Germania Hall, 220 West 9th Street, Sioux Falls, South Dakota Saturday afternoon, September 1901
Fifteen-year-old Reba Diehl gripped the back of her father’s sleeve, her heart pounding against her chest as he maneuvered her through the crowded aisle. With her other hand, she gripped the program. She twisted and turned and stood on her tiptoes to get a better view. The brocade silk curtains, wrought-iron decorations, stained glass, plaster carvings (so much to see!), and what she missed because everyone in the noisy theater topped her by a foot or more … well, Father had promised to take her to the balcony once the show was over.
The crowd thinned as they neared their seats. A tall girl, who couldn’t be much older than she was, strolled onto the stage wearing a sparkly turquoise dress and carrying a fiddle. Reba gasped. The girl’s heart-shaped face looked so much like that of famed Gibson Girl Evelyn Nesbit. The piano player and the fiddler started a song that sounded similar to the folk music their Norwegian neighbor Mr. Bergdorf played. People began clearing the aisle to find their seats. Crowd noise lessened. Calls went out for candy and popcorn.
“For my birthday girl.” Father motioned to the last two unoccupied chairs on the front row. He then slid the tickets inside his suit coat.
Reba sat in the second chair, leaving the aisle seat for her father. She laid the program in the lap of her blue Sunday dress then glanced around, awed at what she saw. To think the four hundred chairs could be removed for dances, dance classes, wrestling, and banquets. Like the other theaters in town, Germania Hall was, as Reba had read in the Argus Leader, a “window to the world.”
She drew in a deep breath then released it slowly and a bit raggedly. “I can’t believe I’m here.”
The lady to her right leaned close. She smelled like a bouquet of flowers and wore a straw hat covered with ribbons and feathers. “Dearie, is this your first show?”
Reba nodded.
“Miss Maud Harrison is the newest addition to the program,” the woman whispered, and her eyes sparkled with the same anticipation Reba felt. “I saw her one-act comedy sketch, ‘The Lady Across the Hall,’ in Chicago last winter. Tonight is her last performance in Sioux Falls.”
“Is that her?” Reba pointed to the fiddler.
“Goodness, no. That girl is the dumb act.”
Reba frowned at the fiddler, whose eyes were closed as her bow floated against the strings. “Why is she the dumb act? She’s so pretty.”
The woman smiled sweetly. “The opening act is the weakest and usually has no dialogue, thus is considered dumb. The first performer exists simply to notify the audience the show has begun.”
As the woman turned her attention to the man on her other side, Reba opened the program. The first two pages contained advertisements, including a full-page ad for the Bee Hive Department Store her father had taken her to yesterday. She flipped the page.
GERMANIA HALL
Daily Mats. 1:30 Evenings 7:30
12 ALL STAR ACTS 12
TIMETABLE
FOR THE WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 21st
Under the timetable was a list of the twelve acts, of which eleven—including Miss Maud Harrison—were named. As lovely as the fiddler played, she was nothing more than “Musical Selection.”
How was that any different than being known as the youngest Diehl? Or the surprise Diehl? The unexpected one? Born after a dozen pregnancies, three of which ended in miscarriages and one in stillbirth. Embarrassed to admit at the age of forty-four, and with three grandchildren already, that she was carrying again, Mother had kept her pregnancy secret as long as she could. “In case it didn’t take,” she had explained ever since Reba could remember.
She hadn’t wanted it to take. While Mother had never said those words to Reba, Reba knew that’s what her mother had hoped. Maybe even prayed.
The unwanted one—that’s what she was. To her mother.
Reba’s vision blurred, but she blinked away the tears. She wasn’t going to cry about what she couldn’t change. Her father loved her. He liked spending time with her. He liked her as his daughter, as his youngest child. As a person. He never made her feel unwanted.
She rested against Father’s arm. “Thank you for bringing me to the city.”
He placed a kiss on top of her head.
A candy butcher stopped next to Father. “Sir, would you like a treat?” The mustached man withdrew two paper sacks from the basket that was supported by a strap around his neck. “I have lemon drops, cream candy, stick candy, rock candy, butterscotch, licorice, popcorn, and Cracker Jack.”
Father looked to Reba. “Your choice.”
“No, thank you.”
Father’s ashy blond brows rose, yet he didn’t question if she really wanted some. No matter how many times he insisted money was no object, she knew it was. Mother had made sure they both knew her disfavor with the weekend trip. The money Reba had made selling her show ewes and ram at the county fair needed to go to purchase a new divan and side chairs. Reba didn’t need to see Sioux Falls, any more than Father did. Waste of money, the trip was.
In the forty-two years her parents had been married, not once had they visited the big city together. Mother abhorred riding on the train. Mother saw no reason to leave home. Mother had grandchildren and work to attend to.
Reba smiled in hopes of convincing her father she was content without candy. They had one more day in Sioux Falls. She refused to waste their fun money on sweets.
Father waved the candy butcher on.
While the man made his way down the front row, Reba flipped through the program filled with advertisements for everything—anything—a person could want. Mother didn’t know what she was missing. If she did, she would never want to return to the farm.
Just like Reba didn’t.
And one day she wouldn’t return. Somehow she’d find a way to escape to a better world.
She closed the booklet then and gripped her father’s hand. “Father, I think I’d like to live in Sioux Falls,” she announced as the fiddler played a somber second tune.
Father’s blue-eyed gaze shifted from the stage to her. “You would give up everything you know to live here? You would leave the farm and your family? You would leave me?”
Reba’s heart tightened. She nodded.
His eyes almost looked watery, and he seemed troubled. No, not troubled or worried or even anxious. More like … well, like sad. And older than his sixty years.
She opened her mouth to tell him she wouldn’t leave. But nothing came out. Besides her father, there was nothing for her back home. No bright future. No life-to-the-fullest like Reverend Frieke had preached about last week. She refused to grow up to be miserable like her mother. She wanted pretty hats, caramel popcorn, and afternoons spent at the theater.
Reba started to let go of Father’s hand.
His fingers tightened around hers. “Reba Diehl, you are braver than I have ever been.”