Her Daughter’s Dream

Etta had already begun opening Rosie’s letters. “They’re yours to keep. Our family enjoyed them, but you must have them. They’re part of your family history.”

“I can’t wait to read them. There is so much I’d like to know about my grandparents. Maybe she wrote about her sister, Elise, too. She sometimes mentioned her to me-even used to tell me I looked like her. But she’d never tell me anything more than that.”

Etta looked troubled. “My mother told me the story. It’s in the early letters-references to it, not details. You may not want to know.”

“I think it’s important I do.”

“Mama said Elise was very beautiful. I’m sure you do look like her. She was very quiet and painfully shy. She stayed in the shop with her mother while Marta was sent out to work. Mama didn’t say much about what went on in your grandmother’s family, just that Marta did not have an easy life. Her father sent her to Bern.”

“To housekeeping school.”

“Ja, but Mama said Marta wanted more than that. She went to Interlaken.”

“And worked at the Hotel Germania.”

“That’s when her father sent Elise to work for a wealthy family in Thun. It turned out very badly.”

Carolyn saw how Etta hesitated. “How badly?”

“The master of the house and his son abused her.” She lowered her eyes and Carolyn understood. “Marta took her sister out of that house and brought her home, but Elise was already pregnant. No one knew yet, but the girl never went out after she was brought home. She stayed inside the house. Everyone assumed she was taking care of her mother, who was very ill with consumption. Marta confided in my mother that she feared for Elise. Apparently the girl was very dependent on her mother, whom Marta felt coddled her all too much. Then when her mother died, Elise disappeared. Everyone went searching for her. It was my mother who found Marta’s sister by the river. She had frozen to death. And she was heavy with child.”

Carolyn closed her eyes. Oma had kept secrets, too. Her sister’s rape, an unwed pregnancy, suicide.

Etta went on with the rest of what her mother had told her about a plain girl wounded by a father who didn’t love her, but used her as a source of income for the family while her mother languished with consumption and her exquisitely beautiful and delicate sister remained hidden away like Rapunzel inside a tower. When Marta went away to work, her father had demanded a portion of her wages, and Marta capitulated until Rosie Brechtwald had written the truth. “Mama knew Marta would never come back after her mother and sister died.”

Carolyn ached for Oma.

“I’m sorry. Perhaps I should not have told you.”

“I’m glad you did. It explains so much.” No wonder Oma had been so determined to make sure her own children could stand on their own two feet. Cloistered by fear, weakened by a needy mother’s coddling, Elise had been unprepared for the world. In the end, she gave up her life without a fight.

How many times had Carolyn considered doing the same thing? Once she had almost walked into the sea. God had used a man wounded by war to draw her back. He’d used an unexpected pregnancy to give her reason to keep on living, to work hard, to accept consequences and blessings along the way. But she had kept silent, too, keeping the pain locked in and pressed down.

“You look like Elise. She was my little sister, and she was very, very pretty, just like you,” Oma once said, but wouldn’t explain. Yet, Oma hadn’t treated Carolyn the same way she had treated Mom. Oma had held her close, told her repeatedly she loved her, encouraged her to step out in faith. Oma had learned that withholding love might make a daughter strong, but also left deep wounds. On both sides.

* * *

Carolyn read the letters translated by Etta’s children and tucked them into the corresponding originals written by Oma in German. She read until her eyes blurred.

I am in England. Papa sent a wire telling me to come home. He said nothing about either Elise or Mama, and I knew he would expect me to spend the rest of my life in the shop…

Cousin Felda said it was you who found Elise. I dream of her every night…

Later, Oma moved away from London to “better air” and lived and worked in the “fine Tudor home” of Lady Daisy Stockhard, who loved high tea every afternoon at four o’clock. When one of the other servants left to get married, Oma replaced her as Lady Daisy’s companion.

She is a most unusual lady. I have never known anyone to discuss so many interesting topics. She doesn’t treat her servants like slaves, but is genuinely interested in our lives. She had me sit with her in church last Sunday.

Her daughter is never happy with anything, not even her mother. She is off on another hunt for a husband, and when she’s gone, everyone in the house breathes easier, even Lady Stockhard.

Oma wrote of the long voyage to Canada:

I had days when I would have jumped overboard to end my misery if I could have climbed the stairs to reach the deck. They have packed us like cattle in a barn. The woman in the bunk next to me moans day and night. I know how she feels, but sometimes think about putting a pillow over her head, if I had a pillow. I can laugh about it now that I am on terra firma again.

And in Canada, she found so much more than she was looking for.

Dear Rosie,

I am married!

I never thought anyone would want me, and certainly never a man like Niclas Bernhard Waltert… I thought I was happy when I bought my boardinghouse, but I have never been as truly happy as this. It makes me afraid sometimes…

Carolyn understood the feeling of unworthiness all too well.

She continued reading. Oma’s letters changed. Disappointment set in when Niclas lost his job at the railroad and decided to become a farmer. Oma couldn’t understand how a man of learning would want to work the land.

Dearest Rosie,

Niclas has left me and gone off to work on a wheat farm in Manitoba. He went away three weeks ago and I have not heard from him since. I begin to understand how Elise felt when she walked out into the snow…

I would have given anything for an education, but Papa said schooling was wasted on a girl. And Niclas, who has the knowledge to be a professor, wants to throw it all away and live out in the middle of nowhere tilling soil and planting wheat. He wants me to sell the boardinghouse. He wants me to go on this “adventure” with him. I would kill him if I didn’t love him so much…

Opa had gone alone, and Oma’s letters showed how much she suffered for her decision.

Why must I give up everything I have worked so hard to gain to follow a man whose dream will impoverish us? But how can I not? Life is barren without Niclas. I will have his child soon…

Carolyn read of life on a wheat farm miles from the nearest town, winters when the temperature dropped well below zero, a landlord who cared nothing about their plight and cheated them out of their share of the profits. She wrote lovingly of Bernhard, and she worried about the new baby coming.

Several months passed before Oma wrote another letter, and it held the first mention of Hildemara Rose.

I fear for this little one. I understand now how Mama’s heart broke every time she held Elise. She was small and frail, too…

Pray for your namesake, Rosie. One breath from heaven could blow her away, but God forbid I go too far in protecting her and bring her up to be weak like Elise.

Opa and Oma left the farm and went to Winnipeg. Opa went back to work for the railroad. Another child came.

Our third child, Clotilde Anna, arrived a month after Niclas went back to work. She is as robust as Bernhard, and every bit as loud in her demands.

Soon, Opa began to talk about farming again. This time he was dreaming of California.

The man will not be happy until he has his way. And I am tired of fighting with him.