by Jim Wetton
Lizzy looked down at the grass in front of her and frowned. A mole’s hill was just a few feet to her left. She studied it momentarily, pleased that the mole hadn’t presented himself to her. Her anger now subsided but she still felt a pain in her chest, something that had become worrisome to her of late. Not getting any younger, Lizzy. It’s got to happen soon.
It was true. Lizzy had been thinking of her own mortality lately. She was fifty-seven and though she mostly felt fine, she was beginning to worry about the occasional shooting pain in her chest. It came quick and was gone just as quickly, but she had to admit that it was worrisome. She compared herself with her father. He had died at sixty-five, the same age at which Hannah died. Jacob had been sixty-nine, so the thought of family longevity gave her promise. It didn’t help with the fear though, or the pain.
Going over William’s letter in her head brought up several questions. Most of them she answered quickly. Some of them made her wonder if she’d ever see the day when women would get the chance to vote and to vote in all states collectively. How was she going to convince the “Williams” of the nation that women have more to offer than knitting groups and housekeeping. How would she change her son’s opinion; or should she even try? If I can’t change my own son’s mind, what good am I for this cause?
She thought of Roosevelt. Odd man but there’s something about him that I really like. “Hey now, that’s really bully there, Ms. McKeever, really bully.” She laughed at her feeble attempt of an impersonation. When she quit laughing, she pondered over the little man with the funny glasses and wide teeth. I really think I’m going to enjoy getting to know him. Teddy, hmmmm? Still sounds weird saying it; but hey, that’s what he wants, so bully on that one.
* * * *
Lizzy tipped the hack driver and walked up from the street to her front door. She’d scolded herself for hailing down the hack and not walking, but for some reason her last episode with her chest had made her uneasy. Prior to unlocking the front door, she opened up her mailbox to retrieve the day’s mail. She frowned at the number of bills that never seemed to stop coming. She swiftly discarded the two advertisements for feed, one for horses and one for chickens. No chickens in this house and I’ll pay the livery if and when I ever need a horse, so no need, Lizzy. She turned the last envelope over and was taken back. The return address was San Francisco, California but the name on it wasn’t William’s. In the upper left corner, she read:
C. McKeever
10 Market Street
San Francisco, CA
Lizzy fumbled for her keys. She dropped the mail. One of the utility bills fell off the porch and behind her holly bush. She swore to herself as she propped the door open with a chair, walked back out on the porch and on all fours, reached for the bill. I’ve never liked this bush.
Once inside, she placed the bills in her bill folder, opened up the living room and kitchen windows and felt instant relief as the whole house was filled with a breeze that was desperately needed.
She contemplated whether to sit in the living room, kitchen or on the front porch. She held the envelope in her hand as if it were a golden egg. Now you’re being silly, Lizzy. Just a letter. But a letter from Caroline. Never received a letter from Caroline. Didn’t even know she knew I existed.
Lizzy decided that the sun was still high enough that she’d venture to the porch. Letter in one hand, brandy in the other, she began to read:
Dear Mother,
First of all, forgive me for addressing you as ‘Mother’ as we barely know each other. It’s just that I don’t have a mother, so you will always be the closest thing to a mother that I’ll ever have, so if it’s all right with you, I’ll continue calling you Mother.
She sounds nervous.
I’m going to ask you to keep this letter between you and me. If William ever found out that I was writing to his mother, he would scold me until the next full moon came about.
Oh, dear God, William. Scolding?
I know you’d want me to be a faithful wife and nurturing mother to your grandchildren and with that said, I assure you that I am. And I love doing it. The only thing is, well, I’m involved in a group with other women. We meet together in secret to talk about how we can change the way society views us, how men view us. We want to be equal to them but it just seems like we continue to hit brick walls.
That’s the reason for this letter. I’ve read and heard of how involved you’ve become and the women who stand with you. I think California is going to break free real soon, but I’m scared.
Of William?
