by Lea Wait
“Old Waymouth newspapers and maps are in the document cabinets,” said Rachel, pointing. “The green file cabinets hold folders filed alphabetically and filled with whatever information we have about each family in town. For some names you’ll see clippings from local newspapers going back into the nineteenth century, research relatives or librarians have done at some point in the past, and letters, papers, or journals that have been donated to the library. On other families we have very little information. For the history of the town, the schools, fire companies, libraries, buildings, and so forth, look in the brown file cabinets.”
She pointed at a shelf of binders. “Those are listings of local men and women who fought in our nation’s wars, and of the graves in local cemeteries. People want to know where their ancestors were buried, but that’s hard if we’re going back more than a hundred years. Markers or gravestones have been moved, and inscriptions have worn off. Some private burying grounds weren’t cared for and have pretty much disappeared.” She smiled at Maggie. “If there’s anything specific I can help with, ask, and I’ll see if I can find it.” She pointed at a box of cotton gloves on the table. “I know you’re a professor, so I’m sure you know to wear gloves while you’re handling old papers. When you’re through, leave everything you’ve looked at on the table. The librarian who’s working tonight will file it. We find that’s the best way to keep track of everything. Any questions?”
Maggie shook her head. “This is wonderful. Thank you, Rachel. I’m impressed that your archives are so open to the public.”
Rachel shrugged. “We don’t have the money to computerize them. We have to rely on people being careful. So far it’s worked. By opening everything this way we also hope people doing research will share their results with us, and add to our resources when they find something new, or are able to connect data in their own files, or in other archives. We get a lot of new information that way.”
Maggie took one more look around. “Is any of your material on microfilm? Or scanned? Or available on the computer in any way?”
Rachel shook her head. “Maybe someday. For now, we’re among the many archives in the country available to scholars and genealogists only in person.”
“My students believe anything worth knowing can be found on the Internet,” said Maggie. “Your archive is a wonderful example of how a lot of history is still sitting in boxes and envelopes and old books, waiting for people to find it, and as you said, connect bits of information into a story that allows us to understand what really happened in the past.”
Rachel laughed. “I don’t know how many puzzles are in this room, but there are certainly untold stories! Enjoy your time here. I have to get back to the front desk in case someone from this century wants to check out a book.”
Left alone, Maggie first looked out the window, toward the harbor. The Waymouth Library building had been a bank back in the nineteenth century. It sat high on a hill so it would have a clear view of vessels entering and leaving the harbor. Perhaps investors stood at this window, hoping for news of cargoes they’d invested in.
Several small sailboats and a lobster boat or two were on the river today. Two dozen boats of various sizes had tied up at the Waymouth Yacht Club or at private docks, but most of the river was empty.
What must it have looked like when it was full of three- and four-masted vessels that carried salted dried fish and lumber to the West Indies and Europe, and ice to China and India?
Rachel was right. Stories were hidden in these file cabinets and books. Will’s family, Carolyn’s, and so many others. If only there were a place she could find out about her own family.
Maggie brushed the thought away. Her fascination with history had grown in part because she knew so little about her own family’s place in it. She felt an almost magnetic attraction to a town where so many people knew where they’d come from, and why. Surely they understood themselves better, and could better understand their motivations, and their role in the future, because they knew their past and that of their parents and grandparents.
Or maybe that idea was just a fantasy. After all, who knew better than an American Civilization professor that each generation of Americans created themselves? And that many Americans invented their own histories.
She glanced at her watch: 10:15. Only forty-five minutes before she was to meet Betsy Thompson in the reading room. Which folder containing family history should she start with?
She resisted the strong urge to look under “B” for Will’s family, Brewer, and instead looked for the family of the girl who’d written the journal that seemed important to so many people.
Who was Anna May Pratt?
Chapter 19
“April.” Sweet Victorian lithograph of little girl wearing pink dress and large pink hat, wiping away tears, in the rain. One of a series of Babes of the Year published by Frederick Stokes in 1888. Illustration by Maud Humphrey (1865-1940), one of the foremost American illustrators of babies and children in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Today Humphrey is best remembered as the mother of actor Humphrey Bogart. Her drawings were, and are still, reproduced in ceramics and as dolls. 7.5 x 9 inches. Price: $70.
The folder for the Pratt family was not very thick. Maggie pulled it out and took it over to the oak table.
On a yellowed sheet someone had lightly penciled: “Caroline Smith, b. in Augusta, m. Albert Pratt, place of origin unknown, moved to Waymouth post-Civil War. On roll Congregational Church, 1868. Children: Anna May, b. 1871, d. 1893; Sarah, b. 1874.”
There. That was her Anna May of the diary, and her younger sister, Sarah.
Anna May died only three years after she had written the diary. She’d been very young. No date of death was listed for Sarah. Perhaps she’d still been alive when this page was written.
Maggie turned to another page.
“Sarah Pratt, m. Enoch Newall, 1894. Children: Josephine, b. 1897; Louis b. 1899; Henry b. 1904; Margaret b. 1906; Susan b. 1909.” Susan Newall! That would be Carolyn’s Aunt Susan, who’d just died.
