Lillie

Lillie

A novel by

Julane Herr Powell

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locals is entirely coincidental.

FOR GINGER, CLAYTON AND JANEEN

PREFACE

I flew home to Pennsylvania from Colorado to visit my mother during a difficult time. Her brother died and I thought she could use my shoulder for emotional and physical support. After the funeral she asked me to drive up the winding hill road to the cemetery that was located in front of the old, picturesque Hill Church.

The church was founded around 1733 and many ancestors on my father’s side of the family are buried on that rolling hill overlooking the beautiful Susquehanna Valley. On many trips to Pennsylvania with my husband and children to visit my parents, I worshiped at the little church with the double red doors and walked among the impressive monuments. We lit candles at midnight Christmas Eve services and sang Stille Nacht in German. I became acquainted with the names and dates of the inhabitants that were buried deep in that rich soil and heard some of the tales, legends and lies of their lives. It was never difficult for me to imagine their lives because my father, story teller that he was, loved passing on their complex stories. I could easily picture buggies being pulled by horses coming up the hill for church services. Sometimes their voices would whisper out from the grove and I could vividly imagine Indian attacks. But this particular visit to the quaint cemetery would be one I would not soon forget.

It was a snowy, relentlessly cold, February day in Pennsylvania. It was the kind of wet cold that cut through all of the outer layers of clothing and penetrated straight to the bone. Since it was funeral day, Mother wanted to stop and check on my father’s grave. She wasn’t going to get out of the car; she is ninety years old and unable to walk in deep drifts of snow. Ordinarily I would have said no, but she is ninety and who says no to a ninety year old woman, especially when she is your mother. I asked her, How does one check on a grave, what is the purpose, what does one do in a snow storm to check on a grave? I got no response. Reluctantly I stopped the car, got out in my heels and black funeral dress to check on my dad. Wrapping my coat tightly around me, battling the horizontally blowing snow, I trudged the short distance from the car to his snow covered grave. Thinking all the while, God, it’s bitterly cold and these heels are definitely ruined.

In my outside voice, because I knew she couldn’t hear me I muttered, Yes, mother he is just where we left him. He hasn’t wandered off. Not paying attention as I was returning to the car I stumbled and fell face first into a three foot snowdrift. I would like to say I fell down the rabbit’s hole, but Alice already did that. Down I went into the cold, wet snow. Now, with only one shoe, a coat and dress to protect me, the ice crystals quickly penetrated the skirt, soaked through the tights, and through any fabric that got in the way. My body just wasn’t prepared for that kind of shock.

Back in the car Mother expressed her concern and said she was worried about me. All she saw from her vantage point was my black coat lying on the snow. She did not know how to roll down the window to shout (Too many buttons in these new cars. she would say) or use my cell phone, but soon we were laughing at my fall and the knot where my head had landed on a small grave stone. The drive from the cemetery to her place wasn’t long and the heater in the little rental car proved warm. But her question, Did you see Lillie? haunted me.

After I took a shower, drank a cup of hot tea, put on warm jammies, I finally asked, So, who is this Lillie, and why did you want to know if I saw her up on the cemetery.

With the sun setting outside in the grey, misty and bleak Pennsylvania afternoon, my mom began to relate the story of my Great Aunt Lillie. She brought out the large, cracked leather, photograph album and began the story that introduced me to people whom I had only heard of in whispered tales and hushed innuendoes.

It was Lillie’s grave stone where I hit my head when I fell and now that I had heard part of her life’s tale I was convinced that Lillie Heilman was trying to get my attention from the grave. Little did I know that day as I squirmed desperately trying to free myself from a snow drift that Lillie had picked me to tell her story.

I returned to Mother’s house the following spring, just as the Sweet Williams and Forget Me Not’s began to push their tiny blossoms up through the heavy snow. I thought of Lillie, William her brother, and her true love Josiah. I thought of the rest of the ancestors that have paved the way for my family. There are hundreds of questions that remain unanswered. Because of the story I heard that afternoon from my mother; I can imagine the jangle of the tambourine down by the edge of the Swatara and in my mind I see crimson blood in the snow outside the kitchen door of the Heilman farm house. Despite over one hundred years of life, learning, and hope there is still sin and evil in dark passages of our minds but there is also God’s grace and His abundant forgiveness.

Up on the Hill Cemetery the small head stone can still be seen today. There are no dates on it, no carved angels, not a one scripture passage, just the name:

LILLIE

LILLIE

Winter 1894

I’ve always had Fanny to talk to, or at least I can’t remember a time when she wasn’t there. Fanny knew it all, every little detail because she is always in my thoughts, my dreams, and she has shared every aspect of my life. Fanny is part of my existence. She is comfort when none of the others understand; she is company when I am lonely, and she is guidance when I am in most need of direction. It was natural to turn to Fanny in such troubling times.

