-story company store employing fifty-five people. Fresh produce and even meat for the store came from company-owned farms. Yoder had a shoe factory and a woolen mill, as well as a gristmill for cereals and flour products.
The main reason that steel families shopped at the company store, he explained, was that they could always get credit there. A worker had only to speak to his mill boss, who then “arranged” the credit with the store manager.
“But with prices so high, families are always in debt to the company,” Margo exclaimed. “Three of the moth
ers made a special point of this.”
Spencer Meloy summed it up: “We’re dealing here with a system of paternalism—thoughtful in some ways, ruthless in others. I suggest that our church, especially you young people, be solely concerned with helping the people down there right now. Are you with me?”
We were—enthusiastically.
In the days that followed, I saw a progression of tortured faces from the Lowlands. Such hopelessness in their eyes as they looked out at the dirty, stinking deadness that permeated everything!
For some reason, I could not let the subject of these people drop at our dinner table. “Dad, I’m sure Baker Memorial can’t do very much for the Lowlands. Pastor Meloy is trying, but he has to face all those Yoder executives on his Board of Trustees. Is there some way we could help through the Sentinel?”
“Like what?” The Editor’s eyes were lifeless.
“Why couldn’t the Sentinel suggest some sort of town project? Planting trees and flowers there as a start. Some fresh paint would sure help.”
“But how could the Sentinel campaign for improving land owned by Yoder Steel? We’d need company support.”
“Maybe the McKeevers and others wouldn’t object if they didn’t have to pay for it.”
Dad just shook his head.
“Well then, if you think we can’t take on Yoder Steel, maybe we could at least suggest the name Lowlands be changed.”
“To what?”
“Well, how about River View?”
“Julie, changing a name won’t change negative thinking or bad conditions. But keep at it. Your group is on the right track.” A grin spread slowly across his face and a flicker of enthusiasm lighted his eyes. “By jiminy, we do own the only newspaper in town. There must be some way we can use it to do some good there.”
Thanks to Dean Fleming’s skill with machinery, the Sentinel missed only one issue. In fact I was surprised at how quickly Alderton businesses reopened despite flood damage to almost all the downtown buildings.
Julie Page 10