Once a Midwife

by Patricia Harman

  “I’ll need some help getting one of the houses in Hazel Patch fixed up,” Bitsy goes on. “The old Bowlin place is in the best shape. There’s still a cookstove in the kitchen and only one broken window.”

  5

  November 30, 1941

  The Drums of War

  Yesterday, Bitsy and I were in Liberty picking up supplies for her new home and as we crossed Main, we heard male voices in heated discussion. There were six men arguing under the bare trees in the courthouse park, smoking cigarettes and talking politics.

  “That bastard Roosevelt! The U.S.S. Ruben James should have never been there in the first place!” says one tall, lean fellow I’ve never seen before. “Two dozen American sailors dead and another hundred injured when the ship was attacked by a damned German U-boat; even one boy from West Virginia got it. FDR has been pushing this war since he rammed the Lend Lease Act through Congress.”

  “Charles Lindbergh says getting us involved in Europe’s war is a conspiracy to keep the president in the White House for another four years,” adds a young man with red hair, who I recognize as one of the clerks from the feed store. “No other president has stayed for three terms. Does he want to be king?” A ripple of laughter follows.

  “What about that little runt Hitler? He’s nuttier than a bed bug in June. You want him running the world?” a fellow wearing a black wool coat and a crisp wool fedora puts in quietly and I realize it is Joseph Gold, the owner of Gold’s Dry Goods.

  “Well, he wants to keep the white race pure. You don’t want a bunch of mongrels, do you?” another man growls. I recognize him too, one of the Bishop brothers, always trouble.

  My grip through my friend’s arm tightens. I feel protective of Bitsy when talk comes to racial matters.

  “Well, what are we going to do?” a thin razorback, with a patch over one eye, asks. “Wait until the Krauts land on our shores and then wake up and say, By golly!”

  “Hitler’s already taken over most of Europe. If England and France fall, do you think he’ll stop there?” the redhead argues.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Bitsy whispers. “Those good ol’ boys don’t even know Germany already captured France.”

  When I get home, I find Daniel reading the Torrington Times in the kitchen. He glares at the headlines with disgust. NO NEW SURVIVORS ON THE U.S.S. RUBEN JAMES. “It’s a follow-up to the article a few weeks ago,” he says, “when the Nazi submarine destroyed our ship.”

  “Bitsy and I heard men arguing about it on the courthouse lawn today. Some blamed Hitler. Some blamed the president. They said FDR has been goading the Germans by sending our ships across the Atlantic with supplies for the Brits.”

  “I have to say, I agree,” Dan says. “Roosevelt is spouting rhetoric about staying out of the war, but if he hadn’t set up the Lend Lease Act, our destroyer, the Ruben James, wouldn’t have been with the British convoy in the first place.

  “What did he think was going to happen? Hitler was just going to let munitions and supplies be shipped from the U.S. across the Atlantic into the hands of his enemies?” He wads the paper into a ball and throws it across the room, then stands and stares out the window, tightening his jaw, as if he sees Judgment Day coming.

  National Savior

  I pull a kitchen chair out, sit down, and put my arm around my husband. Daniel was a cavalry soldier in the Great War. He was fresh off the farm and put in charge of the horses.

  The first day I met him he described how he saw thousands of the animals slaughtered. “It was hell for them,” he told me with tears in his eyes. “They stumbled through mud and rain to bring us supplies. I watched them die of exhaustion, broken bones, bloody wounds, and tetanus. There was nothing I could do. They should never have been there in the first place. Modern weapons made them sitting ducks.”

  “So, I know war has been brewing for years,” I go on. “The Germans were beaten back in the Great War. What’s made them so aggressive?”

  Daniel, a bit of a history buff, leans back in his chair. “Well, Germany lost all of their colonies in Africa and thirteen percent of their territory in Europe with the Treaty of Versailles, and then they were hit hard by the Great Depression. Millions of people were out of work, just like here, and the mood was grim. Their humiliating defeat was still fresh in their minds. Germans are a proud people.” Here he smiles. “I know that from living with my grandparents. . . .

