“Albert, bring out five more chairs!”
“Gosh, how many damn girls did Dame Marie invite?”
“Mind your business and be careful with the language.”
“Sol is coming. We’re meeting Papá at grandma’s house.”
“Fine, but before you leave, I want you to greet your sister’s friends. Learn to be polite. I want you to always be a gentleman, Albert.”
“I am!”
As Agatha walked into the house down the short hall that led to the kitchen, she paused and stepped into the dining room, from where she could see Sol parking his truck in front of the house. Agatha released her clenched hands, whispered, “Ah, damn!” She went to the kitchen for two vases with flowers that the housekeeper had prepared. With vases in her hands, she was in the dining room once more as Sol entered the foyer.
“Don’t you dare take him on the river!” She gazed directly into Sol’s eyes and rushed out to the garden.
The clouds grew whiter and larger over the deserts and the mountains. Somewhere it has to be raining, Albert thought. I’ve never seen the clouds climb that high. He heard cars. The doorbell rang once, twice, five times! Dame Marie’s Marlborough School friends were arriving. Agatha stood at his side as the girls, dressed in summer pastel dresses, greeted her and stood before him.
“Hello, I’m Albert Rivers, Dame Marie’s brother.”
The girls smiled, thanked him and moved on to the garden for punch, except for one, his sister’s best friend. Confidently, she offered her hand.
“Hi, I’m Louise Prescott Keller.” She took his hand and held it for an instant. She stood framed by the immense white clouds that rose high into the blue sky.
“Hello, I’m Albert.”
Although Albert remembered as a boy he had grown up with her and her sisters, now he saw this young woman with a young man’s eyes. She mixed in with her friends, leaving Albert perplexed and alone. From a short distance she caught his eye again. He looked at her as if they had known each other in this mature way all along.
Albert felt free and happy that he had completed his obligation to his sister, her friends and, of course, his mother. The clouds were incredibly soft and porcelain white. His uncle waited in the truck, ready to go meet Oakley. Albert started to walk out of the garden. The river water rose like the blood that streamed from his heart to his mind. He glanced at Louise once more and broke away from watching her. He jumped into the truck, sure that the rising water would bring good bounty for his family and for the River Mother’s house.
Sol and Albert drove to the old adobe on the river. They crossed the river on the Seventh Street bridge, built around 1923. The bridge probably would have to be reinforced or rebuilt. Parts of the bridge had wood construction, and in time the wood would give way to natural decay. Now, several bridges were under construction, and more were planned under the Los Angeles development plan approved by the city council. In the 1920s Los Angeles boomed as more people migrated to the fast-growing city. Attracted by jobs—in agriculture, manufacturing, construction, oil, the railroad, service and small commercial business—new immigrants from the East, Midwest, South and Europe kept arriving to avail themselves of the many opportunities in Los Angeles. Albert monitored this growth; it would mean more to him in the future.
As a child he had heard his parents quietly talk about the companies that competed with Sun Construction for big jobs and for the bridges over the Los Angeles River. When Louise formally introduced herself, it registered for the first time that she was the daughter of his parents’ biggest competitor. What came to mind were the many comments made about the Kellers. His family and Louise’s uncle, Philip, the founder and president of Keller Lumber, did not see eye to eye on business issues nor, perhaps more importantly, about the future of Los Angeles. Mr. Philip Keller had said that Los Angeles should be “a European city, a new Germanic center of wealth and culture in America,” and that the city council should encourage only Aryan entrepreneurs to settle in the heart of Los Angeles. Albert’s mother had worked with Mr. Philip Keller for several years at her father’s bank. She had been privy to job proposals and budgets for Keller Lumber until her father asked her not to handle any more business dealings for Keller. Eventually Agatha’s bank and her father’s law firm lost the Keller Lumber accounts.
Late at night when they thought their children slept, Oakley and Agatha discussed rumors that Philip Keller wanted to withdraw his niece Louise from the Marlborough School because the school director had accepted the Rivers girl, Dame Marie. Philip Keller had argued that accepting Dame Marie lowered the standards and the prestige of the school. At a school director’s meeting, Keller had said that “everybody knows what Oakley Rivers really is.” For a long time Albert had thought about what Mr. Keller meant, but not until recently, maybe at the time he shook Louise’s hand, did he begin to approach the emotional depths and true implications of her uncle’s words.
The sun was bright in a deep blue Southern California sky. As on so many other occasions, Albert had driven with Sol to meet his father at his grandparents’ house. But unlike those times, today there were so many more cars parked around his father’s pickup. Most of them were police cars. Even more police vehicles were strung along the path to the River Mother’s dwelling. While Sol and Albert walked rapidly toward the house, two police cars slowly escorted an ambulance up the bumpy path away from the River Mother’s shining home. Three Los Angeles Police officers followed them.
“Damn girls come here and the old witch takes care of their sin.”
The police continued talking and moving on as if Albert and Sol did not exist. At the entrance, police and several women and men argued with Oakley, who, with crossed arms, stood defiantly next to the River Mother.
