by Jim Wetton
Lizzy smiled as she reflected. It felt good to relive those days of hearing her father’s tales. Of lying in bed with her brothers nearby, hearing the passionate voice of her father as he did his best to retell stories that were already a few generations old.
“I just wish I could remember it the way my father told it,” Lizzy muttered. “It was a long time ago.”
Lizzy’s eyes softened as she remembered her father and the times with her family. “Oh, forgive me, Henry. I always get caught up in all that every time I tell it. Seems like I’ve heard it a million times growing up and I’m sure my children have heard it twice that much. It’s just, well, it’s just one of those legends that stick with you, you know?”
Lizzy was taken back by the shocked look on Henry’s face. He was upright now. At the edge of his seat.
“Wha . . . what is it, Henry?” Lizzy asked. “Did I say something . . . ?”
“I, well I, uh, I don’t mean no disrespect, ma’am,” Henry began. “But your story about your great-grandfather? The part about your great-great-uncle?”
Lizzy tilted her head trying to understand his meaning. Her tongue circled inside her cheek. “What about my great-great-uncle, Henry?”
“Well ma’am, it’s just. . . .”
“Henry, are you all right? You look a bit pale. Need some water?” Lizzy asked as she leaned forward.
“No, ma’am, it’s just . . . ,” Henry said again as he looked over at Nellie for strength.
“Henry, you’ve said that already. What is it?” This time, it was Nellie who turned towards him looking alarmed.
Henry rose from his seat and walked towards the window. He looked out to the Hudson River. He tried to remember his own stories, the ones his parents and his grandparents had told him. He too, remembered sitting together as a family, listening to fables of the past.
He turned back away from the window and looked at Nellie. He knew that he’d fallen for her. He’d hoped that she’d fallen for him as well. He had no idea how any of what he’d just heard could somehow change any of how he felt for her. All he knew was that he was hoping and praying to get the chance to ask permission for her hand. Has all that changed now?
“Henry, you’re beginning to scare me.” Nellie leaned towards him. “You’re so pale.”
She looked back at Lizzy. Her once guilt ridden, apologetic expressions had turned to fear. She pleaded for her mother’s help.
“Henry, have I said something to offend you?” Lizzy interjected. “I know that it was awkward at first, but I think we’ve moved on from that, don’t you?” Lizzy looked for a sign of acknowledgment, but she saw none.
“Henry, may I offer you a glass of brandy?”
“Uh, yes, that, that would be, uh, that would be nice,” Henry stuttered.
Lizzy rose to pour another drink. She looked across the room to see Nellie kneeling in front of Henry. She smiled warmly at the sight of her youngest daughter reaching out to comfort this young man. Mary Elizabeth entered the room and stood in the corner.
“This’ll make you feel better, Henry,” Lizzy said hopefully, handing the snifter over to him. Lizzy picked up her own snifter and raised it up to Henry. “Here’s to an old Monroe family story, Henry.”
Henry looked up at Lizzy, his eyes wide with wonder, and forced a crooked smile. He indulged in his first sip and then a second, larger, gulp before placing the snifter on the platter.
“It’s odd,” he finally replied, his voice barely audible. “But there’s so much in common with our stories. I don’t dare to speculate, but I may have to.”
Lizzy slowly raised her snifter and took another sip.
She was beginning to like the young man. She hadn’t really thought about it, but when she looked at Nellie again, she could see by the way Nellie was acting that her daughter had actually fallen in love. The thought took her back for a moment, but only for a moment. In some odd way, she couldn’t have been happier. Still, there was something in the air. Something that caused Henry’s reaction. What was in my story that made him react so?
“Henry?” Nellie leaned up and reached for his hands. “Henry, what’s wrong?
“It’s all just so odd, I can’t rightly explain it!” His words were short and tight. “It still doesn’t change what I wanted to ask you, Nellie.” Henry’s voice calmed as he shifted his weight and leaned towards her. “It doesn’t change the fact that I’ve fallen in love with you.”