A grand old woman, the youngest of Sarah’s children, and no doubt the last alive. Aunt Nettie would probably know more about the others. Again, no dates of death listed, or marriages for the children. But Anna May, of the journal, the excited young woman who had posed for Winslow Homer, would have been Susan’s aunt.
On the last page in the file a yellowed clipping was taped: “United in marriage in Portland, September 13, 1891, Miss Anna May Pratt of Waymouth and Mr. Luke Trask of Waymouth.” Underneath it someone had written, “Kathleen Elizabeth Trask, born April 2, 1891, Waymouth.”
Kathleen. That would be Helen Chase’s mother; Carolyn’s grandmother! So Anna May had married Luke, the young man who was fishing in the Outer Banks, and given birth to baby Kathleen six and a half months later.
At the end of the folder was a note: “For Helen Chase, see Artists of Waymouth file.” I’ll do just that, thought Maggie. Thanks for the tip, Anonymous Librarian.
If there had been any doubt that Anna May Pratt of her journal was related to Helen, and then to Carolyn, this note was the answer. Anna May was Helen’s grandmother, and Carolyn’s great-grandmother.
But why was that important to Betsy Thompson? The journal did prove that Anna May was among the young Maine women who posed for Winslow Homer, but why should that be important to the Thompson family? Anna wasn’t a Thompson.
Clearly there was more to know.
“Dr. Summer?”
Maggie looked up. “Yes?” The young man speaking looked very familiar but for a moment she couldn’t place him. She was still back in the 1890s, wondering why Anna May had died so young. In childbirth? An accident? Fever of some sort?
“I’m Kevin Bradman. We met at the genealogy meeting.”
“Of course.” Maggie collected her thoughts. “You’re writing your dissertation on Maine artists. I’m sorry to have taken a second to place you.”
“I know what it is to get totally inv
olved in these papers,” Kevin said companionably, joining her at the table. “I’ve spent a lot of hours here. It’s tempting to pick up just one more folder and see if you can find another story, or the continuation of one.”
“Exactly. That’s what I was thinking,” agreed Maggie. “I’m amazed at how openly the library shares information. You know what most university and historical society archives are like: they practically fingerprint you before you enter.”
Kevin nodded. “I’ve had my driver’s license and student ID copied. To access some stacks I’ve had to have a letter of introduction on file ahead of time from the head of my department. Here, you just sign your name and walk in.” He looked at Maggie’s hands. “At least you’re wearing the cotton gloves. I’ve been here days when people weren’t even using them.”
She shook her head. “Well, I’m taking mine off now. I have to meet someone downstairs. I assume we put the ones we’ve worn in the basket over there?” She pointed at a brightly painted blue basket on the table just inside the door.
“Exactly,” said Kevin, reaching over and pulling on a clean pair himself. “My turn to put some on.”
“What are you researching today?” Maggie asked idly, as she picked up her canvas bag.
“I’m checking what buildings, inns, stores, and so forth were here in the 1920s and ’30s. I’m writing about the artists, as you remembered, but I want to be sure I don’t mention any of their local haunts in years the businesses weren’t open, or name the wrong proprietors.”
“Good luck with that! It was nice seeing you again.”
“And you,” said Kevin, opening his laptop.
The reading room downstairs was lined with bookshelves, but bright with sun from tall windows on each end. The windows were framed by the sort of inside shutters common in northern New England homes before such amenities as storm windows kept out the piercing winds of nor’easters.
Their views framed the Waymouth village green, still the center of the town, and the hill leading down Main Street to the Madoc River. The Waymouth Inn, where Maggie’d had lunch with Carolyn such a short time ago, was on the other side of the green, and the Congregational Church stood at the top of the hill, overlooking the village as it had for the past two and a half centuries.
I wonder if Anna May was married in that church, Maggie thought. She could picture Anna and her family stepping out into the sunlight after services on a summer day, and Anna giggling with her best friend about the adventures they were having that summer of 1890 with the old artist on Prouts Neck.
“Maggie! You’ve arrived ahead of me!”
Perhaps Betsy Thompson had just come from Cut ’n’ Curl, the local hairdressing salon, which one of Will’s many cousins owned and operated. In any case, every one of her various curls was certainly sprayed in place, and Maggie had to admit with a strange fascination, even her eyebrows looked as though either they, too, had been fastened in place, or not content with what nature had awarded her, she had drawn others on top of those already there. In any case, her eyebrows were memorable.
Maggie, in her relatively new jeans and T-shirt, had felt a bit “from away” at the auction house yesterday. Today, in a similar outfit, she felt what her secretary, Claudia, would have called “considerably unplanned.” Which if, like Claudia, you were from Bayonne, New Jersey, was not a compliment.
Betsy was definitely planned. Her jeans were a shade of blue that, if not made to order, should have been. “Skybluepink,” her father would have called them. And her tailored long-sleeved shirt, silk scarf, and hat all matched them. Maggie couldn’t resist looking to see if her socks matched, too, but of course, that was a ridiculous thought. It was August, after all. Betsy was wearing high-heeled sandals. Her toenails matched. Betsy Thompson definitely would have stood out in a crowd. Particularly a Waymouth crowd. How long had Aunt Nettie said she’d lived here?
