Love Finds You in Amana Iowa

by Melanie Dobson

  He kicked one last stone and watched it roll far away from him.

  Maybe it was good that Friedrich had gone off to war before he married Amalie. When he returned, he would discover what she was really like, and he would change his mind. Maybe he would marry Sophia Paul or another woman instead.

  Stuffing his hands into his pockets, Matthias stepped away from the tree and saw the wagon master at the end of the street, watching him.

  Matthias’s shoulders stiffened as he eyed the man.

  What if Friedrich had been waiting for Amalie in the village? He would have been devastated to watch the woman he’d pledged his life to laughing with another man, a man clearly enamored by her.

  The wagon master took the six or so steps over to Matthias. “My name’s Faust.”

  Matthias reached out his hand for a firm shake before he folded his arms over his chest.

  “Did you two quarrel already?” Faust asked.

  “Amalie and I always quarrel,” he blurted, and then he wished he hadn’t spoken. It was none of this man’s business whom he fought with or why.

  “I wouldn’t let her be angry too long,” Faust said. “She might start looking to marry someone else.”

  Matthias almost said that was fine with him, but that would have been an outright lie. His relationship with Amalie was too complicated for him to understand, much less explain to a stranger.

  “Amalie can marry whom she pleases,” he replied.

  Faust’s eyebrows climbed with disbelief. “You better be careful, my friend. You might lose her.”

  “She’s not mine to lose,” he muttered as he turned away from the man.

  The bell rang for the noon meal, but instead of swarming to the kitchen house with the others, Matthias stole through the back streets of the village. He didn’t want to see Amalie again, nor did he want to answer any questions about her kitchen.

  Some of the men would spend the rest of their day visiting with those who’d arrived, listening to news from Ebenezer and of their travels. But most of the people Matthias loved wouldn’t arrive in the Kolonie until next month, so there was nothing else for him to do except return to the woolen mill.

  It took less than ten minutes for him to reach the mill. Inside he climbed the ladder to the second floor of the structure and walked to his tool chest at the side of the room—a gift crafted by Friedrich’s Vater and given to Matthias when he turned sixteen.

  He reached under the top drawers and dug through the planes and joiners until he found his jack plane. As families reunited across their village, as Friedrich was off someplace fighting this war, Matthias pressed out his frustration across a floorboard until it was smooth. Then he moved to the next piece of wood.

  At least he had plenty of work to do in the mill. Someone else would have to build Amalie Wiese her new kitchen.

  * * * * *

  The moment Amalie rounded the corner, she bent over, grasping herself around the waist. A sharp pain bludgeoned her belly and shot through her entire body as she struggled to breathe. Friedrich Vinzenz had left her. Instead of waiting to marry her, or even waiting to say good-bye, he had gone off to war.

  Amalie collapsed back against a stone wall as she tried—and failed—to steady her breathing.

  How could Friedrich have done this to her? He said he would be here, waiting for her when she arrived from New York. He had to know the news of his departure would devastate her.

  She wrapped her arms around her chest, forcing herself to breath more slowly. In and out.

  Could it be that the thought of marrying her was so bad, the only way he could get away was by joining the infantry? Perhaps he left all of them because of her. Because he didn’t want her as a wife. He’d run away before she arrived, left her behind, and given his best friend the job of telling her he was gone.

  As a woman turned the corner toward her, Amalie pushed away from the wall to tug her sunbonnet low over her face. If the villagers didn’t recognize her, maybe they would stop welcoming her to Amana and stop watching for her reaction about Friedrich’s decision.

  The bell rang out again, and she forced her legs to start walking toward the kitchen house. She would find one of the elders and ask where her new kitchen was located. As long as her hands stayed busy, she wouldn’t have to think about her loss or her future.

  As she climbed the steps to the dining room, she pushed her sunbonnet back over her shoulders and walked through the narrow door with her head held high. People filled the dining room, and before them was a meal of salami and cheese spread out on platters, fresh blueberries piled high in communal bowls.

