“The results are in,” Hildy says. After the stunning news about Margaret—and a speedy trial for both her and Missy, in which both women were convicted and sent to the women’s penitentiary in Ohio—Perry had withdrawn from the race. He’d disavowed any knowledge of or support for either the men’s or women’s Klans, and, fortunately, there have been no other WKKK gatherings that Lily knows of. It seems the snake has, at least for a time, returned to the hole in hell from which it had slithered.
Meanwhile, in Perry’s stead, Leroy—the guard Lily had fired—had started a petition to run as the Republican candidate for sheriff in Perry’s place, though it was too late to be officially added to the ballot. Yet enough people had written in Leroy’s name that the count was close and had required a recount.
Lily can’t breathe. For suddenly, with all her heart, with every bit of her being, she wants to have won. She wants to be sheriff, in her own right. Wants it, even though such a close count means she’ll have to keep working hard for all the people of her county, no matter who they’d voted for, while still staying true to her values. Wants it, even though she knows the opportunity would never have come to her had Daniel lived.
That life is gone. She has to find a new path forward. Her path. Free of guilt. She glances back into the woods and sees only bare tree branches shivering in the wind. Maybe that’s what the silvery, shimmering boy has been trying to show her all along—whoever he is.
She looks back at Hildy. Nods. Tell me.
“It was close, but it is official,” Hildy says. Then a grin breaks free on her face, wordlessly delivering the news, but still, Lily holds her breath, until Hildy says, “You won!”
As she breathes again, Lily feels her own grin breaking free. She grabs Hildy in a hug so hard that her friend squeals. “Oh, Hildy! I’m going to have a dinner to celebrate! You have to come, and Tom, and Marvena and Jurgis—”
Hildy laughs, then pulls back a little. “All right, all right! I’ll help you with it—but first I need to finish some writing.”
FULL MEMORIAL OF THEA WRITTEN BY HILDY
November 14, 1926
Submitted by Miss Hildy Cooper
Thea Kincaide Leitel Tyler Javitz, age 76, went to be with the Lord on September 21, 1926.
The circumstances of her gruesome death have already been well documented in this newspaper and become a story that gained international attention in publications as far away as New York City and Paris, France, and London, England—all places that Thea once lived.
What I wish to share here is the story of her long life, which I have pieced together from postcards, articles, detective work, and a partial autobiography, which she did not live to finish.
Thea was my first cousin, once removed, on my mother’s side. My mother, Mabel Kincaide Cooper, and Thea were first cousins. Their fathers were brothers—Rupert Kincaide being Thea’s beloved father and Claude Kincaide being my mother’s father.
Thea was born in 1850 to Rupert and Cleo Kincaide and was their only child. She grew up on a modest farm in Stanehart Hollow, a small spot situated southeast of Moonvale Hollow Village and northwest of Athens and the Kinship River. Her parents were members of the Stanehart Hollow Friends Assembly, and her father was particularly devout. It was his strongly held belief that all humans are created equal, and that none should be held in forced servitude to another. His devotion to this belief and his faith emboldened him to serve as a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad—helping to escort escaped slaves to freedom from bondage in the southern region of our country, at a time when doing so ran afoul of the law.
This law gave rise to bounty hunters for runaway slaves—earning a reward for returning them to their owners. It is a fact, embarrassing though it is to me to aver, that my own grandfather Claude was one such bounty hunter—putting him in direct conflict with the convictions of his brother: my great-uncle, and Thea’s father, Rupert Kincaid.
By Thea’s own testimony in her partial autobiography, she preferred the company of her father to that of her depressed and often harsh mother and wished to help him escort escaped slaves along to freedom. Wisely, he would not allow her to accompany him, for he knew the treks were too dangerous for a young child.
But Thea took a particular liking to one pair of escapees from Charlotte, South Carolina—a young, pregnant woman named Garnet and a young man, unrelated and unattached to Garnet, named John. And so, Thea snuck into the back of her father’s wagon one fateful night in September 1857, a night of a full moon just like the full moon on the night on which Thea died.