Mary Elizabeth gasped in the corner and quickly put her hand up to her mouth. She applauded herself for seeing the signs as Nellie’s face blushed and tears of joy filled her eyes.
“But . . . Henry?” Lizzy interrupted awkwardly. “I couldn’t be more pleased with your love for my daughter, but . . . but what did I say to you that upset you so?”
The aching question had been eating at him since halfway through Lizzy’s story of Jacob’s travel on the road to Concord. Henry cleared his throat. Still clutching Nellie’s hands, he turned his head up towards Lizzy.
“Ma’am . . . by chance . . . in your story. . . .” He paused. He could see that all eyes were bearing down on him. “Your great-grandfather Jacob.”
“Yes?” Lizzy asked impatiently. “What about Jacob?”
“Did he find his uncle on the grass?”
“Uh, yes he did; well, according to all the tales we were told.”
“Half on the grass and half on the road?”
“Where did you hear that he was half on the grass and half on the road, Henry?”
He didn’t answer, but asked another question which made Lizzy feel faint. “Ma’am, by chance, was your great-great-uncle’s name . . . was his name, Charles Monroe?”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A New Family, A New Era
1896
“The latest results are in, if anyone’s interested!”
The loud call came from Henry as he barged in from the living room. The slamming of the front door startled Shiloh, the family cat, but it did little to cause alarm to everyone hunkered down in the parlor.
ELECTORAL RESULTS BETWEEN WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN
AND WILLIAM MCKINLEY FOR PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED
STATES ARE FINAL
Mary Elizabeth picked up two more pieces of wood to place on the fire as the mid-November chill consumed the room. Lizzy looked up and nodded at Henry’s arrival, but didn’t skip a beat as she continued to cuddle the little child nestled in her arms. Nellie entered the room, stretched and yawned from a much-needed nap. She noticed the newly ignited flames with delight. She looked over her mother’s shoulders and read the bold headline of the newspaper that Henry had just dropped on the coffee table.
She nonchalantly shrugged as she moved to the other side of the room to take a seat across from her mother. “Not that we had any say in the matter; we, referring to the smarter and stronger of the sexes.”
Lizzy looked up at her daughter and smiled knowingly. She reflected for a moment while Nellie and Henry exchanged comments about the subject of women’s right to vote. Lizzy gazed at the paper lying on the table in front of her as she looked down at the baby. She thought of Martin, wishing she too could be held by her love. Her mind wandered back to the day when she found Hannah’s diary. The day when she said her final farewell to her father. The day when she’d decided to honor Hannah’s request.
She frowned at the thought. The quiet, disgruntled expression she wore was seen by none, but she felt it as if she were screaming it to the world. She knew that she’d done nothing to follow Hannah’s path. She’d moved to New York City to follow her husband’s passion, doing nothing to carry on her own. She then lost her husband and her son in New York City to the rage that beset those yearning to make a mark in the world. Yet, she had done nothing to make her own mark.
She looked at Nellie again. Her bantering with her husband over women’s rights was a bright sound to her ears, but it was also a reminder of what she’d never accomplished, never even tried to achieve. She could feel the ut
ter disappointment raining down from heaven above. She could feel Hannah’s eyes boring down on her for doing nothing and, most of all, for running away from Hannah’s challenge.
After the death of Martin and James, Lizzy had to decide the path which she was going to follow. On the evening when she’d discovered that Nellie had fallen in love, she had to decide her future and the future for her family. The family story repeated countless times of the Monroe ancestors on the road to Concord had on that night revealed a whole new twist. With the discovery that the man that Nellie had fallen in love with was none other than a distant relative, a third cousin once removed, Lizzy’s long-lost great uncle was not only a legend but had now become much more a part of her family than she ever could have realized.
To Henry, that man was his great-great-great-grandfather. Based on Henry’s recollection, everything that Lizzy had described was true. The stories were the same stories that he’d been told since he was a little boy with just one minor twist.
