The Woman in the Photo

by Mary Hogan

  Oh, my cherished daughter, she begins. How joyous we are to hear from you. God has blessed us that you are safe. After being forced to leave the club without you, I was inconsolable. Were it not for the protection of Henry, I never would have departed without knowing what had become of you. My heart can rest now that I know you have survived nature’s fury.

  Why have you not come home? You say that you are well, but are you ill? Your father has sent a courier with this letter. As soon as we receive word that you are able to travel, he will dispatch Mr. Tilson to escort you home. We are all so very eager to see you again.

  Rest assured, my darling Elizabeth, that your brother and I are safe. One of Colonel Unger’s men knew of a small path on the north side of the lake and he escorted us out via carriage shortly after the accident. Such a dreadful business. We were soaked to the skin. Henry was in bed for nearly a week. It is only by God’s grace that we were able to escape.

  I beg you, dearest, stay away from that horrid hospital. Mr. Tilson will bring all the medical supplies your father can spare. Of course, your father cannot venture into a typhoid zone. Too many of his patients here rely on him. But Mr. Tilson will deliver the supplies to your Miss Barton and rescue you from danger. The generous members of the club have also pooled their resources to send one thousand blankets for the survivors. Warmth is on its way very soon.

  I am heartened to hear that you are fleeing back to the cottage. Father says this is best. You must stay away from the pestilence. Worry not, Mr. Tilson will find you up the mountain.

  Once you are home, my daughter, we will put this unpleasantness behind us. Mr. Ruff has already spoken to several club members and all have agreed to forfeit their memberships. How could anyone bear to summer at a lake that is gone? We shall find another place to restore our tranquility. Please don’t fret. Once you have returned to Upper St. Clair, you need never think about South Fork again.

  Oh! In all the apprehension over Henry’s well-being, and yours, I nearly forgot to tell you the good news. You have received a letter from Mr. Tottinger. We can relax. It is within an acceptable time period for him to confirm his intentions to escort you to your debut. Barely. I cannot imagine why he waited so long. Perhaps the post was delayed in England? No matter. All is well now. I have inserted Mr. Tottinger’s sealed letter in this correspondence. Of course, I knew you would not want me to read it before you did. But, when you return home, dear daughter, we shall pore over every word together.

  Yours affectionately,

  Mother

  For a moment, I hold Mother’s letter in my hand. I experience a strange sensation. It’s as if the last remains of my youth just now drained away. I feel the girl I once was vanish into the foggy air. Oddly, I see my mother—and my family—from afar. The way someone outside our social circle sees us. The way they have seen us with clarity for years. My vision is almost more than I can bear. I had always believed us to be kind and charitable. Did we not let Nettie and Ella and our other servants freely eat our food?

  Now profound anguish darkens my heart. From my current perspective down the hill—in the aftermath of what we so carelessly wrought—I see how blind we’ve been. For everyone up the mountain at the club, our needs were the only needs that truly mattered. Though we pretended to care about those in our employ, it was always exactly that: a feint. Never once did I imagine that my maid might not want to care for me. Or that Ida might prefer to cook for her own family. Even when I had the impulse to apologize to Nettie, it was only to make myself feel better. Like everyone else in my position, we enacted a pretense of kindness to satisfy the code of our class: propriety at all cost. Manners. The mask behind which we hide our selfishness. Now that I am able to see beyond the fog of privilege, I feel no other emotion but shame.

  That is, until I read my second letter.

  The familiar penmanship on the envelope is more flowery than Mother’s. And the return address is known to me, too.

  London, United Kingdom of Great Britain.

  With my heart pounding, I open the letter I have been eager to read for weeks. At last, Mr. Tottinger has made contact.

  The correspondence begins with the date: May 30, 1889. One day before the disaster. He writes from his home in London, clearly unaware of the tragedy that will transpire the following day.

  Dear Miss Haberlin, he begins. My deepest apologies for this delay in writing to you. You have been much on my mind, as I have been troubled greatly by the news I must impart.