I love your son with all of my heart. He’s my husband. He’s the father of our children. I don’t want to hurt him nor for God’s sake lose him. We have different views about this and since he is the man of the house, his view is dominant.
Where’d that come from?
He hasn’t nor do I feel he ever would harm me or our boys, but he is very adamant about the role of a woman. I pray that in time he will see that women are so good at multi-tasking. I can be his wife and at the same time be a woman equal to him.
Tell him to get off his duff and take care of himself!
I’m writing to you to ask if you could travel out to us. Maybe by you being here for just a little while, you just might be able to shine a light into William’s heart. He loves you, Mother. I know he does, but he’s just so set in his ways.
I don’t want to ever have to choose between my husband or my equality, but it may come to that. I’m a woman, a wife and mother, but more importantly, I’m a person with an intellect and a voice.
I’m so afraid that William will begin to raise our boys to think the way he does. These boys are precious to me. Oh, how I wish you could see them. To hold them. To sing lullabies to them at night. They’ve never had a grandma and I know they’d love you.
Please forgive me for writing to you in secret. I’m at a crossroad and I don’t know what to do. I need your help, so please think of my request
With endearing love,
Caroline
Lizzy sat back. Her mind raced.
That poor child. Got to find a way to get out there.
She scanned her thoughts. Tried to recollect every meeting scheduled, every lecture booked. Who could fill in? Who to tell? Maybe we could use California as a building block. Maybe a trip to California is just what our group needs. Go alone? Bring another woman? Who? How long?
The more she thought, the more she was convinced that she was going!
Lizzy broke from her thought by a loud voice yelling from down the street. She heard her name. She recognized the voice.
“Nellie?” she yelled out. “Is that you, Nellie?”
She focused her eyes on Nellie running towards her and could tell that her eyes were filled with panic. Her voice cracked. Out of breath and in a state of alarm, Lizzy had never seen Nellie like this before.
“Nellie, for God’s sake, child, what is it? Where’s Henry? Are the children all right?”
“Momma!” Nellie began to pant.
“Nellie, slow down, child. What’s happened?”
“Momma, the president’s been shot!”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Made it on His Own
1905
It had been four years since Caroline’s letter. Lizzy’s resolve to go west and answer her daughter-in-law’s plea had to take a back seat to the welfare of the country and most of all to the support for her dear friend.
Lizzy and then-vice president Roosevelt had begun to meet with frequency as their agenda increased. They had talked in depth about the similarities in their lives. Both were widowed, had grown up in large families and had children of their own. Although Roosevelt envied Lizzy’s children, especially Nellie, he still was fond of his Alice. He admired her spirit and, in his words, she could be quite the pistol if she ever got behind something.
Lizzy knew right off that she needed to get to know this “Alice.”
Lizzy and Roosevelt spent hours together
while living the vice president’s life of kissing babies and attending Rose Garden events. They’d become so close that Lizzy felt a need to let Roosevelt read Hannah’s diary.
Once he returned it, the two were determined more than ever to work as a team. They’d agreed to join together to make Hannah’s wish a reality and dedicate it to the memory of Lizzy’s own Mary Elizabeth.
But so much would change. On that fateful night of September 6, 1901, when the president was shot, Lizzy and Theodore Roosevelt’s path would become even more intertwined.
* * * **
Lizzy had been shocked to hear that all of the optimism regarding the president’s recovery was falling apart. Roosevelt had taken off for a planned vacation in the Adirondacks, staying at one of his favorite spots along Millionaire’s Row off the St. Lawrence River. Lizzy had made her own plans for her visit to California to finally get to meet her two fast- and ever-growing grandsons. It seemed as if the entire country was just sitting back waiting for President McKinley to get back to work.
Lizzy was not only shocked but utterly dismayed when she was told that McKinley was dead. Her first reaction was worry. Not for her, but for her friend. Theodore Roosevelt was now the new president.
