by Mary Hogan
As they crossed over the Conemaugh River—which now flowed placidly west—Elizabeth glanced east. Where the wall of water had barreled down from the mountaintop on that horrible day in May. It was obvious that the mountain lake had once been practically overhead. As Elizabeth had read, the people of Johnstown once looked up to see sailboats crisscrossing the sky. What curious geography, she thought. A lake in the heavens that caused such hell.
“Down there is the old Cambria Iron building.” Vida pointed through the windshield. “That Gothic steeple in the distance is the only downtown church to survive the big flood.”
They drove along Walnut Street in the shade of mature elms. Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen . . . Elizabeth fell into the comfort of counting. Vida steered past the stately Flood Museum that was once the Cambria Free Library. Its goldenrod-brick building was built with funds donated by Pittsburgh’s titan of steel, Andrew Carnegie—one of the few members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club to attempt to make amends for the destruction his club had wrought. The museum’s silhouette etched the sky with its pointy dormers and fluted chimneys.
Breathing with deliberate evenness, Elizabeth kept asking herself, Am I really here? Was Elizabeth Haberlin really here? My birth mother, too? Is this really happening?
“. . . an historic block,” Vida continued. “The old post office is on that corner, City Hall is on that corner, an apartment building from the 1900s, one of our first theaters . . .”
Elizabeth listened through the loud pulsing in her ears.
Vida steered the car along Locust Street, past a perfectly square park with a starfish-shaped pathway in the grass. All points led to the round fountain with its gurgling water arching from—one, two, three—Elizabeth counted four open mouths of watchful marble lions.
“Our Central Park,” Vida said with a sweep of her open palm. “Not quite New York City, but home.”
At the mention of the word “home” Elizabeth winced slightly. Next to her in the front seat, Vida noticed.
“This must be overwhelming,” she said.
From behind her, York rested one hand on Elizabeth’s shoulder and squeezed. Elizabeth confessed, “It is a bit surreal.”
Slowing, Vida said. “I have an idea. Can you handle a small detour?”
“Um—”
York asked, “Where to?”
“Someplace that will make it more real.”
From the backseat, York said, “I’m in.”
Despite her nerves, Elizabeth laughed. York was so easygoing, so sunny, so very like Valerie, what was he doing with a dark cloud like her? She shrugged. Then nodded. She was in, too. Of course she was. After coming this far, how could she not go all the way?
After circling the square park, Vida backtracked down Main Street to Market. Then she took a left. At Lincoln, she made a right. Elizabeth stared out the window and breathed. In. Out. Repeat. She had never seen such an old town. Sturdy square brick structures with arched windows, slate roofs, buttresses, peaked dormers, rectangular columns. And she thought the Beverly Hills Library—built in the 1960s—was old!
“What the . . . ?” At the end of Vine Street, York leaned forward. Elizabeth tilted closer to the windshield. She, too, was agog. Ahead was an extraordinary sight. She’d never seen anything like it. A long, thin strip of railroad track ran vertically up the side of a steep mountain.
“That can’t possibly be a train track,” York said, astonished.
Vida grinned. “You’ll see.”
She steered her car straight to it. At a small kiosk at the base of the mountain, Vida bought a ticket. Then she slowly drove into the belly of a single railcar at the base of the mountain and cut the engine. Other cars were parked inside the rail carriage, too. With a small jolt, the railroad car began to rise. Straight up the mountainside. Impossibly, they were all being ferried up the hill. Seemingly floating upward in midair.
“Is this even possible?” York asked, grinning.
“It’s called the Inclined Plane. Our version of an express elevator.”
“Like the one at Kittanning Point near Horseshoe Curve?”
“Similar, but steeper. Wait till you see the view.”
She was right. At the top of the mountain, Vida drove out of the railcar and parked. They exited the car into a perfectly warm day. Outside, Elizabeth felt the sun on her face and the mountain breeze ripple through her loose hair.
“Check this out.” Vida waved them over.
