by Mary Hogan
“What is it?”
“Something to read on the train. An Eggar family tradition. We pass it on to our offspring. Meaning, it’s now meant for you.”
Elizabeth held the envelope, unsure what to say.
“No arguments. Put it away. Read it later,” Vida said. “It’s something to take with you . . . through life.”
Elizabeth nodded. Vida hugged her niece hard and whispered, “Now that we’ve met, you’re welcome to visit anytime. I’ll always be here.”
Surprising herself, Elizabeth threw her arms around Vida and hugged her—hard—right back.
As they descended the stairs to the front door, Elizabeth stopped and turned around. “Oh. I almost forgot,” she said. “I have one more question. The breast cancer gene?”
Vida laughed. “That Ashkenazi thing? Pfft. You’re probably fine. I’ve been tested, and I was negative. You can get tested, too, down the road. For now, forget about it. Relax and live your life.”
Funny, that’s exactly what she planned to do.
CHAPTER 55
THE ALLEGHENY MOUNTAINS
Present
By the time they reached Horseshoe Curve around the old Altoona reservoir, York was deeply asleep. The train shimmied side to side. Elizabeth listened to the sound of his breathing. It reminded her of the ocean. Ebbing and flowing. The endless motion of life. The final sound her birth mother heard before jumping.
Glad she’d come, Elizabeth was even happier to be going home. She couldn’t wait to open the pool-house door and wrap her arms around her mom’s shoulders, inhaling Valerie’s apricot shampoo.
Quietly, she stood up and crawled around York to reach the overhead rack where she’d stashed her backpack. With the sun darkening to orange, she untied the top string and pulled the pack open. She reached in and retrieved the manila envelope Vida had given her. Then she shut her pack and carefully crept back to her seat by the window. In the fading light of the Allegheny foothills, she opened the envelope and pulled out a letter. An old letter—encased in a plastic page protector. Her heart lurched when she saw who wrote it: Elizabeth Haberlin, Johnstown, Pennsylvania, 1892. The heading read “Letter to my future child.”
Darling Son or Daughter,
You are almost born. Only two more months. At times, I am certain you are a boy for your strong kicking. Just as often, I am convinced that your father and I have created a feisty girl. Either way, we are both so very eager to meet you.
I am writing this letter in a moment of tranquility. The past years have been filled with many joys and sorrows. I have come to understand much about life from the depth of both emotions. I now know the heart’s capacity to be filled as well as broken. I have seen propriety supplant love. I have also witnessed love triumph over all. One thing I know for certain is this: You will be born with the strength to survive whatever may come your way. You could not be our offspring otherwise.
In my imagination, I envision you with my dark hair and eyes. I fear you will inherit my stubbornness, too. And I pray you will grow up with your father’s goodness and generosity of spirit. In all of the world, I could not have made a better match. God smiled upon me. Yet, of all the qualities your father and I might pass on to you, my dearest child, I hope you are blessed with one quality above all others: a mind that is yours alone.
Please remember this, dear one: Birth is not fate. You must create a destiny that is yours. Uniquely yours.
Many voices will seek to influence you in your long life. Sad experience has shown me that even family members can disappoint. And so, as I await your entrance into the world, I have but one request for you to hold dear. When those around you are shouting or commanding or cajoling, find a quiet corner away from all distraction. Still yourself long enough to hear one—and only one—voice. That is the voice inside you. The judgment of your heart. Forever follow your heart’s direction and you shall never be led astray.
Yours Affectionately Forever,
Mother
Leaning back against the soft cushion of the train seat, Elizabeth pressed the letter to her chest. Her heart beat into it. At that moment she knew one thing for sure: everything was going to be okay.
Suddenly an idea popped into her head. The topic for a new college essay. She would tell her story. Her history. She would pose the question she’d wondered for years: Is DNA your destiny? Now she knew the answer.
Beside her, York stirred. He yawned and stretched his arms overhead. Elizabeth saw a flash of his tanned stomach, the ripple of muscle beneath his smooth skin. Seeing the letter, he sleepily asked, “Words of wisdom for you, Elizabeth?”
Looking into York’s kind eyes, seeing his generous soul, she grinned. “Call me Lee. It’s the name my mother gave me.”
EPILOGUE
Photo courtesy of the National Railroad Museum
On a train to Johnstown, Pennsylvania
Some years later . . .
I was once a woman enamored with numbers. I don’t know why. It has simply always been a part of me. Even as a child, I counted leaves fallen on my windowsill in the chilly breezes of fall, the number of steps from our parlor in Upper St. Clair to Father’s medical office in an outbuilding on our property, the way certain birth dates added up to certain numbers, the manner in which a person’s numerical age defined them or did not.
But after May 31, 1889—numbers I once would have added together to seek their deeper meaning—I ceased to care about sums and figures. Humanity is all that matters to me now. Human kindness. The simple understanding that we are not alone on this earth. Ours is a journey of a million hearts, beating as one. For it is history—not humanity—that remembers our horror in numbers:
Ten: Minutes it took for Lake Conemaugh and its gathered wreckage to destroy a town of thirty thousand.
Three: Days the fire burned uncontrollably at the stone bridge.