Betsy waggled her left hand at Maggie, perhaps for exercise, and perhaps to show off the rock that was somehow attached to the third finger of her hand. “How long have you had to wait? I hope not long. I had some errands to do, and then I stopped at the front desk to chat with Rachel for a while. She’s the dear woman who works here. And here I am!”
Maggie nodded. Clearly, she was.
“Why don’t we sit down?” Maggie gestured at several dark red leather chairs grouped comfortably near the fireplace on the center wall of the room. “You called me,” she pointed out, once they were both seated.
“I did, indeed. This has been such a dreadful week for everyone. I heard you were the poor soul who discovered Carolyn’s body. What an awful experience! You must still be in shock. I would be in shock. I can’t imagine anything worse than that.”
“No,” said Maggie.
“Whatever have you been doing since then?”
Playing it very cool, thought Maggie. She said, “Some antiquing. My friend Will is doing an antiques show tomorrow, and I’ll be helping him. Maine is so lovely in the summertime; I’m very lucky to have friends here to visit. It’s like living inside a postcard, isn’t it? I was admiring the view down the street when you came in. I’m hoping to get down to see Pemaquid before I leave, and certainly eat more lobsters. And Maine blueberry pie is my very favorite.”
“Yes.” Betsy hesitated. Clearly she hadn’t expected to discuss tourist attractions. “And Carolyn’s estate. I understand you’re inheriting some of Carolyn’s papers.”
“I didn’t know Carolyn well, you know. Her estate hasn’t been probated yet. I believe she said she was leaving most of her things to the Portland Museum of Art.”
“Possibly. But that night we met here, at the genealogy meeting, she said she had a trunk of papers from her family. You were going to help her with them.”
“She did say that, didn’t she? She died so horribly, so soon after that.” Maggie looked down at her hands. “It’s sad to think of, Betsy. I would have liked helping her, of course. Now she’s gone.”
“And the papers?” Betsy leaned forward, as though Maggie was going to produce them at any moment.
“I assume they’d be in her house, which I understand the police have sealed. Or her lawyer has them. Wouldn’t you think that’s where they’d be?”
“I guess so. I just thought maybe...you might have them.” Betsy looked unconvinced. “It sounded that night as though Carolyn was going to give some to you.”
“Everything happened so fast. She wanted to read them first, before I looked at them. Wouldn’t you have wanted to read them first?”
“Well, yes.”
“By the way, at the meeting you mentioned that some people think your husband’s grandfather was Winslow Homer. Do you have any proof of that?”
Betsy leaned over, and spoke in a stage whisper. “It was a deep family secret for years. My husband’s father was conceived out of wedlock, you see. Winslow Homer never married.”
“I knew that.”
“So it wasn’t talked about outside the family until it could be...until the people involved were dead.”
“Winslow Homer died in 1910,” Maggie remembered.
“True enough,” Betsy agreed. “But the man who married his son’s mother, who made the poor boy legitimate, Wesley Thompson, didn’t die until 1925. It was after that his mother told him that he was Winslow Homer’s son.”
“No one knew until then?” asked Maggie.
“There were rumors, of course, but no one admitted anything,” said Betsy. “But the Thompsons have talent. That’s the real proof. Anyone looking at their work could tell that. It’s only those stupid galleries in New York who don’t believe their parentage without documents.”
“Galleries?”
“They’d hang my Winslow’s work in a minute if we could prove what everyone in Waymouth has known for years: that he is Winslow Homer’s grandson. Maybe they’d do a retrospective of three generations: Winslow Homer; his son, Homer Thompson; and now, Winslow Thompson. But they won’t even look at his canvases.”
“Of course!” Betsy broke into a wide smile. “Usually we have some of his oils displayed in one of our barn galleries, but this summer Winslow has been working so hard he hasn’t even taken the time to hang anything. But I’d love for you to see what we have. You might even know some galleries in New Jersey or New York we could contact.”
“My contacts are mainly for nineteenth-century prints,” Maggie pointed out.
“But there’s the nineteenth-century connection, my dear. Winslow Homer, remember! He’s family! You must come! Perhaps tomorrow?”
“I can’t tomorrow. I’m helping Will with the antiques show.”
“Then Sunday. Do come Sunday afternoon. About four o’clock. Bring your friend Will, too! We’ll have tea. What fun! You can see where everyone painted, and lived, back when there was an artists’ colony right here in Waymouth. Kevin can show you that part.”
“Kevin Bradman? It’s nice of you to think of inviting him, too. I’d like to get to know him better.”
“Invite him?” Betsy’s mouth laughed, although her amazing eyebrows never moved. “Maggie, I don’t have to invite Kevin. He’s living with Josh and me this summer. He’s right there with us, all the time.”
Chapter 20
Coming on the Coast of Massachusetts in a Snow Storm. Unsigned 1859 wood engraving from Harper’s Weekly showing three-masted schooner, displaying American flag, fighting to get to shore in a winter nor’easter. Shore, marked by a lighthouse, is on the right. 5.5 x 10 inches. Price: $95.