5
Riding the Rails
Chicago, 1893
Samuel had continued to press John for a commitment to work with him in Los Angeles, but Nellie remained silent. Baby Opal was walking by the time Nellie saw her opportunity.
It took an economic catastrophe to convince John that his future as a cowboy in Kansas had dried up. The economy languished under a lingering cloud of deflation, a legacy from the Civil War. Shaky railroad financing led to bank failures, and panic ensued. Meanwhile, in Los Angeles, Irishman Edward Doheny sharpened a eucalyptus log and punctured an oil reservoir, sparking a migration.
Samuel’s frequent letters described opportunities not to be missed, and finally, the family started packing. One Sunday after church, Nellie spread a picnic lunch out under the old cottonwood. While the children trampled paths in the tall grass and the bobolinks song bubbled in the blue sky overhead, Nellie suggested that they combine the move with a vacation. John surprised her by agreeing to the plan. They could take the Great Northern Railway excursion train along the northern route, Nellie proposed. That way, they could visit the World’s Fair in Chicago and see Jessie on the way out to the coast.
“That will be mighty expensive.” John adopted the same look he reserved for salesmen trying to sell him seed.
“Well, we can’t go by covered wagon, John.” Nellie had learned that gentle teasing made stronger inroads with John than did ultimatums. “People don’t do that anymore. They all ride the train.”
“How we going to pay for that?”
“We’ll sell off everything here. We’ll make a fresh start in California.” Nellie pulled a railroad map from her basket and spread it out on the grass.
“Look here.” Nellie traced her finger along the route she had memorized. “After a few days in Chicago, we get back on the train. Next stop is Minneapolis; then we see Jessie in Spokane, then we ride the rails over to Seattle, on down to Portland and San Francisco. And look here”—she put her finger in a little notch along the western coast of California—“we connect in San Francisco with the Southern Pacific Railroad for the trip south.”
The corner of John’s mouth ticked up and a sparkle Nellie hadn’t seen for many months lit his eyes. When was the last time she had managed to tap into his sense of adventure? That, and the possibility of bragging to his brothers about visiting the Columbian Exposition, the four hundredth anniversary of Christopher Columbus’s discovery of the New World, must have done the trick. He took the map from her hand and slipped it into his shirt pocket. “You see to getting yourself and children ready for the trip, and I’ll take care of the arrangements.”
A few weeks later, three children in tow, Nellie and her mother traveled to Topeka to shop for the long journey that lay ahead. They settled the children on the train seat across from them with a hamper filled with hard-boiled eggs, tomato toast, and jars of honeyed tea.
Amanda sighed deeply. “It was just a few years ago that a train from Edmonton, Canada pulled into the station and collected so many of our neighbors who decided to return home.”
“I remember. That was a sight.”
“Did you know they had whole cars for their household goods? Some of them who came here twenty years ago with nothing returned home with everything they had acquired during the good times. Others sold it all. They didn’t want to be tempted to return. That’s what they said.”
John and Mabel, nine and twelve, vied for the window seat while baby Opal slept in her grandmother’s arms.
“We will leave with little more than the clothes on our backs.” Nellie folded her gloved hands in her lap.
Amanda shifted the sleeping baby and said nothing.
“A few trunks of clothing, that’s all.”
“You don’t want to take the basics you will need to set up your new household?”
Nellie shook her head firmly. “I do think it’s best to travel light. We’ll be four weeks on an excursion train, and we have no idea what we are facing at the end of the journey. There is no telling how we will live, or what we will need.”
“Oh well.” Amanda looked down at the sleeping baby. She traced Opal’s soft cheek with her finger. “You’ve not traveled before, but your husband has. I’m sure he will take care of everything.”
Nellie stretched her shoulders, turned her head, and allowed the blur of vast stretches of recently introduced Kansas Sunflower corn to lull her as fields of bright leafy stalks whizzed by.
Amanda touched her hand. “Is this really what you want?”
Nellie turned back to face her mother. How much of what was in her heart could she tell her mother? “What I want is to live a life where my husband doesn’t take care of everything.”
“What do you mean?”
