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As quitting time approached, Elsa looked forward to the evening with her mother and Pastor Reus. Thanks to the successful strike, work on Saturdays ended at four forty-five. It made a huge difference, leaving time for an enjoyable evening. The factory windows were open now. Elsa could sense the springtime air growing warmer each day.
With her increased leisure hours, Elsa continued to visit Josephine one or two nights per week, but it was more to see a friend than to learn reading. The truth was, Elsa had learned everything about the English language that Josephine could teach her. Josephine had realized it first and told her. Elsa had been slow to agree, but now she knew it was true. Still hungry to learn, Elsa had sought other ways. Pastor Reus had a good little library at the rectory. He lent her books in both English and German that she could use to push her reading skills and further her knowledge of both languages. Tonight’s visit was to hear about some work in translation that the minister thought would suit Elsa. The type of opportunity she had been working so long for might finally have arrived.
The smell of the warm outside air was overcome by the smell of hot, overworked sewing machines, and the persistent smell of sweating bodies. This afternoon, the sewing machines seemed almost to be burning, so strong was the smell.
Elsa leaped from her seat. That smell wasn’t the machines. Something really was burning.
“Fire!” The panicked cry came from across the room.
The entire top floor of the factory seemed to realize what was happening at the same moment. Shrieks of panic erupted as girls abandoned their work and ran for the exits.
Smoke filled the floor before anyone saw a flame. The fire had started one floor below. Soon orange tongues were lapping at the wooden floor, spreading fast as it caught paper patterns and dry fabric.
Elsa looked around her quickly. The elevator gate showed an empty shaft. A girl stood there, repeatedly pulling the call cord. The stairwell was on the other side of the floor. A dozen or more girls had already converged on the iron door, only to find it locked. The foreman was nowhere to be seen. Amid the crackling of flames and the screams of despair, Elsa could hear the scratching of panicked fingernails against the immobile iron door. Her head swirled in terror. The heat in the room became choking.
Elsa ran toward the window. Another girl was pulling herself up toward the fire escape stairs. Elsa boosted her feet to help her through, and then lifted herself up to the catwalk outside. She shuddered as she looked ten stories down. Flames had engulfed the fire escape below and were quickly moving higher. Girls who had escaped from the inferno on the ninth floor were rushing down the stairs to the street, but flames now blocked the way. Suddenly a girl flew out the window below, crashing to the hard sidewalk below. Another girl jumped, then another. Their bodies lay flat and still.
Elsa screamed. The horror momentarily paralyzed her, even as flames began to lap at her feet.
Other girls came through the window onto the fire escape. Elsa’s panic broke. She climbed up to the roof. Only a few more girls made it up after her before the heat melted the fire-escape ladder.
On the roof of the factory, dozens of girls ran about in a panic. Flames curled up the sides of the building. Safe only for a moment, Elsa didn’t see any escape by which they could survive. Fire trucks had appeared below but she doubted they would be in time to save her or the other girls on the roof.
Their savior, however, was already at work.
“Hey!”
Elsa heard the shout through the din, coming from the taller building of New York University next door. She looked up as a professor and several students pushed a painting ladder out their window. It wobbled precariously in the air.
Elsa scampered to the edge of the roof and waited, leaning over as far as she dared to grab the other end of the ladder and brace it against the roof of the Triangle factory. Girls began to stream across to safety.
Elsa held the frame of the ladder with shaking hands, trying not to look down at the yawning gap between buildings as she half climbed, half crawled across. The professor pulled her in through the window. She collapsed in a corner of the university office and began to cry.
Some girls crowded toward the windows to watch as the rescue continued, but Elsa, who had seen those girls who leapt to their death splayed out on the sidewalk, didn’t want to see anymore. She could still hear the screams, the crackling flames, and occasionally a crash from inside the factory. She watched the girls coming through the window one after another, hoping against hope for Beth’s face to come next. Working on the ninth floor, Beth’s best chance would have been to go down rather than up, yet Elsa still hoped and prayed.
The stream of girls across the ladder slowed. The last girl to be dragged through was already unconscious, her hair singed and smoking. The window went quiet. After another minute, they pulled the ladder back in, its end black from the flames.