On that night, Rupert’s wagon was beset by bounty hunters—including his own brother, Claude. Rupert died in the accident, and John, Garnet, and Thea escaped. John became separated from them, and Garnet went into early labor, delivered a son, and tragically died in childbirth. Thea took the baby to a prosperous yet childless couple, a couple her mother had done laundry and mending for, and that Thea knew longed for a child—Joyce and Adam Dyer—and left the baby there on the back doorstep of their farmhouse in Moonvale Hollow Village.
I will not make too much of what ensued—John was accused of killing Rupert, and partly based on young Thea identifying him, and partly due to bias against him, was hanged to death in our very own town square. Again, these details have been sufficiently covered in the reportage on the solving of Thea’s murder, by our own Sheriff Lily Ross, who I am grateful to call my dearest friend.
After the trial and death of John, Thea and her mother were turned away from any help by Rupert’s brother, my grandfather Claude, perhaps out of fear that familiarity would lead to contempt and Thea realizing that her own uncle—a realization she came to later as an adult—was part of the gang that attacked the wagon, killed her father, and set up John as a suspect. Thea and her mother were even shamed by some members of their assembly, and so, per her partial autobiography, Thea managed to connive so that she and her mother went to work for Joyce and Adam, allowing Thea to tend to Murphy Dyer—the very child she’d sacrificed so much, even as a child herself, to save. Not long after, Joyce passed away, and Adam married Cleo, making Thea his stepdaughter, and Murphy’s older stepsister.
Again according to Thea’s partial autobiography, Adam resented Thea, for she alone, besides him and Cleo, knew that Murphy was not really his and Joyce’s son. And so Adam treated Thea cruelly, even beating her. For a time, she took the beatings without question, for her own mother would not defend her lest she lose the only position of relative wealth she’d ever enjoyed or was ever likely to achieve—an admittedly logical choice for a woman of her time. What’s more, young Thea believed that the beatings were punishment from God for her choosing to let an innocent man—John—hang for the brutal murder of her own father.
Yet did she so choose? She was only seven years old, undoubtedly terrified, and easily manipulated by all the adults around her to do as they wished her to do—point at John as the attacker. More than that—imagine the horror, as a mere girl, of knowing that if she told the truth, she was unlikely to be believed and Murphy’s care would be in jeopardy and John still just as likely to be scapegoated for her own father’s death. Perhaps not knowing, at age seven, but sensing it. Eventually knowing. Carrying that for a lifetime.
No doubt she had reasoned it out by the time she ran away at 17 with a pots-and-pans traveling salesman. Some may call that scandalous, but her own mother had been dead for 5 years by then and according to Thea’s diary, her mother Cleo’s marriage to Adam Dyer had been so bitterly unhappy, Adam had Cleo Kincaide Dyer buried in a graveyard in Athens rather than in the Dyer family plot. Without her mother to protect her, from age twelve Thea had been worked as a servant and as she grew older, was brutishly taken advantage of by Adam Dyer. By the time Thea was 17, Murphy, who she had saved and doted on, was himself 10, and sufficiently strong to take care of himself.
The salesman—Thea only refers to him as “Clyde” in her journals—was perhaps only a means of travel for Thea, for once she alighted i
n New York, she became a dancer in gentleman’s clubs.
Some tender readers may find Thea’s choice of work condemnable. But I ask you, what would you have Thea do? She had no family, no community here in Kinship that would give her a shoulder to lean on. Should she have simply fallen down in a pitiable heap to allow herself to wither away, spiritually and perhaps physically, all in the name of propriety? I say—nay. The instinct for survival runs deep in all humans, and in this we are no different from beasts of burden or wild animals foraging and hunting.
But we are different in that we have spirits, and in Thea the spirit of our Creator, I would contend, ran particularly strong.
