He chewed his lower lip.
“You, you’re already eighty-one and the girls are just thirteen and fourteen . . .” I won’t see my babies grow up.
“Always looking after me, aren’t you, Jennie?”
“We have the resources to send them on to school and you have your own income, still, of course. I’d like to leave this house to them, and property. Just the thirty-three acres in my name, maybe the Bush contract and the bank account, as I close up the practice.”
“Yes, of course about the property, the money. But I’m their father. The guardianship . . .”
“You are their father whom they love dearly, as do I.” She had to keep racing through this. “I haven’t spoken with my brothers yet, but they could . . . manage things. It would relieve you of that responsibility and free you to be with Gracie and Josie, to love them and be their rock, as you’ve been mine. They’ll need that of you, more than ever.”
His eyes filled with tears. “I know I’ve been a burden of late.”
“Not at all. No. Not that.” She hugged him. Don’t fall apart. Don’t fall apart. “You’ve been everything I could ever ask for. Divine light on this earth for me, illuminating a world I could never have imagined.” And he had been. “Selfishly, I’m glad I’m going first because I don’t know how I would go on without you. But you will go on without me. I know that.” She wiped at her eyes. His. “Maybe even remarry.”
He could barely speak. “At my age?” His voice broke. “Oh, Jennie. I love you so.” He held her chin in his fingers as he faced her. “So very much.” They put their foreheads together. “At this moment it’s so hard to see the Lord’s plan in this.”
“Reverend Parrish,” Jennie chided, afraid she’d succumb. “We’ve had a wonderful life together and now—”
“It isn’t fair, Jennie. You’re so young. I’ve lived so long already.”
“Fair has nothing to do with it. Our lives are filled with abundance unimaginable to me those years before I met you.”
“Yes, I know. But I don’t feel blessed at this moment.”
They both cried then, the knitting pushed aside as he held her once again. The Seth Thomas clock chimed the hour. She was relieved that the girls weren’t there, that she could gather herself before she had to tell them.
“What will I do without you?”
“You’ll go on until you don’t. And then we’ll be together again.”
“What about Douglas?” Josiah’s concern made her love her husband more.
“Make a space for him, when he’s sober, if you can. My brothers will help if he’s trouble to you or the girls.”
Josiah nodded. “He’ll grieve when he learns of it. But you must not spend time there, Jennie. Let those who know how to show that they love you do that now.”
“I’ll leave a small amount of my funds for him, a very small amount. I’m afraid it will support his downfall otherwise and I can’t do that to him. I so hoped to find a cure.”
For a time, they simply held each other and then began to mention moments in their marriage that they treasured, memories he’d have and Jennie would cherish for as long as she could. The soft talk turned into hopefulness. For there is always hope. “Maybe the San Francisco doctor will have something to say. Are you up for the trip?”
“Maybe. You’ll be with me when I tell the girls?”
“Absolutely. Haven’t I always said that two are better than one.”
What was left? To tell the girls first and, foremost, to let her brothers know. And her mother. Jennie hated her having to face the death of another child. Jennie had lived that journey and it wasn’t easy. She would have to tell Ariyah. Maybe she could see patients right up until that moment of transition and tell the girls then? But what if she waited too long? And Josiah said to allow those who knew how to show their love to her to do that. “It would give a gift to them to be able to comfort you.”
She made her way to Ariyah, inhaled deeply before she shared the news. Ariyah’s tears mingled with her own. Then Jennie began a song of regret, but Ariyah interrupted her.
“Douglas loves you,” Ariyah said. “He just can’t show it. Addiction gets in the way of love’s expression, and one day, when he’s sober, he will have to face the fact that he was not there for his mother’s passing. But for now, you must let us love you into your next life.”
Even in exiting the carousel of life, there were choices she could make.
Callie opened the door and invited the last scholarship applicant into the room. Mrs. Melvin wore a large-brimmed hat with a small yellow flower as decoration. Around her neck was a glorious silk scarf and she carried a matching yellow reticule.
“Miss Priscilla?” The shock must have been evident in Jennie’s voice.