  To her left was the kitchen, and she saw the graying hair of the older sister, Henriette Koch, bent over the stove. Back in Ebenezer, when she was a teenager, Amalie had worked for four very long years in Henriette’s kitchen.

  Brother Schaube was on her right, preparing to sit down on a bench, and she moved toward him. When he saw her, he looked like he might slip away like the rest of them, but instead he stepped forward to greet her. His eyes were hidden under his thick spectacles, his smile as solemn as the figures on the stained glass she’d seen in Lisbon.

  “We tried to stop him—” he began, but she stopped his apology before he finished. She didn’t want to talk about Friedrich’s choice with him or anyone else.

  “I wanted to speak with you about my new kitchen.”

  “Your kitchen?” he repeated as if he was as stumped as Matthias by her question.

  “You wrote to me,” she reminded him. “You and the other elders asked me to start a new kitchen house in Amana.”

  “Indeed,” he replied, sounding relieved that she didn’t want to speak about Friedrich. “The kitchen will be completed soon.”

  “Soon?” Her voice escalated with indignation. “It was supposed to be ready when I arrived.”

  “There was work to be done on the woolen mill before we could complete the new kitchen.”

  “Where will everyone eat—”

  “There are three kitchen houses in Amana.” He took a seat and reached for a pitcher of Hinbeerensaft. Raspberry juice. “It might be crowded, but we have enough seats for everyone until the next group arrives in September.”

  She couldn’t wait until September to begin working in her kitchen. She needed to start today.

  He took a long sip of the juice and then began stacking meat and cheese on his plate.

  “All I need is a stove,” she said.

  He scooped up a bite of meat on his fork and held it in front of him. “We’ve ordered one from Cedar Rapids, but it won’t arrive for another month.”

  In spite of all the people crowded in the room, it was silent. She should wait to talk again, until after the elder was finished eating, but she’d traveled almost eight hundred miles to reach this valley. Now the man she was planning to marry had deserted her and she didn’t even have a kitchen to work in. There was no place for her to run now. No place for her to hide.

  She didn’t want to speak with Brother Schaube about her marriage, but he could at least tell her about her kitchen.

  “What still needs to be finished?” she pressed.

  He lowered his fork. “The cellar is complete.”

  “Only the cellar?”

  “We’re building a strong structure, Sister Amalie. Your kitchen will be standing a hundred years from now.”

  She took a step back. At this moment she didn’t care if the kitchen lasted a thousand years. She needed it right now.

  He pointed at the food in front of him. “Join us for a meal,” he directed, but she shook her head. She didn’t think she could eat.

  “Do you have a room ready for me?”

  He took a deep breath, apparently relieved that she didn’t press him further about her kitchen.

  “We have a temporary room where you can stay until the kitchen house is built.”

  She glanced over to the next table, at Brother Schaube’s wife. Rosa Schaube was a small woman but a strong one. Sist
er Schaube would understand.

  “I need something to do with my hands,” Amalie said. “Just until the kitchen house is complete.”

  “There is plenty of work for you here,” he agreed. “We have already assigned you a place.”

  “Where?”

  He tilted his head down, his words barely audible. “Here, in Sister Henriette’s kitchen.”

  She stared at him.

  “That won’t be a problem, will it?” he asked, looking up at her again.

  She hesitated. Her years working for Henriette had been challenging on the best days, devastating on the worst ones. But it didn’t matter right now. As long as there was a job for her to do, she would try to be content.

  “Karoline Baumer came from Ebenezer to work with me.”

  He nodded. “The kitchen in Middle Amana has requested her services until the new kitchen is complete.”

  She took a step back. For so long she’d been looking forward to arriving in Amana, but nothing was as she had planned. She needed to get out of the dining room, away from all the eyes.

  “I need to go to my room,” she muttered.

  Sister Schaube slipped off her bench, reaching for Amalie’s arm. “I will show you the way, dear.”

