Elm Creek Quilts [04] The Runaway Quilt (34 page)

“Jonathan became a soldier?” asked Summer in disbelief.

“He joined the army as a doctor, not to fight,” explained Kathleen. “From what Thomas says, Jonathan was as passionate about the Union cause as he was, but it was his devotion to medicine that inspired him to enlist. Doctors were needed desperately, and so he went.”

“I understand Jonathan and his wife had children,” said Sylvia.

“Oh my, yes,” said Rosemary. “Four or five, I believe. Anytime I hear the last name Granger, I always wonder if we’re related somehow.”

Sylvia nodded, because it would have been rude to scold her hostess for not maintaining better ties with her distant relations. Besides, Sylvia could hardly criticize Rosemary for losing track of a third cousin twice removed when Sylvia herself had allowed fifty years to pass without speaking to her own sister.

Instead Sylvia took a deep breath. “Did Thomas ever mention
the Bergstrom family in his letters?” She prepared herself for a disappointing reply.

“I don’t recall offhand,” said Rosemary apologetically. “I’d have to go back and read them again. He did mention neighbors and friends occasionally, but since the names were unfamiliar, I always skimmed right past them.”

“Dorothea would be the one to have news about the Bergstroms,” said Summer to Sylvia. “What we really need are Dorothea’s letters to Thomas.”

Kathleen shook her head, regretful. “I’m afraid we don’t have any of those. I’m sure Dorothea wrote to her husband at least as often as he wrote to her, but his letters were the ones to survive, since they were mailed to Dorothea at home. Dorothea’s letters could easily have been lost or destroyed on the battlefield.”

Sylvia nodded glumly, thinking of the precious information lost forever. “I suppose we ought to be grateful we have any of these fragile paper records to remember our ancestors by. My memoir and your letters aren’t nearly as durable as most monuments to the past. It’s quite a responsibility now that they belong to us, isn’t it, to make sure they endure so that we can pass them on to future generations?”

Rosemary and Kathleen exchanged a look. “Did you hear that, Kathleen?” inquired Rosemary.

“I heard it,” said Kathleen, with a laugh. To her guests she added, “You’ve stumbled upon a little family disagreement.”

“In my will, I’ve left the letters and the Dove in the Window quilt to Kathleen. She’s my eldest.” Rosemary patted Kathleen’s hand. “It’s just as you said, Sylvia: I want to pass these treasures on to future generations, and I know Kathleen will be a faithful steward until it comes her time to pass them on.” She leaned forward and confided, “Kathleen thinks I should leave them to a museum. Can you believe it? The very idea. Giving our
family heirlooms to strangers.”

“A museum would know how to properly care for them,” said Kathleen. “Part of good stewardship is ensuring that something lasts so that it may be passed down. Those papers are getting more fragile every day, Mother, and the quilt is, too.”

Sylvia decided it would be prudent to stay out of the argument, but Summer said, “I’ll bet Waterford College would love to have them.”

“That’s exactly what I suggested.” Kathleen turned to her mother. “Think of what the students could learn from Thomas’s letters. And think of your great-grandparents’ contribution to history and to the cause of freedom. Shouldn’t some part of their memory be preserved, and in a way that would teach others about all they did?”

“You just want to brag about your family,” admonished Rosemary. “Well, I think Dorothea and Thomas would be the last people to brag about themselves.”

“I don’t want to brag, but I am proud of them.” To Sylvia and Summer, Kathleen explained, “They ran a station on the Underground Railroad.”

“Yes, I know,” said Sylvia, delighted to have another detail of Gerda’s journal confirmed. “Gerda and my great-grandparents operated one, too, on Elm Creek Farm. The Nelsons and the Bergstroms each knew about the other family’s station, but they didn’t speak about it openly.”

Rosemary looked puzzled. “Why not? I gathered that everyone knew about my great-grandparents’ activities.”

“Well . . .” Sylvia hesitated. “I don’t believe that was so. Gerda only stumbled upon the truth about your great-grandparents by chance, and she mentioned several times that both stations were run with the utmost secrecy.”

“But then . . .” Rosemary looked to her daughter for help.
“How did everyone know about it?”

Kathleen shrugged. “Maybe the truth came out after the war started.”

“No, no.” Rosemary shook her head firmly. “That’s not it. This was before the war, when they stopped running their station. I know it was before the war.”

Surprised, Sylvia and Summer exchanged a look. “The Emancipation Proclamation and the war changed the way the Underground Railroad operated, but it was still needed until then,” said Summer. “Your great-grandparents were devoted Abolitionists. Why would they stop running their station early?”

“Well—well, I must say I don’t know.” Rosemary gave her daughter a pleading look. “Do you remember, dear?”

“Did they close their station because they were discovered?” asked Sylvia.

“I—I suppose that could be how it happened,” said Rosemary, distressed. “I’m not sure. I know I heard something about it somewhere, maybe in those letters. Or maybe my grandmother told me. I’m afraid I don’t remember.”

Sylvia could see that Rosemary had become troubled and anxious, so she was relieved when Kathleen rose, signaling an end to the interview. “It’s all right, Mother. Maybe it will come to you later, but if not, that’s fine.”

“What really counts is that we were able to meet you,” said Summer, rising. She reached over and took the older woman’s hand. “I really enjoyed hearing your stories. Thanks for sharing them with us.”

