It was at that stop that I was reminded of the stalwart women who peopled this untamed country. Cooking and cleaning for guests day after day, fighting dust and snakes and dealing with uneasy men with guns. My life was so privileged by comparison. And when I spoke of my gratitude for the fresh water in the basin in our room or mentioned how good the johnny cakes were or asked “However do you keep your dishes so clean in this alkali country? You’re remarkable!” my words brought tears to their eyes. The effect of a compliment seasoning hard, dreary days was something I could give and vowed to do that more. Kindness. To notice small moments of service, even asking for a woman’s name, brought joy out of proportion to the simple act. We all want to be known.
In the morning, the marshal arranged for me to ride atop with the driver when we left, a marginally better seat for finding a smidgeon of fresh air. But there was no avoiding the powdery grit. We pulled bandanas up over our noses, and the driver—his name was John Johnson—slapped the ribbons on the horses’ rumps and we started out. I wondered how the animals breathed. They too needed bandanas.
The grit seeped through our scarves, clogged our throats, filled our noses, shrouded our clothing, so when we disembarked one could barely tell us from the dusty earth.
I had several days rumbling through that barren country. If I never see another lava rock, it will be too soon. Salt Lake City was a mecca of warm water, a place to put my feet up and write. There’d been no such option on that journey south.
“Can you locate Robert Strahorn for me? He’s likely in the Boise country. That’s my husband. He works for the railroad.”
The UP agent stood as though at attention. “I’ll send a message to track him down for you straightaway, ma’am. No problem at all. Thought I knew that name.”
It wasn’t the first time that I wondered if Pard might have backtracked to Bonanza while I headed to Salt Lake but given his intention to go all the way to Boise, I figured it would have been weeks, if not months, before he returned for me.
After two days, I received a telegram. “Go home to Omaha. Stop. Grand Central Hotel. Stop. There soon.” He signed it “Love, Robert Strahorn, Chief, Union Pacific Public Relations.”
Did it mean we’d be staying in one place now? Had Robert written all the books, traveled to all the places in the West that the railroad needed, and now he’d be drawing on those trunks of copious notes to write more pamphlets? Perhaps they’d identified the places where new towns would now be promoted. I danced around the room, holding the telegram.
Chief of the Union Pacific Public Relations Department. A promotion.
We’d have much to talk about in Omaha. Might this mean a home of our own? A place to consider taking in an orphan or adopting a child or two? Maybe I could get published as my sister had. As my husband was. The idea felt welcoming, and after weeks of travel mostly without my Pard, I looked forward to that place called Omaha, seeing it with now more experienced and hopeful eyes.
From Fifteen Thousand Miles by Stage, vol. 1, by Carrie Adell Strahorn (page 170)
After a few days in Bonanza my liege lord and two companions left for the Saw Tooth range and the Wood River country 150 miles southward on horseback. I was left among new-found friends, with a good horse and saddle, and they thought I was also left with the conviction that the trip would be too hard for me. . . . Mr. Norton, the godfather and oracle of the camp, had said it would not do to send a woman over that rugged Saw Tooth range with such swollen streams and an untried horse, and his word became the law. Several most delightful weeks were then spent among Bonanza’s hospitable people.
15
Home, Sweet Home
We’re to have a place of our own at last. I can take furniture out of storage, keep a scrapbook of notes and adventures already taken and anticipate the next to come. I will take cooking classes and learn to knit. Volunteer at the library. I’ll be a woman “at home.” At last I will have a home and not the Single Occupancy Hotel. Eventually.
July 1, 1879
Robert’s new position and the UP moving its main offices to Farnham Street in Omaha took up most of Robert’s time. He was on-call almost twenty-four hours a day. The offices were built on the only hill in Omaha, with a grand view of the Missouri and the flat valley below, though my dear husband had little time to gaze at the landscape. He was ensconced in an office with one window.