She worked her way to the still scandalous but more acceptable entertainment form of burlesque, and indeed found joy in her performances. They became, she wrote in her journals, less for the audiences of men who cheered her on—she could almost forget about them beyond the glare of the footlights—and more about the woman she wanted to present to the world, a woman who was free and in ownership of her own body and mind. A freedom of self-possession not unlike the freedom her father fought and died for, for others.
In 1880, Thea met a handsome businessman, Scott Leitel. Perhaps she was in love with him—she never stated so in her journals. Or perhaps a part of her longed-for security—like the security her own mother had sought with Adam Dyer. In any case, Scott was fascinated with her, and they married in 1880, and a year later had a son, Neil.
But restlessness, perhaps born of her own guilt and haunts from her childhood, beset Thea and she was unable to remain faithful, by her own admission, and seven years after having her son, upon being divorced, left her son in his father’s care. Again, some may judge her decision—but I do not. According to her writings, she realized that her son would be better off with his father, that not every woman, simply by virtue of being female, is called to motherhood, and this was the case with her.
So Thea pursued her dancing career, took various lovers, and lived what many would judge as a salacious life. But to Thea, it was free and exciting.
In 1905, my grandfather Claude Kincaide passed away, and though by now Thea planned to move to Europe, she came back to Bronwyn County for the first time since she’d run away from the area—and for the last time until her death.
This was the only time I met her. After that, I received three postcards from her, one a year. My father made sure I saw them. I don’t know if she sent more that my mother may have destroyed in an effort to protect me from overly worldly ideas.
Once Thea was in Europe, she lived in Paris and London, returned for a brief stint as a typist in New York, saved enough money to journey to Oslo, married Joseph Tyler, another businessman, divorced again, married again, and was widowed. From her autobiography, she truly loved her last husband, Oscar Javitz, a poor but happy painter, and through and with him at last found contentment and peace. She studied art and gardened and entertained. She laughed and loved. It is at this point that her autobiography trails off.
After she was widowed, at age 74, she developed dementia. A concerned friend tracked down her son, Neil, who brought her back to the United States—ironically, to Athens, Ohio, where he was a professor at Ohio University. But he abandoned her there, in a lodging house, finding her antics—she loved to dance, it seemed, at the most inopportune times—embarrassing, leaving money for the lodging house owner to cover expenses, and instructions for his mother to be committed to the Hollows Asylum for the Insane if she became too much of a problem. Well, of course she soon became a “problem,” for what better way to capitalize on this sum of money than to keep it, and have Thea committed, and then rent her room out to someone else?
At the asylum, her haunts became stronger and stronger, and as has been reported, she soon set out on a night with a full moon, much like the night her father died nearly 70 years before, desperately searching for John and Garnet, hoping against hope to somehow save them after all.
The Bible and Shakespeare both claim that in old age, should we live so long, we return to a childlike state. And so it was with Thea. At the end, though she was 76 in years, she was but 7 in her mind, and came full circle to the haunts that never fully departed her mind and soul.
Perhaps those who have continued to read this far are wondering: Why does a cousin once removed who I met once, from whom I received only three postcards, hold such fascination for me that I should write this special obituary?
This is a question I will long ponder. The easy answer is that it is caused by the shock of learning my own grandfather’s role in the tragedy of Thea’s youth and in the horrific misjustice brought to the man named John.
I think it is more than that. The memory of Thea’s visit—such a disturbing, shocking moment in my seemingly proper and bland childhood home—came further and further into bright relief, the more I pondered. I eventually realized what a blazing bright light Thea was. Her spirit for adventure, for curiosity, for enjoying—dare I say—all that is sumptuous and surprising and tender about life.
And there is this, too.
In the brief time she knew them, even as a child, while they were hidden with her family, Thea wanted to teach John and Garnet how to read. I too am teaching those who have been deprived of education simply by the draw of their birth and station in life. I believe she sensed, through even a slim book, how much wider and more wondrous the world is than any of us can ever fully know. I believe she was in awe of that and wanted to share that awe.
