“I have more than that to be grateful for,” I told her. To Helena I posed, “Perhaps Brother Keil is right in having his home serve as a place of worship. It does double the work that way.”
Louisa liked this idea. “Ja, that’s right, Emma. A German efficiency. And maybe it gives the home a needed uplifting into the spiritual realm. A home, a hearth, surely God wants those to be central in our lives.” She smiled, pleased with herself.
Helena’s lips puckered as if gathered by threads. Like Keil, Helena didn’t like to be disagreed with.
“I think I’ll find a quiet place away today, though,” I said. “That would be an advantage of a church building, finding quietness in the middle of a day.”
Louisa smiled. Helena straightened her shoulders and began scrubbing potatoes.
The women gave me room to stretch after the tautness of Jack’s visit, but I could see by Helena’s rigid back and Louisa’s grin that the communal threads that tied us together would also be stretched here. I would try not to break them, give each person room to save face.
I walked with the children across the open grasses just beginning to give up their brown to the greens of autumn rains. I looked back toward Keil’s house as we walked, the soft October winds lifting the strings of my bonnet. Keil lived at the highest point of the village, but he wasn’t the highest point. He had authority, yes, but not over our souls, not over our thoughts, not over our expressions of faith. In truth, he was an aging man who made mistakes too. I didn’t need to seek his approval anymore, nor live in defiance of him.
I’d packed a lunch, and I spent the day with the children. When we returned, it was dusk. I lit the oil in Christian’s lantern, thanking Andy again for bringing it. Then I knocked on the door of the private room the Keils occupied upstairs. “Emma,” Louisa said. “Come in. You had a good afternoon, ja?”
“Ja,” I answered. “I wish to speak to Herr Keil, now. Is this possible?”
“Father Keil,” she corrected.
I hesitated. “Brother Keil,” I said. “I already have a father.”
“Ja,” she said. “That makes sense. He works with his herbs.” She pointed downstairs toward the room across from the kitchen. As I descended the steps, Andy saw me from the side room and nodded, but he didn’t rush to me as he once would have. We had knots yet to tie, that was certain. I moved past him, carried the lantern down another flight, taking the shadows with me to where Keil worked. I was glad to be wearing leather soles instead of my wooden ones.
At the workshop, I waited amid the earthy smell of plants until Keil looked up. “Do you have a moment, Brother Keil?”
“Ah, Sister Emma. I recall occasions when you asked for my time. To seek permission for marriage if I remember well; then to convince me that letting you become a scout would be good for our colony. Of late, to seek refuge.” He shook his head. “So many needs a woman has.”
“Ja. But you also found refuge in my home,” I said. “And I served you and yours, as my husband did. We gave what we had to give. My husband gave all he had, his very life, on behalf of another. Is this not the communal way?”
He returned to his mortar and pestle. “So, what is it you wish now?”
“I come to ask that the colony in Aurora Mills build me a house. As the widow of a colony leader, I seek a home for my sons and daughters to grow up in.”
He stopped his work, laid the pestle down, brushed his hands against his wool vest and folded his hands over his wide chest. “Our house, where you stay, is insufficient for your many needs, Emma Giesy?”
“It is. This is not to insult your generosity. Not at all. I’ll work here, cook and clean and wash and serve others, and those labors and my love in doing them will go into the common fund. But I wish my own home, my own place to teach my children and to raise them as their father would wish it. It’s what I reach for from the abundant basket the colony is always speaking of.”
“You’ll be more vulnerable to Jack’s antics should he return, living alone.”
“I’ll not let my life be only a reflection of what Jack might do to us,” I said.
He was quiet a long time. If he refused, I’d already decided that in the spring I would take the children and leave. Maybe go to Oregon City, where they’d still be able to see their uncle Martin and I could still have them attend school with Karl. I could continue to work here and contribute and receive from the common fund, but I would find a way—sell my paintings or my pies—to put a roof over my children’s heads.
“Well, I think that could be arranged then,” Keil said.
