Gorg brought me and the baby home right away. I fed and changed and cleaned her, and then I dressed her in some of the clothes I’d begun to make in hopes of having our own child now that we were married. I stashed away the infant’s buckskin wrap, stained with the blood of her mother, in a cedar trunk in the attic. I knew I should destroy it, but it was the only remaining possession of the orphaned infant, and I couldn’t bring myself to do so.
Together, we decided she looked to be less than a month old. I named her Helen, after the helenium blossoms Konenquas and I had picked together as girls.
We kept the infant hidden, terrified if the Paxton Boys learned of her existence that they would come and kill her too. Already they had grown more determined and violent, and on 27 December of that year, they killed fourteen more members of the tribe. Thus, Helen was one of the last surviving Conestoga Indians on earth.
On 3 January, 1764, we learned that the Moravian Indians being held for their own safety on Province Island in Philadelphia would be setting out for New York the next day. We decided to give over the baby to an Indian friend, a baptized Christian, who was among those in the group. We took her to our friend on 4 January and he agreed to take the child.
The Moravian Indians set out from Province Island for New York on 5 January, but when they reached New York, the governor refused to let them in. He sent them back to Pennsylvania, and they arrived in Philadelphia on 24 January. This time, they were housed not on Province Island but in the city barracks for their own safety.
The Paxton Boys were still on the rampage, and I was terrified the Moravian Indians, including Helen, would be killed by them as well. I talked Gorg into going into Philadelphia and retrieving the baby from our friend. He managed to do so, discreetly bringing her back home to me. But beyond that we were in a quandary as to what we should do.
Terrified the babe would be discovered and killed, we finally confided in Father’s closest friend, Hubert, who came up with a plan. He said that because the infant could pass as white, Gorg and I needed only go away for a year or so and then return with Helen, claiming her as our own.
Zed paused for a moment and looked at me, his eyes wide. “Hubert. That’s my Hubert. That’s my nine-greats-grandfather!”
We were both stunned to learn that he had played a part in this story.
“Keep going,” I urged.
Though necessary, this was a deception, and all of us were concerned enough to bring it up with our bishop. He promised to think it over and pray about it. He traveled back home, but the next day he sent word that he thought it was the right thing to do. For the sake of Helen’s life, he believed this was the best course of action, though he asked that any outright deceit would be that of implication, not direct lies.
On 3 February, we heard a rumor that the Paxton Boys were about to march on Philadelphia, so Gorg, the baby, and I left town the next day and headed south on the Great Wagon Road to stay with an old family friend, a Moravian brother by the name of Gunter, who had immigrated to the Pennsylvania town of Friedenshütten around the same time we came to Lancaster. The friend had moved down to North Carolina a few years prior and started an apple orchard there, so the story we told our community was that Gorg was going to spend some time working on the farm of this old friend, to learn that man’s unique approach to the apple trade.
The Great Wagon Road made for an arduous journey, but when we finally reached our destination and Br. Gunter read the letter we bore from father, he welcomed us into his home and invited us to stay with him as long as needed. Almost right away, we saw that the plan was working, as no one we met questioned if the child was ours or not. Everyone just assumed she was.
Meanwhile, back at home in Philadelphia, tensions were running high. There were false alarms saying that the Paxton Boys had reached the city. In actuality, they only ended up going as far as Germantown the afternoon of 5 February, and then they stopped their advance. Everyone remained at a standoff until later that day, when the Paxton Boys agreed to handle things legislatively. They sent a delegation into Philadelphia to inspect the Indians held there but didn’t recognize any of them as ones who had caused them direct harm. They went home, and by 11 February Benjamin Franklin reported that things were finally quiet around the city. Franklin had already published a pamphlet, “Narrative of the Late Massacres,” detailing the entire situation.
After that an angry battle ensued among legislators and citizens, and a “war of words” among numerous people arose. In 1764, sixty-three pamphlets were distributed on the topic, both for and against the Indian situation and how it had been “handled” the day of the massacre.
