The Midwife of Hope River

Female infant, Dora, 6 pounds, 9 ounces, born to Minnie Boggs, only 14 years old. She surprised me by delivering quickly. Labor eight hours. I only made it for the last hour. Small tear, no repair. Blood loss minimal.

Minnie wanted to get up and bathe right away, but I said no. Not for one week. Her granny and mother agreed with me, but I doubt she will do what I say. Her husband, Calvin Boggs, ten years her senior at 24, has no control over her either. I found myself missing Bitsy. She would have been a comfort going out after dark, but she’s at the MacIntoshes’ helping Big Mary with Christmas.

Mercy

I pull up a chair, balance my cup of peppermint tea on the windowpane, and stare out at the gray day. Spending a few hours with fourteen-year-old Minnie reminds me of my year at the House of Mercy in Chicago. Gray. That was the color of everything, or that’s how I remember it. Gray walls. Gray uniforms. Gray gruel for breakfast. Gray sheets.

The girls in my dormitory were a mixed lot and, despite their poverty, were nearly as spunky as Minnie. Most were children of immigrants, Polish, Italian, Russian, Irish, new to the country and struggling with English. When their parents died of consumption, cholera, or an industrial accident and they had no family in this new land, there was nowhere else for them to go. Some were thieves, pickpockets, or child streetwalkers. Some were disabled, defective, and unwanted. A few still had one parent who visited.

Those were the saddest. Their widowed mother or father, working twelve hours a day in a sweatshop or tannery, still couldn’t afford to keep them at home, like the redheaded sisters from Ireland, nine and seven, who cried when their mother came on Sunday and then cried again when she left.

I’d been doted on, growing up in Deerfield, so I nearly drowned at first in that sea of despair, but I quickly learned to swim and those two years in the House of Mercy changed my life. Living with the poor, the lonely, and the discarded embroidered them into my heart.

To survive I made myself useful and ingratiated myself with the nuns by singing the youngest girls to sleep and reading to the older ones. I sang hymns: “Rock of Ages,” “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?,” “Come to the Savior Now.” I sang popular tunes: “After the Ball Was Over,” “Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay” . . . anything I could think of.

None of the girls had been to school. The sisters gave me a worn copy of The Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen, and I read to them at bedtime and on rainy days: “Thumbelina,” “The Little Mermaid,” “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” Even the girls who didn’t understand English were soothed by my voice. “The Princess and the Pea” was their favorite.

By day I was a laundress, like my mother had been, in the institution’s basement. We used newspapers to bundle the sheets, and one morning, at the bottom of page 10 in the Chicago Tribune, just under an advertisement for SEARS MODERN HOMES, ARRIVES BY TRAIN, WITH INSTRUCTIONS AND ALL MATERIALS, was an announcement of tryouts for the chorus line at the Majestic Theatre.

I was well spoken, could sing, and wasn’t unpleasant to look at, so, determined to audition, I waited until dark, then slipped out the side door with my few belongings and the sisters’ worn copy of Hans Christian Andersen. It was the first thing I ever pinched but sadly not the last. Under the cover of darkness, I arrived at Mrs. Ayers’s boardinghouse, the last place I’d lived after my mother’s demise.

“Child!” she exclaimed. “What’s happened?” She was wearing a rose silk dressing gown with her hair loose, flowing down her back like black rain. I’d never seen her that way before. Having a man had changed her.

“I know I’m not your responsibility,” I began, “but I beg of you this one kind favor.” I’d read a line like that in the sisters’ storybook. “Lend me your best dress for three hours tomorrow.” She took me in with open arms, making sure I understood that it was only for the night, and put me to bed in my old room.

In the morning, Mrs. Ayers, now Mrs. Swartz, pulled a cream ruffled tea dress with lace panels on the sleeves out of a round-topped wooden trunk. It was the dress she had married Mr. Swartz in. We took in the waist with basting thread and her new husband, a kind soul, hired a horse-drawn cab to take me to the Majestic at three.

When the driver left me off on Monroe, I pinched my cheeks to give them more color, stared up at the ornate Art Deco–inspired hotel, the tallest building in Chicago, and tried to pretend I was used to such places. I told the man with the tooth missing who stood out in front that I was there for the audition, then found myself a seat in the third row.

A heavily made-up redhead in a low-cut green satin gown was on stage belting out “Sweet Adeline,” and I was glad to have a chance to look around. The colors of the theater were rich and dramatic, with dark gleaming wood, red plush velvet, and silver accents. Box seats rose to the ceiling. I was so enchanted that I didn’t hear the gentleman with the clipboard call my name.

“Elizabeth? Elizabeth Snyder!” That was before I took on my alias.

“Oh, me, sir!” (No one I knew ever called me Elizabeth. I’d always been “Lizbeth” to my family. That’s my heart’s name.)

“Sheet music?”

I felt silly. “I don’t have any. I’m doing my mother’s favorite song, ‘Oh Promise Me.’ The man with the missing tooth rolled his eyes but perked up when I sang without accompaniment, in my clear alto, “Oh, promise me that someday you and I will take our love together to some sky.”

I never went back to the House of Mercy, not even to visit, and I felt bad about that, about not saying good-bye to the girls, especially the little ones, but I’d left without permission, stolen their storybook, and lied about my age to get the job at the Majestic. If I returned, they might try to keep me.

11

The Majestic

It was at the Majestic in ’09 that I met my first love, Lawrence Clayton, an artist, scene designer, and student at the Art Institute of Chicago. During rehearsals, I’d stare at his hands as he painted the canvas sets, watch his delicate strokes. Eventually he asked to walk me home. We took the long way.

Soon it was a regular arrangement. We’d stroll along the boardwalk and throw bread to the pigeons in Washington Park. It didn’t matter what we did, we were so happy just being together.

I guess I was reckless, but that’s the way of young lovers, isn’t it? I missed one period and then another few. Since I’d never been regular, I wasn’t concerned; in fact, I didn’t know I was pregnant until Cassandra, my roommate, another chorus girl, asked me when I’d last had my monthly.