“What?”
“We can arrange to have a house built for you, Emma Giesy. The Diamond Rule prevails. Or do you insist on building it with your own hands?” He chuckled.
“I could,” I told him. “But no. I am more interested in what happens afterward, in making it a home.”
“Here’s my half dime,” I told the shop tender at the colony store. It was late in the day, and shadows already covered the shelves of cloth and hats and newly cobbled shoes. Garlands of greens draped around the store and holly with red berries decorated harnesses for sale. The long pattern book of our feet lay on the shelf for the cobbler to use when we requested new shoes. Outside, a light snow fell. My shawl fell loose across my shoulders, though it was colder than normal. That’s what everyone said, but I felt warmed in this communal store.
The shopkeeper had been the tollman, but Karl had moved into that role. The colony had the state contract for collecting tolls now. Still living in Keil’s house with us all, Martin mixed up herbs to help ill people and had plans to go to medical school the following year. We hadn’t heard anything from Jack since the day he left nearly two months before. Christmas approached. They hadn’t started on my house yet, but Keil had assured me that as the widow of Christian Giesy, I would have a home. When he’d announced it, Helena grimaced and mumbled something again about how not building the church first invited trouble. Keil acted as though he hadn’t heard.
I’d picked the house site, close to where the school would be built, not far from the Pudding River, so Andy and Kate wouldn’t have to travel far. I knew what my view would be and in the spring, I’d have the home I wanted.
“I earned the money from a picture I drew,” I told the shopkeeper as though he might care.
“Did you now? And what would you like in return?”
“Nothing. It’s to go into the common fund, as cash against my ledger page. Later I’ll need shoes for my sons and hair ribbons for my daughters. But I’m also going to have a home one day, just for me and my family, so I want to contribute.”
I planned to make more drawings and to acquaint myself with that woman painter, Nancy Thornton. I had a plan for the next state fair as well, but so far I hadn’t had the courage to bring that up with Brother Keil. It’s how I thought of him now, like a brother rather than some sort of god who supposedly held all the answers. I’d taken one small step toward seeing Keil through different eyes. One small stitch in time, that’s what I told Andy as we two tended our frayed threads too.
The shopkeeper opened the ledger book to my page, Emma Giesy written across the top. I took the small coin from my reticule and promptly dropped it. “Ach, jammer!” I said, as it rolled across the wooden floor and spun itself against a pickle barrel where it disappeared in the shadows. I heard it stop rolling.
It was all I had to give. I patted beneath the lip it had disappeared under. “It isn’t much,” I said. “But I earned it myself. Do you have a lantern I could hold to help me see?”
The shopkeeper complied and as he held the lamp high above me, I was reminded both of the woman of Luke searching for her lost coin and the walk along the Willapa beach Christian and I had taken that last night we had together. The lantern lit the way, and all else was darkness. We’d had enough light to take the next step. It was all we needed. Some days and nights, that was all the light there was.
I found the half dime and let out a little sh
out, then handed it to the shopkeeper. “I must call all my friends,” I said. “I’ve found my lost coin.”
He didn’t seem to understand the biblical reference. “Danke,” he said and simply marked it in the book as cash. “That is our way, to have a generous spirit,” he said then. “Your offering goes from ‘yours’ to ‘ours’ so now it belongs to ‘us.’ ”
“So it does.” I turned to go, as satisfied as if I’d just eaten a nourishing meal.
Epilogue
BETHEL, DECEMBER 1861
Dearest Sister Emma,
Herr Keil writes that you are in Aurora Mills. Jonathan says you should have gone there when he asked you to, and Papa says it’s good that you’ve come to your senses. But I fear it is not enough to bring us there anytime soon. Lou is not well now. She catches every little ailment and looks as frail as an old chicken. The men have trouble settling land issues, and Jonathan says he will not come back west for two or three more years until these things are worked out. I never know what “these things” are. The boys I know here are saying they will go to war and so girls my age will likely never marry. We’ll be like Helena, only without even a proposal to decline.