That August, I received word that my mother was failing quickly, so our little family of three took a chance and returned home, arriving just in time to say goodbye before my mother passed. Unfortunately, though Helen was by then about eight months old, we had to pass her off as just four months old. To make matters worse, the child’s hair had been growing in straight and black, and though she was still light skinned, a few Paxton-sympathizing neighbors grew suspicious. When one accused us of trying to pass off an Indian child as our own, Gorg, Father, and I knew something had to be done to allay such suspicions.
Thinking quickly, Gorg responded to our accuser by “confiding” in him that we took the opposite position and were in support of the Paxton Boys. In fact, he claimed authorship of several anti-Indian pamphlets that had come out recently under a pseudonym. He said, “Why on earth would anyone in my family have adopted an Indian baby when we despise all Indians?”
After that, suspicions were somewhat diverted, but of course Gorg and I knew we had failed in the bishop’s request that we never outright lie.
Despite that lie, rumors persisted. Concerned, our friend Hubert once again stepped in to help. He had already been vocal about his objection to the Paxton Boys, so he, too, joined in with our deception. To reinforce the impression that our family was anti-Indian, he and Father pretended to break up their friendship over the matter, and the war of words for a while went on between the two families. From all appearances, our family hated the Indians and thus would never have adopted an Indian child. The matter was soon laid to rest.
Unfortunately, by pretending to endorse the actions of the Paxton Boys, Father, Gorg, and I took a nonpacifist stance. The bishop knew the truth of the matter—that it was only a cover for the sake of protecting our child—but he had no choice but to excommunicate us.
He spoke to us privately at first, saying that if we would “repent” of our “sin” of endorsing the violent actions of the Paxton Boys, we wouldn’t be excommunicated after all. We did that gladly, as it allowed us to bring an end to our elaborate ruse.
We raised Helen in peace after that, seeing her to adulthood. God blessed us beyond measure with her, and with her five siblings who were subsequently born to us.
I am an old woman now of seventy-six years, a widow for the last thirty. Before my days come to an end, I had to write this story and let the truth be known to all, especially Helen’s daughters. I never told her the story of her origins, afraid the truth might have haunted her, but perhaps in the afterlife, where she has been now for a decade, she has already met Konenquas and learned all there was to know.
Looking back, Gorg and I would have done nothing differently. God knew our hearts. Helen knew our love. Only Gorg and I, and a few other brave souls, knew the lie that was our sin.
Zed closed the little book with a flourish.
“Wow,” I said.
“Yeah.” He slipped the chapbook back into the packet for safekeeping and handed it to me. “What a story.”
I held it tenderly with both my hands. My ancestors hadn’t turned against the Indians at all. They had only pretended to in order to save the life of Konenquas’s child, whom they made their own.
I pulled out my family tree again and took another look. I realized that, genetically speaking, my eight-greats-grandmother was not Abigail but instead Konenquas. Thus, I
descended, in part, from the Conestoga. The tribe who was wiped out by settlers more than two hundred years before lived on in me and my mother and my siblings and their children.
Overwhelmed at the thought, I took back the gloves and pulled out the final document in the packet, unfolding it to see that it was the letter from Gorg and Abigail’s bishop, written just before they took the child and headed down to North Carolina. Once again I began to get choked up, so I simply held up the letter for Zed to read aloud.
“The date is 2 February, 1764,” he stated. “Just over six weeks after the massacre.”
I blinked back my tears as I listened to the words.
Gorg,
After much thought and prayer, I write to encourage you to do what is right by this infant. A child of the heart can be just as much a part of a person, and a family, as a child of the body. For the sake of the girl’s life, do as Hubert has suggested and flee to North Carolina with Abigail and the baby, presenting the little one as your own, which she now is.
My one request is that any outright deceit would be of implication, not direct lies.