His great- great-great-grandfather had met up with a young woman in Boston. He’d left the Bunch of Grapes Tavern in 1775 because he was upset over his argument with his brother, Robert. He’d fled the city, but before he traveled down that infamous road, he wanted to say a final farewell to a woman named Madeline whom he’d been secretly seeing for several months. The two were going to be wed upon his return, thus she’d had no reason to fill his mind with any news that would only distract him. The news that he was going to be a father.
Lizzy had done the math and realized that her own Great-great-uncle Charles was the same man who, unbeknownst to him, had started a family of his own. His family was the one that eventually bore the young man who was now in love with her youngest daughter. A cautious thought had entered into Lizzy’s mind, but just as quick as it had entered, it was dismissed. She’d remembered telling herself that too many generations had passed to make any issue regarding their courtship. It was a topic she felt she never had to bring up.
With Lizzy’s blessing, Nellie and Henry were wed in Central Park. Lizzy had written Nellie a very short poem for her daughter’s wedding day:
Odd how the love of God revolves around us.
Generations pass us by and once again,
By his Grace, Monroe’s we are once more
It wasn’t long after the two had said “I do” that they all packed up and moved to Washington, D.C. It was the only place Lizzy felt she could move to. The place she felt she needed to be. She couldn’t stay in New York City, not with so many memories of that horrific night always haunting her. She knew that her re-ignited allegiance to Hannah was a factor in her decision. A place to follow in the shadow of Hannah’s passion. What better place to make a stand, right, Hannah? The country’s capital was where she would make her mark and it was the voice of Hannah that would guide her path.
* * * *
It had been almost a year since that move and now, on the evening of yet another presidential election, Lizzy sat tuned in to the latest news of who she would confront regarding the issue of woman’s suffrage. She’d confronted no one to this point, much to her own disapproval. She watched her husband’s career in politics and through him, she learned some of the things to do and a lot of what not to do. She’d only reflected on one president who in her opinion was worth remembering. James Garfield. Too short a life, yet such a brilliant visionary. All the others from Arthur to Cleveland to Harrison and back to that baboon Cleveland again, Lizzy had chuckled to herself, were almost worthless. Let’s just hope that this McKinley gets in and has an ear for the better half of the sexes.
Lizzy thought of McKinley’s running mate. She had to think hard. Whoever remembers a vice president anyway? Oh yes, Hobart, Garret Hobart. She shook her head as she realized that no vice president had ever made a name for himself on his own. But it’ll be a door to jar open, if only for the chance to meet with the big guy.
Lizzy laughed out loud, causing her daughters to look at her with raised eyebrows.
“Just thinking out loud, kids. No worries on this end. We’re just fine.”
Her focus should have been on the news lying on the coffee table, but hers were only on the little girl cuddled warmly in the crook of her arm.
Hannah Elizabeth was a small baby. She was born prematurely but was adjusting nicely and growing stronger every day. Nellie and Henry had rented a small home on the north side of the National Mall just up 22nd St. It was only three city blocks farther up from where Lizzy rented her little flat that she shared with Mary Elizabeth. Lizzy’s place was a short walk to a path that led her around the entire mall, a walk she enjoyed daily.
The early morning of Hannah’s birth, a midwife who lived two doors down from Henry and Nellie’s place was awakened sharply. Henry’s fist on her front door not only woke the midwife but also a bulky Irish man across the street. Henry dismissed the vulgar words shouted from the man and yelled back, “My wife’s water broke, so shut the hell up or I’ll . . . !”
The midwife opened the door, bag in hand and a loosely draped shawl over one shoulder. She and Henry raced back to Nellie and within an hour the baby was delivered. The memory was priceless of Henry almost getting in a fight, but more enjoyable was the memory of Nellie giving birth to their first child on the floor of their bathroom, with Henry assisting.
Lizzy still remembered how touching it was when Nellie and Henry approached her and asked her to name the child. She didn’t hesitate. “Hannah Elizabeth will be my granddaughter’s name. Hannah for my great-grandmother and Elizabeth to carry on the Monroe’s first daughter’s middle name.”