“All my life other people have made decisions for me—who I marry; where I live; what I can and cannot do with my life.”
Amanda’s face froze. “We never said you had to marry John.”
I’ve gone too far. Nellie looked across the aisle. Two sets of eyes met hers. She tapped the corner of her lip.“You both have crumbs all over your mouths. Use your napkins.” She looked back at her mother and lowered her voice. “Not in so many words. I can’t talk about this right now.”
“Well, we need to talk about it sometime. Moving across the country isn’t going to solve a marital problem if that’s your intention.” Opal squirmed in Amanda’s lap and raised her head. Amanda stroked the child’s dark hair, moist from sleep and matted against her cheeks.
Nellie handed her mother a cup of juice to offer Opal. “Mother—”
Amanda cut her off with a stern look. “Word of advice. These are the hardest years of your life, raising children and struggling to keep a roof over your head. I understand that John needs to go where the jobs are but don’t expect that anything will be different for you. You raise your children. You do what you can to support your husband, and if you have any energy left over, you thank God for your good health and volunteer your services in church and community. Your life doesn’t have to be boring.”
“That’s the answer? Whip up another batch of cookies for the bake sale?”
“Don’t be impertinent. Yes, by all means, there is the life of the mind. You can find time to read. And if cooking and sewing bore you, volunteer at the library.”
The train slowed and blew a long whistle, a signal that they were approaching Topeka, but Nellie kept going. “What if I’d rather run the library, and get paid for my services?”
Without moving her lips, Amanda spoke through her teeth in low tones. “Then you shouldn’t have gotten married and had children. No one held a gun to your head.” She turned her attention to Opal and tickled the tot into a fit of giggles.
Once off the train, conversation dissipated in the din and clatter around them. Amanda weaved through the crowd, Opal on her hip. Mabel and Johnny tripped along after her, and Nellie straggled behind, lost in thought. Why had she let her mother drag her into such an unprofitable conversation? I’m unfit as a wife, and a mother. It wasn’t that she wanted to earn a paycheck. Any money she brought in would do nothing to ease the tension between her and John. No: what she wanted was to use her mind to higher purposes than converting measurements in recipes. John had no use for a wife with a mind of her own. But her mother was right. She had made her bed.
Nellie raised her head just as her little brood turned the corner into the train station waiting room. She scurried to catch up, got past the older children, and reached out to tug at Amanda’s sleeve.
“Look over here.” She pointed out the Harvey House, known for excellent service and delicious meals. Panoramic windows glistened, drawing attention to the Harvey Girls bustling about inside, bibbed white aprons gleaming against their black dresses. “Let’s treat ourselves before we shop.”
Amanda handed Opal over to Nellie and reached for the hands of her other two grandchildren. “Let’s do that.”
R
Whatever discomfort the Scott family of five suffered on the long trip west would dim in the light of Nellie’s memories. Where did John get the money to pay for a room at lake-front Leland Hotel in Chicago? Surely such a luxury could not have been covered by the money they made selling the farm equipment and household furnishings, but she decided not question him about expenses.
Thoughts about her parents’ decision not to sell the land in case Frank or she and John ever wished to return vanished as soon as they pulled into Grand Central Station. More people milled about under the arched ceilings of the train shed than she had ever seen in one place. And the spectacular view from their hotel window? The prospect of reaching the fairgrounds by boat? Those benefits were well worth the five dollars they had to pay for one small room.
Since Opal was free, two dollars got them into the fair, and another dollar and fifty cents bought John and the two older children a twenty-minute ride on the Ferris wheel. While baby Opal struggled for freedom in Nellie’s arms, Mabel and Johnny took their seats in fancy twisted-wire chairs. John stood next to them in the glass-paneled car.
Soundless but for a soft clink of chain, the monstrous wheel began to turn. Nellie had glimpsed the children’s wide eyes and huge grins before the mammoth car rose so high in the air she could no longer make out faces. Brave, adventurous children. They would love California, she was sure.
The family spent hours at the exhibits. John called Nellie’s attention to the household appliance displays that included a prototype of an electric dishwasher.
“Lookee here, Nellie Belle. This machine will make your job easier. We’ll have to get us one of those.”
