The Amish Seamstress

by Mindy Starns Clark

  “Well, dear, I hate to tell you this, but…”

  Verna’s expression grew quite miserable and her voice trailed off. I squinted at her, waiting, until she met my gaze. “The folks who did that were our ancestors.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean our ancestors were not in support of the Indians. They condemned the Indians and supported what the Paxton Boys had done.”

  My mouth fell open. “You can’t be serious.”

  She nodded.

  “But they were Amish. How could an Amish person ever endorse violence, much less violence directed at innocent people?” My mind was reeling.

  “I’m unclear as to the details, but I’m certain several members of the family took that stance. Something about the Indians being the aggressors and not living peacefully with the settlers. In fact, they were almost excommunicated because of their position.”

  “How do you know this?”

  She shrugged. “Family lore, mostly.”

  I set aside my handwork and leaned forward, resting my elbows on my knees. “Is there any proof?”

  Verna pursed her lips together and thought for a moment. “Some sort of church document about the situation is supposed to exist, though I don’t recall actually seeing such a thing. As I said, they wrote some pamphlets back then in favor of the massacre.”

  My heart fell. “Do you have any of those?”

  “I don’t think so.” She was lost in thought for a long moment and then said, “I may have some other things from back then, though. Over the years I ended up with most of the family papers, at least what no one else wanted.”

  “Yes, you mentioned that…”

  “Oh, that’s right. I brought several boxes with me when I moved in. They’re in my room.” She gestured toward the hallway.

  My pulse surged with anticipation until she added, “I also left a couple of boxes and a trunk at the farm.”

  I folded my hands together, trying not to sound desperate. “Could we get them too?”

  “There may be no need. Why don’t we go through the boxes I brought with me first? If we don’t find anything, then we can look into getting the others.”

  Leaning back against the couch, I exhaled. There were times, no matter how much I loved history, that it scared me. This was one of those times.

  My ancestors—my Amish ancestors—had condoned a massacre? I couldn’t fathom it. Obviously, my time with Verna was going to take me far beyond just learning family history and researching costumes for a film. It seemed we would be going much deeper than that, perhaps all the way to something I’d rather not have learned at all.

  SIX

  As soon as I arrived at Susie’s the next day, I spotted a square pine box, about the size of an apple crate, on the floor next to the couch where Verna sat.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Part of me felt apprehensive, as if that box might contain some facts that would best remain buried. On the other hand, I’d spent a lot of time the night before thinking about the situation and praying on it, and this morning I’d decided that, either way, I wanted to know the full story. As I hung up my cape and put my handwork bag on the floor below it, a verse from the book of Luke came to mind, For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither any thing hid, that shall not be known and come abroad. Perhaps it was time for us to make some very old truths manifest at last.

  While I got settled, Verna explained that Susie’s husband had carried one of her boxes of old papers to the living room the night before.

  “Tell me again where you got all of this?” I sat down on the edge of the couch and studied the box, wondering if it would take a crowbar to get the lid off.

  Verna tucked her quilt around her legs. “Every few generations, someone in the family has taken charge of keeping the family papers. Years ago, it was my grandmother, my mother’s mother. When she died, it was all passed down to me.” She glanced up at me, a gleam in her eye. “Given your interest, Izzy, and considering I don’t have any children, I think perhaps you should be the next person to take it all on once I die.”

  I couldn’t help but be flattered by her suggestion, nor could I help being distraught at her mentioning the possibility of her death. Taking a deep breath, I reminded myself of my promise to my mamm to keep my feelings in check.

  “My grandmother had inherited all the papers from her grandmother, who had been a real pack rat.” Her eyes fell to the box, and mine couldn’t help but follow. “A lot of it wasn’t important and was purged at the time, but I still think my grandmother should have thrown out even more. Much chaff is among this wheat, I’m afraid.”

  I reached out to run a hand across the smooth wood of the lid. “Do you think any of those pamphlets our ancestors wrote about the Paxton Boys and the massacre are in here?”

  “Not that I recall specifically, but I know there is something somewhere that has to do with Indians. It’s hard to remember because I haven’t gone through everything in full since my grandmother died. And that was a long, long time ago.” She exhaled slowly. “Unfortunately, there’s no real organization to this stuff. It might take some doing to find what we’re looking for—and, like I said, most of it we won’t need at all.”

  “That’s okay,” I said, growing more eager to get started. “We’ll just keep digging till we find what we’re looking for.”

  “Exactly.” Verna smiled. “Let’s go item by item, and we’ll see what’s there.” She nodded to me sweetly. “You may have the honors.”

  The lid was on tight, but I jiggled it a bit and finally managed to pull it open. Old papers filled the interior of the box to the brim. With a glance at Verna, I inhaled deeply as I picked up the first slip and squinted at the faded script, written in longhand.

  It looked like a receipt for a trade, dated 1939—one mule exchanged for two hundred pounds of grain. I showed it to Verna, and she chuckled.

  “It must have been an old mule.”