Our reunion in Omaha after the Bonanza episode left little time to discuss my frustration with his having abandoned me in that mining town. Reconnection was the order of the day. I did so love that man! I could hardly take issue with Robert for his choice to go to Boise without me, as he was delighted with the outcome of his travels, inspired by his new appointment and the chance to glean the next publication from his notes, the work to be fully funded by the railroad.
He showed me a building site on 18th Street, out of the commercial area, that would be our very own home. How could I be upset with a man who does that? We would stay at the Grand Central until the house was built, but then we’d have a house my sisters and parents could visit.
Pard set to work with the general manager of the UP right down the hall from his office, where he was called in often to talk about grades, passes, rock formations, and all that he’d seen. In the meantime, he hired people to help him, while I visited the building site daily, pointing out features I wanted (an indoor water closet, piped-in water to the kitchen sink, three bedrooms). I had the builders order in transoms with horse heads etched into the glass. My mother sent me money for my “enjoyment” and I purchased paper instead of the linen so many women in Omaha used on their walls. I did my best not to annoy the builders and we soon came to an agreement about how things should be done. I overheard one of them refer to me once as “bossy” and I’m not. I just knew what others should be doing.
Once our house was built and we moved in, Robert announced that we’d have boarders—two men who worked with him in the Public Relations office, Mr. Gleed and Mr. Blackburn.
“Oh” was all I said.
The river flooded that year, which did not affect us but did the city and the railroad. Robert had to put out press comments about when the five miles of track that had been flooded out would be back in service. He became friendly with the reporter from the Omaha Bee. And then there was the adobe mud that Omahans rarely speak of. I had not experienced it before that winter in the valley, but getting stuck in it one day and having to be rescued by a passing stranger is not an occasion easily forgotten.
Within a few weeks of our moving in, Mr. Gleed and then Robert became ill. If it had been only one of them, I would have been fine, but nursing two men without a housemaid or cook proved daunting. And worrisome.
Our other boarder was fine literary help in Robert’s office. Mr. Blackburn carried a cane and likely secrets, as he was often melancholic. He would leave the Farnham office, arrive at our home, take to his room, and begin to play his old Stradivarius while lying on his back. I learned of that position when I once knocked on his door to tell him supper was ready and he invited me in. There he lay, the bow and violin resting on his chest. He was quite a good violinist and I had sung with some of the best.
“I’ll come for supper when my tunes bring me to a reel,” he told me in his soft, nasal voice. “My violin takes me from here to there, and when I’m there, I’ll be here with you. I hope that’s agreeable?”
I nodded that it was and backed out. After that, I waited until that reel or an allegretto vivace piece took over the bow, for then I’d know his sadness had turned to joy. He’d come to supper cheerful and chipper, the way Robert described him being at the office. Music can do that to a person and so can writing.
I didn’t have much time to ponder or write though, as caring for the two men consumed me, while also making sure fresh linens awaited our violin-playing guest.
We’d hired cooks while I was growing up, and I could remember standing on a high stool beside one while she made crepes or dipped strawberries in choco
late. I never wanted to help with the everyday meals like scrambling eggs or frying bacon or making broth—the latter easiest for my two patients to consume. No, it was the party things I liked, the new recipes, the exotic dishes, decorating the tables. My admiration grew for those pioneering women who served dozens in a day at stage stops with a prairie rose in a jar. I could never do what they did, never.
The sickness in our home concerned me, and neither fine music nor good books nor my gruel or broth helped them make progress. Robert’s attempt to keep writing despite the malady seemed to help him until he became more ill. I suggested fatigue as the cause. He had a slight fever. Then complained about chewing. I called in the doctor, who diagnosed ague, common among the Missouri River communities.
“Or perhaps a recurrence of his TB?” I asked. Sometimes doctors need help.
But then Robert swelled up and his throat hurt, and this time when the doctor returned he diagnosed mumps. Both men had mumps.
“But I’ve had mumps,” Robert told him.
I was incredulous too.