“On her own, she came here after trying to take care of the problema herself. The poor girl hurt herself. It was a miracle that she was able to walk here. I fixed her. I cured her. Her parents should thank me for saving her life. It’s their fault! They want to blame me, throw me in jail! Tell them, Otchoo. I’ll die, I won’t go to jail.”
Oakley explained to the police and the parents what the girl’s situation was when she had arrived at the River Mother’s house. The officer in charge of the investigation—who had earlier referred to the River Mother as a “witch,” an “Indian hag” and a “Mexican healer”—seemed to understand what had happened and was siding with the River Mother, but the parents insisted she be arrested. Nevertheless, the officer refused, waving over a car and leaving the parents standing outside the entrance to the odd dwelling, where their daughter had been saved. Finally, the parents started to make their way up to the parking lot at the Ríos Adobe. Sol and Albert went to Oakley, who watched the police car disappear onto the Los Angeles streets. Albert embraced his father. Sol entered the dwelling to comfort the River Mother. For the first time since Albert had known the River Mother, he heard her sob in anguish. She was exhausted from having to carry the passions and pain of the many young girls and women who came to her seeking a remedy for their physical problems. She had been able to save most of them throughout the years. Only two young girls had arrived so badly damaged that she immediately took them to the hospital in order to save their lives. She really did not know why they had started to come to her. She was a curandera, a healer, not a midwife, but parents and their children saw her as both. Now these parents accused her of being a witch. The River Mother never denied any of these labels. She assisted people in need, without claiming any special titles.
IN THE YEARS that followed, Albert graduated from high school and entered the University of Southern California. The relationship between Dame Marie and Louise had bonded into a strong sisterhood, and Albert often saw Louise visiting his sister. The girls went to school together and were often in each other’s homes. The relationship grew so strong that Agatha and Louise’s mother, Allison, met on several occasions for lunch to discuss their children, who were healthy young ladies on the brink of womanhood. The m
others agreed that for Dame Marie and Louise it was an opportunity to talk with a trusted friend about the physical changes and feelings they were experiencing, to share the emotions and likes and dislikes their daughters felt toward other girls. More exciting and dangerous, the mothers believed, were the emotions the girls now shared about boys on the brink of their manhood and handsome men whom the girls would come into contact with almost every day after graduation from Marlborough School. Males of various ages now took longer looks at their daughters. They raised their eyebrows and slightly bit their lips as Dame Marie and Louise sauntered by.
Albert noticed the changes in the girls, too. As for Dame Marie, Albert was happy that she attracted such attention from many fine young men. But for Louise, Albert’s feelings were more complex. Louise had become a stirring sight in his eyes, mind and heart. There came a moment when Albert realized that when he gazed at Louise’s face he was seeing her anew. One day at his home he took Louise’s hand to greet her. Contemplating her face, he felt that his heart had left its body and that it could not return unless in the presence of Louise. On that day their touch had been transformed into something overpowering. Their eyes searched for each other in new and unexpected ways. They rested their sight on the minute, intense details of the other’s face, hands, arms, hair. They were aware of every part of the other’s physical being, all the while screaming inside for a more intimate touch. Albert and Louise began to breathe each other in, and every breath kindled a deep desire for one another. They nevertheless kept to themselves their physical, silent attraction. Nobody knew; not even their mothers recognized the passion that was growing between their innocent children.
LOS ANGELES WAS a place where dreams could come true. As in many other cities and towns across the country, Los Angeles workers labored to make a comfortable place for themselves and their loved ones. People had to work hard at the best job possible to eat, to rent, buy or build a place to live. That was what Los Angeles was all about. Chasing the dream, people came from throughout the United States and the world. Work and ownership possibilities drove people to the West and, in particular, to the temperate, dry climate of the Los Angeles area. The West was always described as a marvelous place where anything was possible, and Los Angeles was the heart of that promise. In the 1920s, the entrepreneurs sold Los Angeles as a romantic, magical site where the energetic and creative person could construct his own Garden of Eden, a little piece of paradise. Excitedly, the newcomers reached for and worked toward realizing their dreams. And although society dictated that everyone know and keep their place, people found each other here and fell in love. Prejudice, discrimination, racism ran through the Southern California streets, neighborhoods, towns and counties, but still some crossed the established social lines, broke the taboos, crossed the cultural and racial borders, and their life struggle became a little tougher. Nonetheless, the Mexicans, the Japanese, the Chinese, the blacks—many thousands of people—endured life at the margins of society.
ERNEST PRESCOTT KELLER would eventually come west to Los Angeles after he had completed Harvard College, interned at his father’s bank in Philadelphia and also worked in the family’s European import business. Faithfully, he studied and learned the bank and import businesses, but daily on his way to work he observed and talked to men and women who labored at cleaning the streets, to mechanics dismantling motors, to food and fruit vendors who started their daily journey to the city at three-thirty in the morning, to shoemakers and furniture dealers, to butchers and bakers displaying what they had prepared early that morning. Ernest learned from these men and women who were distant from his social milieu but worthy of his respect and appreciation. His family and formal education had taught him that he was above the ordinary people who populated the world. Despite the ideas that dominated his family’s thinking, Ernest wanted to work and experience life as an ordinary merchant. He first went to the neighborhood butcher shop near his father’s bank to meet the elderly and long-time owner, Mr. Gutting. Ernest then went to his father.
