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The Woman Who Knew Carl Sandburg
Serial Blog, part 2
When I reach Bigger Dodge I head towards the state park, and lo and behold, they do have room at the Inn. It's a lovely place, replete with hiking trails, cliffs, and waterfalls. I decide to drop Mr. Bookworm a postcard and say hey! thanks! what a great suggestion! But there is no postcard to be had, not a scap of stationery, not in the room, not in the gift shop filled with soaps in layered colors, and not in the restaurant overlooking the river. So I forget about him. For the time being.
I happen to stop at an elaborate 19th century home, open to the public, and I'm the only person there. The town seems deserted. The tour guide, Helen, a retired schoolteacher, tells me I should be sure and take a tour of the Teweksbury place. She says it’s private, and Anne lives there now, and she’s 95, and the grande dame of the town, everyone takes care of her, but if the door is ajar and there’s a paper note on the step by the door, I can go right in. It’s right through the garden, there, she points. She sees my hesitation and says I really must see it, there is a hanging staircase, it's really a unique place. So I decide to walk through and see what’s what.
Indeed, the heavy black door is open and a small handwritten note says that I can view the house for $3.00. I enter, and immediately it seems to me that instead of taking care of her, everyone is waiting for her death. Her house is like Miss Havisham’s in Great Expectations, filled with dirt and cobwebs and umet expectations.
I find Anne tucked away on a Victorian loveseat, in front of a north window, enshrined by her walker, a box fan going full blast, and a towering stack of envelopes addressed to her, torn open and left asunder. There are three yellow plastic cups on a nearby table, with flex straws, and dried up foam on the sides like a root beer float gone bad. There's a faint medicinal odor and I peer behind the loveseat to see if an oxygen tank is in hiding.
She is dressed in a blue silk dressing gown, open to her chest, and her left fingers stroke the cleavage at the opening of the gown. I’m vaguely embarrassed about where her fingers might end up.
She asks all about me, where I'm from and what I do. She's heard of Toledo and says she's been to the museum there and loves the glass collection. She talks about her Wellesley days and her daddy, who gave her a graduation present of a trip to Europe, but he didn’t say how long she could stay, so she stayed three years.
She keeps saying I suppose you want to hear about the house but I tell her I want to hear about her. She says after her husband died--they had no children--she went on numerous buying trips to Europe for antiques and glass. She says that one time she went and said that she wanted something....and she says excuse me, but I'm going to vulgar, expensive. She giggles like a schoolgirl.
She says the collections are upstairs and says I am to go upstairs and see them. Before I leave the room she asks if I gave her the three dollars. I smile and say I placed them by her side (which I had) and she says, it's my filthy lucre! And we both laugh, big man-size belly laughs.
Upstairs I wonder if there will be a skeleton in a bedroom, like this is some strange twist of Faukner's "A Rose for Miss Emily," but there are only dusty glass display cases filled with Wedgewood and 18th century silver filling what once were bedrooms. Each piece is marked. I don't care much about them. There are life size oil portraits of her husband and of her, with bronze plaques saying they were painted and given to them by the city in their honor, for all they did for the town.
But in a little out of the way corner by the hanging staircase I spot a small etching with a powder blue matte and black frame. The etching is of Carl Sandburg, and there is a small hand-written inscription to Anne on it. From Carl.
I trot downstairs to Anne and say I like her etching of Carl Sandburg. She says oh yes, he was a friend of her family's, and he used to come over in the afternoon and they would have discussions, which needless to say, were quite interesting. She says that as she grew older she served as his secretary, taking letters and so on.
Then she went to Wellesley, she says, and after her graduation, Carl and his wife invited her to stay with them for ten days at their house on Lake Michigan before she left for the European trip her daddy gave her. But, she says, Mr. Sandburg was so busy reading the Life of Lee that he had little time to spend with her. So she spent her last time with Mr. Sandburg going outside to Lake Michigian and sliding down the sand dunes in her raccoon coat.
to be continued
bethsfrontporch at 8:47:00 AM EDT Blog about this entry |
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Beth, what does this woman represent to you? If she were a metaphor, what comparison would be made? One thing that might help would be to make a list of specific details from the scene and analyze each detail in full. See which detail or details speak(s) to you. I really like what you are doing.
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Oh, my, Beth. This is fascinating - and, to echo Paula, so beautifully told. My immediate thought was of "A Rose for Miss Emily" as well. Glad it wasn't quite so mysterious. But Anne sounds wonderful - what a storehouse of memories and how sad she seemed to be regarded as a "character" rather than a real human being. Maybe a little like Miss Emily after all?
Hurry up - I want MORE!
Vicky
http://www.livejournal.com/users/vxv789/ -
Hi, nice to meet you. I love Sandberg, and the thrill of family connections to little bits of history. ;0 C. http://journalsa.ol.com/gdire
neoe/thedailies -
Such a great story, and so well told!
Keep going, Beth!!
10/14/05 8:25 AM
V