My memories of the time when my mother and the baby died tore at my heart daily. The farm that day was deadly quiet. The sun had not risen and as always it was darkest just before the dawn. The screams of labor from Mother ceased and now the sounds were only that of nature; the wind howling around the corners of the farmhouse and the soft snow falling in muted whispers. Once in a while I could hear the bleating of sheep or the sound of geese in flight, but mostly it was just un-natural silence. The coyotes at the edge of the tree line weren’t even bothering to howl on that brutal, still morning. The weather for the last week had been relentless in producing massive amounts of snow and ice. The doctor could not make it out to the farm to help any of us deliver the child. The roads had been impassable for days. It would have been unkind to ask him to saddle up a horse and buggy to try making the trip to our farm. We were on our own, or should I say, I was on my own.

I remember the screams from my mother’s room began around 10:00 o’clock. A few minutes later my father knocked on my bedroom door where I slept with two of my sisters and whispered, Get to your mother’s room, she needs you. He instructed me to heat a lot of water and fetch clean towels, and then he left. When I went to their room, he was nowhere to be found. Mother had begun labor and not only her words but her eyes begged me not to leave her side not even for a minute to find him. She was in excruciating pain. She knew something had gone wrong. She had not felt the baby kick for over a week and had great stabbing pains. As the old wife’s tale suggested, I even put a knife under the mattress to cut the pain, but nothing seemed to help her intense labor. She bit down on a rag to muffle the screams.

It all seemed to go so quickly and slowly all at once. I was confused about how this all came to be. The sequence of events molded into one and then as if time stopped completely, there on the kitchen table was a small, still body swathed in a bloody sheet. I looked down at my clothes and realized there was blood on my hands, arms, my apron, and now a trail of blood from the bedroom down the stairs to the kitchen table. Mother had passed out from the pain of the delivery so she could be dealt with later, but the baby was dead and I had to concentrate and take care of the immediate needs. In the chaos the immediate need was the baby. None but God and I knew what had transpired there, before the sun came up, on that frigid February morning. There were questions that needed answering and immediate problems to solve. I had to first think of this lifeless angel lying on the table.

Even though he was dead and blue he appeared so angelic compared to the violent delivery he didn’t survive. Of all of Mother’s children, I think he was the most fine-looking. His eyes were closed but I knew they were blue, encircled in long black lashes. Mother’s other fourteen babies have been born with blue eyes. His hair, although matted with birthing fluids and blood, was dark and curly. He was a child of God and he was beautiful.

In my mind, as the wind driven snow around the farmhouse, there were millions of snowflakes beginning to form into questions with no answers. Should I clean him up before I bury him? How can I bury him, the ground is frozen? I felt the blood race through my veins, causing panic to rise in my throat. I asked Fanny to please help me decide what I should do. She always helped me make the tough decisions. I had to concentrate on one problem at a time, one step at a time, one breath at a time. I had to remember to breathe. If I didn’t take it one little piece at a time I would go insane. I recognized that the drama and chaos of the birth have driven me once more to the verge of my delicately balanced sanity. This panic I was experiencing was settling in like an old friend in front of the fire for a cup of tea. I needed to concentrate, but Oh, My Lord, I was so tired!

I’ve decided to honor God’s creature and bathe the baby boy before I could decide what to do in this hopeless situation. I heated the water on the wood burning stove in the kitchen and put a soft towel in the bottom of the wash pan before I poured in the warm water. Washing this lifeless form brought a flood of tears to my eyes. I couldn’t stop crying but noticed the baby’s body was perfectly formed and unmarked by the torture of his birth. I bathed him slow and gently, caressing his tiny fingers and toes. The first water I bathed him in got thrown on the ground outside the kitchen door because it was red like the Nile when Pharaoh didn’t let the Hebrews go and God turned the water to blood. The second tub of water was not discolored when I finished. I must remember to wash the blood from the snow before the other children rise. The kitchen smelled of the fragrant wood fire, coal oil lamps burning, and the sweet smell of soap. He was clean then; I gently lifted him from the water and wrapped him in a soft, clean blanket. I smelled his lifeless form and kissed him goodbye. I asked, "Fanny, what should we name him?"