“Hmm,” was all she had to say. Other women gathered around the exhibit, oohing and aahing over Josephine Cochrane’s invention. The wealthy matron, the story went, tired of having her expensive china slip through her servants’ soapy hands and break. So she built the first automatic dishwasher, an engineering marvel. Good and well if kitchen maid is your job, but I would rather be Mrs. Cochrane. I want to be out in the world using my mind, not stuck in the kitchen operating a dishwasher.
They moved on to the Midway Plaisance, where they listened to gypsy music and ate Hungarian sausage at the Orpheum. Consumer goods vied with cultural exhibits for the crowd’s attention. They feasted their eyes and spent their imaginations and the contents of John’s money clip on as many experiences as they could cram into a day.
John and the two older children loved the gewgaws and gadgets. Nellie and Opal preferred the music and dancing. Both older children received a commemorative coin as a souvenir and a few cents to purchase a new invention called a picture postcard. Nellie bought Opal a toy tambourine with ribbons and set the toddler down on a grassy hill to exercise her legs. Toward the end of the second day, John passed around a box of Cracker Jacks. Then, hot, tired, and sticky-fingered, they trooped back to the train and began the long journey west.
If the fair opened Nellie’s eyes to the change new inventions might bring into their lives, crossing the Continental Divide opened her heart. No entertainment invented could surpass the thrill when the train wended its way through Homestake Pass in the Rocky Mountains and crossed the Great Divide. Granite peaks rose in the distance. Legions of junipers, pines, and aspens stood in attendance. Water danced the tarantella in rushing rivers. The panorama before her eyes cracked open a small hard seed in her soul that sprouted and opened to the sky. From this moment, I will not be put in my place. Not if it means giving up seeing and learning and trying new things.
Nellie’s reunion with Jessie at the Great Northern Depot in Spokane brought her to tears, not so much because of the distance that had separated them for so long as the happy look of self-possession she saw on her little sister’s face.
In the elegant clock-towered train station, Nellie set Opal down on her feet, and Jessie allowed her two-year-old daughter to slide down from her perch on her mother’s hip. The little girls stared at each other. Jessie put a hand of encouragement at her daughter’s back and pushed her gently forward.
“Opal, this is your cousin, Nellie Marguerite.”
Nellie smiled down at Opal’s inquiring eyes. “My namesake.” She kissed her sister’s cheek and laughed. “I hope these two will get along better than we did when we were girls.”
John corralled the older children and offered to find lunch for them so Nellie and Jessie could visit before the family had to board the train again. Jessie produced some snacks for the toddlers, and the sisters settled themselves on a bench.
Jessie took Nellie’s hand. “Oh, how I wish you were moving to Spokane so our children could grow up together.”
“I wish so too.” Nellie shook her head slowly.
“Spokane has come back from the fire. It will come back from the panic. There will be work in the mines and the lumber camps.” Jessie squeezed Nellie’s hand. “What has Los Angeles got that we don’t have here in Spokane?”
“I’m sure I couldn’t say.” Nellie looked out the window to the comings and goings alongside the river. Then she faced her sister and blurted out her concern. “John’s brothers are going to be living on top of us. We have had such a good time on this trip, but my concerns will be of no consequence once he has his brothers around him.”
Jessie’s face fell. “Oh, I am sorry. I didn’t know that.”
“I didn’t know either. I knew Samuel was there. I didn’t know about the others until it was too late. No matter, I will find a way.” Just then, little Nellie pushed herself up to her feet and began a determined, if shaky, run for the door. Opal scrambled to her feet and followed. Like two inebriates, the little girls weaved through groups of travelers until they were apprehended. They giggled at the game and tried to pull away. When they could not secure release, they engaged in a howling duet that turned heads.
A scowling John came striding through the crowd with his charges in line behind him; their smeared faces showed evidence that they had found a place that served their new favorite food, hamburgers with mustard and ketchup. “Good heavens, Nellie. Can’t you keep these girls under control?”
Jessie shot Nellie a look of sympathy. On the tracks outside, the train engines hissed and sighed. It was time to go.