“Mrs. Priscilla Melvin,” she corrected as she took Jennie’s hand, looked Jennie in the eye, nodded. “Mrs. Parrish.”
“Have you two met?” Callie showed her to the chair.
“Years ago. She wasn’t Mrs. Melvin then and I wasn’t Mrs. Parrish.”
“But you were the kindest of women and I never forgot that.”
“We barely spoke.” Jennie tried to remember what she could have said to her that was memorable. Mostly she’d judged her when she confronted her about being with Charles, envied her that Charles had spoken of their lives to her; Jennie blamed her. “I can’t imagine what I might have done or said that was kind.”
“As I left Millie’s Millinery with this purse you gave me”—she held up her reticule—“you said, ‘May the spirit of the Christ child bless you today, all year long, and forever.’ I know you meant it as a simple Christmas blessing, but it turned me to wonder what drove such kindness, who this Christ child was. I met Mr. Melvin after that and he helped me find another life where I could serve others. As you do.”
“I—I’m speechless.”
“Then I’ll begin the interview,” Callie said. “I haven’t been able to follow your conversation, so I’ll start one of my own. Tell us about yourself, Mrs. Melvin. Why do you want to be a doctor?”
Epilogue
Are you up to this?”
Jennie nodded. “I always loved this path to the creek. I once showed Douglas a fox here.” The girls walked arm in arm ahead of the group, Ariyah beside them while Lizzie pushed the wheeled chair behind. Josiah held her up as she took slow, labored steps. He used his cane to help balance and the two were like a drunken sailor walking. She told him that and he laughed. Dr. Cook had said she might have something to offer, but Jennie would need to come to San Francisco to see her, and by May when Jennie heard back from her, she knew she could not do that. She was too weak and it was too late. It was as though having once admitted that something was wrong, the disease sped up, but of course it had its own timing.
She’d completed her will. Her brothers agreed to be named executors and guardians. Both Dr. Fraser and Callie were her witnesses that day. And with Josiah’s help they told the girls and vowed to make this a good summer for them. They had each other and Josiah. It was August and she’d made it this far. She hoped to be there for JoJo’s birthday.
Lizzie had returned to their lives more fully, taking care of Jennie so Josiah didn’t have to do those messy things. He read to Jennie, who dozed off and on. Not the textbooks anymore but the Psalms and poetry of Wordsworth and Emerson, in whose words Josiah heard his own “loss of a great love.”
Ariyah had said she’d have the perfect funeral and “you’ll be here to help plan it.” She dabbed at her eyes, hugged Alex a little closer. But plan they did and it was a strange joy to Jennie that she had time and awareness to say the good-byes and dictate the letters, saying things she’d always thought but had not taken the time to scribe. Letters came to her as well, from those she’d touched in her life. Patients. Friends. Her daughters. Abundance was the word that comforted.
“There! That’s where we saw the fox.” She pointed to her girls. Has it only been twenty-one years? “He took tufts from the willow. Oh, now I see the
re are fences, but they still have wool stuck to them.”
“And he’d pull them off and jump into the creek?” Gracie asked.
Jennie nodded. “Fleas and bugs jumped off him onto those tufts. Smart fox.”
“He washed away his troubles,” Josiah said.
“Of course there were daffodils then,” Jennie remembered. “It was spring and they popped up between the willows.”
“‘And then my heart with pleasure fills, And dances with the daffodils.’ You know, Wordsworth said he could recall those blooms in times of solitude,” Josiah said. “They’ll remind me of you when I see them now each spring.” His voice cracked.
“Think of me when you see a fox too. Oh, look! Girls. See—?” She bent over with a gasp of pain.
“Jennie?” Josiah held her as she leaned into him.
The chair was behind her in seconds. “La, Mrs. P, you rest now.”
Jennie sank into it. “Pushing a little too hard,” she said. “Might be time for the blessed morphine. Just haven’t wanted . . . to disappear yet.”
Callie would stay with them soon to administer the drug. This would be her last outing. As when she’d waited for the arrival of Gracie, a doctor would “live in” with her. Josiah squeezed her shoulder while Lizzie wrapped the knitted wool across Jennie’s lap.