When he finally made it back to Buffalo to be sworn in, he’d wired Lizzy asking her to be there. She had to decline but she knew he’d be in great company. Within a few weeks or shortly thereafter, Roosevelt and his wife Edith, along with most of their children traveled to Washington, D.C. and eventually moved into the White House. Lizzy read in the newspapers about the final farewell Roosevelt offered to Ida McKinley. Lizzy felt for the woman and in many ways understood the pain she was going through. She’d thought of Martin while brushing away a tear.
* * * *
Any thought of travel out west was put on hold. Lizzy had arranged to visit with her dear friend and now, in the first weeks of his presidency, she was seated in the Oval Office. So different from Roosevelt’s old office, these walls were bare and crates of furniture continued coming in and going out. As she sat, patiently waiting, she could hear the rumbling of gossip seekers all around and soon it sounded to her as if the mounted trophies of bison, tigers and elk would do the place good by shutting out those who were destined to do the newly sworn-in president no good.
She crooked her neck at the sound of Roosevelt’s voice in the outer room. Her eyes continued to scan the empty walls as she listened to him converse with his staff and listened intently as he called out the names of his cabinet appointments. All men.
* * * *
Her fascination with politics had never faded. She’d always been thrilled to listen to Martin. In some ways which she never could understand, she regretted his decision to leave politics. She knew that he liked to tinker with numbers, but a career in finance? If he’d stayed in politics maybe he’d be alive today. She shook her head to dispel the thought.
Three weeks after Roosevelt was sworn in, she was summoned to the Oval Office once again. When she arrived, she was escorted in by a man that looked of skin and bones. His cheeks were caved in and he walked with a slow limp. He bowed to her as he shut the door behind her. She sat on a new couch. Its tight fabric made her feel uncomfortable. She looked at the walls, now displayed with various pictures and paintings of hunting trips and exotic travels. She laughed when she saw the same dead animals that were on his wall as vice president now mounted strategically in the president’s oval office.
Lizzy was shocked when the door barged open. She looked its way as the smiling and spunky man hurried into the room. “Jolly good to see you, Lizzy, jolly good!”
To Lizzy, Roosevelt’s temperament never changed. He was the same man as vice president as he was now as president: high paced, energetic, fast talking and always with an agenda.
“I’ve been thinking,” he began as he sat on a couch opposite Lizzy. “I’ve got many who will continue to pursue Bill’s agenda, or at least the best they can without him. There aren’t many things that he and I disagreed on, even though we really never had a chance to get anything started. I want to run and run hard!”
“Run for office?” Lizzy looked puzzled.
“No, dear woman,” Roosevelt laughed, his pearly whites showing bright. “I want this administration to start running and never quit running until we are either elected out or shoved out!”
Lizzy studied the man and smiled. He’s like a boy in candy store. A rambunctious boy. Heck, I’m old enough to be his mother for God’s sake and if I don’t watch it, he’s going to run me into an early grave.
“So many things that I was working on at the state level can now be worked on at the federal level.” He looked at Lizzy for her reaction. There was none. “Come on, Lizzy! Dream! Have a vision! We have corrupt banks, railroads, steel companies; hell, what isn’t corrupt right now? There’s no regulation on anything and they know it. No, not on my watch!”
“Teddy, you say the word ‘bully’ all the time.” Roosevelt tilted his head and looked at her oddly. “Trust me, I’m fond of it. That’s you. But is that the image that you want to come out of your legacy . . . a bully?”
Roosevelt stood and walked to the window. He watched a little boy throw a ball to a dog. When the dog chased after the ball, it just sat, never retrieving it or bringing it back to the boy. “Who’s the owner?” He spoke to no one as he looked out the window. “Is the owner the one who has a big stick and uses it? Or is the true owner the one who has the big stick but never has to use it?”
Lizzy fell silent. She had no reply.
