1
Henry Alderfer
Sunday, 17 October, 1976
The Minister spoke softly at the funeral. He had never addressed a crowd this large, and he was quite emotional. Hank was a friend for years, but the Minister really had no idea of how many people’s lives Hank had affected until he saw this huge turnout.
“Are you boys going to be all right?” the Minister asked the three hired hands that had been helping Hank run the farm.
“I guess so,” one of them replied. But all three knew they would now have to find work elsewhere. Their lives just wouldn’t be the same without Hank around. To say they had loved the “old man” would have been an understatement.....
Henry “Hank” Alderfer was born in 1895 in a small five-room farmhouse in upstate Pennsylvania. He was the third generation of Alderfers to run the farm. Farming profitably wasn’t easy, especially after W.W.II, when conglomerates started buying up millions of acres and investing in modern equipment. Hank and his wife Joan were virtually on their own from the 1940’s on. Their only son, Mark, would have been the fourth generation to inherit and operate the struggling 150-acre spread. Mark, however, joined the Army Air Corps in 1942 and was killed in a dogfight in the Pacific late in 1944. Mark’s wife Sarah stayed on for a year or so after his death but left for San Diego in 1946, never to contact the Alderfers again.
Life was a struggle for Hank, especially as age crept up on him. Joan died in the mid 1960’s and Hank was never the same after that. He had three hired hands working the place right up to his death at age 81 in 1976. By that time he owed so much in back taxes and liens that the estate barely broke even at the Sheriff’s sale. Hank’s Last Will and Testament, leaving the farm to the three hired hands, amounted to nothing more than a well-intentioned empty gesture.
There were a few good years back in the 1950’s and 1960’s when Hank had managed to save a sizable nest egg for their retirement. He had amassed almost $350,000 by 1962, but that was before Joan’s stroke. She survived three more years, the last two in a nursing home about sixty miles from the farm. Hank visited her almost every evening for the entire two years. He only missed about ten days, three of which were attributable to the flu, and the rest to breakdowns of his Chevy pickup truck. He’d drive over after an early dinner, spend about an hour reading and talking to her, then drive back home each night. He never knew for sure how much she understood or paid attention. She simply stared into space, unable to speak or communicate at all. But that never discouraged Hank. He prayed for Joan every night before he climbed into bed, and he never gave up hope.
Most of the money was spent the first year after the stroke. Hospital care, surgery, medication, and a day nurse for eight months left less than $50,000 by the time Joan transferred to the nursing home. Then the balance of the money disappeared within a year. The nursing home filed a lien against the farm, followed shortly thereafter by liens from the County and School District for back taxes.
Throughout his entire life, Hank hardly ever missed a Sunday at Church. He even found a way to slip five or ten dollars into the plate right up to the very end. Nobody knew for sure where the money came from, but Hank would gladly have skipped meals to make the donations. His father taught him as a lad that God would see to all; that hard work and faith in God is what life was all about. Hank took his father’s words at face value and lived by them. He grew to be a hard-working, God-fearing, righteous man whose friends knew they could take Hank’s words at face value too.
Hank’s funeral was an event that folks around there would always remember. This man who barely had time to sit and smoke a cigar (his only real vice) or chat with a neighbor, seemed to have more friends than anyone could have imagined. Over three hundred mourners turned out for Hank’s funeral. They stood out in the rain in the small cemetery behind the Church. Not one soul even dared to open an umbrella, as if doing so would somehow diminish the homage they were paying him that day.
He was eighty-one years old, and working the farm the very day of his death. At least it was a merciful death; a massive coronary that collapsed him instantly. His head slammed into the tractor’s engine compartment as he plowed the last 30 acres in preparation for next Spring’s feed-corn crop. The doctor speculated that the concussion probably knocked him unconscious, so Hank probably didn’t suffer too much.
The unprecedented turnout was addressed by the Minister at the funeral. He attributed it to Hank’s integrity, sincerity, and love of God and mankind. Indeed, at least one hundred of the mourners were former church-goers who hadn’t been there for years, and another fifty were totally unknown to the Minister; probably members of other faiths, or even non-believers for all he knew. But he did know that Hank was a special kind of man, and he was certain that he felt the presence of God at this funeral.
2
Jack Casey
Friday, 21 July, 1933
It was Friday afternoon and attorney Jack Casey was preparing for a weekend at his Summer house in the mountains. “The Great Depression” it would later be called, but now Jack just thought of it as a three-year lull in the business. He was still making ends meet by representing an occasional injury victim and handling an ever-increasing number of bankruptcies. But the thing that brought in the most cash was his estate work. He had drafted hundreds of wills during his earlier years, and he was named executor in most of them. Estate work was now his golden goose. He took a nice percentage of the action regardless of the financial situation of the surviving families, and that put a lot of bread and butter on his table.