“We’re heading back,” he shouted to the girls, who had moved down the stream. “Your mother’s tired. Come when you’re ready.”
“We’ll come with you now, Papa.” JoJo waved her arms, swinging them like a windmill. Gracie followed behind, holding her linen skirt above her white shoes. The girls passed them, went on ahead, their beautiful girls holding hands; kind and loving people. Strong. They had each other.
Josiah pushed Jennie in the chair, his gold-handled cane hooked over the back, clanking. Ariyah and Lizzie walked behind. Only Douglas was missing, though he lived in their hearts.
Jennie reached up to pat Josiah’s hand. Together, they had given the world these strong, faithful young women. And despite her wish to have it last longer, to have achieved more, she had truly been given riches and prayed she had passed some of them on.
Author’s Acknowledgments and Notes
With the publication some years ago of Love to Water My Soul, Portlander Audrey Slater sent me a letter writing that it was her family who descended from the Indian agent Josiah Parrish mentioned in that book. “His wife became one of the first doctors in Portland working with women and children.” That letter began a friendship that twenty years later has resulted in All She Left Behind. I am deeply indebted to Audrey and her daughter, Dianne Gregoire, for sharing stories of “Grandma Josie” and Josiah Parrish, for sending me a copy of Jennie’s diploma from Willamette Medical College in 1879, and for inspiring this story. I’m grateful too that the family allowed me to pursue where the facts might lead (to new information they never had) and to bring Jennie’s story of faith and perseverance to others.
My friendship with CarolAnne Tsai is another treasure that also began with a letter to me expressing an appreciation for my stories and offering to help in any way she could. Discovering her experience as a social worker (just like me!) who loves stories (just like me!) and that her expertise was in medical research (not like me at all!) opened doors to a variety of research sites.
The Methodist Archives in Philadelphia unlocked Jennie’s will, details of a house fire that took Jennie’s Salem house shortly after she died, copies of invoices for medical books she ordered, newspaper accounts and letters from her children to their father, details about a piano and programs from concerts attended. The Oregon Historical Society archives and Marion County Historical Society gave us obituaries and newspaper accounts of events, city directories and the addresses of Jennie’s office in Portland, details of their lives in Salem, and old photographs to bring the cities to life.
From Jennie’s will we learned of her previous marriage, of the son she’d had and his struggles, and how she intended to care for her children after her death. CarolAnne also located newspaper accounts verifying the addiction problems of the Pickett men.
CarolAnne was a constant voice of encouragement, a wise confidante about the story and Jennie’s possible motivations and where the story might end. I’m grateful beyond words. That we’ve shared family moments has been an added gift of abundance, including a hand-tooled pen made by her husband Stan and a drawing on our refrigerator made by their daughter Annelise. Research ought to be fun and CarolAnne made it so. She also read versions and gave advice.
Janet Meranda is another faithful friend who is a master copyeditor, but all errors or omissions belong to me.
I’m grateful to the team at Baker/Revell: Andrea Doering, Michele Misiak, Barb Barnes, Karen Steele, and so many others whom I’ve never met. Thank you for your confidence and professionalism in bringing Jennie’s story to readers. To my agent, Joyce Hart of Hartline Literary: we’ve had twenty-six years together in this publishing world and I am grateful for your care, vision, and grace. Leah Apineru of Impact Author has kept my social media life alive—I’m so grateful; Paul Schumacher keeps my website fresh and up-to-date. Thank you for your patience. Carol Tedder, my events coordinator, has helped me say both yes and no. I’d be lost without her.
Thank you as well to my prayer team across North America—Loris Webb, Judy Schumacher, Judy Card, Susan Parrish, Carol Tedder, Gabby Sprenger—and faithful friends like Marea Stone, Jill Dyer, Blair Fredstrom (who died during the final phases of this book), Melinda Stanfield (who offered insights as a retired physician), Sandy Maynard, Kay Krall, my sister-in-law Barb Rutschow, stepdaughter Katy Larsen; family and friends at First Presbyterian Bend and around the country, too numerous to mention, who offered encouragement and who are held in my heart. Thank you.