I consoled my broken heart with rocking the child and myself. Even though the kitchen in the farmhouse was warm, this child will never know warmth. On this day that I will never forget one minute detail, I hummed softly to the dead baby a hymn, Children of the Heavenly Father. That will be the babies first, last and only lullaby. I pray that will cleanse his original sin and he will be admitted into God’s glory. He has not been baptized. My mind is shattered and fragmented. There are more snowflakes swirling round and round becoming questions.

Mother was upstairs and not awake to provide a name, and I would never ask Father or give him the honor of naming this still born child. Fanny and I will provide a name for him. A baby, even though dead, still needs a name and needs to be rocked.

As I rocked the baby my thoughts started to organize themselves. It was difficult to get the scene I just left upstairs, out of my head. There was blood to clean up, and sheets to change, but I do not want to wake Mother yet. The labor was long and the boy was breeched so as she bore down to push the baby out I had to insert my hand inside of her to turn the baby. I found the umbilical cord wrapped around his throat. The baby’s life ended before it had even begun. Even though the room was cool, sweat rolled down my back under my smock and I swallowed hard to push the vomit back down my throat. I’ve never seen so much blood even when we butchered a pig in the fall. The labor and delivery was long and unbearably painful. Mother gratefully passed out from the pain and needed to rest and sleep. I don’t think she knew the baby was dead. Fanny, will help me to explain all of that to Mother later.

As I rock and sing, I contemplate what I should do with the baby. Softly I breathe, Fanny, I’m so tired!

When the sun finally showed its hazed mask over the horizon Father came back for his breakfast. He did not tell me where he had been, nor did I ask. He just walked in the back door of the farm house took off his coat, hat, and gloves then sat down for his breakfast.

Lillie, if you can work it into your busy morning, I would like to have my eggs, biscuits, gravy, bacon and coffee now. I know you have had lots to do already, but I’m hungry and I have a full day ahead of me. That was all he said to me that morning, he did not ask about his wife or his still born baby boy child. He just ate in silence. During the course of his breakfast the rest of the family started to gather around the table. They had heard the labor screams during the night and then the silence but because the family understood that they were not to speak at the table unless spoken to, all remained quiet, even the small children. Before Father got up from the table he said to Simon and William, Take over all the chores today and make sure all the children do their chores too. The cows must be milked and fed, the stalls mucked out, and horses taken care of. You boys make sure it is all done today. I will not be home, Simon you are in charge. I don’t want any excuses when I return. Do you hear me? Then as soundlessly as he arrived he rose from the table and left. I would never in my life know where he went that day or what he did, but I do know that he did not go to check on his wife, or ask about her condition, or that of his dead son.

I told Maggie and the other girls to clean up the breakfast and I went to check on Mother. I changed her sheets and made her as comfortable as possible as I held her hand and hummed softly to her. Then quietly and peacefully Mother passed on from this life to the next. I stayed with her until late in the afternoon. She never regained consciousness to ask, so she never knew of her baby boy who was born, still, silent, and blue. Oh God, when will spring and the warm sun return?

WIFELY DUTIES

1894

After her death, Mother was laid out in the front room and a vigil was held until the ground could be prepared for burial. Candles were lit, clocks were stopped, mirrors were shrouded in black, and I prayed for her soul. I stayed with her until the funeral. The others in the family left me alone to grieve and the sisters took care of cooking and tending the small children. They assumed after the funeral I would once more take on all the responsibilities for the family.

A sense of loss filled my heart that day and a part of me died with my mother. I remember that on the day of the funeral it was though I was standing alone outside on the hill and watching a dark tragic scene un-fold. There from a distance I watched as the horses pulled the funeral litter covered with the black cloth pall across the bleak country side and up the hill to the church for service and burial. The men walked behind in the blinding snow. The Lutheran Service for Burial of the Dead was conducted, prayers said, and hymns sung. Everyone loved my mother and the women of the congregation whispered their condolences my way. I heard them but I could not discern what they were saying. A veil had dropped in front of my eyes and I could not see or hear. There were only muffled voices and shadowy shapes. After Mother’s funeral and burial the sparse congregation came back to the farm for a meal. It was a quiet gathering that afternoon, and many more would have been in attendance if the weather would have eased up. I didn’t want to listen to their condolences or even have the congregation in the farmhouse. I just wanted to be left alone in my grief and I wanted so desperately to sleep, but sleep, no matter how I craved it, would not come. No one asked at all about the dead baby. I suppose they assumed the baby died inside of Mother. My heart ached with an uncontrollable sadness and I was only twenty five years old.

In the evening when the meal was done, people gone, dishes washed and dried, I went to look for father in the barn. I thought he might have been out there tending the cows. No matter who lives or dies, or the course of events