For it is in sharing our stories and journeys, without reservation but with only an open and honest heart, that we might find, as Thea sought on the dancing stage, freedom.
I wish to give Thea that justice, at last. The freedom of her story, told as honestly and openly as I can.
And in so doing, find at last the start to my own true story, my own freedom.
I conclude, finally, by saying to my first cousin once removed, Thea Kincaide Leitel Tyler Javitz, do not rest in peace.
Instead, dance across the heavens, forgiven and accepted in God’s true grace.
EPILOGUE
LILY
Saturday, December 4—4:00 p.m.
“Mama, please stop being fussy and come on!”
Lily glares at the four-tiered wedding cake as if a long, hard stare will put its lopsidedness to rights. She’d added extra cream frosting on the leaning side, but in her nervous hurry she’d pressed too hard with the spatula, and now the top tier looks close to plopping right off the top. By the time the damned ceremony is done, she won’t have to worry about how she’ll get it out to the barn. The whole thing will more’n likely have crumpled, right here in the kitchen. This disorganized kitchen.
It’s tempting to blame the kitchen. The oven rack is definitely warped, and the oven doesn’t heat evenly like the one at the old sheriff’s house. And she doesn’t have essential items—mixing bowls, and her hand beater, and her wooden spoons—properly sorted and settled, either. Why had she thought she could make a decent cake while still settling into her new house?
“Mama!”
Lily whirls with irritation, but as soon as she sees Jolene standing in the doorway, clutching a basket filled with fragrant dried rose petals and lavender, her heart softens at the sight of Jolene, hair in perfect curls, in a new navy blue dress Mama had sewn for just this occasion, with the lace trim Jolene had picked out at the notions store.
Lily laughs, for Jolene also has one hand on her hip and her head tilted to the side. She looks and sounds like Lily did as a child, when frustrated with her own mama. Indeed, Mama stands behind Jolene, smiling at Lily over the top of the child’s head—yes, I see the resemblance, too.
Lily holds out the frosting-covered spatula. “Want to lick off the spatula?”
Jolene purses her lips and shakes her head. “The wedding is supposed to already be starting! I can’t get my new dress messy!”
In the next instant, Jolene’s eyes widen and she licks her lips—a child again, who would love a treat of lef
tover frosting. Ah. She’s already too old for her age. Let her be a child every moment she can. “I’ll save it back for you, all right?”
Jolene looks relieved and nods. Lily quickly wraps the spatula in a bit of waxed paper and gives the cake one more rueful glance as she follows her mama and daughter out of the kitchen, out the back door, and to the barn.
The frozen ground crunches under their hurried steps, and the abrupt cold, blowing through the trees and off the river, across Lily’s farmland, snatches their breaths. Nearby, she hears the tiny chirp of the white-breasted nuthatch couple, nesting in the hollow of a redbud tree. She will have to get in the habit this winter of leaving out suet and seed.
Mama and Jolene keep their heads bowed against the wind, but Lily looks around across the barren stretch of her land, looking. Looking. She’s been looking ever since she and Mama and her children and her little brother had moved into this house, claimed it as their own, three weeks before. But all she sees, as the wind stings her eyes and pricks forth tears, is snow slowly sifting down from the sodden sky—white upon gray upon darker gray. The only spot of color is the red barn, and even that is drab, like a dab of rouge that’s lost its luster.
Next spring, she will paint the barn. Widen the gravel path from the road to the barn, add a parking shed to the side for her automobile. Over there, expand the garden. There will be plenty of peas and corn and green beans and tomatoes for eating and canning. Shimmering next to the barn, as if it’s already there and not a promise she’s made to Micah, a new chicken coop, filled with the fussy clucks of hens. So many new plans. She’s already made good on the promise of getting a dog, purchasing, at a steep price, Sadie, the tracking hound.
The Hollows--A Novel Page 33
