Deferred Dreams

Deferred Dreams Written by: J.R. Harris

Chapter 1 - Early 1900’s

Even though it is so cold I can hardly stand it, I loved waking up this morning seeing the city blanketed in snow. It has been so dreary and dark lately and now with the snow I am trying to imagine this blinding white is the sun shining outside. It seems brighter and lighter outside….it makes me want to go walking, however it is way too cold to take Bronze outside. He is now seven years old, and he is satisfied doing anything if he is active. He is a happy little boy, but very stubborn…. I do not know where he gets that part from…. neither my husband nor I ever took credit for that feature in our son.

The year is 1918 and it seems like it’s been a lifetime since my daughter and my husband passed, but it’s only been four years. I feel I have turned from a girl to an old woman in the blink of an eye. The sadness in me sometimes just takes over my whole body…I thank God for my son, so I have the strength to go on. If I did not have him, I would have surrendered that very night Garrison and my baby girl were taken away.

10 YEARS EARLIER……. U.S. - 1908

We have been on the train for weeks and I still feel like I don’t know where I am going. The trip has been pleasant, and I am so thankful for Gerta and her family giving me this opportunity, but I am still waking up with nightmares of the earthquake…. I have a reoccurring nightmare of my family and I running into a cave after another earthquake, but a huge boulder rolls up against the opening before I could get in…. I constantly feel fearful…. alone…uneasy. The earthquake took everything I’ve ever known and erased it from my life. It took our home, my fathers’ business, and everything else in its path. It’s as if my family and I never existed in San Francisco. I can never go back there and point out to others where I had my childhood and my only memories of that time. After the quake, my family went down south to my grandparents. It took so many weeks of staying in makeshift shelters and being moved around so it was nice to get out of the way of all the destruction and have some sort of normalcy back again. We lost so many friends and most of us lost our livelihood so the place I had always called home was no longer. Aftershocks and fires broke out everywhere, so no one was even allowed to go back into the city. Hundreds of thousands of people were homeless and thousands of people were missing or dead. Some of our friends and family were still missing and so many animals just disappeared, the city was destroyed and the pictures showing up in newspapers across the country were so disturbing you didn’t want to look at them for fear of the images being burned in your memory. I had mixed emotions - I felt guilty for being thankful that my family was ok but had feelings of extreme sorrow for everyone else.

My father was a changed man after the earthquake in 1906. He was anxious most of the time. We had to stay with my grandparents in Long Beach, California and it was crowded as it was a small bungalow style home with 2 bedrooms and one bathroom. With a family of eight I feel my father didn’t want to overstay our welcome, but we had nowhere to go. We basically had the clothes on our backs, but my father always reminded us how lucky we were to be able to start over. We were still here; we had our health and God would help us through this. He would tell us we should feel grateful we even had another place to go as many people didn’t have family or friends in California. He would get work soon; we would move and start all over again. I knew it must have been so much on his shoulders, but I always knew my father would make everything all right - he always took care of us. It was now that I learned everything in your life could change at the blink of an eye - I never was able to look too far into the future anymore.

The next couple of years seemed to go by at an excruciatingly slow pace. After we arrived in Southern California my younger brother, Scooter who was 16 was diagnosed with Polio. It is a disease that causes severe damage to the nervous system by killing nerve cells and is a highly contagious. The illness caused my brother to have dysfunctional limbs / paralysis and he had to be moved to a hospital dedicated to infectious diseases. You couldn’t go in to see him for fear of contracting the disease and possibly spreading to others. The only contact I had with my brother was through letters I would deliver to him at the front entrance of the hospital property. Scooter had always been the athlete of the family - he would play any sport he could and was good at it. I knew this had to be devastating to him and I was at a loss as he was my confidant and best buddy of all my siblings. I missed spending time with him and wanted so badly to hug him and tell him everything was going to be ok. During this time, my mother totally checked out and my father just survived. He went to work every day, paid the bills, and would sit on the porch in the evenings with his pipe and a stiff drink staring straight ahead…. saying nothing…He looked defeated, sad, and helpless, but the next morning he would get up and go to work and start all over again. No one in my family had a relationship with the other anymore. My mother and father were strangers to each other, and all my siblings had their own friends that they spent time with. We didn’t really know each other anymore and never talked about the earthquake or Scooter’s illness…. somehow it didn’t hurt as much that way.

My father managed to get us a three-bedroom home near the hospital. He had started work with the local newspaper shortly after the move into our grandparent’s house and saved every penny. It was nice to get into a bigger house, but it didn’t bring us any closer - farther apart. Two months after the move, Scooter passed away and we were devastated. We all knew that this day would come, but never did we ever speak about it. It was if we didn’t talk about it - it would prolong the inevitable. I was graduating High School in a couple of months and was having a hard time concentrating on my studies. I don’t remember what happened in those last months after Scooter’s death, but I did graduate and felt the loss of Scooter more than ever before trying to plan what I was going to do next. Scooter and I always bounced ideas off each other and even if other members of my family disagreed with my decisions, Scooter always stuck up for me saying that I was smart enough to make my own decisions - he had faith in me, and I loved him for that.

I was also fortunate to have my best friend Gerta to talk to. It always made me laugh when I thought about our relationship as I think we both needed each other for different reasons. I needed her to talk to about my family, my brother’s illness, my sorrow, and we both had the devastation of the earthquake in common. The funny part was that she never really listened to me when I would confide in her. She was an only child from a very wealthy family, and she was so into herself that she had blinders on to what was happening around her. I didn’t mind though, as I could talk endlessly to her about my problems, and it would make me feel so much better to get it off my chest. She never repeated what I said to her due to her not really hearing me in the first place. She was always busy looking at herself in the mirror and trying on different outfits as I went on and on…it was somewhat of a therapy session for both of us. I could talk to someone in total confidence, and she was able to get my opinion on how great she looked in her new outfits, hats and shoes…. we always agreed with each other at the end of the evening, and we always laughed a lot. Even though we were two totally different people, I loved spending time with her.