By the time you return, no one will be the wiser. Those in our community will assume Abigail was already somewhat far along with child at the time of your departure.
Your servant in the Lord,
Ingemar Joblenz
“Wow, what a ruse,” Giselle said, the first comment she’d made throughout the whole thing. “Then again, that probably wouldn’t have been too hard to pull off back then. Women didn’t talk among one another about their pregnancies, let alone announce them to the whole community.”
I didn’t say so, but in our community many still didn’t, although our dresses weren’t as loose as some might have been at that time.
I read the letter again—thinking that just as Helen was Abigail’s child of the heart, Abigail was my grandmother of the heart.
I looked to Zed, and as our eyes met, I realized the bishop’s words were true. Zed, whose birth mother had been a woman named Lydia, had been adopted by Marta. I’d never known a mother to love a child more than she loved him. Lexie, whose birth mother was Giselle, had been adopted by loving non-Amish parents in Oregon. And Ada, whose birth mother was also Giselle, had been adopted by Klara and Alexander and had also been loved beyond measure. My sister Sadie had a different birth father than the rest of us siblings, but you would never know. She was my daed’s daughter, one hundred percent.
Adoptive or not, those people were their parents, in every sense of the word. Abigail was as much my grandmother as Konenquas was.
That’s what this had all been about, I realized. Loving a baby whether he or she came from your body or not, loving them as your very own precious, unique, and wonderful child.
My thoughts went to Frannie and the little time we all had left with her. I couldn’t imagine what it was like for her family, especially for Giselle, who had been away for so long. I stood and made my way to the hospital bed, realizing as I did that Frannie’s breathing was even more labored than before. I raised the head of the bed as much as possible and waved to Marta, who was now awake, to come over.
According to Marta, Frannie hadn’t eaten in a few days now, although she was still taking water and they had managed to get a little bit of a protein drink down her the night before.
I’d been hoping to do that again tonight, but when I tried to wake her, she didn’t rouse.
Her head tilted to one side, in my direction, and in the dim light from the lamp by the couch, her eyelids were nearly translucent. Her skin was papery—a sure sign she was becoming more dehydrated.
Marta checked her breathing.
“There’s definitely more fluid,” she said quietly when she was done. She motioned to Lexie, who now stood behind the couch, to come and listen too.
Lexie did and then nodded, the stethoscope still in her ears.
Giselle joined us as well, bending down and kissing her mother’s wrinkled cheek. Frannie stirred and her lids fluttered but she didn’t open her eyes again. James and Luke came close to their wives’ sides, and we stood that way for a long time, each of us breathing for her as we listened to her struggle for air. I waited for the next breath—it seemed a long time in coming. Finally, she took another raggedy one.
I could feel Zed close at my side. I could hear a sob bubble from Giselle’s throat. I could smell the wood smoke from the fireplace.
I could see that Frannie was almost gone.
“I’ll get Klara,” Marta said, and then she headed for the stairs.
A wave of peace swept over me, and I started to softly recite the Lord’s Prayer. Lexie and Ella joined me, and Ada took Frannie’s hand. Another raggedy breath and then—nothing. I held my own breath as I waited. Still, nothing more came.
“She’s gone, isn’t she?” Giselle whispered.
“I think so,” I said, surprised at how calm I sounded. I glanced at my watch. It was 12:03, Christmas Eve morn.
Marta came back down the stairs, and she must have known by the expression on Giselle’s face because she went to her sister first, putting her arm around her, holding her close.
“I’m so glad I came,” Giselle managed to say.
“So am I,” Marta said.
A moment later, Klara floated into the room, a white robe over her white nightgown and her hair tucked under a nightcap. She went straight to the bed, and Lexie and Ella parted to let her through. She stood there for a moment looking down at her mother, and then she reached out and brushed a strand of hair from the old woman’s face.
Klara went to Giselle next. She put her arm around her sister’s shoulder and said, “I’m sorry. Not for Mamm. For—”
“I know,” Giselle said. “I know. I’m sorry too.”