Eighty: Souls who perished while trapped, alive, in the fire and rubble at the bridge.
Thirty: Acres of the debris field at the stone bridge.
Twenty million: Tons of water in Lake Conemaugh that careened downhill to Johnstown.
Forty: Miles per hour the massive wave sped into town.
Two thousand two hundred and nine: Final tally of the dead.
Ninety-nine: Entire families killed by the flood and fire.
Three hundred ninety six: Children killed.
Seven hundred and fifty: Bodies too mutilated or burned to identify.
Nineteen hundred and eleven: Year the final body was found. Twenty-two years after the flood. Bodies were discovered as far away as Cincinnati—more than 350 miles away.
Forty: Additional deaths from the typhoid outbreak caused by unsanitary conditions following the flood.
Zero: Members of South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club who stepped forward to accept responsibility.
Zero: Owners or managers of the club ever held accountable for the negligence of the dam’s repair and maintenance.
For me, I do not remember that awful day in statistics. In the misty gray light of that sunless day in May, on that fortress of a bridge, I witnessed sights so gruesome I cannot, to this day, speak of them without weeping. Nightmares are my constant companion. For years, I feared sleep. Yet I forced myself to relive—night after night—what we had wrought in the chilling vibrancy of my troubled mind. I would not—could not—turn away from it.
Yet, in the end, my biggest memory of May 31, 1889, is one of birth, not death. For on that day, in the aftermath of such careless disregard for human life, I, Elizabeth Haberlin, daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Stafford Haberlin, of the Haberlins of Upper St. Clair, Pennsylvania, was born anew. After I saw and heard and felt what occurred that day, how could I ever go back to being who I was?
I could not. I did not. And my soul is ever richer for it.
The end.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This novel could not have been written without the generosity and expertise of Richard Burkert, President of the Johnstown Area Her
itage Association ( JAHA). Enormous gratitude, Richard, for the incredible tour of your fascinating town. Many thanks, also, to Park Ranger Nathan Koozer for allowing me to walk in the footsteps of history inside the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club clubhouse (wow!), to Ranger Doug Bosley at the Johnstown Flood National Memorial, Nikki Bosley and Caitlin Hucik at the Johnstown Flood Museum, Joe Koishal at the Heritage Discovery Center, and Kaytlin Sumner at JAHA, as well as Daniel Liedtke at the National Railroad Museum for their help securing the rights to the historical photographs. Thank you all for sharing your time and knowledge with this nosy writer.
In researching the modern-day parts of the book, my professional admiration goes out to author Elizabeth Brown Pryor for her meticulous biography, Clara Barton: Professional Angel. Thank you, as well, Andrew Vanderlinder of the American Red Cross. With your help, it was a joy discovering how amazing Clara Barton really was.
As every writer knows, from time to time we need a little change of scene to prime the creative pump. Mine was a week in Cape Cod at the beautiful Inn at the Oaks in Eastham, Massachusetts. Thanks to Lawrence Shapiro, for providing the perfect creative environment. Chapter 1 of The Woman in the Photo was written on an antique desk in front of the bay window in one of your lovely rooms.
As every author knows, it takes a team to transform an idea into a book. The words “thank you” don’t come close to my appreciation for the care and stellar abilities of my agent, Laura Langlie, and editor, Carrie Feron. Without the two of you, I would still be fumbling my way through a story I couldn’t quite figure out how to tell. Much gratitude, also, to Nicole Fischer for her cheerful finesse, and to everyone at William Morrow for making me so proud of my books.
Finally, to friends and family who expertly covered their confusion each time I said, “See, this lake was in the sky.” And to the man of my dreams, Bob Hogan, who has never once said anything less than “Go for it.” Endless love, my love, for taking the leap with me.
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Meet Mary Hogan
About the book
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When a Story Calls
Reading Group Guide
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About the author
Meet Mary Hogan
MARY HOGAN is the bestselling author of Two Sisters (William Morrow), a novel inspired by her own sister, Diane Barbera Coté (1953–2010). Other novels include the Young Adult titles The Serious Kiss, Perfect Girl, and Pretty Face (HarperCollins), as well as a series of four teen books beginning with Susanna Sees Stars (Delacorte Press). Mary lives in New York City with her husband, actor Robert Hogan, and their dog (who has the soul of a cat), Lucy. Video proof of Lucy’s cattiness can be seen on Mary’s website: maryhogan.com.
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About the book
When a Story Calls
I’M NOT SURE WHY, but I felt destined to write this book. The seed was planted twenty-four years ago in an off-Broadway theater on the far west end of Forty-Second Street. My husband, actor Robert Hogan, was in a play there called On the Bum, or the Next Train Through. Written by Neal Bell, it also starred Cynthia Nixon and Campbell Scott. In one scene, two characters sit on a ledge high above the stage, supposedly on the edge of an empty man-made lake. Staring downward, they muse about the day in 1889 when that lake destroyed the entire town below it. Though I love a good disaster story, I was more intrigued by geography. I remember thinking, How could a lake be directly overhead? Doesn’t a person look down at a lake from its shore, not up to a lake in the sky?