  “During the Depression, ordinary Germans lost confidence in their government. They called their representatives the ‘Do Nothings.’ The conditions were perfect for the rise of a new party, the National Socialist German Workers Party.”

  “Sounds like something I’d join in my younger days in Pittsburgh,” I admit, and Dan smiles his lopsided smile.

  “Yeah, probably!” he agrees. “More coffee?” He pours us both another cup. “NAZI is the abbreviation for their party, innocent enough in German, Nationalsozialist. Adolf Hitler, as head of the party, rose to power because he stood for the workingman. He was former military and a spellbinding speaker.

  “Remember, this is during the deepest part of the Depression. Hitler attracted a following of people desperate for change. He promised a better life for everyone. He’d make Germany great again, a superpower like it once was. There’d be jobs for all. They’d throw non-Germans out. Limit immigration.”

  “So Hitler was elected by democratic vote?”

  “Not exactly, but his party was. Hitler was appointed chancellor, which is like the prime minister in Britain, and most of the people believed they’d found their national savior.”

  “He seems like a madman to me!” I exclaim. “Do you think the German people realize he’s trying to conquer the world? That’s not the same as making Germany great again.”

  My husband shrugs, but I swallow hard. “I don’t like it, Dan. People are saying it’s inevitable that the U.S. will get involved.”

  “I don’t like it either, Patience. These are dangerous times and people think the solution is easy. Just battle it out until the Germans capitulate. But don’t worry about me, Patience. I told myself after the Great War, I’d never fight again.” He stands and walks to the sink, and then he says it again: “I won’t go, Patience. If they call me up, I won’t go!”

  December 7, 1941

  America First

  As I walk across the white frosted grass to the chicken house, the sun rises orange in the clear blue sky and despite the cold I think how glad I am to live with such beauty. . . . When I first came to the Hope River Valley from Pittsburgh, Mrs. Kelly and I were on the lam and I thought of West Virginia as the Siberia of America, a good place to hide, somewhere so poor and backward no one would ever want to live here. Now the comfort of these green mountains wraps around me like a quilt.

  Across the yard, I can hear Daniel in the barn talking to the cows as he throws hay down from the loft.

  “Here chick, chick, chickies,” I call as I fill my bucket with cracked corn from the metal bin. I open the door to let the chickens out of the henhouse.

  “Cluck. Cluckity-cluck-cluck,” the reds answer in their soft, soothing voices. Though there are fifty of them, they are like pets or maybe friends. Only one worries me. She’s the runt and is often picked on until her yellow feet bleed. If the bullying continues, I’ll have to put her in a cage by herself where the others can’t get to her.

  By noon, Dan has dropped the kids off at the little house Bitsy has fixed up in Hazel Patch and I’ve changed into a gray skirt and blue sweater. It’s Sunday, but we’re not going to church. We’re on our way to a meeting of the American First Committee in Liberty.

  “Hurry, up Patience,” Dan calls to me as he puts out our beagle, Sasha, and banks the stove. “We don’t want to be late or miss the speech. B.K. Bittman has gone to a lot of trouble to get this event set up. America First is a coalition of pacifists, progressives, and conservatives that oppose the U.S. getting in the war. It’s right up our line. There are close to a million members.” />
  Once at the schoolhouse, we find seats near the back and I’m surprised to see about thirty people present. I glance around the room to see who’s here. Sitting up front are our good friends Becky and Isaac Blum, a handsome couple in their forties, both with dark curly hair. Becky’s a registered nurse and her husband’s a physician.

  Years ago, we all lived together when I was pregnant with Mira and bleeding. Becky, in fact, took over the home births in the county, since I was on bed rest. Dr. Blum was off his rocker for a while, but he’s fine now.

  Then five years ago, Becky and Isaac, Daniel and I, along with our neighbors, the Maddocks, adopted the four little Hucknell sisters, Sonya, Sally, Sunny, and Sue, after their parents and little baby brother were killed in the forest fire of ’35.

  I wave at Becky, and when she smiles I remember how much I miss her. We’re all so busy lately, working, taking care of our families. . . . Becky and Isaac run the infirmary at White Rock Civilian Conservation Camp on the other side of the county.