I have forgiven you for marrying Jack Giesy. It’s better if I forgive you than to be angry with you always, for unforgiveness is the greatest sin. After all, we received forgiveness from our Lord, so what right have we to not give it back? Gift giving and receiving is the way of our lives, Papa says.
I’m glad your children are all there and I will be pleased to meet Ida someday. Mama does remind Papa that she has “family she’s never even met.” Papa sighs then. She tells him she needs to see her sister in the Deseret country, so maybe we’ll come that far before I’m an old woman. Maybe I’ll find a husband there. Or maybe we’ll just keep coming west to find you. Pray that we do something sometime soon.
Have a blessed Christ Day, Sister. We will hang your etched eggs in your memory. Do you welcome the New Year with gladness? I just wonder.
Your loving sister, Kitty
(It’s how I call myself now. There are too many Catherines in our family, don’t you think? You’re lucky there’s only been one Emma. Papa says the rest of us are lucky that’s true too.)
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. This is a story about giving and receiving. Who gave up the most in this story? Who knew how to receive? Why are both capabilities important in our lives and in the life of a family?
2. This is also a story about community and individuals within a community having a voice and making choices. Could Emma have found a way to remain at Willapa and experience contentment there? What voice did Louisa have at Aurora Mills? Did either woman pass up opportunities to be heard more clearly?
3. Emma and Louisa both speak of the great longing, the Sehnsucht, that is within each of us. In the German language, the word implies something compelling, almost addictive, in the human spirit that drives us forward on a spiritual journey. What was Emma’s great longing? Louisa’s? Did these women achieve satisfaction in this second book of the series? Is there a relationship between human intimacy and such spiritual longing?
4. Give some examples of when Emma “began to weave” without waiting for God’s thread. What were the consequences? Is it wise to “begin to weave” without knowing the outcome? Can we do otherwise? How do we live in ambivalence?
5. The author uses the metaphor of light throughout the book. Is having enough light for the next step really enough? What role does light play in Emma’s discovery that finding meaning in life’s tragedies requires reflection? Give some examples of Emma’s reflective thinking. When might she have been more reflective? Would you describe Louisa as a reflective woman? What prevents us from being more reflective in our everyday lives?
6. How can we receive without feeling obligated? What qualities of obligation sometimes diminish gifts that others might give us? Why does that make it difficult to receive them?
7. Strength is often defined as self-sufficiency. How did Emma’s strength reveal itself? What made it possible for her to ultimately accept the gifts of others?
8. Did Emma use her sons in order to get her own way? Discuss your opinion.
9. How much of Emma’s feeling of isolation was self-imposed? How much was isolation related to the demands of the landscape? How much was a spiritual isolation or feeling of abandonment? Did you agree with how the author conveyed these qualities of isolation?
10. Did Emma make the correct choice at the close of the book? Have you ever had to make a choice where all options appeared poor? What helped you take the next step?
11. Molly Wolf in her book, White China: Finding the Divine in the Everyday, characterizes spirituality as milk and religion as the milk jug. Without the milk, the jug is dry and does not nourish, but without the jug the milk spills all over the table. What does this metaphor have to say about the Willapa community and the Aurora community’s expression of religion and their spirituality?
12. Sometimes we stumble in our faith, and because of stress, loss, and challenges too great, we ache, moving away from what might give us strength. How did Emma stumble? Who or what brought her back to the source of her strength? What did she find she could trust? Are there times in your life that are reflected in Emma’s journey?
AN INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR JANE KIRKPATRICK
What was the impetus for the direction that this second book in the Change and Cherish Series took?