That scene, from that play, stuck with me. I was curious to know more about a lake in the clouds. So, I did what authors do: I went to the library. There, my mind was blown. Geography was the least of it. The real events of that tragic day in May 1889 were epic. It was a story of arrogance and indifference. The careless rich and the vulnerable working class. Billed by history as the Johnstown Flood, the destruction of humanity and property was really the result of a tidal wave more than a flood. The story of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, I felt in my bones, was one that needed to be told again. I had to write about it. Somehow. Someday.
Fast-forward several years . . .
In Pittsburgh on a book tour for my first young adult novel, The Serious Kiss, I rented a car and drove into the Allegheny Mountains to finally see Johnstown for myself. It was an hour and a half away. I remember the drive vividly. Lush with black cherry, yellow birch, maple, spruce, and hemlock trees, the mountain highway is tucked into a valley that leads to a road that winds downward into a pit where two rivers meet: Johnstown. Mountains rise up on all sides. Instantly, I felt swallowed up.
Equally as memorable was the drive up the mountain road leading to the remains of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club—once the private summer retreat for Pittsburgh’s elite. They were the owners of the man-made lake that was contained by the faulty dam that burst and set the tragic events in motion more than a hundred years ago. As I drove the path of the raging waters that caused such destruction and loss of life, I understood how easily the privileged class could ignore the threat their lake posed to the citizens in the valley below. They looked up, not down. Similar to the “one percent” today, they lived in a bubble. The very purpose of their summer getaway was carefree fun. They hired people to worry about such things as the failure of an earthen dam that would crumble and kill thousands.
Over the years, I would visit Johnstown three times. On each visit, I dove more deeply into its riveting history. Incredibly, the clubhouse that was once the center of activity in the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club is still standing. As are a few cottages. The old stone bridge is still there, too! Though the lake is long gone, you can drive the pathway of its destruction. And Johnstown itself—rebuilt after the devastating flood—is a testament to the resilience of the working-class people who make America great.
In my research, I read many excellent books on the flood, including: David McCullough’s The Johnstown Flood, Dr. Michael R. McGough’s The 1889 Flood in Johnstown, Pennsylvania and The Club and the 1889 Flood in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Richard A. Gregory’s The Bosses Club, Curtis Miner’s Down at the Club: An Historical and Cultural Survey of Johnstown’s Ethnic Clubs, Les Standiford’s Meet You in Hell, and Kathleen Cambor’s wonderful novel, In Sunlight, in a Beautiful Garden. I also spent hours of discovery in Johnstown’s amazing museums, and was given the tour of a lifetime by the president of the Johnstown Area Heritage Association, Richard Burkert.
Though my novel—including its main characters—is fiction, the actual flood and fire were so dramatic they required little embellishment on my part to bring that horrible day in May to life. There is written evidence that the club’s president, Benjamin Ruff, was notified of Johnstown’s serious concerns about the safety of the dam. Ruff famously replied, “You and your people are in no danger from our enterprise.”
Still, the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club was a private organization. While its membership roster is well known, including such luminaries as steel giants Andrew Carnegie and Henry Clay Frick, U.S. secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon, and U.S. senator and attorney general Philander Chase Knox, to my knowledge no record exists about who stayed at the clubhouse during which weeks, if ever. It is entirely possible that most members of the club never gave the dam—or the people of Johnstown—a second thought. It’s hard to fault the general membership for the disaster. Their fees paid a caretaker to manage such things as maintenance and repair.
Ultimately, many small misjudgments—installing fish screens over the spillway, lowering the dam to widen the roadway, ignoring the engineer’s report sent to the club’s president by a representative from Johnstown—plus relentless rainfall led to the dam’s catastrophic failure. I think of this often: how seemingly insignificant decisio
ns can snowball into disaster. It is a cautionary tale for us all.
In this book, I have tried to be fair and accurate to both the privileged and working classes. As the character Vera Haberlin says, “A leopard that is born a leopard and raised a leopard will never be a house cat.” If the story of Johnstown can teach us anything, my hope is that we all learn to be more mindful of the leopards and house cats that share the planet with us.
Finally, a word about fashion. I found myself dumbfounded by the endless nuances of fashion in the late 1800s. Countless hours of research were devoted to getting the outfits just right. Any blunders regarding corsets, bustles, hoop skirts, shirtwaists, sunbonnets, bowler hats, sack coats, and other frocks are sincerely regrettable. And any other historical missteps in this story are entirely my own. My intention was to honor the people who died on May 31, 1889, and to respect the current residents of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, who live each day with their town’s extraordinary history.
Reading Group Guide
1. In what way, if any, do the events leading up to the Johnstown Flood resonate today?
2. One of the major themes of the book is the question “Is biology destiny?” Do you believe you are born to be the person you are meant to be? Or, can fate be shaped by human will?
3. If you were the product of a closed adoption (sealed records) would you try to identify your birth parents? If so, why?
4. Should the members of the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club—essentially a timeshare—have been held legally accountable for the Johnstown disaster?
5. In 1889, a person’s clothes instantly identified his or her class. Do you think it’s the same today? Or are there other “class” identifiers that we use to judge people?