  B.K. Bittman, the grocer, is here with his wife, Lilly, along with Ida May, the town hairdresser. Mr. Stenger, the balding pharmacist, and his wife, Mrs. Stenger, are sitting next to Mr. Linkous, the young lawyer. Even One-Arm Wetsel is present, standing in back next to Sheriff Hardman, who looks the crowd over, rubbing the scar on his chin, the thin red line that came from a knife fight.

  The guest speaker, Senator Holt of Weston, West Virginia (tall, shock of white hair, very pink face), begins his speech as if he’s standing before Congress.

  “Shall the United States become a merchant of death?” Holt asks rhetorically in a booming voice. Daniel leans forward. “My fellow Americans,” the speaker continues, adjusting his spectacles, “We’re being bamboozled! No nation threatens us! President Roosevelt and his cronies are trying to convince people that if we don’t enter the war in Europe, the U.S. will be Germany’s next target, but that’s not the case and has never been. This is a slippery slope, folks.

  “Whether or not we do enter the war,” the senator goes on, looking in the eyes of his audience, “rests upon the shoulders of you in this meeting and upon meetings like this all across the country. By the latest polls, only one in four Americans favors the U.S. going to war. We must not let big business and big government push us into this. We can only lose.”

  B.K. stands up. “Thank you so much, sir. We’re honored that you came out of your way to give this presentation. I’d like now to open the floor to questions and comments.”

  Mr. Linkous stands first. “I think the whole affair should be Europe’s problem. Germany wasn’t treated fairly after the last war. A lot of their territory was taken away. Now they just want it back.” Several in the audience echo his sentiments by calling out. “Hear, hear!” and then Lucille Stenger, the pharmacist’s wife, rises.

  “I agree that war is not the best solution, but when you have a madman like Adolf Hitler on the rise, we can’t afford to sit idle. America is a powerful country and if we assist Great Britain and France, we can turn the tide. . . . I’ll tell you something else. My family comes from Poland; some of them still live there. Have you heard about the extermination camps where they kill the Jews? This war isn’t just about Britain or France and losing their empires; it’s about humanity. Do we want a maniac like Hitler running the world?” She plunks her heavy bottom down on the chair

  “Oh, that’s just Roosevelt’s propaganda and reporters trying to sell papers,” responds a voice in back. “It’s horse manure. Nothin’ like that ever happened. If Jews in Poland were being slaughtered I think the hell we would know about it.”

  I whip around to see Aran Bishop in his coveralls and flannel shirt. He ran against Sheriff Hardman in the election last year and lost by only a few hundred votes. His meek blond wife, Cora, twenty years his junior, gives him the elbow, warning him to watch his language.

  “Hear! Hear!” a few fellows cheer, and then more people speak up. “Yeah, half the things you hear in the paper, or on the radio, are outright lies.”

  “We should mind our own business!”

  “We’ve got to take care of our own, not spend our hard-earned cash on some European squabble.”

  Finally, we break for coffee and cake served by the Methodist Women.

  Then at three, B.K. gets everyone to sit down again and Senator Holt comes to the front.

  “Again, thank you all for coming,” he says. “Americans must show courage! If you believe in an independent destiny for our country, if you believe that we should not enter Europe’s war, we ask you to sign this petition and join America First!”

  Just then the oak doors of the school slam open and we all turn around. It’s Loonie Tinkshell from the Texaco Station almost running down the aisle. Dan and I look at each other. Loonie hands the speaker a piece of paper and the speaker’s face goes white.

  Senator Holt turns to B.K., whispers something, and then returns to the podium.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, this meeting is over,” the senator states abruptly. “I ask that you leave in an orderly fashion and drive straight home with great care. . . . I have just been handed a telegram from Washington that says that this morning at seven forty-eight A.M., Hawaii Time, the Japanese Air Force bombed the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor. The attack is still going on. Thousands of sailors and officers are dead, as well as civilians. What we say here is no longer of consequence. God be with you all. God bless America.”

