Combining genealogy, history and imagination, wars are fought, people move to new places, babies are born, and future generations move in directions of their own influenced by those who have gone before,
The story begins as Mary Boothman, a recent British immigrant to America, has given birth to a daughter, Minnie, on the banks of a coalmine while fleeing bushwhackers terrorizing her home. The family recently settled in the river town of Lexington, Missouri, but finds a peaceful life cannot be, for in 1861 America has turned on itself. Mary’s husband, William, joins the Cavalry on the side of the Union as Missourians divide their allegiances between the North and the South.
Based on a true family story, spanning the years and miles, from 1861 to 1938, from Missouri to Chicago, this is a story of a family in its search for freedom, and a story of America as it seeks a more perfect union.
The First Chapter
August 26, 1861, The Birth of Minnie
Backward, turn backward, O Time in your flight,
Make me a child again, just for to-night!
“Rock Me to Sleep Mother,” by
Barbara Akers Allen, 1832-1911
“Blimey, don’t come one bloody step further or I’ll stop you with this shotgun in my hands!” shouted Elizabeth as she stepped outside the small shack by the shaft of the coalmine to watch a lone figure coming up the bluff beside the Missouri River.
She tried to curb her passion and rage to continue in language more in keeping with her proper English heritage. “It appears your group has dwindled down to one coward. You’re all cowards, coming to homes and terrifying good women and children. Stop right there! If you come one step further I promise this gun will go off.”
“Aye, and Bessie, you’ll wake up the whole Confederate army below,” answered Elizabeth’s torch bearing husband who affectionately called her Bessie.
“Oh, George, George, I’m so glad you’re here,” cried Elizabeth as she ran to meet him and fell into his arms.
“Aye, Bessie. I’m glad to have found you.”
“They came and knocked at the door and stood out front with their torches and said they were going to burn down the house if we didn’t tell them where our men were. Everyone ran out the back and fled up here. I stood on the porch and . . .” Elizabeth said the last hesitantly.
“I heard that some crazy Irish woman shot holes in the roof of her porch while threatening all the time to shoot holes in the bushwhackers who had knocked at her door. I heard one of the bushwhackers said he’d rather take on the whole Union army than a crazy Irish woman with a shotgun she wasn’t afraid to use but knew nothing about. I knew it was you, my dear wife, Bessie.”
“George, I know I’m supposed to be a ‘Southern lady,’ but somehow a few words I learned from my Irish mother were all that came to mind when those men knocked at the door.”
“Tis' all right, Bessie. Thanks to you and your Irish mother our home is still standing,” replied George.
When the bushwhackers arrived at the Farrar Boothman home, Elizabeth, her two daughters Lizzie and Rebecca, teenage son Samuel, daughter–in-law, Mary, and her three littlest girls had been there. These members of the family feared these torch-bearing vigilantes would kill the men and burn their house. Elizabeth had sent her son, Samuel, to find his brothers, William and Alfred, and stepfather, George, who were working at the time.
“George, I want to show you something. Wait here.” Elizabeth went inside the mining shack and exchanged her shotgun for a bundle of a blanket. “Here is my new granddaughter, Minnie, and I guess since I am married to you, dear George, that makes you a grandfather, even if you are only thirty-six years old. Quite a young grandfather you are there.” George, who had married Elizabeth after her first husband died, was thirteen years younger than forty-nine-year-old Elizabeth. She had five children from her first marriage to Samuel Boothman, and she and George had three little girls.
George held his torch close, but not too close. “Bessie, she’s beautiful. I am honored to be her grandfather, even at thirty-six.” Then he hesitated, “Mary, how’s Mary?”
“She’s all right. You know Mary, strong physically, but otherwise, well, you know what I mean.”
“I know. I know. Not like her mother-in-law, little Bessie, with the will of a wild ox team,” laughed George.