“No, Lizzy, I don’t want to be a bully. But dammit all to hell, those kinds of people have to be controlled, have to be regulated or else they’ll take advantage of any and every innocent bystander that doesn’t see it coming.”
“Will that be your legacy?”
“Oh, of course not; that’s just one of them.” He turned back to Lizzy, his grin wide again. “I want to open up the country and let the people see its beauty. In my time as Under Secretary of the Navy, I had a vision for a shipping lane that would cut right through Central America. I know we could do it; my golly, I just know it!”
“What about foreign policy? Where’s your legacy there?” Lizzy was beginning to enjoy the animation created by all of her questions.
“Got to get those damn two to quit fighting. Got to bring peace to the East.”
“I don’t follow you.”
“Russia and Japan!” Roosevelt waved his arms in the air. “We need to bring them peace.”
“And then what?”
“Well, that’s why I summoned you, Lizzy.”
Lizzy tilted her head back with surprise. “I’m not going to Japan, Teddy; no, too old.”
“Oh, fiddlesticks about this age thing. You’re as fit as they come.” His laughter boomed around the room, causing his secretary to open the door.
“Uh, everything all right, sir?”
“Yes, just fine, Elgin, just fine. Just having some fun with my dearest friend here, that’s all.”
As the skinny man turned and left, Roosevelt waited to hear the click of the knob before continuing. “Here it is Lizzy. I want you to be my Hannah and I your Madison.”
“Where’d that come from?” Lizzy laughed. “You and Edith have a big fight last night or something? I’m old enough to be your mother, dear God.”
“No, you’ve got it all wrong. Remember the diary? I sure do. Your Hannah and James Madison worked endlessly together to bring about change. They brought a vision into a reality. An idea into what is today our Constitution. They did it together!”
Lizzy inhaled and shook her head with saddened reservation. It was her turn now to get up and walk to the window. There was neither a boy nor a dog. What she saw were couples walking by hand in hand talking about this or that. She watched the myriad of hacks, buggies and carriages going by. To her astonishment, she saw several men on bicycles. They were each holding a briefcase in one hand while steering
with the other. She noticed an odd-looking couple on the far side of the lawn. They seemed to be in some type of heated argument. He was flapping his arms yelling something unrecognizable as his wife looked the other way. Lizzy marveled at the view in front of her, but the president’s comments had caught her off guard.
“Teddy, I’d love more than anything to work side by side with you. To make visions become reality. To make dreams come true. But, I could never be your Hannah and if you read the diary the way I did, you wouldn’t want me to.”
Roosevelt’s frown displayed how perplexed he was by Lizzy’s comment. He moved over to the window and stood next to her.
“I don’t understand. They worked splendidly together. Look what they accomplished together.”
“That’s just the point, Teddy.” Lizzy turned from him and walked to the couch. “The operable word you just spoke is ‘together’ and that’s not how it worked out for them. If you recall, Madison received all the credit while Hannah did most of the work. The Constitution was Hannah’s idea, not Madison’s. She relinquished her rights to it because, well . . . because she was a woman!”
Elgin knocked then entered with an announcement. “Sir, your next appointment is here for you.”
“Tell Senator Aldin that he’ll have to wait a spell, Elgin. Tell him to wait. I don’t want him to go away; just please ask him to wait a bit.”
Elgin bowed slightly and backed up towards the door. Just as he was pulling the door shut, Lizzy noticed the secretary’s glare focused at her. She thought of the man who shot Johnny Russell. He too had the same glare. A shiver went down Lizzy’s spine.
“You’re a dear, dear friend, Teddy. We’ve grown so close the past several months, but as you know, my main goal, my objective for the remaining years of this old woman’s life is to see all the Hannahs in this country receive the respect and recognition that they deserve. I know you agree with me. We’ve talked about it for hours. You even thought your Alice would be a great asset for the cause as well. I will help you out anyway I can, Teddy, but I have to follow my heart. I’ve got to follow what Hannah asked of me almost a hundred years ago.”