Elsa turned her head against the wall, weeping from both sorrow and relief.
After recovering her senses, she followed the other survivors to the street. It was a relief to see the familiar faces she had worked with, yet she wondered about every face she didn’t see. The firemen began to bring covered bodies out of the building. Elsa’s hopes of seeing Beth again fell, as dozens upon dozens of white-sheeted corpses streamed out. Eventually there was nothing to do but go home, hoping to see her mother before news of the disaster reached her.
She tried to hold out hope, but in her heart she knew Beth was dead.
––––––––
One hundred and forty-six girls had died in the fire. They were found suffocated by smoke, singed against the locked doors, as skeletons hunched over sewing machines, or dead on the sidewalk from their jumps in desperation to escape. Most of the dead had been on the ninth floor.
News came that the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory would never reopen. Its owners were tried for negligence, with the primary grievance being the locked doors. Yet in a trial that left the families of the victims outraged and disillusioned, the owners were acquitted of all criminal charges. A civil settlement resulted in a payment to the families that averaged seventy-five dollars per victim.
Elsa had been hesitant about the translating jobs Pastor Reus discussed with her, because she hadn’t wanted to leave her mother alone. She was also nervous about taking on something new—where she would be all on her own. But the fire at the Triangle Factory changed everything. She couldn’t bear the thought of working in another factory. The flames may not have reached her body, but her heart was scarred by the tragedy.
Pastor Reus began to submit her name for consideration, but it turned out there was a good deal of competition. He had been optimistic for Elsa until she needed to actually apply for the jobs. Yes, there was a need for German to English translators in New York City. But there were still a lot of Germans in the city. Most of them lived uptown in Yorkville—where Sonja and Christof had moved to—or in Williamsburg, across the river in Brooklyn. Elsa’s command of both languages was excellent, but she hadn’t been formally trained. Employers were doubtful of a lifelong shirtwaist-factory worker who claimed advanced linguistics.
The pastor himself had some work for her. He still gave his sermons in German, but the St. Mark’s parish was shrinking. He knew he would have to start preaching in English soon, since he wasn’t ready to retire. Elsa began translating his old sermons into English. He couldn’t pay her much, but it was better for her than to have to return to a factory.
After a year, an opportunity finally came. An attorney on Long Island had seen an increase in work for German importers and had an ongoing need for translation of legal documents. He had also just lost his housemaid to marriage and hoped to find an educated German who could fulfill both functions. He began his inquiries in the German community in Williamsburg. Pastor Reus had been circulating Elsa’s name for some time, so when John Graham, Esq., began to make inquiries, the St. Mark’s pastor was informed right away.
Elsa had mixed feelings. She had hoped to find something in the city, where she could stay close her mother and sister. This job was far out on Long Island. If she took it, there was no telling when she would see her family again.
She told her mother about the job and her thoughts after meeting with the pastor. Nina had been waiting for her in the churchyard. The trees that had surrounded the church when they first arrived in New York were mostly gone. Construction buzzed from every direction as more tenements rose on the surrounding blocks. They began to walk home as they talked.
“You must go,” Nina said emphatically. “This is everything you have worked for. These chances do not come often. For people like us, once in a lifetime is as much as you can hope for.”
“But what about you? I do not know when I will see you again.”
Nina smiled. “My greatest joy will be to see that you and Sonja are happy. Knowing you will not spend your whole lives the way we have spent these seven years . . . that is enough for me.”
“Perhaps in time the family can find you a job on Long Island as well,” Elsa said. “Then you can come be near me.”
Nina smiled and took her daughter’s arm. “Look at me, Elsa. I am illiterate and unskilled. Now I am also growing old. This is your opportunity, and that makes it sweet to me.” She paused. “My place is here, with the women of the union. Look at all we have done. The next fight is to win women the right to vote. I want to stay here with my sisters. The best thing I can do for you now is to stay in this fight and win you rights that I never dreamed were possible.”
Elsa nodded, understanding, but already feeling bereft.
Nina reached up and touched her daughter’s cheek. “Look at you, mein liebchen. You are a woman now.”