“Everyone ran up here very frightened. Mary had been in labor all afternoon and we feared the effects of the flight here, but she gave birth to a healthy little girl. She and Lizzie were trying to reach the miner’s shack, but Mary gave birth on the banks of this mine. Now she is asleep on a cot in the mine office. The miners got us water and blankets.” Elizabeth continued to relate the events of the evening that were to change the direction of the family forever. “William came by with Alfred and said it was safe for us to go home and Rebecca took the little girls there, but we decided to let Mary sleep before taking her back down the bluff,”
“William, where’s William?” asked George about the absent new father.
“Well, George,” Elizabeth hesitated, “he and Sir Richard have gone across the river to join the Union cavalry.”
“Sir Richard? He’s our best horse. I cannot understand why the Union requires the cavalry enlistees to bring their own horses.”
“William was quite angry and set out to avenge the birth of his daughter on the banks of a coalmine rather than in her own home. He saw little reason for the bushwhackers to come to our home and terrorize us.”
“And Alfred?”
“Well, he took Champion and . . .”
“Crossed the river to join the cavalry. I’m not surprised. He will follow his brother, William, anywhere. There’s going to be a battle here, Bessie. I had hoped we wouldn’t have to take sides, but I guess Alfred and William have chosen our side for us.”
“And the bushwhackers. Don’t forget the bushwhackers, George, standing with their torches and rifles.”
Elizabeth knew her sons were a bit impulsive for conservative George. Actually the whole Boothman family was a bit impulsive for conservative George. But then he would have never come to America without the Boothman impulsive natures, and he had become very successful in Lexington as a brick mason. The homes were built from red bricks made in the area, sturdy homes that could withstand a terrible war. George had been a brick mason in Perth, Scotland, when Elizabeth’s first husband, Samuel, died. He had dreams of owning his own brickyard someday.
“Come,” said George, serious now. “Look below.” Below the starry sky of late August were bonfires amidst tents that shown lightly in the moonlight. From below in the midst of enemy soldiers sleeping and others resting and still others talking about when and how the battle would take place, there came the strains of “Dixie” played on a lone harmonica.
“George, will any of us survive? Will this baby grow up and have children and grandchildren, or will they forever be the ghost children of those lost in war?”
“Bessie, I don’t know. I don’t think we will ever know the peacefulness we have known here on the Missouri River. I feel our lives are on the brink of being changed forever. You will survive, Bessie. I just don’t know about the others.” He was going to say William’s name, but he knew Elizabeth was already thinking this, and he felt saying his stepson’s name, the name of Elizabeth’s oldest son, would be hurtful in spite of Elizabeth’s immense inner strength.
“George, if anything happens to me, I want you to marry someone very young, beautiful and full of life.”
“You are as beautiful and full of life as I can handle. I love you Bessie. I want you to know that no matter what happens, I have never been sorry I married a woman who would be a grandmother so soon,” George laughed in spite of the gravity of the enemy troops below, and his stepsons signing up with the Union cavalry across the river, even as they spoke.
“I’m afraid that when I am no longer here, William and Mary and little Minnie and her future brothers and sisters may be burdens to you, George.”
“Never, Elizabeth, dear one, would anything from you be a burden to me. Perhaps a bit of a hindrance or inconvenience,” he said with a twinkle in his eye. “But never a burden.”
The harmonica ended its promise of the battle to come. Elizabeth shivered in George’s arms in spite of the heat of the evening. “George, let’s go home. It has been a long night.”
“Roger is bringing the cart with our last two good horses up the mining road. We’ll take Mary and her baby home.” Roger was a slave who worked at the brickyard with George.
“George, what will happen to Roger? How does he feel about what is about to happen?”
“He wants to be free.”
They heard the cart approaching on the mine road. Elizabeth trembled. She knew what could have happened to the family and their home earlier that night when the bushwhackers knocked on their door. She feared they had come to kill the men and burn the house. But a “crazy Irish woman” threatened to kill them and frightened them away—a most unusual result. She knew they could return.
Elizabeth said a quick prayer of gratitude. That was all she had time for. The bundle in her arms began to whimper.
Excerpt
Is family a safe haven, a place of freedom, or a suffocating master? Safety, freedom and control are all driving forces that can interfere with unconditional love and instead sometimes breed fear and bondage we never desire either as children or adults in a family.
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