He was born John George Casey in 1903 and had the misfortune of having immigrant parents who weren’t doing very well in America. They were determined to see to it that their son Jack would have a much better life than they. The pressures began almost as soon as Jack started first grade. Being number one was the only way to make his parents happy. He hated school and he would have preferred to drop out and work at the shoe store his parents owned beneath their five-room apartment on Worthington Street in the Bronx. Jack skipped two grades in school and, at only fifteen years old, graduated at the top of his High School class. He went away to Harvard on a full scholarship, and somehow found himself in a Pre-Law curriculum.
In his senior year he knew that Harvard Law School was out of his reach. He was a below-average student with little hope of being accepted, and it was also financially out of his league. Besides, he needed to escape the heckling his mediocrity drew from his Harvard schoolmates. He applied to only four law schools; selections based exclusively on cost. He was accepted by three of them and decided on a small school in Mississippi. He worked his way through law school as a soda jerk in a drug store around the corner from the dormitories. He studied hard and achieved excellent grades. He liked the feeling of power that developed as he began to understand the way society really operated. The lawyers were the elite of society. They had drafted the Constitution, controlled the government, and dominated the political parties. They were the judges and the Congressmen and the Senators. Yes, law was for him.
He returned home after graduating and began studying for the New York State Bar examination. He took a job with a small firm in the area, doing mostly research and errands. He hated it, but he had to pass the Bar before he could do anything about his career. He passed on his first try, and set out on his own six months later. He hung out a shingle on a side street second-floor office in Manhattan, and somehow he made it work. It started with a few wills, then word of mouth caught on and the practice developed rather quickly. In 1930 Jack hired Fred Stoner, a promising young lawyer from Buffalo who was anxious to make his mark in the Big Apple.
…
The phone rang at about two thirty in the afternoon. Fred picked it up as he was flipping through a case folder. “Casey and Stoner,” he answered. “Oh, hi Lieutenant.... No, just getting ready to call it a week. What have you got?” He listened for a few moments, and then said, “I’ll get Jack. I don’t know the guy, but maybe Jack does. Hold on a second.” He put the receiver down on his desk and walked over to Jack’s office. He poked his head in and Jack looked up.
“Lieutenant Freeman on the phone. He’s got a corpse with your business card in his wallet. It’s a guy named Pearce or something. No next of kin that they can find.”
Jack nodded his head and said, “Okay. Thanks, Fred.” He picked up the phone as Fred left the office. “Casey here. What’s going on, Bob?.....Yeah, I did his will about three years ago. Hold on while I yank the folder.”
Jack spun around to a filing cabinet just behind his chair. He rummaged through some folders, pulled one out and spun back around. He opened it and quickly scanned through it.
“Got it right here, Bob. Let me see.....Yeah, this must be him all right. 526 Chestnut St.?” he asked. “.... Okay, then he’s mine. I’ll get over there on Monday morning if that’s all right. I’ve got a bunch of things to do this afternoon,” he lied. “Fine. See you Monday. Have a good weekend, Bob.....Thanks, I plan to.”
He hung up and flipped through the folder. He was pleased as usual to see that he was named Executor. He was even more pleased to see that Ernest James Pearce had no living relatives to cause any trouble on the case. There was a small number 10 envelope in the folder with the handwritten message, “Jack - Open this as soon as I’m dead.” He remembered drafting the will, but he didn’t remember any envelope. His curiosity was aroused and he opened the envelope without further ado. He slid a few pieces of blue-lined notebook paper from the envelope and unfolded them. They were stapled at the top left corner to form a booklet. He saw that both sides of each sheet were written on and there was a crudely drawn map on the last page. He turned back to the first page and began to read.
Ten minutes later Jack shouted from his desk, “Fred, you’d better get in here. You gotta see something.”
“Whatcha got, Jack?” he asked as he walked in.
“Take a look at this letter. I’m not sure what to make of it.”
Fred read the letter once, and then re-read certain parts. He turned his attention to the map on the last page. “It sure seems pretty far fetched to me. Do you think it’s really possible?”
“Well, I think I’m going to find out. Are you up for a little trip tomorrow morning? If what this letter says is true, it’s something I can’t wait to verify.”
“I’m game if you are,” Fred volunteered. “I can take my pickup if you’d like. I’ve got a pick ax and a couple of shovels I can bring along. If I’m reading the map right, this place isn’t too far away from here. About an hour or two at the most.”
“Well, maybe you can swing by my place around eight tomorrow morning,” Jack requested. “I’ll send the wife out to the Summer place herself and I’ll catch up with her on Sunday. How does that sound?”
“Great,” Fred replied. “Wear old clothes and hiking boots if you’ve got them. I know this countryside and it’s pretty rough.”
“Perfect! Then it’s a date.” Jack smiled and Fred winked back at him before turning and heading back to his own office.
Saturday, 22 July, 1933
Jack and Fred were exhausted and bruised as they scaled the rocky cliff in the Catskills. It would have been much easier if it weren’t for the tools they were carrying. At least Fred had the foresight to bring a knapsack with a thermos of lemonade and a box of chocolate chip cookies. They were starving and thirsty when they reached the spot marked on the map with a large “X”. Fred flipped the knapsack over his head and tore into it. They drank directly from the thermos and gobbled down the cookies like they hadn’t eaten in weeks. Then they looked at each other and simultaneously broke out in laughter.
“Let’s get on with it,” Jack mumbled through a mouthful of cookies.
They worked with the ax and shovel for almost 45 minutes, digging precisely between the two old trees indicated on the map. The hole was about 3 feet deep and they were both feeling tired and disillusioned. Fred was first to speak.
“Have we been had, or what?”
“Fifteen more minutes and we’re outa here,” came Jack’s reply.
“Sounds okay to me,” agreed Fred as he lifted the pick ax and swung it right into the center of the hole. They both heard the loud, hollow thump of the ax penetrating the decaying wood.
They looked at each other and Jack asked, “What the hell was that?”
The two of them started frantically digging and picking. In about ten minutes they had exposed an old wooden chest, about two feet long by one foot wide by one foot deep. They paused, looked at each other, then, as if on some unspoken cue, they both reached down and dragged the box to the surface. The ax had hit the box dead center and the lid had cracked slightly from the blow. Jack took the ax and wedged the point into the crack. He then pulled back on the handle like a pry bar and part of the cover broke loose exposing the contents of the box.
They stared in disbelief at the find. Then they looked at one another. Jack fell to his knees and worked off the remaining portion of the cover with his bare hands.
“There has to be $100,000 dollars here,” Fred shouted. “This is gold bullion. Maybe a hundred pounds....”
“More like two hundred,” Jack interrupted. “Where the hell did all this gold come from?”
“It’s got a US stamp on it,” observed Fred. “Maybe it’s stolen. I guess the cops can trace it down. It gives me the creeps just being near it.”
“Who says the cops have to know anything about this, Fred? There’s nobody in the world that has to know about this but you and me. What do you say?”
“No deal! This isn’t our money, Jack. Maybe it’s not even old man Pearce’s money. Anyway, we’re lawyers, and something like this could mean disbarment. I want no part of it, partner.”
It was as if a switch was thrown in Jack’s head. He decided the gold was his and he was determined to keep it. Nobody would ever have to know. Fred was his only problem.
“I guess you’re right, buddy,” admitted Jack. “Nothing’s worth disbarment.” He casually smiled and, with no warning, shoved Fred back over the cliff into the rocky gorge below them. He watched as Fred bounced against the rocks and screamed on his way down the two hundred foot drop. The screaming stopped when Fred was about halfway down. He saw Fred’s body lying twisted and lifeless at the bottom of the gorge, and the smile was still on Jack’s face.
Sunday, 26 January, 1975
The service for Jack Casey was a brief one. There were many respectable politicians and businessmen in crisp three hundred dollar suits. The Pastor eulogized him, thinking to himself the whole time how grateful he was that Jack had died after he had donated the money for the new Sunday School. The odd part about this funeral was that even though a huge number of people came to the service, only a handful followed along to the cemetery. Jack’s ex-wife was there, a couple of distant cousins, and a few business associates who were too embarrassed not to show up at the cemetery.....
After the treasure hunt incident, Jack reported the unfortunate accident to the police. Of course he showed them the letter that the crazy old man had written, but quickly added that he and Fred had only found a rotting old wooden box with nothing in it. “What a senseless, tragic waste of life,” he told the police. “Fred Stoner was a true friend and I’ll really miss him.” The tears that he forced to flow helped make his story all the more convincing.
Jack kept the bullion hidden for almost two years after the incident. He wanted to make certain that enough time had passed before trying to cash it in. He wasn’t about to take any more risks than he had to, but he also needed the time to figure out how to convert the bullion to cash. That involved inquiries, snooping and researching. He finally found an out-of-town jeweler of questionable reputation who agreed to pay him ninety percent of face value for the gold. Jack cashed in about one quarter of the bullion and kept the rest buried in a secret hiding place in the mountains. He put the money to work immediately and he did very well with it. Despite the temptation, he soon became too frightened to risk going back for the rest of the bullion. He knew in his heart that the gold was stolen, and he knew it could implicate him in the death of Fred Stoner if he were caught trying to unload it. Given his financial success from the first chunk of money, Jack quickly reached a point where he didn’t need the balance of the bullion anyway.
Over the years Jack began quietly investing in real estate deals. The Great Depression boosted his buying power, and he was able to remain a silent partner in most of the deals. He didn’t want his wife to know too much about his “business” dealings. He was afraid she might be astute enough to put two and two together. Eventually that didn’t matter anyway, because she left him for another attorney she had met at a New Year’s Eve party in 1938.
After the war, Jack did phenomenally well in the real estate business. He became a major developer during the post-war boom. Millions of GI’s were cashing in on their veterans’ benefits and buying homes as fast as they could be built. Jack and his partners built and sold over three thousand homes between 1946 and 1955. By that time Jack had switched to developing shopping centers. At first it was strip centers, usually incorporating a major food market and a pharmacy, with another ten or twelve stores attached. But as the 60’s rolled in, malls became the rage, and indoor shopping was the only way to go. By the 70’s, Jack was constructing major office complexes and time-share vacation resorts. Nobody knew for certain what Jack was worth when he died, but those closest to him estimated his worth at about $500 million.
The irony of it all was that Jack had never written a will for himself. His ex-wife fought in the courts for some time, trying to lay claim to his fortune, but the outcome was that New York State took possession of everything. The great and famous “Executor” died intestate.
3
Joan Spencer
Sunday, 2 May, 1976
Joan Spencer’s parents sat in the anteroom just behind the Chapel. Their faces were wet with tears, and their noses were bright red from the abrasion of countless tissues over the last three days. They were still in the denial stage. There was just no way that their beautiful little girl could be dead. She had everything going for her.
Father Young knocked once on the walnut door and entered before the Spencers could respond to the knock.
“Excuse me Bill, Evelyn, but we’ll be starting in about fifteen minutes. Do you want to take another moment alone with Joan before we open the Chapel to the others?”
Evelyn smiled politely through her tears. “Thank you, Father,” she managed to say with a quivering voice. “We’ll certainly want a few more minutes alone with her.” She turned to Bill. His head was down so low that his chin touched his chest. “Shall we, Bill?” she whispered in his ear.
“Yes.”
He stood up without raising his head, turned to his wife and gently took her hand in his. She stood and paused for a moment to look into Bill’s eyes, but he was staring at the floor. Together they walked hand in hand through the door to the Chapel. Father Young said a prayer to himself as he watched the two enter the Chapel, closing the door behind them.
The Chapel was dark compared to the anteroom, and it took several moments for Bill’s and Evelyn’s eyes to adjust. They stood by their only child and wept. In a trembling voice, Evelyn managed to say, “I love you, sweetheart.” She was overpowered by tears before the last word left her lips, and she fell to her knees clutching the cold hand of her daughter. Bill burst into tears at the same moment and knelt to embrace his wife.
“Why?” was the only word he spoke. Evelyn released her daughter’s hand, wrapped her arm around her husband’s back and placed her hand on the back of his head. She drew his head down to her shoulder and buried her face in his hair.
They remained motionless for almost a minute. Then, as if on cue, they stood up together. They reached for each other’s hands and squeezed tightly as they started back for the anteroom. They knew they’d need a few minutes to compose themselves before they could take their positions in the first row of pews in the Chapel.........
Joan Elizabeth Spencer was just seventeen when she died. She was the brightest student her Math and Physics teachers had ever taught; a senior, only a month away from graduating High School with honors, and on her way to M.I.T. under a full scholarship. Her parents were so proud and supportive of her. Bill used to joke about her being one of those rare women who inherited the “math gene”.
She was only an average student through grammar school, and nothing ever indicated that she was of above average intelligence until she started seventh grade. She took her first Algebra course that year and it was as if a new brain had appeared overnight. She demonstrated a unique aptitude for higher mathematics and then for science too. She found herself in advanced science and math courses by eighth grade, and she began to develop incredibly good study habits. She was earning straight A’s by ninth grade, and she began to draw the attention of the school administration. They arranged some special psychological and intelligence screenings through the local educational testing services. She turned out to have an IQ over 160 and a rare gift for abstract thought. She was well adjusted socially, had many friends, and even found time for sports and dating. She was an avid reader, but she preferred technical material over the fiction and romance novels her peers were reading.
The greatest day of her life was the day she received the scholarship to M.I.T. It was a Saturday morning when the letter arrived, and her mother noticed the return address on the envelope. Evelyn immediately became nervous, thinking only about how Joan would react to a rejection notice. She called her daughter down from her room and handed it to her without saying a word. They both stood motionless for a moment, then Joan opened the letter and began to read it. Evelyn simply watched her daughter’s eyes for a clue. They both began screaming in delight at the very same instant. Evelyn grabbed the letter so she could read it herself, then they both began screaming all over again. They hugged and danced around the kitchen like two five-year-olds.
The last half-year of High School was difficult for Joan. She had developed strong feelings for a boy in her class. Mike Trimble was his name. It was her first case of infatuation, and she felt all of the strange, wonderful, confusing, scary and erotic feelings that most girls experienced at thirteen or fourteen. She overreacted to her emotions and was almost ready to abandon M.I.T. just so she could be with the boy she loved. She struggled with her emotions until late March, when Mike dumped her for an eleventh grade cheerleader. It was pure devastation for Joan. She felt suicidal for almost a week, and then it turned to rage and rebellion. Then in mid April something snapped inside her. She decided that Mike simply wasn’t worthy of her and that few men in the world were or ever would be. She decided that she was going to make her way through life never needing anyone. She would decide who, if anyone, was worthy of her love, and she would never be rejected again by any man.
The change in her was evident to her parents and some of her friends, yet she never actually spoke to them about her feelings. She directed all of her thoughts and energy preparing for the next four years at M.I.T. She emerged from her internal conflicts stronger and more self-assured than ever. She was going to be the world’s top scientist some day. A Nobel Prize was a “given” in her mind.
On Thursday evening, April 29, she borrowed her father’s car to run by the library to copy her term paper for Physics class. She was so excited about college. All she could think of was the Doctorate in Physics she would someday display on her office wall. She would be the next Einstein, or.....She daydreamed through a red light at the corner of Preston and Main and was broadsided by a tractor-trailer. She died instantly and was pronounced D.O.A. twelve minutes later at Lawrence General Hospital. She never knew what happened.
4
Raymond Williams
Wednesday, 20 August, 1975
Jasmine Williams sat at her husband’s side in the small hospital room. Raymond had finally been taken out of the cancer ward the week before. Now he would be permitted to die with a bit more dignity, in a semi-private room. The weather in Georgia was sweltering, and the old air conditioning system in the hospital was barely able to cool the room to eighty degrees. Jasmine had brought a small electric fan from home to try to make Ray a little more comfortable. He was on so much medication that it was hard for her to tell if he felt anything at all, but the fan was there just in case he did.
This was Jasmine’s third day off from work. She had requested an emergency leave from the local transit company to spend full time with her husband. The doctors were telling her that Ray probably wouldn’t last the week. To the nursing staff, her composure seemed remarkable, but Jasmine had been preparing herself for this moment for almost six months. Now she was simply acting out a well rehearsed role......
Jasmine could only reflect on the past as she helplessly waited for Ray to die. She thought back to the day they met, twenty-three years ago. She was working as a secretary at the bus repair depot, and Ray was a bus driver who had come to pick up bus number 1912. She remembered he mentioned that 1912 was the year he was born. “That makes me fifteen years younger than you,” she inadvertently let slip. He looked at her with that captivating grin of his and said, “Damn, you look more like you just got out of High School, girl.” That was the beginning of their romance. He was a forty year old divorced father of two, and she was a twenty-five year old wallflower still living with her parents.
Oh, how her parents had hammered her over their romance. They never missed an opportunity to make her feel foolish and used, and they always treated him so coldly when he’d come by to pick her up. One time he came over with his two children, Raymond Jr. and Elizabeth. “Lizzy” was twenty-two at the time, and that provided Jasmine’s parents with a whole new arsenal of ammunition to attack her with. But as they got to know Ray better, they accepted him despite the large age difference. In time, they even came to love him because of the way he loved their daughter.
After six months she wanted to move in with Ray, but he wouldn’t hear of it. They had a loud argument about it at a restaurant one Saturday evening. She felt so rejected and angry that night that she threatened to walk out on him. He pounded his fist on the table and told her, “Young lady, you’d better behave yourself or you’re not going to be married to me.” She was about to scream back at him when she realized what he had said. Then he pulled a small box out of his pocket, opened it, and held it out for her to see the beautiful diamond engagement ring. His expression turned serious and he asked, “Will you be my wife, Jasmine?” Then his captivating grin appeared and she burst out laughing. He followed suit and they laughed for almost two full minutes. Her expression changed. She looked at him with tears in her eyes, took the ring and nodded her consent.
A Justice of the Peace married them two months later. It was a happy marriage, but she was always haunted by the fact that she was unable to have children. Ray’s own children drifted away from him after the marriage. He was eager to adopt a child, but Jasmine would not consent. Ray was happy in his second marriage, and he tried to be a good husband to Jasmine. He was dedicated to making this second marriage work.
Ray’s first marriage was a disaster. He had gotten his high school sweetheart pregnant in their senior year. They got married right away, and they both dropped out of school. Ray worked in a gas station until he was twenty-one, had two children, and realized his life was going nowhere. His wife got hooked on heroine after their second child was born. He ended up throwing her out and taking custody of the children. He had no way to take care of them himself, so he moved back with his parents, finished high school at night, and got a job as a trolley-car conductor. He raised the children the best he could, but his wife straightened out her life, sued for custody of the kids, and won. They were divorced shortly after that, and his ex-wife remarried. Ray finally consented to allow the two children to be adopted by their new father, and he regretted that decision for the rest of his life. They saw him from time to time, mostly when they got older, but they eventually just drifted away and out of contact.
Ray was promoted to trolley-car operator and accumulated some seniority. When the buses started to replace trolley cars in the late forties, he became one of the first black bus drivers in the company. He was so proud to be one of the elite who was no longer confined to the tracks. He was intoxicated with his new-found power to steer around stalled automobiles and to wheel the five-speed monster around the tightest turns. Aside from hopping a curb on an occasional tight turn, he was one of the best drivers the company had. He had a perfect driving record. The only accident he ever had was when a car rear-ended his bus while he was discharging a passenger, but that never got charged against his record.
When he first met Jasmine, he was one of only a few black bus drivers, and was therefore somewhat of a celebrity. In those days he wasn’t permitted to drive the “white neighborhoods”, but he was proud nevertheless. Number 1912 was his baby. He drove that first bus for almost eighteen years, until the brand new, air-conditioned, automatic transmission, V-8 diesel-powered replacement bus inherited the old “1912” designation in a brief ceremony at the bus repair terminal. He was so proud that he drove the new bus straight to his house that morning to show it off to his friends and neighbors. He caught hell from his supervisor, but he never got written up.
Their life together had been a pretty good one. With the two of them working, they had been able to afford a nice house in a good neighborhood. They even managed two one-week vacations each year. They had visited Europe, Hawaii, Alaska, Bermuda, and even Australia over the years. Ray quit smoking and kept himself in pretty good shape. When the cancer was detected during a routine chest x-ray in late 1974, it came as a total shock. Ray was determined to beat it, but it spread quickly. It was apparent to both of them by February that it was going to take a miracle to save Ray’s life. No miracles occurred.....
.....Ray started coughing and Jasmine jumped up to see if she could help. He stopped long enough to turn to her and whisper, “It’s my time, Jasmine,” and then he started coughing again. Jasmine panicked and ran out to get a nurse. When they got back to the room thirty seconds later, Ray was breathing erratically. His head was turned toward the door and he reached out for Jasmine’s hand. As she reached to take his hand in hers, his arm fell limp and he let out his last breath. She knew it was over, but she took his hand anyway and began to weep. She was a widow at forty-eight years of age.
5
Ann Willis
Thursday, 2 December, 1976
It was a cold and drizzly day in Indianapolis. Ann Willis parked the station wagon in front of the house and started to open the door. Her reflexes caused her to jerk the door back toward her the instant she heard the approaching car’s horn. “Jesus,” she shouted. “That was close.” She waited a moment for her pulse to return to normal, then looked into the side-view mirror before opening the door to let herself out. She closed the door behind her and opened the rear door to gather up the bags of toys, clothes and wrapping paper. With her hands full, she somehow managed to close the rear door, fish her keys out of her purse, and balance the entire load all the way to her front door. She fumbled to slide the key in the lock and turn it. As the door opened, she and her bundles squeezed through to the inside.
Christmas was only three weeks away. Every year she promised herself she’d do the Christmas shopping before Thanksgiving, and every year she broke the promise. This was only the first shopping trip. There were at least five or six more trips necessary. She and Ted had four children and seven grandchildren to shop for this year, not to mention her and Ted’s brothers and sisters, all the nieces and nephews, Ted’s dad and her mother. This was going to be a fun Christmas with the two new grandchildren, but it was their turn to make Christmas Eve dinner for the Willis clan and that was going to mean a great deal of work.
Ann took off her coat and hung it on the coat rack to dry. She gathered the packages and dragged them into the dining room where they would remain until it was time to box and wrap the presents. She headed immediately for the refrigerator and took out a bottle of Coke. She glanced at her watch and calculated that she had only an hour and a half before Ted got home. She wanted to make beef stew, his favorite, so she had to start right away. She rummaged through a drawer, removed the bottle opener and popped off the cap of the soda. She drank right from the bottle as she started gathering up the ingredients for the stew. She scanned through a mental check-list as she maneuvered around the kitchen; onions, carrots, celery, potatoes, chuck steak, peas.....
Ann was not very happy with how her life turned out. She never dreamed she would end up a housewife. That was the furthest thing from her mind during those wonderful years at College. She had gotten her BA in History back in 1940 and she was just starting several courses to complete her teaching credentials when she first met Ted. He was her Professor in the Elementary Education class. She had noticed him in the hallways during her senior year at College, but she didn’t know his name, and certainly never associated him with “Doctor Theodore Willis” when she signed up for the Education class.
She sat in the first row of the lecture hall, near the middle. Usually she would find a seat as far back as possible, hoping to enjoy the anonymity that comes with distance. She was so enamored of Ted that first day that she hardly heard a word of his lecture. As for Ted, he found it hard to take his eyes off the beautiful young woman only a few yards from his lectern, and he found his train of thought broken several times. As the bell sounded to signal the end of the class, Ted broke the unspoken commandment and approached his new student on a social basis.
“Miss Tasker, was it?” he asked cautiously.
“Yes, that’s right, Professor.” She was visibly shaken by his approach. “It’s Ann, Ann Tasker.”
“Look, I don’t ...that is, I usually...what I.....” His face went red with embarrassment. She stared back in shock. He finally gained his composure. “I don’t make a habit of this. In fact I’ve never done anything like this before, but I couldn’t help notice you in class, and I....well...I wondered if you might like to have a cup of coffee or a soda with me...”
“I’d love to,” she interrupted, rescuing him from his obvious torment. “Do you mean now?”
“Yes, actually. Now is fine. And please call me Ted.”
“Okay, Ted. How about an ice cream soda?” She smiled and he smiled back. She gathered her books and they walked out together. She was floating on a cloud.
That was how it all started. She never did finish his class. She dropped it two weeks later and promised herself she’d take it next semester with a different Professor. They started dating almost immediately, and they both fell head over heels within weeks. She brought him home to meet her family about three months after they met, and they both knew by that time that they were going to spend the rest of their lives together.
They had been married for almost a year before they bought a house. She later calculated that it was probably on their first night in the new house that she conceived Debbie, their first child. Somehow her career had been set aside, although she wasn’t consciously aware of making that decision. It just happened.
The war shook things up at the college. Enrollment took a dive as so many of the eligible young men enlisted. Ted didn’t have tenure, but his department head kept him on part-time until the war ended. He supplemented his income working nights in a bombsight factory in town. They had two more children at one-year intervals, Paul and Joseph. Two years after Joseph, they had Betty, their fourth and last.
Lost in the world of family problems and responsibilities, they started taking each other for granted, and by 1952 they came close to separating. Ann actually had a brief affair at that time, but Ted never found out about it. They agreed to try marriage counseling, and it worked. But something changed inside of Ann that year. She actually did give up her career plans that year. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t already abandoned those plans years before, but she now made it official in her own mind. It brought about a subtle change in her behavior. She devoted herself totally to her family, and that devotion somehow became her reason for living.
She was active in the PTA, went to all the school plays and sporting events the kids took part in, and was a volunteer teacher’s aide until Betty finished grammar school. She watched what she ate, kept herself on the go, exercised regularly, and always stayed svelte and attractive. Even into her fifties, she looked ten years younger than she was.
Things began to change again as the children grew up and left home to start their own lives. With them being so close in age, the whole process of emptying the nest spanned only seven years. With each successive departure, a part of Ann’s soul was stripped from her. The first grandchild helped restore her soul a bit, but it was never really made whole again. As the grandchildren increased in number, Ann’s role changed quickly to baby-sitter and grandmother. It was a role that Ann didn’t really object to, but it made her life seem insignificant in retrospect. Now, at fifty-seven years old, she often thought about what paths she would choose if she had it to do all over again. The thing she wanted and missed the most was respect. She wished she could have been famous and important. She blamed her lackluster life on the fact that fate had made her a woman. She wondered more and more what it might have been like if she had been Andy instead of Ann.....
.....She slipped on her apron and tied it behind her back. She diced the onion and threw it into a stewing pot with salt, pepper and a tablespoon of shortening. She set the burner knob to medium and began to cut up the meat, potatoes, carrots and celery. The doorbell rang. She ran to answer it, but nobody was there. She found a circular stuffed into the mail slot when she closed the door. She pulled it out and read the mimeographed advertisement asking if they were interested in selling their home. She drew a cigarette from her apron pocket and placed it in her mouth as she walked back to the kitchen, still reading the circular. She pulled a book of matches from the same pocket, opened it and tore off a match. She set the circular on the countertop and struck the match on the rear of the matchbook. She didn’t know that the pilot had gone out and the burner had not ignited. She didn’t smell the gas that filled the kitchen.
The explosion was so loud that neighbors down the block heard it. Ann was aware of the bright flash and the searing flames as she was thrown to the floor, but she heard no explosion. Her clothing was on fire and her entire body was in agony from the searing heat of the flames enveloping her. Her last confused thought was about rescuing her tiny newborn baby, Debbie. She was dead within fifteen seconds of striking the match.
6
David Pearlstein
Wednesday, 18 August 1976
Rabbi David Pearlstein’s coffin was open before the service began, and the family members viewed him one last time. They were in a Jewish funeral home about ten miles from the Rabbi’s Synagogue. His wife Rose, his two sons Michael and Eric, their wives, and his two grandchildren paid their last respects. Rabbi Milton Silkovitz was temporarily assigned to the congregation, and he felt extremely out of place. He did not know Rabbi David Pearlstein personally, and this service would be an awkward one for him. He had spent a few hours the prior afternoon interviewing the family and friends, trying to formulate a suitable eulogy. Much to his relief, Michael had requested that he be permitted to give the eulogy at the service and that relieved Rabbi Silkovitz of the largest of his burdens.
“The coffin will be closed in another five or ten minutes,” Rabbi Silkovitz announced. “Then you can take your places in the chapel and we’ll allow the rest of the friends and congregation to enter.” He looked over to the widow to confirm that she understood.
She nodded and said, “Thank you, Rabbi. It’s all happening so quickly.”
Rabbi Silkovitz commiserated with her and the rest of the family. “This is the Jewish way. It’s better to get it over with quickly.”