  Several weeks after my family returned to England, after my many letters to you, I spoke to Father about my increasingly warm feelings toward you. I thought it unwise to declare my feelings to my family until I, myself, was sure of them. Which I was, indeed.

  After Father and I spoke, he naturally had his man inquire more deeply into your family. Had we spent more time together, I am sure you would have revealed the information Father uncovered. I fault you not for my ignorance.

  As I am certain you are aware, I am duty bound to keep my bloodline pure. Before our journey to your lovely club, I was assured that all the ladies there had impeccable pedigree. It was, therefore, quite shocking for me to discover that your grandfather and grandmother on your maternal side were born in Safed, Galilee. As I am sure you know, before immigrating to Pittsburgh, they fled to Germany following the pogrom in their country of origin. I believe your mother’s brother, Avrum, perished in that massacre? My sincerest condolences to her family.

  Naturally, given the tragedy with her son, it is understandable that your grandmother would end her life in the manner that she did. Still, as I trust you will understand, my solemn obligation to my family is to keep scandal and other impurities from dishonoring our line.

  It is, therefore, with a heavy heart that I must sever all contact with you. I hope that I have not dishonored myself by leading you to believe we might enjoy a future together.

  I delighted in our limited time at your beautiful and tranquil lake. Forever, it will be a pleasant memory.

  Ever your acquaintance,

  James Tottinger

  After reading this letter, I can scarcely breathe.

  CHAPTER 44

  Courtesy of the Johnstown Flood Museum Archives, Johnstown Area Heritage Association

  JOHNSTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA

  June 10, 1889

  My fury knows no bounds. The impudence! First, to condone a stranger ferreting through the tragic history of my poor grandparents. Then, to disparage my grandmother for her inability to endure the memory of the mass murder that took her only son? What an outrage. I am beyond grateful that I learned of Mr. Tottinger’s petty character before I was fooled into thinking him a suitable husband. Let him drown in his pure blood.

  If not for the calming influence of my new friend, Clara, I would have used that despicable letter as fuel to keep us warm in the encampment.

  “You may want to respond at a later date,” Clara said, resting her warm hand on my shoulder the way I have seen her do for so many others. Her very presence is a tonic. I have much to learn from her about serenity. “I will keep it for you in my desk,” she said, “along with your other letter.” Then she reminded me, “We have too much to accomplish here to occupy our minds with nonsense.”

  Nothing could be truer. I get back to work.

  Ever since the horror of the flood, my days have been a blur of fatigue, crushing sorrow, and purpose. At first, along with every other able body, I didn’t leave the stone bridge until the last cries stopped. In vain, we dug through rubble so vast and deep I have heard it will take more than a year to clear it out. My arms were bloody, my dress shredded. I didn’t care. No one did. We ate scraps of food anyone handed us, drank precious sips of water. We slept only when we fell over, unconscious. After three days of fire—such howling as could not possibly come from a human—the torture of the damned was tragically silenced. It was the only blessing left for those poor souls. The stench of burning flesh melded onto my skin. By the third day, I felt nothing
. I was numb. Even my anguish had dried up. That day, some kind gentleman with hands like leather gingerly led me to a makeshift tent. There, on top of a blanket spread out on the hard earth, I fell into a sleep so deep I did not awake until two days later. That’s when I met Miss Barton. She stood before me like an angel, cleaning the mud off my face.

  Today, Johnstown is oddly alive. Reporters are buzzing about, inflating the already dire numbers of dead. More undertakers have arrived from all over the East Coast, as have coffins and volunteers of all sorts. Even, it soon becomes evident, nefarious sorts. Gawkers, hobos looking for free food, ghoulish thieves intent on looting corpses. In the aftermath, I see both the best and worst of humankind.

  This afternoon, I have an emotional task. Mr. Eggar is escorting me up the mountain. He has been able to repair a large wagon he found amid the rubble. Incredibly, Georgie and Mady were discovered peacefully grazing on a far piece of green. As if hell had not been burning all around them. Other workers cleared enough debris to create a dirt road that will lead us to the mountain road. Though I dread what I might see up at the club, I am eager to retrieve medicine from Father’s examining room in our cottage, plus clothes and anything else I can find that will help the destitute here.