Emma’s descendants, the Dr. David Wagner family of Portland, Oregon, were instrumental in researching the first book and in this one as well. About halfway through writing book one, A Clearing in the Wild, David shared a family story about a second marriage for Emma, to someone with the same last name as Emma’s first husband. I trust family stories and believe they are remembered for a reason. At that point I’d seen no evidence of this second marriage (though I had known about Christian’s death). We began a search of the historical record to see if the story could be documented. Irene Westwood, a volunteer at the Aurora Colony Historical Society (ACHS), located a divorce petition dated in 1891, thirty years after this novel ends. But it contained the seeds to help us understand many of Emma’s earlier decisions. About the same time, we found a letter written by Emma dated 1862 indicating where she was then living. This confirmed some of her struggles and opened the door to exploring issues of independence and debt, giving and receiving, love and loss, community and the individual, and the role faith plays in lives filled with threads of wounding, grief, and love.
What was the religion of these colonists?
At signings and events, readers often ask that question, wondering if they were German Lutherans or derivatives of the Mennonites or some other tradition. While there were German Lutherans who participated and appeared to remain Lutheran (as we believe Karl Ruge did) and there was intermarriage among the Deseret Saints (Mormons), and people did associate with those in the Pennsylvania colonies (Phillipsburg and Harmony) and elsewhere, the majority of the colonists followed Dr. Keil’s own brand of Christian theology. His views were unique, though based on the book of Acts in the New Testament about each giving what they had and receiving whatever they needed from a common fund. The colonists in this story had no formal liturgy, were not denominational in nature. They held church twice a month and did not celebrate traditional sacraments. They practiced their own religion.
Were there many other communal societies existing during that time, or were these colonists unique?
Many utopian communities formed during the early 1800s, some focused on “end times” while others sought the perfect blend of community and faith. Still others coming from the traditions of Thoreau and Emerson sought to form groups living close to nature. They hoped to dignify work and to have one’s spiritual life a part of one’s everyday life. They honored individual freedoms, and often women were treated more equally within these societies than in the culture at large. Interestingly, Keil did not require that one join the colony in order to live there
. In fact, a story is told of the Bauer family, who left the colony after three years but kept their store open in Bethel and competed with the colony store!
Did the colonists in Willapa remain separate as Emma hoped, or did they continue their affiliation with the Aurorans and the Bethelites?
As much as I believe Emma wanted the Willapa group to be separate, there is strong evidence in the ledger books at Aurora and letters of colony members from Bethel that Keil attempted to keep the three groups under his wing as one flock. Aurora ledger pages show Karl buying school supplies for Willapa; there is a page of credit at Aurora for Emma dated later on. Who bought what for whom revealed distinct affiliations among the colonists. While the land was in individual names at Willapa, there is evidence that the colony’s common fund paid for the properties unless received by donation land claim. The property around Aurora and Bethel was primarily in Keil’s name. The three groups retained unique features, and we know that well into the 1870s, colonists continued to migrate west. Some chose Willapa while others chose the Aurora community. Helena Giesy, for example, always kept her residence in Aurora once she left Bethel, but there were other Giesys whose descendants remain in Willapa today, who migrated after the Civil War. All those Giesys make for some interesting genealogical searching!
What values did all the colonists appear to hold most dear?
The Bethel-Willapa-Aurora colonists were known to be generous to their neighbors, to assist women and orphans whether a colony member or not, to work hard and be resourceful, to create fine crafts, and to uphold music as an important part of their worship and life. They really did believe in the Diamond Rule of making others’ lives better than one’s own, as directed by their Christian faith. I think that’s what kept Keil from becoming a tyrant rather than someone who merely dominated. It was perhaps how Emma could make sense of her decisions as well. In Missouri, the colonists protected slaves, and according to letters, were generally sympathetic to the Union in the War Between the States. But they were not pacifists, as the Amana Society members were. One of Keil’s nephews died in the Yakima Indian War, for example. Music was a major contributor to their interaction with the outside world as well as within the colonies. Recently, in the basement of what had been Martin Giesy’s home in Aurora, original pieces of musical compositions were found. These are being restored and performed and recorded on CDs. More information about this can be read at the colony’s Web site at www.auroracolonymuseum.com.