  6

  War

  One minute the war was theoretical, the next it was real. As Dan and I walked silently hand in hand out to our auto it started to snow, and the ride home was as somber as if we’d just been to a funeral. When I looked over at Dan, his knuckles were white on the steering wheel and his face was a mask; what was under the mask, I did not know.

  When we got to Hazel Patch, we learned that Bitsy, Opal, and the children had already heard about the attack. Everyone was glued to the old console radio that Mr. Gold of Gold’s Dry Goods had given Bitsy. Mira and Susie ran into my arms.

  “Who’s Pearl Harbor, Mommy? Do we know her?” Mira asks, her freckles standing out in her very white face.

  “No, baby doll, it’s a place, not a person—a place far away.”

  “The radio said Pearl got bombed and a whole bunch of other people too. Thousands, maybe.” Susie cries. She knows about death, both the twins do. Their parents and baby brother are buried in the Hope River Cemetery on our Wild Rose Farm.

  “Find your coats, kids,” Daniel orders, “and get in the car.”

  “You okay, Bitsy?” I can see that she isn’t.

  “Wait,” Willie says. “Can we say a prayer first? You say it, Ma.” This appellation of “Ma” surprises me. When did that start? Bitsy has always referred to him as her ward.

  Bitsy takes his hand and he takes mine and I take Danny’s and Danny takes Opal’s . . . until we make a circle in the middle of the living room, now nicely outfitted with sofa and chairs and even an old rag rug that neighbors have provided.

  “Okay . . . .” my friend begins. “Dear Lord, we know that war is scary, but there are bad people in the world and someone has to stop them. Now our country must do its part. Please help our soldiers. Help our sailors. Make them brave and strong. Bless their families because they will have to sacrifice. We will all have to be brave and strong and we will all have to sacrifice, because we must win. . . . Amen.”

  Family Meeting

  Everyone sit down,” Dan commands when we get home. I’m surprised at this, because I know there’s nothing we both want more than to listen to the radio.

  “You heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor,” he starts out. “The United States has a naval base, where we keep our ships and airplanes, on an island in the Pacific Ocean, which is way on the other side of the world. The Japanese who live even farther away bombed our base. This is a terrible development, and now our country will have to go to war and fight the Japanese, but life won’t change for us here in Union County.


  “We’ll still have our farm work to do and new babies to deliver. I’ll continue to take care of people’s animals. You’ll go to school. Every night we’ll pray for the soldiers, but we will not be in any danger. Do you understand?” Our four children nod, but I don’t think they believe him.

  “The reporters like to tell exciting stories, and this is very exciting, but it does not affect us. Now, who wants some gingersnaps?”

  Later, Dan and I go out to the barn to do the chores. The snowfall is heavier now and comes down like sand, little hard pellets that sting my face and hands. For a second it stops and I glance around the barnyard, at the stone farmhouse, the golden light streaming out the windows, the snow and Spruce Mountain leaning over us, a peaceful Christmas scene. Too peaceful.

  When I get back to the house, I discover that the twins, Sunny and Sue, all by themselves, have made ham sandwiches on the last of the homemade bread. They’ve also put out a pitcher of milk and a quart jar of canned peaches. Mira has set the table. “We’ll wait for, Pa,” I say. “He’s still feeding the horses.”

  From the living room I can hear The Chase and Sanborn Hour on the radio with the sassy dummy, Charley McCarthy, and his sidekick, the ventriloquist, Edgar Bergen. It’s one of our Sunday favorites, but every ten minutes it’s interrupted with an update on the bloodshed and destruction in Hawaii. The Japanese have also attacked our base in the Philippines . . . Manila is on fire.

  Once the children are tucked in and Dan and I are ready for bed, I get out my journal.

  The news of war in Europe and the Far East has swirled around us for years, the voices getting louder, but still the impact of the unprovoked raid on our own base, our own people is shocking. I turn over expecting Dan to be asleep, but he’s staring at the ceiling and I slide closer, resting one leg over his.

  “The world’s going crazy isn’t it, Dan? The only place I feel safe is lying in your arms.” I nestle in, but he doesn’t answer and his body is rigid and as cold as ice. “You okay, honey?”