For all I knew, that was as much as Giselle and Klara ever spoke about the past. But it seemed to be enough. Perhaps Frannie’s passing became a moment for them that bridged the hurt of long ago.
I put my attention back on Frannie. Her life hadn’t turned out the way she expected, but she had lived it well, for God. I think that’s all she really wanted for her daughters too.
Frannie had died well. And unlike my experience with Verna, I felt privileged to have been by her side when she took her last breath on earth.
TWENTY-NINE
Sleep did not come easily, but somehow I managed to catch a few hours. By the time I woke up again, the sun was over the horizon, and a peek out the front window showed that several buggies were parked outside. Even though it was Christmas Eve day, I had a feeling they belonged to members of Alexander and Klara’s district, who would have come to do chores and help prepare the house and property for the impending visitation and funeral.
I dressed and fixed my hair, and then I went to the kitchen of the daadi haus for some breakfast. Last night Alexander had said he would leave a message on my parents’ machine about Frannie’s death, so I expected my daed to show up at some point soon. After some yogurt and a few bites of toast, I cleaned my dishes and then returned to my room to pack as quietly as I could. Giselle was still asleep.
Daed hadn’t shown up by the time I was finished, so I brought all of my stuff to the living room and stacked it beside the door. Though I knew I should go on to the main house and pitch in with everyone else, I just couldn’t bring myself to do so. Instead, I returned to the little kitchen for another cup of coffee and then sat at the table, alone in the quiet, and tried to work through what I was feeling.
Unsettled was the word that came to mind—though not from Frannie dying. I had seen her go in peace. She had been ready, surrounded by those who loved her. I had now faced a death of someone important to me, and I had seen what Marta had told me about, the beauty of the transition.
No, I think what had my mind spinning was Zed. Had he meant what he said last night before the film? Was he really willing to join the Amish church for me? For us? The thought both thrilled me and terrified me at the same time. Such a move would be a sacrifice for anyone, but
especially for him. It would mean the end of his education, his film career. His dreams.
My thoughts were interrupted by the sound of footsteps outside and the gentle knock I recognized as my father’s. I let him in, holding a finger to my mouth as I whispered, “Giselle’s still asleep.”
I pointed to my things beside the door, saying I just needed to straighten the kitchen and then I’d be out. As he began carrying the boxes to the buggy, I cleaned my cup and put it away, and then I dug from my handwork bag the bookmarks I’d made for all the women. I placed them on the table, fanned out in circle, and then dashed off a quick note for Giselle and left it there as well. I asked her to please pass them along to Klara, Ada, Lexie, Ella, Marta, and herself as a small token of thanks and love. I hesitated, not sure how to end the note, and then I finally added, “I’ll be praying for you and your family. See you at the visitation. Love, Izzy.”
Once we were home, I unpacked my things and then jumped into the fray, helping prepare for tomorrow’s Christmas dinner. Finally, however, late that afternoon, my mamm sent me off for a nap, saying I was nearly asleep on my feet. She was right.
I ended up sleeping through our entire Christmas Eve family time. Linda tried to wake me, but my body felt like lead and I just couldn’t get up. I didn’t even realize I’d fallen back to sleep until I awoke many hours later, early Christmas morning. I headed downstairs in the pitch dark and lit the lamp. It was four forty-five. I assumed Mamm and Daed would be up soon. I started the coffee and the fire, and then I looked in the refrigerator to see if Mamm had left her Christmas coffee cake ready to bake. She had, so I took it out to warm by the stove.
Next, I gathered tape, scissors, and some brown paper bags and then retreated to my little room to wrap the gifts I’d made for my family, tying each one with a strand of red yarn. As I worked, my mind returned to Zed. He’d said he was willing to join the Amish church, but I didn’t expect he would feel that way for long—not once he really thought it through.
The Amish Seamstress Page 35