“You know what other machine has all the information you need?” He tapped the side of temple. “This one right here.”
“You know who this woman is? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I wanted to teach you that you don’t get answers to the questions you don’t ask.”
Helen Wynette Krisanski, known to her friends and family as Heely, died suddenly during a stay at Tuttle General Hospital. She was sixty-seven years old.
Born and raised in Henrico County, Helen Krisanski grew up playing along the banks of the James River, and it was from there that her lifelong love of horticulture began. Fascinated by all things grown from the ground, Helen had a green thumb like no other. She always said it was fate when she met and married her husband, Charles Krisanski, because he had just inherited his family’s farm and was looking for someone to help him run it. Heely and Charles remained partners in love and farming until his death in 2015.
Unable to keep up the farm herself, Heely moved to West Bay, VA, in early 2016 to be closer to her children. She quickly found work on an indigo farm, one of the first in the area. “Heely had a way with the indigo that none of the rest of us understood,” said Craig Luetkemeyer, the owner of Luke’s Farm, where Helen worked. “It was like those plants grew just for her. None of the rest of us could get ’em to do anything. But they just sprouted under her care.”
Helen is survived by her son, Jonathan Krisanski, 42, and her daughter, Lauren McCarty, 38, both of West Bay, VA, and thousands of budding indigo plants.
Funeral services will be held at First Baptist in West Bay. In lieu of flowers, donations in Helen’s name can be made to Farm Aid.
“But I thought Dr. Davenport made a donation in her name to the Foundation for a Smokefree America. Maybe it isn’t her. . .” I said, crestfallen.
“The daughter, that Lauren McCarty, was the one I spoke with,” Flick said. “As I recall, she said her mother’d been a lifelong smoker. I can’t remember exactly all the details, but I’m sure she was a patient of Davenport’s. I remember because Lauren talked about being in the waiting room after the procedure and watching Dr. Davenport walk out. Said his face was as white as a sheet.”
We had come up to Flick’s office, and now he lumbered over to his filing cabinet, pulled out a manila folder, and took out a piece of paper with some scribbled notes. “Daughter’s phone number’s on there,” he said, offering it to me. “I keep notes for at least a year.”
I went back to my desk to call Lauren McCarty. She didn’t pick up, so I left a message for her that was purposefully vague. I wanted her to call me back, and I thought if I made her curious it improved the odds of that happening.
Since there wasn’t much else I could do for the obit until I heard back from Ms. McCarty, I decided to do a quick search of the tobacco farms in the area. I didn’t think it would yield much useful information, but I did it anyway. I looked around to make sure stupid Spencer wasn’t around. Check. The coast was clear.
Born and raised in Virginia, I was aware of the complexities surrounding tobacco production. It was a frequent topic of conversation in schools and around dinner tables in Tuttle County, and everyone had their opinion. But no matter how people felt about our great State of Virginia and its third-leading cash crop, there was one undeniable fact: tobacco production was shrinking.
In 2004, the US government passed the Fair and Equitable Tobacco Reform Act, which ended a program that had supported pricing quotas. This meant that tobacco farmers could no longer count on a certain pricing or quota structure for selling their crops. As a result, the US Department of Agriculture agreed to provide compensation to eligible tobacco growers for this lost value. Some farmers ended up taking the buyout, some didn’t. Some started producing other commodities or increased their existing non-tobacco crops, others expanded their tobacco acreage as contract volume picked up, and still others chose to close up shop. The ones who chose to quit were mostly the elderly or folks who couldn’t work the land, or didn’t have anyone to leave it to. I’ll never forget when Richie Scruggs, a kid who was in my class in second grade, came to school and announced he and his family would be moving to Florida because “the government took my daddy’s farm away.” That wasn’t exactly what happened, of course, but I’m sure that’s what it felt like.
My phone rang and I turned it over expecting to see Jay’s number on the display, but it was Lauren McCarty. That was fast, I thought. I thanked her for returning the call and explained to her the reason for it.
There was silence on the other end of the line for longer than I expected, but I resisted the urge to prompt her. Granddaddy always said that ninety percent of obit interviews are positive—joyful even, because people get to relive special moments and talk about the departed. But they come with sadness too, when the finality of their loss eventually rises up like a wave to clobber them.
“Lauren?” I asked gently.
She sniffed and I could tell she had started crying.
“I’m so sorry to have upset you.”
“No, it’s okay, I’m fine,” she said, and took in a deep breath. “I’m sorry. I still miss my mom, that’s all.”
“I’m so sorry for your loss. It sounds like your mother was a lovely woman.”
I could hear a smile return to her voice. “She was. Mom was a born nurturer. That was her gift: she could make anything grow. And since she’s been gone, well, I’ve just missed that in ways I didn’t know I would.”
“She worked