“Whatever you had before, it wasn’t mumps,” our Omaha doctor insisted. “You can only have mumps once. This is mumps.” He pointed, then finished packing up his leather bag. “It’s contagious, which is probably why both of you men have it. Gotten from a sneeze or cough. You’d best be careful, Mrs. Strahorn. Wear a mask or bandana when you care for them. They’ll pull through with good nursing. Especially since your husband has had it before.” That last he said with mocking, but I didn’t get into it with him.
“Infertility?” Robert asked.
“Nonsense. That’s an old wives’ tale spread by infertile women to blame men.”
Now that did get me up on my high horse. “Excuse me, but my father is a physician and he indicates that orchitis is often the result of mumps in adult men.”
“Orchitis? Your father must be a quack to think that.”
“Dr. John Green was well schooled by the military. He is one of the first physicians in the army to use anesthesia west of the Mississippi River. And my sister is in medical school this instant. I suspect they’ve kept up on things.”
“Green, you say. In Marengo?” I nodded. “I’ve heard of him. He best buffer up his medical information though,” our soon-to-be-former doctor said. I had to remember that physicians, in 1880, had usually less than two years of schooling with maybe a year at an eastern university studying surgery, while ministers of the faith had seven or eight before being sent out to the tributaries. This man had had no military experience and was unschooled, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t right. I opened my mouth to protest, but he stopped me with a raised hand.
“All I’m saying is that it’s likely he never had mumps before, has them now, and it shouldn’t interfere with his progeny. Send a messenger if he gets worse. I’ll alert the UP who is paying me, madam, that he’s on the mend. Good day.”
The infertility up until then may well have been on my end, if indeed there’d been a misdiagnosis with Robert years before. Or if my father was misinformed about infertility related to mumps. Maybe it wasn’t very common and it was an old wives’ tale, though I’d take issue with our former doctor’s reasoning about how such stories began.
After he left, I said to Robert, “Can the UP get a different physician? I’ll make a complaint.”
“I’m sorry, Dell. I really am.”
I sat on Robert’s bed. I’d made up one for myself on our divan each night since he’d been ill. That probably added to my irritable disposition.
“I hope you don’t get it.”
“It was probably at the New Year’s Eve birthday party,” I said. “I do remember hearing sniffles and coughing, and I think Mavis has been down with something that I now suspect might well be mumps. It’s my own fault for having such an affair.”
“I loved that party. You throw quite a festive event, Mrs. Strahorn.”
“Do I, Mr. Strahorn?” I leaned over and kissed his forehead. It was warm. “It was such fun to plan for, get the invitations printed. Create the decorations. Order in the inexpensive meats and make them rich with sauces.” I let my mind go to somewhere pleasant in the past, pushed aside that unease about fertility.
“Those snowman doughnuts were exceptional, Dell.” I shrugged at his praise. “And you did it in the midst of tending our home, our boarders, me. I wish my salary was a little more so you’d have help.” He coughed. “One day, we’ll have a grand home and you won’t have to plan your own birthday party.”
“I love that part, but a mansion would be lovely.”
“It’ll have two indoor baths and a dozen bedrooms.”
“For all those children we’ll have?”
He took my hand. “Wash this beautiful hand after I’ve held it.”
He wasn’t going to pick up on my question, so I moved along. “I’ve the constitution of a horse, my father always told me. Perhaps this extra weight serves me well in fighting off disease.” I fluffed his pillow. “You were skinny before this hit. Now look at you. Skin over bones, hardly any flesh.” He did look gaunt. “Much as I like Omaha, let’s go to the mountains and get you well. We’ll ask UP to hire a nurse for Mr. Gleed.”
“You change the subject, Carrie. I heard the question.” He swallowed hard. I gave him water to sip. “I am sorry. Whether your father’s right or this doctor is, I know you want a home and children. For now, we have each other. I want that to be enough.”
It was his longest sharing of something personal with me, ever. I didn’t know what to say to have it continue. Silence might have been best, but I’ve never been good with silence.