“Did you want me to take her from you, Momma?” Nellie asked, breaking Lizzy away from her thoughts.
“Oh, not just yet, dear. It’s not too often that I get a chance to watch my little granddaughter sleeping so peacefully. I may just have to let this ol’ election pass us by.”
“Yea, that’ll be the day,” Nellie laughed. “At least let me read the newspaper’s headlines.
As Nellie bent over to pick up the paper, Lizzy’s curiosity got the best of her.
“Oh, your husband’s already read the headline so just let it be.”
Nellie looked over at her mother. Her eyebrows lifted. When she added a sly smile aimed directly at her mother’s tolerance for patience, Lizzy conceded.
“OK, OK, I give up. You all are impossible!”
Laughter filled the room. Lizzy reluctantly, but with a smile, handed the baby over to Nellie and watched her as the baby’s cooing turned into a sweet cry.
“It’s OK, baby; Momma’s got you now. Let’s go down the hall and change you and heaven help your grandmother if she begins to read the news before your momma has a chance to return.”
Lizzy smiled at her daughter’s loving threat. She adjusted herself on the sofa. Her eyes focused on the front page. She saw the bold letters but couldn’t make out the rest. She quickly stopped herself as if caught in a crime. She laughed as she remembered the pointed exclamation just rendered from her daughter.
The news will just have to wait.
* * * *
Both parents returned with Hannah Elizabeth’s fresh diapers tightly in place. Nellie smiled appreciatively at her husband, knowing how much he despised changing diapers, but never could say no.
Lizzy, waiting for Nellie’s nod of approval, picked up the newspaper and began to read. Henry picked up his glass of brandy, sucked on the cigar clenched between his teeth and looked at his mother-in-law. He had always loved the taste of his cigars, but never smoked in the house, nor around the baby, much to Nellie’s pleasure.
Mary Elizabeth raced down the hall, her heavy heels loud against the hardwood floor. She dropped down heavily next to Lizzy and looked over invitingly for her mother to read on.
Lizzy took in a deep breath as she looked around the room and smiled. She took a double look at Mary Elizabeth. Something about her caused Lizzy to squint and pause. Must be out of breath, that’s all.
> “You all right, child?” Lizzy questioned.
“Yes, yes, come on, read!” Mary Elizabeth replied.
“Former Governor William McKinley,” Lizzy began. “The Republican candidate defeated Democrat William Jennings Bryan.”
“Thank God!” Lizzy exclaimed to no one in particular.
The room erupted with cheers.
“The presidential election was held on Tuesday, November 3, 1896, which as most know, took place during our country’s economic depression that began three years ago.”
The same depression that Martin had predicted.
“Incumbent Democratic president Grover Cleveland did not seek re-election for a second or third non-consecutive term, leaving the Democratic nomination open.”
Again . . . thank God; the man was an imbecile.
“Bryan, an attorney and former Congressmen, won support from the Populist Party but couldn’t muster enough support to win the seat of president. Since the onset of the Panic of 1893, the nation has been mired in a deep economic depression, marked by low prices, low profits, high unemployment and violent strikes. Economic issues, especially a tariff policy and the question of whether the gold standard should be preserved for the money supply, were central issues that fared far better for the Republicans than for the Democrats.”
“I could have told them that, for God’s sake,” Lizzy interjected. “There’s no way the Democrats were going to get us out of this mess. Hear, hear for our new president!”
The room erupted in another round of cheers.
“Not to say any ill will towards our new president, but I sure would have liked him more if I could have had a say in putting him where he now sits.” Lizzy’s comment caused those around the room to fall silent. “And mark my words, children . . . you too, Henry. Someday, I will vote!”
“Yes, we know, Momma,” Nellie said encouragingly.
“Take heed, daughters!” Lizzy exclaimed. “I will not leave these earthly plains until we have a say in this man’s world!”