An observation deck jutted out from a ledge in the mountain. At its railing, Elizabeth and York saw a truly stunning sight. The whole of Johnstown stretched before them. They were so high up, the buildings looked like Monopoly pieces. “That’s the library down there,” Vida said. “The Flood Museum over there, way over there is the old iron works, and around that little bend . . . see it? There’s the stone bridge.”
“The stone bridge?” Elizabeth’s jaw dropped.
“Yep.”
York asked, “What about it?”
“If not for that old bridge,” said Vida, “there would be no Elizabeth and no me. For us, that bridge connected two worlds.” She paused to let the notion sink in. Then she added, “Speaking of which—” With a wave of her hand, she motioned for Elizabeth and York to get back in the car.
In silence, they snaked through fields of pink and white mountain laurel, past dirt paddocks and farmhouses. In the saffron sunlight, Elizabeth felt herself relax. Her outing began to feel more like a great field trip than a journey into her genetics. Vida, while still a stranger, was nice. Now that she’d stopped pawing her.
Onward they drove. Through shade tunnels of yellow birch dotted with the flickering green tails of the towhees. Dogs barked from front porches as they drove past. Neighbors acknowledged one another with nods. At the crest of a hill, Vida slowed and flipped on her turn signal again. The tires made a crunching sound as she veered off onto a patch of gravel and parked. Again, Elizabeth’s jaw dropped. “Is that—?”
“Can you believe it’s still standing?” Vida grinned.
“What is that?” asked York.
“The clubhouse,” Elizabeth said in a near whisper. “Oh my God. I saw pictures of it online, but I didn’t realize it was still here.”
Opening the passenger door, Elizabeth stepped out of the car and into the past. Almost in a trance, she walked across the gravel parking lot to the side stairs. She stood where Elizabeth Haberlin had stood—at the foot of the clubhouse stairs, where debutantes chattered with one another, gazed out over their lake, waited for servants to bring tea cakes and lemonade. Where the moneyed once met for croquet and archery. Where Elizabeth’s great-great-great-grandmother turned her back on her birthright.
“In a way,” Vida said to Elizabeth, “you began right here. As did I.”
The clubhouse—long abandoned—was now a sagging three-story structure of splintered wood. Locked to visitors, it was owned by the National Park Service. Elizabeth ventured up the front steps onto the weathered porch that ran the length of the building. She turned and stood at the railing as Elizabeth Haberlin had for so many summers, so many years ago. She looked at Lake Conemaugh. Only now, impossibly, the dry lakebed was filled with houses. A whole neighborhood. In the gently sloping valley that was once the bottom of a lake, there were backyards and tipped-over bikes and barbecue grills. Sidewalks and roads. The muck at the bottom of the lake was now patches of front and back lawns.
Is this really happening? Am I really here?
“The boardwalk was here.” Vida pointed to a residential street in front of the clubhouse. “Over there, the stables. Back there, the outhouse.”
“And the dam?”
“Down that way. It’s totally gone now. But Colonel Unger’s old farmhouse is still on the north shore, so to speak. The Park Service bought it after he died.”
“He lived there after the flood?”
“He did. He returned to South Fork and, for the rest of his life, he walked out of his house to see the gaping hole that was once his
lake. I think he probably stayed here to pay penance for what he did, or what he allowed to happen.”
York was bursting with questions, but he wisely remained mute. They had a long train ride back to Pittsburgh that night. Elizabeth would explain it all then.
“Want to see a cottage?” Vida asked.
Elizabeth’s heart pinged. “The Haberlin cottage?”
“I wish we still had that house in our family. No, it was torn down years ago. As far as we know, after the flood, Elizabeth Haberlin never came up here again. Her family cut her off when she refused to return to Pittsburgh. And when she married Eugene, well—”
Nothing more needed to be said. Elizabeth Haberlin had done the unthinkable in those days: she chose love over money.
“Follow me,” Vida said. Elizabeth and York followed.
As they walked along the narrow road that was once the boardwalk at the edge of Lake Conemaugh, Vida led Elizabeth and York on a journey into the late 1880s. “Elizabeth Haberlin was an amazing woman,” she began. “When she married Eugene Eggar—a blacksmith from Johnstown—her parents disowned her. As did everyone in her social circle. I heard there was an attempt at reconciliation after their son was born.”