  Comfortless Thy soul did languish

  Me to comfort in my anguish.

  Ernst C. Homburg

  Chapter Ten

  Rain sprinkled on the canvas tent and trickled in through the leaks in the roof. Friedrich brushed a splatter of rain off his face, but the shower didn’t stop him from packing his things this morning. He placed the trousers and shirt he had brought from Amana into his knapsack and the one extra cartridge box the army provided for him.

  After using one piece of stationery to write Amalie yesterday, he had two pieces of paper along with two envelopes to keep in his knapsack. Once he received his first month’s wages, he would buy postage and more supplies to write her again along with Matthias and his parents.

  Around him the soldiers were dressed in their new blue uniforms and caps. They worked efficiently, joking with each other as they folded their woolen blankets and the oiled ground cloth they would sleep on in the field. Friedrich was tucking his sewing kit into his sack when one of the soldiers grabbed the kit out of his hands.

  “Whatcha got there, Fred?” Private Earl Smith held the kit high above his head. “You gonna knit some socks down in Tennessee?”

  “I can mend mine if they need it. Or I can mend yours.”

  He tossed the kit back on Friedrich’s cot. “You hear that, boys? Freddy here is gonna stitch up all our socks.”

  He could make socks too if he needed to do it, but he didn’t mention that to Private Smith. He had never felt uncomfortable around the other men in Amana, his brothers, but here he couldn’t seem to understand the joviality of these men, nor did they understand him. They laughed in the face of the sacred, trivialized what should have frightened them.

  But even if he couldn’t feel joviality for the battle ahead, his blood still rushed in excitement as they prepared for their journey. He didn’t know what lay before them. He didn’t know about these other men, but the Spirit of God traveled with him wherever he went, even into the enemy’s camps.

  In his haversack, Friedrich packed a fork, tin plate, and the canteen he’d already filled with water. And he placed a small burlap bag inside with the salt beef and hardtack the army provided, rations to last him for the next four days.

  “You got your Bible in there?” Earl asked.

  Friedrich picked up his Gospel of John and quietly placed it in his knapsack. The men around him snickered, but he didn’t acknowledge their mockery of him. This feeling of loneliness—it was foreign to him. He’d spent his life surrounded by his family and friends, and he thought he would like being in the company of the soldiers as well. But even with all the men in the tent this early morning, he was still alone.

  “Maybe you should preach to us, Freddy. Tell us about the good Lord and all that before we go out there and fight.”

  “You’re not going absent without leave on us, are you, Fred?” another voice asked. “Stitchin’ up socks back at camp while we’re all fighting for you.”

  “I hear the man don’t believe in fighting.”

  “He ain’t gonna run,” someone else said. “Sergeant said he’ll shoot deserters, and Freddy here don’t wanna be shot. He’ll probably turn traitor instead.”

  “Or be taken prisoner. That’s what happens to boys who don’t know a lick about fighting.”

  Friedrich clenched his fists, cringing at the accusations in their voices. He wanted to show all of them that he did know a thing about fighting, but it would only prove that he was just like the rest of them. And he wasn’t anything like them.

  Someone let out a blood-curdling yell behind him, and he ducked to the ground. The other men laughed.

  “You better get used to that, Fred. Them Rebels like their yellin’.”

  Breathing deeply, Friedrich stood up and slung the haversack over his shoulder, the string wrapped across his chest. He was supposed to fight alongside these men, not fight with them. But if God wanted him to be here, God would have to give him strength to make it through this.

  Someone spat a curse word, and Friedrich cringed again. All he wanted to do now was march in silence through the hills in Tennessee, away from some of these men.

  If only Matthias had joined the army with him. He could still hear his friend’s voice outside in the hallway down at the courthouse, begging to say good-bye to him. Everything within him had wanted to leap up and shake his friend’s hand one last time, so Matthias would know he hadn’t abandoned him. And that one day, Lord willing, he would return to the Kolonie.