  Smiling, I placed that piece of paper on the floor next to the box and reached for another. This one was just a grocery list, and a short one at that: “Sugar, salt, and baking powder.” I read it to Verna and asked if it was important.

  “Goodness, no, throw it out. See what I mean?”

  I crumbled the paper into a ball and tossed it toward the wastebasket at the end of the couch. We kept going, but unfortunately, for a while at least, it was much of the same. Half of it ended up in the trash, and after a while Verna apologized.

  “I guess it’s been a long time since I went through this stuff and tried to do a little paring down myself. For all I know, there’s nothing else of worth in this whole box.”

  “At least some of these papers are really interesting,” I said, trying to make her feel better even as my own heart sank.

  We kept going, though the task remained fairly tedious. A receipt for some lumber, dated 1946. A ration card, from 1942. A doctor’s bill, from 1927.

  “Oh, my,” she said, holding out her hand to see it. “That was the year my sister Delva was born—your grandmother. Our mamm had a few problems that time and Daed had to go for help. I was five, but I can remember the two of them, Daed and the doctor, bursting in through the front door just in time. In fact, that’s probably my earliest memory.”

  I nodded, grateful for that bit of information. Delva Westler, my mother’s mother, had survived being born and gone on to live into her early sixties. I wasn’t sure exactly when she died, but I knew it was before Mamm was married and long before I was born. How fascinating now to see the receipt for the cost of her birth.

  We kept going. Things soon grew tedious again, but I finally perked up when I came upon an old report card from 1943. It was made from heavy paper, but instead of being preprinted, all of the lines had been drawn with a pencil and probably a ruler. The ink of the lines and the grades was faded, but some of it was still readable. I couldn’t quite make out the name at the top, though I did see that it contained mostly C’s and D’s. />
  “Any idea whose report card this was?” I asked, handing it over to Verna.

  She took a long look, her eyes growing moist even as she smiled. “Judging by the grades, this belonged to my younger brother, Raymond,” she said, then she dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. “He was smart but hated school. It bored him to death.”

  Verna began telling a story about Raymond, and I kept going as she talked, placing the card in the keeper pile and moving on to the next scrap of paper.

  We continued, breaking for lunch, and then worked for another hour afterward, until it was time for Verna to rest and for me to be on my way. There were a few more inches of papers to go, but I couldn’t help but assume they would all be from the wrong period. So far there hadn’t been anything prior to the early 1900s, and definitely nothing about the Paxton Boys or the Conestoga Indian Massacre.

  I tried to hide my frustration, but I’d never been very good at pretending, and I’m afraid Verna picked up on my feelings. “Don’t fret, dear. We simply started in the wrong place,” she said. “We’ll soon figure out which box holds the papers from the 1700s.”

  I nodded, giving her a smile. As I put on my cape and grabbed my handwork bag, that I hadn’t even opened, Verna promised to have Carl carry the remaining boxes from her room before I returned.

  “It’s in there somewhere. Don’t you worry,” she said.

  Feeling encouraged, I told her goodbye and that I would see her in the morning. On the way home, as I mulled over what we’d found, I realized I’d hardly thought about Zed all day. Spending time with Verna really was the best thing for me, even if her old family papers had been a bit disappointing so far.

  When I arrived the next day, three more boxes lined the area in front of the couch. My trepidation from the day before was gone, and in its place was only enthusiasm. Clapping my hands together, I said, “This is like Christmas!” It wasn’t that we had lavish celebrations, but it was one of our most anticipated days of the year—and this moment was every bit as exciting as that.

  Verna sat in her regular place, a wide grin on her sweet face. “I think first we should do a quick inventory of each box and decide where to start. Judging by the dates of all of yesterday’s papers, I have a feeling this stuff may be grouped somewhat by time period. Perhaps one of these holds mostly older fare.”

  I quickly hung up my cape. This time I hadn’t bothered to bring my handwork. I’d worked late the night before to make up for the lost time yesterday and planned on doing the same tonight.

  Two of these boxes were made from wood like the first one, but the other was just cardboard. I opened it first, suspecting its contents would be more recent. I held up a copy of the Budget. “Hmm…1983.”

  Verna laughed. “Goodness, why would I have saved that?”

  She probably had a good reason at the time. The next item was an old pattern for an apron, and then there was one for a kapp.

  We worked our way down another inch or two, and then finally Verna said, “Push that box aside. We don’t need to bother with it.”

  I agreed and did as I was told, prying the top off of the pine box closest to me. I took the first item out. It was a death notice from 1957, cut out from the Budget, for a Raymond Westler. He’d only been twenty-five.

  I swallowed hard as I handed the yellowed clipping to Verna. “Was this your younger brother? The one who hated school?”

  Her eyes pooled with tears as she read it. “Raymond and I were so close, just a year and a half apart in age and for many years inseparable. His buggy was hit by a truck.” She returned the clipping back to me.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. I couldn’t imagine the heartache of that.

  She pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes. “There I go again, getting all emotional. There’s no reason to, really. I’m not long for this world myself…”

  I reached over and patted her hand, trying not to shudder at her words. When it seemed she’d recovered, I scooted back to the box, sure it contained, like the box from yesterday, documents from the more recent past.