“You do not need to learn to be a butcher, son. You’ll never use the skill, but go ahead, take some time and work with the old man. It won’t hurt to learn from a business at that level of society.”
Ernest returned to the old butcher who, upon hearing that Ernest wanted to work in his shop, laughed.
“You want to cut off your fingers, bloody your beautiful suit! I can’t pay you. The shop barely makes enough for my wife and our two boys and two girls. I run the shop myself.”
Without pay, Ernest worked for Mr. Gutting, who at first taught him about cleanliness by having him scrub the floors, wash trays and clean the extremely sharp knives. One false move with a knife could slice an arm or a hand, take off a finger or slice a wrist. The old man demonstrated how to clean and quarter beef and pork and to trim and prepare the different cuts of meat for sale. Most important in the butcher business was to be friendly and get to know the clients’ wants and needs, their weekly schedules, their personalities and when to offer something new. Ernest enjoyed working directly with the public. He watched the old butcher extend credit when the customer had had a difficult week. Ernest sensed that the old man experienced joy in helping people in need and finding out later how faithful they could become. He also met those who continually attempted to take advantage but, most of the time, were caught in their deception. To survive in the butcher business, Ernest realized, was no easy task. He worked as an apprentice for about nine months and then returned to the bank in early December. There were too many family activities that he was obligated to attend. Both teacher and pupil were sorry that they had to part ways. Years later Ernest would learn that Mr. Gutting was found ice cold behind his immaculate showcase. None of his children had taken up the trade. His daughters married and his sons moved to California. The butcher shop was boarded up and never reopened.
When Ernest went back to work at the bank, he started, as he had in the butcher shop, at the bottom. For a few weeks he worked with the bank janitor and then worked as a teller. He finally went back to his job in the loan department. Ernest studied the diverse aspects of banking. He wanted to learn all that he could about the profession until, on a crisp Philadelphia morning, his father stepped unannounced into his office. He hung his coat over Ernest’s and lit a cigar.
“Your Uncle Philip sent a letter. He’s doing very well in the lumber business—Keller Lumber—in California. His wife died, and he needs an assistant. He wants a family member to learn the business. You will be a principal in the company. Hands-on experience! Learning on the job! Your mother and I think it’s a promising opportunity.” Mr. Jamison Prescott Keller puffed on his cigar and flicked the ashes on the floor. “Son, you’re going west.”
The day after Ernest arrived in Los Angeles, his Uncle Philip took him to Keller Lumber Yard Number Two, located on the Los Angeles riverfront next to Rivers’ property. The parcel of land that Philip Keller had bought was only accessible by a right-of-way that ran on the edge of the Ríos’ land. Oakley Rivers offered to lease the right-of-way to Keller on a yearly basis and asked him to pay for the road’s maintenance. Philip Keller agreed, thinking that someday he might be able to buy Rivers’ property, but even up to the time of the arrival of his nephew, Ernest, he had never made a bid. The land had been inherited from Abelardo Ríos and now belonged to Oakley Rivers, whom he heard had finagled a way to receive funding to maintain some of the property as a kind of state park or landmark. Philip Keller did not understand or like this arrangement. And he did not feel particularly comfortable dealing with Oakley Rivers.
Uncle Philip attempted to pass his suspicions and mistrust of Rivers onto his nephew, Ernest, who did not like the idea of having to depend on any neighbor for a right-of-way to Keller Lumber. Nonetheless, Ernest was cordial and waved when he encountered Mr. Oakley Rivers crossing the bridge to the Boyle Heights site of Sun Construction. Mr. Rivers seemed friendly enough, always waving, always smiling.
Ernest diligently acquaint
ed himself with his uncle’s business. In a few months he evaluated the financial status of Keller Lumber. His uncle’s company had great growth potential in supplying lumber to builders in Los Angeles and Southern California. Ernest became convinced that the company had to branch out into the construction business. Ever since his first days in Los Angeles, he saw a fast-growing city with people and construction companies at the heart of that growth. Uncle Philip encouraged Ernest to pursue whatever possibilities he considered lucrative. Above all, Uncle Philip wanted his nephew to be happy. Ernest took up his uncle’s challenge, and in a year he returned to Philadelphia, where he secured a loan to establish Keller Construction Company. A year later, Keller Construction started its first small jobs. In a short time the Los Angeles-based company grew to be a major construction firm. One of its principal competitors was Oakley Rivers’ Sun Construction.
Ernest Prescott Keller returned from Philadelphia with a wife, Allison Fulbert Greenmuth, a girl Ernest had known since childhood. Both families had always agreed that she and Ernest would marry. Ernest never questioned this assumption. What he thought most important was that Allison be a strong, healthy woman who would help in the business in California and have his children. Allison, on the other hand, was more than eager to go with the man she had loved since the moment she understood and used the word “love” to describe her feelings about him. When she was with him, she felt bathed in love and knew that it would have been impossible to live her life without him.
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