“Did they?” Elizabeth asked.
“No. Her mother could never accept the new life she chose. Her brother visited once, years later. He became some Wall Street bigwig. Ever hear of the Haberlin Fund?”
Elizabeth and York both shook their heads no.
“Henry Haberlin made fortunes for all his friends before losing everyone’s money in the stock-market crash of 1929.”
“Ouch,” said York.
“Yeah. Though it was hard at times, Elizabeth Haberlin had a happier life. Did you know she worked with Clara Barton?” Vida asked.
“Sort of. I knew they met here.”
“Clara stayed in Johnstown for five months after the flood. She supervised the building of five Red Cross hotels. Elizabeth Haberlin helped her run them. She brought her piano down from the cottage and hosted elegant teas each afternoon. Clara—and Elizabeth—both believed in the healing power of civility. Wouldn’t the world be a better place if we all thought that way today?”
“Tea instead of Kalashnikovs,” said York.
With York a few steps ahead, they wound around the neighborhood that was filled with the chirping sounds of kids playing.
“Throw the ball! Catch it, catch it!”
How many of those kids know they are playing at the bottom of a lake? Elizabeth wondered. Do they pass by the clubhouse so frequently they don’t even see it? Does anyone still care about what happened here?
“There.” Vida pointed up a small incline. “One of the remaining cottages.”
York laughed. “That’s a cottage?”
Resembling a turreted castle, the three-story maroon-brick house had a pointed roof, peaked dormers, and a wide slatted veranda that ran the length of its front façade.
Always a porch, Elizabeth thought. Where her blood relatives sat and rocked and stared at the ripples in their private bass-stocked lake.
“I think there are six cottages left from the original sixteen,” Vida said. “Some of the flood’s homeless survivors eventually made their way up to the abandoned cottages, but Eugene Eggar was a blacksmith at the steel mill. He would want to live in town. And, when his son grew up, he, too, worked at the mill. As did Eugene’s grandson. They considered it the family business.”
York was impressed. “Cambria Iron kept on kicking.”
“Thank God for that mill. Generations have worked there. A few years after the flood, it became Cambria Steel, then Midvale Steel, then the biggie: Bethlehem Steel. Our mill helped build America. My dad—your granddad, Elizabeth—was a machinist there until the mill closed for good in the 1990s.”
Elizabeth swallowed at the mention of a grandfather. How could a man she’d never met be her grandfather?
“Ready for lunch?” Vida asked. She reached up and ran her long fingers down the length of Elizabeth’s wavy hair. They both knew what “lunch” meant: getting back in the car and driving down the mountain to the Johnstown, Pennsylvania, home where Vera Sinclair Eggar was born, grew up, lived, loved, and (maybe) conceived her.
Elizabeth Parker—daughter of Val and Gil, sister of Scott, niece of Vida—felt a surprising rush of calm.
“I’m ready.”
Beneath the impossibly blue sky in the stunning Allegheny Mountains near the old South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club, she was—at last—prepared to hear the rest of her story.
CHAPTER 52
JOHNSTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA
Present
The Eggar home was a brick box of a house compared to the spacious cottage up the mountain. As they pulled into the driveway in the seasoned residential neighborhood—alongside other compact homes with a similar look—Vida said, “Eugene Eggar built this house after the flood. Dad has rebuilt it over the years.”
Once again, Elizabeth was stunned to see a structure from the nineteenth century still standing. And the same family living in it. In Southern California, so few people even had an old face. And if a building wasn’t shiny and new, developers tore it down to make it so.
“Progress,” they said. “Evolve or go extinct.”
It was a comfort to see residents living with history. How narcissistic to believe that now was the only important moment.
Vida cut the engine and stepped out of the car. Elizabeth and York followed. A bursting apple tree grew in the center of the yard. The one-car garage—obviously an addition—was open and filled to capacity. A large workbench occupied the car space. Every imaginable tool was hung neatly on pegboards along all the walls. A lawn mower, circular saw, lathe, and air compressor were lined up on the cement floor like eager employees ready to go to work. A metal garbage can was filled with wood scraps. York gawked, openmouthed.