“It is enough as long as we’re on the same team,” I said. “I hated it when you left me in Bonanza, when I didn’t have any way to be in touch with you unless I made an arduous trip across that lava moonscape. We have to talk about things, Robert, and decide together. I’m not one of your employees, you know.” He nodded. “Maybe I need some sort of . . . focus, something I’m working on so that when you are gone I don’t feel abandoned. I want to see your absence as though I’ve been given a gift of more time to pursue whatever project I have. Working with the builders was great fun.”
He winced. Maybe the builders complained about my involvement?
I heard Mr. Gleed ring the bell I’d given him to call me when he needed something.
“You go. You’re Nurse Dell now. A whole new adventure for you. Perhaps that’s your new calling.”
“Very funny.” I stood, washed my hands with the lavender soap, then spritzed a few drops at him before I dabbed his face, then wiped my hands with the towel. I’d embroidered his initials onto that linen, ordered from back east. I used gold threads and gave him a shaving mug with gold leaf initials on it too.
“I’ll get better,” he said.
“You will. If you feel up to it, we can work on that pamphlet. You dictate, I’ll write.”
He nodded.
“I love you, Robert Strahorn.”
“And I you, Dell Strahorn.”
After I tended Mr. Gleed, Robert and I worked together for a time until he tired.
“Mama’s coming for a visit, in a week or so. To help out. I hope that’s alright.”
“Your mother is always welcome. She’ll be disappointed, I fear, that you’ve had to work so hard on your own. That we have boarders.”
“She has to find something to complain about. She wouldn’t enjoy herself if she didn’t.”
He laughed, then closed his eyes and was asleep. I headed out to the kitchen area, passing the china cabinet where I’d put my precious things, including that chunk of ore, my ephemera, from the Montana Mine. I’d conquered a fear there as I climbed out seeking new light. There might be hope yet for a family if the quack was right about progeny. We had a permanent home now. All we had to do was fill it up.
From Fifteen Thousand Miles by Stage, vol. 1, by Carrie Adell Strahorn (page 176)
For the winter of ’79 we settled down to a quiet, orderly lif
e in Omaha.
16
A Stray
Mother arrived in Omaha. But she was not pleased that our time together involved, not shopping or walking the new park, but instead getting Robert better and helping me pack. I had no time to write, to journal. Robert opened an office for the UP in Denver, but they wanted him back out in the field. Mr. Gleed improved and took a job with the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe railroad, much to Robert’s chagrin. Our violin-playing boarder found himself a wife (he said he was inspired by our connubial bliss) and made his own home in Omaha while we headed to Denver and I prepared for at least a year of travel living again in hotels.
May 1, 1880
My mother insisted that I come home for a rest. Robert, much improved, agreed, and Mother and I were soon on the train back to Marengo.
“Why don’t you stay here instead of returning to that hotel in Denver, let him do this surveying and writing.” My mother fluffed the pillow behind my head. She’d brought me breakfast in bed.
“I’ve thought this through, Mama. He’s my husband. I’m a help to him with all his contacts. Even with his writing. Besides, what would I do here? Walk old Casey? Knit?”
She sighed. “I wish you were closer to having the life you really want.”
“I’ve chosen this one, Mama. It’s alright.”
It wasn’t alright, but I didn’t want her to worry and I kept a cheery attitude, let her pamper me, and we reminisced about old times. I saw Mary and my niece and walked old Casey too. All I was missing was Robert. And my Omaha home that was no more. Two weeks later I waved goodbye when I caught the train to Denver. From Denver, Pard and I traveled out like spokes on a wheel. I lost track of how many mines we visited, struggled as I wrote to describe the gold and silver workings in a new way. I’m not sure how Robert did it. Well, he didn’t. His reports read like statistics books where the reader had to find some way to distinguish the Ruby mine from the Gothic or a timber stand in New Mexico from one in Montana. My notes were about the people we traveled with and the nature of the stages or train cars. And a surprise family connection too when Robert learned his brother was bringing his wife and three children to the Ruby Valley in Madison, Montana. Robert’s words now had a direct impact on his own family’s desire to find a new direction in the West. Sadly, we had little contact with them. Maybe because we were always on the go.