  It did at first, but after going just an inch or so down, I found some things that were much older. A cemetery listing, from 1802. A tax assessment, from 1862. A list of supplies dated by hand as 1767.

  Finally, my pulse surging, I noticed one thing that looked like a handmade envelope, with writing on one side. The creases were so worn that the packet was falling apart. I held it toward the light from the window and struggled to read the faded ink.

  “Is that a letter?” Verna asked. “Who’s it to?”

  “I think it’s addressed to a Bernard…something with a V, Conestoga Township, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”

  “Oh, goodness. Bernard. He’s one of the ones we’ve been looking for. If I’m not mistaken, he and his wife lived here during the time you’re interested in. They came over on the Virtuous Grace.”

  Sucking in a breath, I carefully opened the packet and removed a single page of handwritten text on old, old paper. A letter.

  It was dated February 25, 1764, and was written in a feminine hand. My heart racing in excitement, I read it out loud to Verna:

  Dear Papa,

  At long last we have arrived safe and sound. The relentless rain made stretches of the GWR muddy and full of ruts, but still our dispositions remained positive. Though our guide was rough and unrefined, the rivers high, and some of the mountain passes quite steep, the terrain was magnificent, and the forests we traveled through were straight from the pages of a fairy tale.

  Despite the fact that we are not Moravian, your gracious friend and his community here have welcomed us with open arms. We are grateful for their kind hearts and generosity during this time of unrest. Br. Gunter’s orchard is less mature than those at home in the North, but with a greater variety. The fruit will do fine here for a while, I feel sure.

  The good Lord has been with us every step of the way, and for that we are very grateful. Please keep us informed of any developments.

  I have never been more sure of anything in my life, nor has Gorg. We hope you are feeling the same.

  Your loving daughter,

  Abigail

  I handed the letter to Verna and she read it silently. Then she handed it back to me and I reread it again, taking in every word.

  “Do you remember seeing this?” I asked her.

  She shrugged. “Not necessarily, though I do recall seeing the name Abigail on something else, something printed.”

  I glanced toward the box, hoping it was filled with more treasures like this.

  “What do you make of it?” Verna asked.

  “Well.” I took a deep breath and studied the page in front of me. “I’m not sure. It’s fascinating, of course, but I wish I knew more of what she was talking about.”

  I sat back and looked at the page again, trying to decide what we did know. For starters, the date was fairly significant. I glanced at Verna. “The Conestoga Massacre happened in December 1763, and this was written about two months after that. I have to wonder if by ‘this time of unrest,’ that’s what she’s referring to. The Indian conflict and the war of words, as you called it.”

  Verna squinted through the lenses of her glasses. “But it sounds as though she’s writing from somewhere else. The Indian conflict happened here in Pennsylvania.”

  I shook my head. “Obviously, this letter is about a trip. My guess is that she and this Gorg person had been here but then traveled away. What’s the GWR?”

  Verna thought for a moment. “Some kind of travel route, I suppose? A roadway of some kind?”

  “GWR,” I mused. “The Georgia–West Virginia Route?”

  “The George Washington Roadway?”

  We considered the date and decided it would probably be a bit premature to name a road for a man who hadn’t yet risen to his full prominence. Still, the GWR had to be some kind of road.

  “She mentions a Moravian,” Verna said, turning to look at the shelves along the wall where sh
e kept her history books. “I seem to recall something about the Moravians…” She rose and moved over to the books, tilting her head to scan the spines.

  I returned my attention to the letter. “Do you recognize the name Gorg?”

  “No, but if he’s also an ancestor, I probably knew who he was at some point.” She turned and looked at me, an idea alight in her eye. “The old family Bible, of course. It’s on the table in my room.”

  “You want me to get it?”

  “Please. Second door on the right.” She plucked a book off the shelf, and as I headed down the hallway, she shuffled back over to her chair.

  Verna’s bedroom was sparsely furnished with a single bed, a bureau, and a table by the window, on which was a brush, a bottle of lotion, and a massive black Bible. I carefully picked up the Bible, noticing that its cover was old and brittle, and hurried back to the living room. When I got there, though, Verna had the history book open on her lap and seemed to want to show me something first, so I set the Bible aside for a moment and gave her my attention.

  “I thought so,” she told me, placing her finger on the page.

  Leaning forward, I read the heading she indicated, The Moravians Venture Out from Bethlehem.

  “This whole chapter is about the Moravians,” she explained, “and their migration from Pennsylvania down to North Carolina in the mid-1700s.”

  “North Carolina? Do you think Abigail would have traveled from here to all the way down there?”

  “Well, I wasn’t so sure at first, until I read this third paragraph.”

  Curious, I skimmed the words she indicated, which were about a group of Moravian brothers of varying skills and professions who had traveled together to North Carolina in 1733 to establish a new settlement there. That was interesting, but I couldn’t figure out what had Verna so pleased until I got to the end. It said: