A Star for Mrs. Blake (45 page)

When she thought back on how it happened, Cora sensed an invisible hand. The fact that Grif had found her grandson—that could not have happened by chance. It was Sammy, she decided. Sammy’s spirit, guiding everything. She no longer remembered the faceless stone cross as anonymous and cold; now she believed that Sammy had been there all along. Her fingers absently climbed the window glass, as if to touch the faces that were gone from her. Sammy’s and Griffin Reed’s. But it made her smile and feel glad to know that Grif would be taken care of, safe in London with the best doctors in the world, and she dreamed of what he’d look like, whole.

When she awoke, they were crossing the bridge with Union Station in Bangor just ahead. The railway house no longer seemed like something in a fairy tale, as when she’d left. It seemed quite ordinary—but she was excited about seeing the harbor again, the way it opened up so modestly to the sea. It would be glorious, all gilded in sunset light—the place from which her mother had sailed away to see the world.

The Fourth of July! It came boomeranging back at her—she’d forgotten that she was chairman of the church fair! Oh no, another slew of tasks that would have be accomplished, fast. Then she remembered that she’d put Mrs. Celery Face, Essie Jordan, in charge of the crafts committee, so at least that would be a load off … And all at once, she realized how she could bring François to Maine. The Martha Washington Benevolent Society would be proud, she was sure, to raise the money to pay for the son of an island patriot to return. The train slowed as it pulled into the station. She could see Linwood’s car. He would be waiting for her inside. The ride hadn’t taken that long at all, she thought. The way home is always shorter.

Although the characters and events in this book are fictional, the work was inspired by the diary of Colonel Thomas Hammond, son of Colonel Thomas West Hammond, whose first assignment as a graduate of West Point was to accompany a party of Gold Star Mothers as a liaison officer on the pilgrimage to France. As a result of his experience with the war mothers on that tour, Hammond decided not to follow his father’s path in combat infantry and instead went into strategy and ultimately diplomacy, serving as a military attaché at the embassy in Paris. The author is deeply grateful to Nicholas Hammond and his family for access to the story of his father and grandfather, who are both buried with honors at Arlington National Cemetery.

The character of Florence Dean Powell is loosely based on an American sculptor named Anna Coleman Ladd, who brought her skill to the Studio for Portrait Masks in Paris, 1917, a clinic for wounded soldiers administered by the Red Cross. They followed the work of Sir Harold Gillies, a British pioneer in the field of facial reconstruction, which had become a desperate need resulting from the nature of trench warfare. During the Battle of the Somme, Gillies’s team at London General Hospital received 2,000 cases in one day.

The total mobilized forces of the United States during World War I came to 4,355,000. Casualties were 323,018, of which 116,516 were fatalities. Today the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery is a memorial park commemorating more than 14,000 war dead, including 486 unknown soldiers.

To learn more about the Gold Star Mothers, go to
www.aprilsmith.net
.

From the first time Nicholas Hammond showed me the diary his father kept of the Gold Star Mothers pilgrimages to the publication of this novel has been a twenty-five-year journey. Despite my determination to tell this story, it would never have been realized without the dedication of two possibly more determined women: my dazzling agent, Molly Friedrich, and the famously revered editor at Alfred A. Knopf, Carole Baron. They both saw the potential, and the necessity, of giving voice to those forgotten by history, and they employed the full power of their talents to make it happen. I am honored to have joined the ranks of lucky authors whose work has been elevated beyond their wildest dreams by Carole Baron’s unique combination of incisiveness, patience, strength, and spot-on instinct that is almost magical. Thank you, Carole, for standing in the trenches with me. And thanks to Ruthie Reisner—no more able assistant has ever existed—as well as to the marketing and publicity team at Knopf, under the sustaining leadership of publisher and editor in chief, Sonny Mehta.

Many sources contributed to the veracity of this book, chief among them the generous inhabitants of Deer Isle, Maine, who took a stranger with a notebook (always dangerous) into their homes: Michelle Kydd Lee, Claudette and Loring Kydd, Neva Beck, Mary Cousins, Anita Pickering, Connie Weiberg, and Tinker Crouch and Joyce Gray of the Deer Isle Historical Society. Thanks to Carrie Frazier and Joy Horowitz for help along the way. The Maine Folklife Center, at the University of Maine and the online Maine Memory Network have done a vital job of preserving our heritage and I’m grateful for their excellent work, as well as for the astonishing resources of the National Archives in Washington, D.C., which include original War Department documentation of the pilgrimages.

I am indebted to Jerry and Gail Savitz, who shared memories of
Jewish chicken farming; Bruce Hoskins, for his knowledge of soil science; Robert Dawkins, munitions expert; Scott Kraska, the guru of New England military antiques; Dr. Sally Howard for psychological insights; Angela Rinaldi, for literary expertise.

In Verdun, I could not have had more knowledgeable guides than Tony Noyes and Christina Holstein, who provided an eye-opening tour of the battlefields, and introduced me to the extraordinary Jean-Paul de Vries, proprietor of the Romagne ’14–’18 museum, which houses a personal collection of relics that tell the story of the lives of ordinary soldiers during World War I. Joseph P. Rivers, Superintendent of the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery and Memorial, provided valuable insight into the organization of the Gold Star Mothers tours of the 1930s.

Ten years ago I reached out to a group of Navy moms to find out what it is like to live day-to-day when your son is at war overseas. To these proud mothers who shared their experiences I owe the deepest gratitude of all: Cyndi Benjamin, Karen Brammer, Robin Faz, Donna Gilley, Terri Kido, Cyndi Marler, and Anne McCaffrey. Fair winds and following seas!

Over the past twenty-five years, supporters of this project have come and gone. What sustains in the end is the love of dear friends and treasured family—especially my children, Benjamin and Emma, and my husband, Douglas Brayfield, a creative partner in this book from the beginning, whose perceptions illuminate every page. Thank you to all for the joy of living this life with you.

A.S
.

Santa Monica, California

April Smith is the author of the successful novels featuring FBI Special Agent Ana Grey as the central character. She is also an Emmy-nominated television writer and producer. In her research for
A Star for Mrs. Blake
, she traveled to Maine, New York City, Paris, Verdun, and the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery. Her home base is Santa Monica, California, where she lives with her husband.