A special thanks to the unnamed photographer from the United Kingdom whom I met on a cruise who told me the story of the fox and the fleas that he outsmarted with wool.
And to Jerry, who listens patiently while I lament my chosen field of endeavor, and who helps me celebrate too. Thank you for enthusiastically cheering me on until I begin to believe what you have all along: that the stories are like prayers taking me to where I’m meant to go.
Jennie’s story unfolded with that one line from Audrey Slater’s letter years ago. From that I learned first of Josiah, an icon of Oregon history, and with much more digging, Jennie’s history of her first marriage, Charles and Douglas’s addiction issues, the marriage status, loss of a baby girl, her marriage to Josiah, their age difference, newspaper accounts of “the old man and the young woman” looking happy, the birth of Grace and Josie, the strychnine poisoning, Jennie’s enrollment and graduation, her election, Josiah’s operating the pharmacy and interest in the homeopathic society, professions of Jennie’s siblings, their deaths, and both her brother and Josiah’s son as Portland police officers. The generosity of Elizabeth and Josiah Parrish, their faithful Chinese cook, Charley Chen, and “Lizzie” are all from the historical records, as is Josiah’s giving Jennie thirty-three acres in Salem. Quilton the porcupine and Van the spaniel are not historical, though my husband did once have a friend with a pet porcupine that held up its bowl for milk.
Neither is Ariyah based on history. She is the result of a high bid to name a character at the Authors for Education event of the Gresham Barlow Education Foundation. Bess Wills was the high bidder and she gifted the win to Sue Piazza. Ariyah is Sue’s granddaughter’s name. It does mean “Pure Music” and Jennie needed the kind of friend Ariyah became.
At eighty-two, Josiah did remarry following Jennie’s death. He died of complications of a stroke in 1895 at the age of eighty-nine. Both Gracie and Josie—often known as JoJo—completed college and married doctors. Shortly after Jennie’s death, her house in Salem, along with valuables and precious letters that might have unveiled more about Jennie’s life, was destroyed by fire. The girls’ letters to their father lament the loss of so much but express gratitude that the piano was saved.
According to his obituary, Douglas died at the age of thirty-six, in jail as a result of “excessive indulgence in alcohol, cocaine and morphine to which habits he has been addicted for a number of years.” Was Jennie motivated to understand the impact of alcohol scientifically? We do know she was an allopath or “regular” doctor in her studies and practice. Did she hope for a cure? We don’t know. But given the obituary for both Charles and Douglas, the terrible waste of life addictions cause, and the overwhelming presence of alcohol abuse in the society of Salem and Portland at the time, it seems feasible that Jennie would have tried to find a way to rescue her family and, lacking that, find a way to forgive herself.
Women physicians were rare in the West, but Bethina Owens was a friend of the Parrishes and she did become the first woman physician in Oregon. The Ford sisters were the first to graduate from Willamette Medical College as physicians. Jennie, Callie Charlton, and Esther Yeargain followed. Mary Sawtelle’s experience with Willamette is as described. She went on to acquire her degree and worked while her husband finished his degree at Willamette. Find out more about her at www.oregonencyclopedia.org . Callie Charlton and more of Mary Sawtelle’s experiences have been blogged about at http://kimberlyjensenblog.blogspot.com/. Callie was the witness to Jennie’s will. Dr. Cook was a female specialist in San Francisco.
Women often chose homeopathic colleges back East where they were more likely to be treated as equals. Many women were taught home remedies as ways to treat their family illnesses, so homeopathic study was a natural direction. Those studying allopathic or “regular” medicine were more inclined toward pharmaceuticals and surgery to treat disease. Their study required access to hospitals and surgery opportunities, “reading” with physicians before matriculating, and as with Willamette, fewer women were accepted, making Jennie’s enrollment as a wife and mother unique for her time.
Jennie did not find the cures she sought. Her observations of the physical uniqueness of a child born to a mother who drank did not become known as Fetal Alcohol Syndrome until the 1980s. It must have been a deep grief that she could neither save her husband nor her son from the ravages of addiction. But she saw the value in treating women and children and making it a specialty and educating through the Medical Society other physicians.