Some of the family members nodded in agreement. The Rabbi left the family chamber, and after about ten minutes, the family members drifted out into the chapel area and sat down. As they entered, they noticed that the coffin was indeed now closed. The main doors of the chapel were then opened and people flowed in. They followed one another in a single long line to pay their respects to the family members in the first row. They then seated themselves and waited for the service to begin. There were over two hundred people that came to the service, and it took well over thirty minutes for them to get through the line and seat themselves.....
David Pearlstein was born in Germany in 1910. He was the son of a watchmaker, and he decided very early in his life that he wanted to be a Rabbi. He made his family proud as he studied for his chosen vocation. He became a Rabbi at age twenty-seven and was unable to find a congregation in the area. Anti-Jewish sentiment was running rampant in those days, and it was clear to David that he and the family must flee Germany while they still could. But his parents and his two brothers decided that they wanted to stay. His father gave David money to bribe the appropriate officials, and David began a solo journey to America.
The journey took David through Switzerland and into Italy. There he found his way to Spain on a small freighter and ultimately booked passage on a steamship to Mexico. He bribed his way across the US border and came in as an illegal alien. He worked his way back to New York where he met up with a Jewish relief organization that his father had told him about. They helped him get papers and eventually, after the war, helped him gain American citizenship.
Word came to him during the war that his entire family had been sent to concentration camps. When the war was over in Europe, he confirmed the hideous truth about the death camps and the fate of his entire family. He gave up on his faith for a while immediately following that news, but he somehow managed to pull his life and faith back together two years later.
In 1947, at the age of thirty-seven, David finally got his own congregation in a small South Jersey community. His delight was like that of a little child. He could now begin fulfilling what he knew at age thirteen to be his destiny. His Synagogue included a house on the adjacent land, and he moved there in late April. From the beginning, he was a wonderful Rabbi. All members of the congregation were supportive. The matchmakers went to work at once and introduced him to Rose. She was the beautiful twenty-six year old daughter of a prominent businessman in the community. David loved her at first sight, but she took a bit longer to warm up to him. The age difference was a problem to her, and his foreign accent and mannerisms were an annoyance to her. She finally came around in 1950, however, and they were married.
Michael and Eric were born in 1951 and 1952 respectively. They were the apple of David’s eye. He was a doting husband and father, and he always managed to find time for a picnic or a game of catch with the boys. He taught them Judaism in a unique and powerful way. He’d tell them bible stories as if he were right there when it was all happening. He would inject just the right amounts of humor, intrigue and suspense into the stories. Then the boys would ask questions afterward, and he’d explain everything in fine, glorious detail. They grew up to be wonderful, religious gentlemen. They both got married while they were in college, and they both presented David with fine grandchildren.
Rose’s life was just as fulfilling as David’s. She took an active part in the Synagogue and in the community. She was a wonderful and supportive mother to the two boys. Love seemed to flow around the Pearlstein family, but especially around Rose. She was attentive to all of David’s needs. She was there for him on the many nights when he awoke screaming from the horrible nightmares about his mother and father and brothers being gassed or burned to death. She would hold him and stroke his forehead until he calmed down and fell back to sleep.
By 1960 the nightmares were coming almost every night and it got to the point where David was afraid to go to sleep. He would lie awake until the wee hours of the morning, doing everything he could to fight off sleep. He had a mild nervous breakdown that year. He was hospitalized for two weeks and then he underwent outpatient psychotherapy for almost three years. He finally got his demons under control, but it took a lot of hard work on his part as well as the family. Ultimately, it was his deep faith in God that got him over the hump. He was finally able to make some sense of the deaths of his family.
He understood that God had reasons for everything that He did, or allowed to be done. In the grand scheme of existence, every life was a celebration of God. Every death was simply the return of one of God’s children, and ultimately a birth was there to fill the vacuum left by each death. And so, to David it even became clear that the therapy and the healing were also the work of God. God had some divine purpose in everything.
David became an even better Rabbi for the remainder of his years. He was wise and perceptive beyond anything he had been before his breakdown. He had a true and profound bond with God. He was certain that God had spoken to him back in the early 1960’s. He celebrated each and every day of his life from that point forward. He would gladly have sacrificed his own life if God wished it of him. Life’s meaning was clear to him, and as a Rabbi, a teacher, he was chosen to convey this wonder to his congregation and anyone else who might listen.
When David collapsed on Monday, August 16, he stopped breathing. The rescue team’s remarkable skills enabled them to revive him and get him to the hospital. But the damage to his heart was too severe. He lay there with his wife at his side, knowing he was about to die. He shed no tears at all, even though Rose was a non-stop water works. He took Rose’s hand and instructed her, “Be strong for the children and for the congregation. I am finally about to rejoice in the glory of God.” He smiled and he was gone.....
.....The service was a memorable one. Michael gave a wonderful eulogy. There was a seventy-four car procession to the cemetery. After the coffin was lowered into its final resting place, Rose threw the first symbolic handful of earth onto the coffin. As she did so, a sudden gust of cool air hit her squarely in the face, and she was certain that she heard David’s voice whisper, “Good-bye, my love.”
