In my memory, I open the door and enter hesitantly. Daddy has already gone through the gate into the garden, so I am on my own to enter and greet Maggie. Despite her appearance, weather-worn and weary, her voice is surprisingly lilting and light. She welcomes me into the one room that occupies the ground level of her three story home. The heavy smell envelops me and I am suddenly not sorry I skipped breakfast this morning. I can see the large cast iron pot on the stove—the pot that Maggie always uses to render the goose skin into the fat she believes to have medicinal powers. Waiting to receive the remedy are six jars of various sizes, cleansed of their former contents and waiting to spring to life as the apothecary fills them with a new purpose.
Maggie fascinates me. Born seven decades before me, living in two centuries, she knows much about her world and shares it willingly. All I have to do is ask.
“Why do you do this, grandma?” In my child’s mind I was thinking of a recent bad cold when I’d had to endure a chest poultice of goose grease and camphor, despite protests from my mother who was thoroughly modern when it came to medicine.
“Because there’s a need,” Maggie replies. “Lots of people can’t afford a doctor. I do what I can to help.” That statement launches a conversation that includes tending to people with colds, pneumonia, and even those giving birth. Her answer is simple and profound at the same time and I won't deeply understand until much later in life when I began my family research.
I fast forward to 2008 and what I know about Maggie now.
Maggie was born into and lived most of her life in abject poverty. With little education, there was not a whole lot she could do to improve her situation. In the early days of her life she was, like so many women of her day, little more than property, first of her parents and then her husbands. While the Women’s Movement continued to make progress, the rank and file waited for some evidence of it. Women gained admittance into the working world as servants, teachers or mill workers. Large-scale decision making by women was still decades away. And as in any generation, women without education often did not hear of the progress and even if they did, the day-to-day grind that was their life prevented them from acting upon it. Miners made $1.00 a day for 12-hour shifts, so children were put to work. Boys were likely to follow their fathers into the mines. Girls had two choices—become a domestic or work at the silk mill for much less than what the miners made. Histories written about my hometown are quick to point out that mine owners went out of their way to keep other industry out of Scranton to insure a large workforce for the mines. The only industry welcomed was the lesser paying silk and lace mills where the workforce was predominantly women.
I re-enter the memory. I hear the flip, flip, flip of the push mower that Daddy uses to mow the backyard. The sound meant the geese were hidden away in their pen while he mowed and it was safe to venture outside. My Dad and his brothers took care of Maggie since her only son, my beloved gampa died. A few years earlier, I’d wandered out into the yard before the geese were penned. Those geese, loud and boisterous, chased me and knocked me down. The event still strikes a tiny bit of fear in my heart. As I watch daddy push the mower I feel a hand on my shoulder. It’s Maggie, beckoning me inside for a cup of tea. As I sit down at the table she speaks, “Your father is a good man.”
The statement triggers thoughts of my beloved grandfather, the man who my father now emulates. It makes me wonder how gampa grew into such a nearly perfect man, at least to me, without benefit of a male role model, so I ask about my great grandfather, Gampas father. Maggie hesitates, before answering, then quietly recounts that he was gone a long time and killed in the mines. Even at my young age, I can see the pained look, the water that wells up, but does not spill from her eyes. But again my age makes me incapable of understanding the significance of her statement. I understood it to mean that his death occurred years ago by some mining accident that was all too common in Scranton.
I fast forward to what genealogy research has revealed about my great grandmother. Maggie married James Thorpe in August of 1901 at the age of 17 and gave birth to her first and only child with James a little over six months later on February 23, 1902. James was a miner, as were all the men in his family. On May 2, 1902, the Anthracite Coal strike began in Pennsylvania. The time leading up to the strike had been turbulent and work sporadic. It lasted 163 days and in the end, the miners were granted a 9-hour day and a 10 % pay raise—they had asked for an 8 hour day and 20% raise. All of this meant little to the Thorpe family. Months before the strike owners were routinely shutting down mines in hopes of keeping profits up and scaring the miners into compliance. Without regular work, miners could not support their families. James and his two brothers Joseph and William joined over 30,000 miners to leave the state of Pennsylvania. About 10, 000 returned to their native European countries. Others left for the bituminous coal fields of the Midwest. Coal Creek Mine in British Columbia was well aware of the looming US strike and had been advertising in local papers for miners. The pay was better than the current rate in Pennsylvania, so the Thorpe boys went to Canada. The three left in early March, and on May 22, 1902, James and his brother William died in an explosion that killed 127 men at Coal Creek # 2 Mine in Fernie, British Columbia. It was James’ 22nd birthday.
I return to my memory of Maggie. I nibble on a stale cookie and sip the tea from the cup, ancient and cracked, that Maggie has placed before me. She asks about my mother, and I understand that the conversation about James is over. We chat some more about school and friends and church before Daddy comes through the door, hot and sweaty, and Maggie presents him with a glass of water.
It is time to depart, but the seed has been planted; the one that will grow into a flowering vine that intertwines my present and past so completely that I can not rest until I find the answers to the questions of my childhood, so fragrant and bittersweet.
As the team took the field, prepared for some drills and direction from the coach, the few fans on the sidelines watched with unwavering interest. After all, the players were sons and grandsons of the fans. Let's face it; anything performed by a six year old, particularly when you are related to him, is interesting.
All kidding aside, watching youngsters learn to play baseball is intriguing. In two practices I've seen 9 players go from not being able to throw accurately, nor catch consistently, to getting 2-3 catches or throws in a row. Quite an accomplishment, Coach Jon! What fun to watch the boys interact too. A week ago, they didn't know each other at all, and now you can see them put their heads together and giggle over something that just happened or high five a teammate for a great play.
Participating in sports was never really my thing--do remember I grew up in the pre-Title IX era. I was a healthy kid, who loved being outside, but team sports just weren't an option for a girl in the 1950's. Just imagine me on Beaver Cleaver's little league team--you get the picture. I do enjoy watching though--particularly when one of the players just happens to be my grandson.
I am not sure the team will be ready for their first game on March 28, but they seem to be having fun trying and isn't that what it is all about?