“It was my pleasure, dear,” said Rosemary, but she seemed fatigued.

Sylvia thanked her as well, and she and Summer left. They drove back to Elm Creek Manor in silence, both mulling over Rosemary’s words. Sylvia puzzled over the new details about the Nelson family as well as Rosemary’s strange insistence that
their Underground Railroad station had ceased operation while it was very likely still needed, wondering what it all meant.

Suddenly Sylvia’s thoughts returned to another part of Rosemary’s story. “Summer, do you suppose Margaret Alden’s Elm Creek Quilt could have a history similar to Rosemary’s Dove in the Window?”

“How do you mean?”

“Perhaps Anneke made the Elm Creek Quilt for Hans to take into battle—I don’t know if he fought in the Civil War, but let’s say for the sake of argument that he did. Maybe she quilted those scenes of Elm Creek Farm into the cloth, to remind him of his home. Perhaps he lost the quilt, or traded it for a pair of boots or some other necessity, and eventually it fell into the hands of Margaret Alden’s ancestor.”

Summer was silent for a long moment. “It’s as logical as any other explanation we’ve thought of.”

“Hmph,” said Sylvia. Summer meant well, but Sylvia recognized faint praise when she heard it.

12

June 1859—
in which we are undone

A chill descended upon our household, but since
I was certain it would eventually lift, I paid it less attention than I should have. To be sure, with two young babies in the house, we adults had no time to idly ponder one another’s moods and tempers. Sometimes I felt as if I spent all day on the run, racing from one chore to the next, from wiping one infant’s face to changing the other’s diaper, from singing to one while Anneke rested to rocking the other so Joanna
could sleep. It occurred to me once, when I was feeling overtired and self-pitying, that I had inherited all of the drudgery of motherhood but none of the joys.

I knew Anneke resented Hans’s decision to forbid her from working for Mrs. Engle so long as we remained stationmasters. I could see it in the set of her jaw, in the abruptness of her conversation, in the way she brooded in her chair after her son had fallen asleep in her arms. The warmth that had entered her behavior toward Joanna cooled again, surprising me, for I had expected their shared experiences to draw them together.

I also knew Anneke was angry, but I did not know how angry until the storm that had been gathering on the horizon finally crashed down upon us, like a cloudburst from a clear blue sky.

I remember that it was a Friday, for the next day I had planned to attend a quilting bee at Dorothea’s. Though I looked forward to the event with pleasure, all that week my heart had been filled with wistful anticipation, for Joanna and I had been planning her continuing journey north. She insisted she felt well enough to go, and her baby certainly seemed healthy and strong; in fact, though nearly a month younger than Anneke’s son, he was nearly as big and at least as alert.

We planned her route carefully, knowing she would be carrying a precious burden, and would need certain shelter whereas other runaways could endure a night or two sleeping under the stars. For that reason—and because she had become so dear to us, and because her particular appearance encouraged us to believe our scheme could succeed—we devised an unusual means for her to journey on.

Anneke gave her two dresses, a hat, and a pair of gloves. I gave her forged documents identifying her as Caroline Smith, a widow from Michigan. Hans gave her the best present of all: a one-horse carriage and a Bergstrom Thoroughbred to pull it. Joanna and her son would travel in fine style indeed, and seeing her, not only would people assume she was a lady, but they would also take for granted that she and her child were white.

Joanna was the only one who doubted she could pull it off. “Soon as I talk, they know what I be.”

“Then pretend you have an affliction of the throat,” said I. “Pretend that the same accident that scarred your face robbed you of your voice, and that you must communicate
through writing. You can do that.”

“Yes, I can,” said she. “Thanks to you.”

I was so moved by her plainspoken gratitude that I embraced her. As thrilled as I was that Joanna would soon make a new life for herself and her son in freedom, I would miss her, for we had grown close over our lessons and chores. She promised to send word once she was settled, but I feared that I would never hear from her again, and would forever wonder what had become of her.

Those worries had settled into the back of my mind that Friday morning as Joanna and I took stock of her son’s layette and made plans to sew more clothes for him before they set off on their journey. I was holding the baby, and we were laughing over something I can no longer recall when I heard the door burst open downstairs. “There’s trouble coming,” shouted Hans.

There was a terrible note in his voice that filled me with dread. Without a moment to lose, Joanna scrambled into the hidden alcove, and I replaced the false door and the sewing machine behind her. Then, just as I spun around and discovered to my horror the baby still on the bed where I had left him while assisting his mother, I heard the baying of dogs, the pounding of horses’ hooves, then boots on our front porch and fists on the door.

“Bergstrom, open up,” shouted a man, and then came a crash as the door burst open beneath the weight of many arms.

Without thinking, I snatched up the baby and fled to my room. He looked up at me, solemn and uncomprehending, as I wrapped him in a quilt and set him on the floor of my closet, praying he would not cry out for his mother. I pulled dresses down from their hooks and flung them upon him, then tore back the quilt from my bed. In the moments it took to make my room seem carelessly untidy so no one would think to poke through quilts on the floor of my closet, I heard
an exchange of angry voices from below, and Anneke’s scream. My heart quaked with panic as I shut the closet door and fled from the room to help her and Hans.