  With the sun blazing as if summer had merrily skipped in, Mr. Eggar hooks up both horses and tosses coils of rope into the wagon. I tidy up by pinning my hair atop my head with the few fasteners I have left. Clara found me a clean shirtwaist somewhere. And, though Mr. Eggar’s home entirely was swept away, he has secured unsoiled clothing somehow, too. I dare not imagine what became of the poor souls who owned our garments.

  “Here.” Eugene extends his hand to help me onto the wagon’s perch. His forearms and hands are covered in cuts, yet he does not complain.

  “Are you all right?” I ask.

  He says, “I’m alive.”

  Between us is our unspoken grief. We are both without our families, though for vastly different reasons. Only today do I see Mr. Eggar’s hope wither to despair. Even if someone were still alive beneath the rubble, he now silently accepts that they would certainly perish of exposure before rescue was possible. The destruction is simply too vast. The only promise of salvation lies in the prayer that a loved one was at the front of the ball of debris that thundered down the mountain. Before it was stopped at the stone bridge. It hurts my heart to hear survivors pray that a family member was swept downriver. The Conemaugh River flows for miles. Perhaps a floating log knocked them unconscious, saved from drowning by a tangle of shoreline bramble? Perhaps a broken limb has forestalled their journey home? Such are the desperate longings of the families.

  As Clara advised me, I strive to be a silent presence at Eugene’s side, ready to listen when he is ready to talk.

  At first, Mr. Eggar leads the horses on foot. Slowly, we slog through the thick mud. I try to jump down to help, but he will not have it. “I am still a gentleman,” he says. A fact I cannot deny. He has shown me thus many times over. With the weight of the wagon’s four large wheels, it is slow progress.

  Once we near Cambria City, we see a viable road. There, Eugene cleans off the wheels with his bare hands and sets us upon an uphill journey that passes through South Fork. Like an eerie dream, the town of South Fork is nearly completely intact. The houses, tucked into the hill, stand as they have always stood. Clapboard façades, sagging porches. It’s clear that the rushing water ran in a violent river below them. As we slowly roll past, residents emerge from their homes to wave forlornly and stare with ghostly faces. Even though they survived the destruction, they, too, have peered into the depths of hell.

  Shame reddens my cheeks. How many times had I passed these very homes on my way to the club? Not once had I so much as noticed them before. Now I return their waves and nod. Now we share a silent bond.

  As we near the top of the hill, I see the most incongruent sight. It’s as if the landscape here has been scrubbed clean. Trees have been uprooted and swept away; there are no wildflowers to sprinkle color on the foliage beside the road. All that is left is a flat sheen of dirt, now dried in the sun.

  And then I see it. The dam. Or, what is left of it.

  My stomach lurches. It is a repulsive sight. Jutting out from the right and the left are remnants of the original beastly structure. But the center is completely gone. A huge chunk has vanished. Washed down the mountain. It’s a startling gap, like front teeth punched through in a bloody bar brawl. It looks wrong—angry, defiant, wounded. The smell of dead fish and sunbaked manure is putrid. My hand flies up to my mouth. I cry out, “Dear God, what have we done?”

  Silent beside me, Eugene Eggar steers the horses around the dam—there is no crossing it—and together we see a sight even worse than the busted-through dam. Stretching as far as the eye can see is an enormous hole. It resembles a massive excavated pit. In puddles here and there, muddy water glistens. The air is thick with the stink of dead fish. They lie, arched and openmouthed, on the muddy lake bottom. Choked to death. It looks exactly the way it is: an immense lake that has been drained of all life.

  “Eugene,” I plead, “will you ever forgive us?”

  His face is expressionless. “I know my neighbors well enough,” he says softly. “Johnstown will eventually forgive the Bosses’ Club because it is the Christian thing to do.” He need not add more. I hear his unspoken words, as well: But we shall never forget.