Summer of 1908 was coming around the corner and I felt horribly bored, confused, and lost. Gerta came by and said she had fabulous news and that I should come by her house to talk with her and her parents. I laughed to myself thinking they were going to show me their new furniture or a new modern appliance. I never considered it bragging because it really wasn’t - It was just that Gerta had been brought up with anything she could have ever wanted, and she was used to it. She had a good heart and wanted to share her good fortune. When I arrived that evening Gerta and her parents were in the parlor with tea and small decorated cakes on a silver platter on the table. They offered me some and I gladly took it. I felt like we were having an elegant birthday party, but this is the way Gerta always lived. After some small talk, Gerta’s father stood up and said that he wanted to offer me an opportunity to go with Gerta to college in the fall on the east coast. They were going to go on holiday during the summer and travel by train across the United States and I was welcome to come. They felt it would be a good idea to have a friend along with Gerta on this next phase of her life. I was to go speak to my father and come back to them with an answer right away as they were leaving in two weeks. My head was spinning as this morning I didn’t know what I was going to do and now I had been handed this opportunity of a lifetime. I felt extreme excitement and at the same time I felt extreme sadness. I wanted to just go home and pack my bag and hop on the train with Gerta and her family, but at the same time I felt terribly sad to leave my family as they were in such dysfunction. Gerta’s father drove me home in silence and as I arrived at my house, he said “I think your father would want you to take advantage of this opportunity - let us know your decision by tomorrow evening”. I said Thank you and got out of the car.

My father was sitting on his normal spot on the porch and I pulled up a small wooden stool beside him. I began to tell him about the offer from Gerta’s parents and before I could finish, he said I should go. He said it was always his dream to send his children to college and that I should never pass up an opportunity that may never come my way again. He said for a woman to be given this opportunity is amazing and I was extremely fortunate to have such generous friends. Tears welled up in my eyes as I looked at him. He had aged in the past years since the quake and Scooter’s passing. My older brother and sister had moved out, married, and had their own lives. My father and mother passed each other in the home in the morning and evening without any words spoken. My two younger brothers and my baby sister immersed themselves in their friends and school and so my father spent most of his off time alone. As he stared out into the night, I wondered what he must be thinking. This wasn’t what he had planned for his family and it was killing him slowly. He didn’t really live each day - he just survived each day. I wished I could make all his sadness go away. I wanted to cry and hug him, but I didn’t want to show weakness. I told him that I would go with Gerta and make him proud of me.

The following week I spent time packing my bedroom up in some boxes. My younger siblings acted like they couldn’t wait until I left, and it made me sad in a way. I had never really taken the time to get to know them. The last two years were a blur to me…. I tried not to think much about what had transpired as it just was too heavy on my heart. I wondered when I would see my family again…it wasn’t like I could travel back and forth and see them when I wanted to. If I were going to leave it would be a while before I would be able to come back again and I just had to face it - If I wanted something better for myself, I needed to go. My mother gave me a small brown suitcase big enough to pack some items that I would need - undergarments, hairbrush, hair ribbons, nightgown, coat, a formal dress with dress shoes, a skirt and two blouses.

In June of 1908 I was on my way to school on the East Coast. We were on our way to Bennett College in Irvington New York. Gerta’s father, Frederick was friends with the founder, May F. Bennett and could get us in due to a favor he did for her family in the past. It was so hard to leave my family, but I kept thinking that maybe this would take some of the pressure off my father as he would not have to worry about my future. The first week on the train was wonderful - I felt happy and free. I now had something to look forward to and felt unstoppable in what I was going to do going forward. Gerta’s father had reserved a whole car that divided into sections, a nice living area for traveling during the day and sleeping areas on the other end. We would go to a private dining car for our meals and they served great food for being a traveling diner. All in all, it was as nice as being at Gertas‘s home, very lavish and elegant. On the train, I was never bored as we were constantly seeing new scenery. You could see for miles - so much land…I wondered if it would change in years to come. If I passed through this place in 10 years, would it have tall buildings and lots of homes, people, and animals…. I started drifting off to sleep….

Our first stop was in Sacramento California and we were all in a somber mood due to the train traveling through the San Francisco area. None of us had been up there since the big quake that devastated all our lives. As I looked out the window I suddenly wondered if I had made the right decision. I felt sick to my stomach, sad and lonely. I wanted to be back sitting with my father on the porch…I wanted him to tell me that everything was going to be all right…. I wanted to talk to Scooter and ask him if I was doing the right thing. I felt awful and guilty for leaving my family. I turned over on my side and curled up in a ball and pulled the blanket up over my head. Gerta asked me if I was ok…. I said I was only tired. I cried for a while and felt sorry for myself. Then I thought of Scooter…I thought he would be ashamed of me for feeling so low when I had been given this wonderful opportunity…he would have been jumping up and down with joy sending postcards to everyone he knew with his good news of his travels and new opportunities that were coming his way. I laughed as I pictured him smiling from ear to ear. I decided that day to appreciate what Gerta’s parents were doing for me and to look at everything through different eyes…to leave the sadness in the past and move forward. Our next stop was Ogden Utah and then we had to switch to a different railway to go to Montana. I started to feel more grown up being on this trip without my family. Gerta’s father was the type of man who was there for you but basically let us make our own decisions, so it felt like I had so many options in front of me on how I was going to spend the next few years. I would also be responsible for all my decisions, so it was somewhat daunting as well.