“There you are.” A man in his seventies pushed open the front screen door with fingers bent by arthritis. His hair was fog gray and wispy; his eyes were two green grapes.
“Dad, meet Elizabeth and York.”
“Elizabeth,” he said, gruffly. “I see.”
Vida climbed the front steps and held the door. As Elizabeth opened her mouth to greet the old man, Gene Eggar turned his back and walked into the house. Vida shot Elizabeth a commiserating look. York was undeterred.
“Nice to meet you, sir.” He marched into the living room with an extended hand. Gene was already seated in his favorite chair. “Looks like you’re handy with power tools.”
Gene grunted and shook York’s hand before flicking his wrist as if to invite them to sit anywhere. Elizabeth’s heart pounded so loudly she was sure everyone could hear it. The tight room was crammed with mismatched furniture. A sagging brown plaid sofa, Shaker-style rocker, a frayed easy chair with a red velvet pillow on the seat. It smelled of lemon Pledge and stale cigars. Something garlicky? An old upright piano blocked a portion of the front window. Gene sat on a vinyl recliner and stared at his Velcro-strapped shoes. Vida said, “Make yourselves comfortable. Apple cider? I made some this morning from our own apples.”
“Wow. Yes. Please.” As before, Elizabeth had the strong urge to flee. Real cider or not. How far was that train station? Walkable? Runnable?
“Sit, sit,” said Vida as she disappeared into the kitchen. “I won’t be but a minute.”
They sat on the brown plaid couch. York leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. Elizabeth set her backpack on the floor at her feet. She breathed with deliberation. In. Out. Repeat. Scanning the dingy room, she noticed a smattering of framed family photos on the mantel over the fireplace, its brick facing blackened by use. A surge of electricity shot down her arms. Was her birth mother pictured there? Had she sat exactly where Elizabeth was sitting now?
“Original oak?” York bobbed his head toward the staircase to the left of the front door.
“Throughout,” Gene said.
“These old houses were sure built to last.�
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Gene grunted again. “I’ve fixed it up here and there. Though I wouldn’t call linoleum an improvement.”
York chuckled. Elizabeth fiddled with the sharp spike of a hangnail on her thumb. Glasses clattered in the kitchen. Abruptly, Gene looked straight at Elizabeth and said, “Vida tells me you live in that godforsaken state, California.”
Elizabeth’s cheeks reddened. “I do, for now. But I don’t like it very much. Too sunny.”
“Your mother also disliked the sun.”
At the mention of her birth mother, another current of electricity shot down Elizabeth’s arms. Again she felt disloyal to Valerie—the only mother she’d ever known.
“You’re the spitting image of her,” Gene said, flatly. “But I guess Vida told you that.” Twisting his neck toward the kitchen, he shouted, “Vida!”
“Coming.”
York asked, “Have you lived here your whole life?”
“No reason to go anyplace else. Vida!”
His daughter scuttled in with four sweating glasses on a tray. “Here we are,” she said, breathless.
“Let me help you with that.” York stood and flew over to her. Elizabeth sat like a wart on a witch’s nose. She felt paralyzed, unable to do more than furtively examine Gene Eggar’s face for traces of herself. Had his genetic pool contributed her cheekbones, the slight ridge at the tip of her nose? Would her fingers look like knotted rope when she was old? Gene glanced at her with a downturned mouth.
“The chicken is almost done,” Vida said, looking slightly sweaty. “A few more minutes in the oven.”
Elizabeth nearly groaned out loud. She was roasting a chicken? It was so formal, so time-consuming. No way could they swallow a few bites and run. York set the cider tray down on the oak coffee table. Vida sat on the red velvet chair. Elizabeth tried to help in some way, but she didn’t trust her hands to grip anything. They, too, felt numb. Her ears buzzed. She’d made a huge mistake. What exactly had she hoped to find here?
York took one sip of his apple cider and his eyes fluttered shut. “Now, that’s what I’m talking about.”
Overlaughing, Vida said, “Our apple tree is over a hundred years old.”