  In soundless shock, we circle around to the north side of the empty lake. The rattle of the carriage is the only noise to pierce the eerie quiet. Even birds have stayed away. The sun mocks us. I tilt my bare face to the cloudless sky and feel the punishment of its burning rays.

  Suddenly there is movement ahead. A man on horseback passes the only house on the north side of the former lake: Colonel Unger’s farmhouse. It sits near the now-dry spillway on the very edge of the stinking pit. The spillway he refused to unclog. Once a lakefront home, the house is now—and forever will be—a daily reminder of his incompetence. The cavernous hole of murder on a massive scale.

  “This is private property!” the man shouts as we near.

  I nearly laugh. “Colonel Unger. It’s Elizabeth Haberlin.”

  He gallops up to us, breathless. “Miss Haberlin! I am so relieved to see that you are alive. I found your bonnet by the clubhouse. I feared the worst.”

  He looks away for a moment, guilty, then says, “I was able to get your mother and brother safely to Altoona.”

  “Yes. I was told.” My voice is icy.

  “Your servants are safe, too.”

  Mr. Eggar grips the reins.

  “I’m here to get the last of my things,” Mr. Unger says. “Are you on your way to Pittsburgh? I know a pathway out.”

  “Pittsburgh?” Eugene says. “Is that where you’re headed?”

  Colonel Unger swallows and falls silent.

  “I’ve come with Mr. Eggar to retrieve supplies from the cottage,” I say.

  I note a pulsing muscle in Eugene’s jaw. Mr. Unger sees it, too. He reaches a hand up to nervously smooth his white beard and mustache—both stained by tobacco or perhaps that morning’s coffee. His horse rears its head, chewing on its snaffle. To me, Mr. Unger says, “Surely you’re not going back to Johnstown?”

  “You are not, sir?”

  Perhaps it is my imagining, but I see redness flare in Mr. Unger’s cheeks. He will not meet my gaze. His pained expression does nothing to soften my countenance. “I was there,” he says, haltingly. “I saw—”

  He stops. I expect no further words. How can vowels and consonants describe what Mr. Unger saw? Eugene and I know this better than anyone. As Eugene tugs on the reins to direct the horses to move, Mr. Unger confesses, “I am in fear for my life. Several men from town have already been here looking for me.”

  “Can you blame them?” Eugene asks, staring. I stare, too, without a shred of deference. He deserves none.

  Mr. Unger does not reply. Instead, he quietly says, “The back doors of the cottages are a
lways left unlocked. No one will return here to retrieve their things, meager as they are this time of year. You’ll find bedding and soap, at the very least. Rudimentary medical supplies. More in your father’s office, of course. Some canned and preserved goods. Summer clothes left behind. Please take it all.”

  With that, the club’s caretaker kicks the haunches of his horse.

  “God bless both of you,” he says as he gallops into the woods surrounding what was once his beloved lake.

  CHAPTER 45

  Courtesy of the Johnstown Flood Museum Archives, Johnstown Area Heritage Association

  SOUTH FORK FISHING AND HUNTING CLUB

  June 10, 1889

  I stand on the access road behind our cottage and stare at the destroyed shoreline below. If I had tears left, I would crumple to the ground, weeping. As it is, I can only feel the emptiness that I see. Most of the boardwalk is washed away, but our cottage sits, undisturbed, overlooking the ghastly hole. When I see—and smell—the multitude of rotting fish that lie on the sand beneath our summer home, I am sickened anew. Screening the spillway so that fish couldn’t escape downriver? It’s unfathomable. Had our precious fish been left to swim freely, the rising water would have had a means of escape, too. Had the men of the Bosses’ Club been truly generous, instead of pretending to be humanitarians, thousands of souls might not have perished.

  Forever, they must live with that knowledge. As do I with my haughty inaction. Mr. Eggar warned me that our lake would one day be a murderer. How could I have so easily disregarded his pronouncement? He knew those mountains better than anyone. Until I die, I will bear that guilt. It pains me with each breath.

  Together, Eugene and I circle around to the front cottage door. I know it’s unlocked. In our idyllic retreat, no one ever felt the slightest hint of danger. Why would we? I now know we were the danger.