Elsa smiled, appreciating her mother’s compliment, even if it paled in comparison with the “du bist so schön” she’d told Sonja on her wedding day. Now nineteen, Elsa felt like she knew how she would look as a woman and was satisfied. She had grown into her face. Her awkward frame had developed into a womanly figure that, while strong, was beginning also to exhibit an adult grace. She would never be conventionally beautiful. Still, she sensed that people were drawn to her in a way she didn’t fully understand.
Pastor Reus contacted the attorney on Long Island, and Elsa was immediately offered the job. This once, she was the perfect fit. There weren’t a lot of preparations to undertake. Her belongings fit into a single bag. Besides her sister’s family, she didn’t need to say many good-byes.
She saved the hardest good-bye for her last day in the city.
Josephine welcomed her at the door of her apartment with tears in her eyes. She squeezed Elsa into a tight, loving hug. As a young girl, Josephine’s hugs had made Elsa nervous. Now she had grown to love and depend on her mentor’s embraces. They held each other for a long time that morning, communicating what no words could say. When they finally released each other, both were crying.
“I will miss you so much,” said Elsa. “I hope you know how much you have meant to me.”
Josephine nodded.
“I never would have had this opportunity were it not for you.”
“I’m so proud of you, dear.” Josephine wiped the tears from her eyes. “It has been lonely, you know, since Beth’s been gone. Without your visits I . . . I don’t know.”
“Do you have people here to look out for you?”
“Oh yes, dear. My neighbors have been so loving. I have the folks at church. I have a brother, too, over in Queens. He comes to see me sometimes. I’m still sad, but I’ll be okay. I have my faith. God’s with me. I know I’ll see Beth again, by and by.”
Elsa smiled.
“Although I’ll miss you, knowing that you’re off somewhere good, doing what I helped teach you to do, will be a great comfort to me in my old age. I had hopes for Beth, but there’s a limit to the chances colored folk can make for themselves. I had high hopes for you, too, and now here you are.”
Josephine walked toward the shelf. Taking down the Bible that they’d spent so many long evenings studying together, she brought it over and pressed it into Elsa’s hands.
“Take this. I want you to have it now.”
Elsa shook her head. “Oh, no. I cannot take your Bible.”
“It will give me joy to know it’s with you. Precious things like this are supposed to be passed on. Remember me, and remember Beth when you read it.”
Elsa felt the weight of the old Bible in her hands. The black leather cover was cracking and faded in some areas. Who had owned it before Josephine? How long had it been in their family? How could she take it away from them?
Yet suddenly, Elsa realized that she had to take it. It would be a gift to Josephine as much as a gift toward herself. Josephine had no one left now that Beth was dead. She didn’t have much that she could pass on beyond her time, but what she had taught Elsa would carry on. Elsa understood that she was now Josephine’s legacy. The Bible was a symbol of that. While she initially thought it would be selfish to accept the gift, in fact it would be selfish to refuse.
Tears welled in Elsa’s eyes as she held the Bible to her chest. “I will write to you often.”
“You be sure to do that. I’ve loved you like a daughter, and I’ll keep my eye on you like a daughter, too.” She touched Elsa’s cheek, smiling with genuine love and pride.
They embraced again.
“Now run along.” Josephine hurried Elsa toward the door. “You’ve got a big life ahead of you.”
––––––––
Later, as she pressed her face against the rain-soaked train window, Elsa felt a numbness of emotion. The train crossed the East River, and she looked south at the smoke stacks of the factories puffing up into the driving rain. It was the first time she’d left Manhattan Island in the seven years she’d lived there. She knew she would return, but it would be as a much different person.
Why did she feel sentimental leaving a life that had been so harsh? It was only for the people she was leaving behind. But her sister had moved on, and her best friend was dead. Her mother and Josephine, the only two people she really would miss seeing, were happier because she had this chance. She owed it to them, as much as she owed it to herself, to make the most of this opportunity.
With one last glance back at the gray buildings of Manhattan, she turned her head and her thoughts forward. All the hopes she’d cherished through her childhood, all her hard work, had brought her to this moment. There had been times when she’d almost succumbed to the weight and monotony of despair . . . when she’d almost given up her dreams.
Yet here she was—a survivor of everything America had thrown at her. She had grown strong from it and knew she could endure whatever new challenges this country would surely throw her way.
April, 1912