  What he would give to have Matthias with him now, to march on the Rebels beside his best friend instead of these men, who took the name of their Lord in vain instead of blessing the very name that created each one of them.

  “Leave him alone, Smith,” one of the soldiers commanded.

  Friedrich nodded at Jonah Henson in appreciation. Maybe he wasn’t as alone as he thought.

  Jonah was from Iowa County like him. Before he joined their regiment, Jonah was a clerk at a dry goods store in Marengo. He’d told the other men that he’d never even hunted in his life, but he seemed to serve willingly like the rest of them. The other men respected him, even feared him a little. Much more than they respected Friedrich.

  “Don’t worry about Earl.” Jonah spoke to Friedrich in German.

  Friedrich stepped back in surprise. “You speak German?”

  “A little,” he replied. “My grandfather insisted on teaching me when I was a child.”

  Friedrich hung a cap pouch and bayonet scabbard from his leather belt as they talked. It was good to hear the familiar language of his family and his community.

  Jonah pointed at Earl. “His uncle was some famous general in the last war, and he thinks he’s too good to be a private.”

  “I will pray for him.”

  Jonah gave him an odd look and then smiled. “You can pray for me too.”

  Friedrich nodded as he picked up his shotgun. They would all need prayer. The sergeant said there were skirmishes across the state of Tennessee right now, but most of the Federals in Tennessee were fighting to take over the small river port of Chattanooga. There wasn’t time to continue training the new infantrymen. They needed soldiers to join the battle, no matter how green. He and the others from Iowa’s 28th would support the men already fighting there.

  They marched hard all day during their training, and then he collapsed on his cloth in exhaustion, Amalie in his mind. Most nights, right before he sank into sleep, he wondered if she had read his letter and if she knew yet that he wasn’t waiting in Amana for her.

  Any day she would walk into their village and discover that he was gone. He hoped she would find it in her heart to forgive him for leaving, hoped God would provide her peace as she waited for him, and he dearly hoped she would wait
. He couldn’t imagine returning to Amana and finding her promised—or even married—to someone else.

  He wished he could have been enough of a man to ask the colonel for a few weeks longer to say good-bye to her, but one look at her pretty blue eyes, one soft touch of her hands, and he never would have left Iowa.

  He and Jonah were the first ones out of the tent, ready to get on the open wagons that would transport the men from Camp Pope to the train station. As they walked toward the wagons, Jonah lifted a letter out of his haversack and dropped it into a barrel that would take the mail to the local postmaster.

  Jonah turned back toward him. “You have something to mail, Vinzenz?”

  “I’m waiting to buy a stamp in Tennessee.”

  “Why didn’t you buy one from the post office?”

  He hesitated. “Because I didn’t have any money to bring with me.”

  Jonah gave him an odd look. “Where are you sending it?”

  “Back to Amana.”

  “I’ve heard about your colony.” Jonah paused. “I think I’d like to visit one day.”

  “You are always welcome,” Friedrich said.

  Jonah dug in his sack and pulled out a stamp. He handed it to Friedrich.

  Friedrich eyed it for a moment. “Are you certain?”

  Jonah smiled. “You can repay me in Chattanooga.”

  He borrowed Jonah’s glue as well, and with the stamp on the envelope, Friedrich dropped it into the barrel.

  An hour later the men packed into the seats on the train, and Friedrich waved good-bye to the lush grass and hills of Iowa and to Amalie and Matthias and the entire community west of the camp.

  He didn’t know what would be waiting for him in Tennessee, or what the enemy looked like, but he was ready as he could be for the journey.

  * * * * *

  An afternoon storm turned Amana’s main street into a stream of sticky mud. Water soaked through Matthias’s straw hat and his work clothes as he trudged through the mess, back to his room. The other workers left the mill an hour ago for supper, but he kept sawing and smoothing the lumber for the floor. He was plenty hungry, but not hungry enough to be in the same room as Amalie.