All That Shines and Whispers

by Jennifer Craven

  ***

  Jeanne was just a baby when she contracted polio—eighteen months old to be exact. It started with a cough and some flu-like symptoms before rapidly progressing to the point that her extremities began deteriorating. The year was 1928, over two decades before the development of the polio vaccine that would abolish the disease and save countless lives.

  By this point in the United States, Americans were under a state of cautious paranoia. The epidemic of 1916, one of the most devastating outbreaks in history, was still not quite a distant memory for many. Over 27,000 cases of polio were diagnosed that year, resulting in over 6,000 deaths—the large majority were children under the age of five. Centered in New York, it wasn’t very far from Jeanne’s home in central Pennsylvania. Hollidaysburg, a small, rural town that would later be known as the home of the “Slinky,” sat about fifty miles southwest of State College.

  Polio caused mass hysteria. The nation was terrified. Parents confined children to their homes in an effort to avoid contact with infected peers. By the time Jeanne was toddling around the house, panic across the country had mildly subsided, particularly outside major cities. Yet polio was still in the consciousness of parents everywhere, even in small towns like Hollidaysburg with a population of under 4,000.

  Children were forbidden to swim in the Juniata River that ran through town. On the hottest days, local officials turned on the fire hydrants, allowing the kids to run through the spraying water and splash in the cool puddles. Yet even that was nerve-wracking for parents.

  When Jeanne displayed early symptoms, a high fever that lasted nearly a week and a fussy temperament which the toddler could only explain by clutching and shaking her legs, Madeline was distraught. Polio was easy to identify and diagnose, especially after the pandemic. Not one to engage in an outward display of emotion, she remained stoic, saving her weeping for private moments when she felt safe enough to let her guard down. When her despair threatened to bubble over her unflappable exterior, Madeline excused herself to the bathroom, where she would shut the door behind her, lean over the sink, and watch her tears run down the basin.

  Raymond, on the other hand, was determined. Despite his rough surface, often misinterpreted as disinterest in his own children, he vowed to get his little girl the best care possible, regardless of his social standing or financial means.

  “You know we can’t afford that sort of treatment, Raymond,” Madeline lamented in hushed tones after Dick and Jeanne went to bed. She looked down at Joe, an infant swaddled in the crook of her arm.

  “Well,” Raymond replied evenly, “we have to at least try.” He may have been a stern father and a distant husband, but Raymond’s world view centered around responsibility. Providing and caring for his family was his duty.

  “But how?”

  They stared at each other, neither able to formulate a reasonable plan of action.

  “I’ll go to Shriner’s. The children’s hospital in Altoona,” Raymond announced. “They’re specialists. Maybe I can talk to a doctor.”

  The following day Raymond did just that. With his chin held high, he pleaded for his daughter’s life. It went against everything he stood for to ask for a handout. As his upbringing, and later his parenting philosophy dictated: if you wanted something in life, you worked for it. Earned it.

  Nothing was given out for free.

  So it wasn’t easy, being at the mercy of someone else. A proud man, Raymond put dignity aside for the sake of Jeanne. Hat in hand, he asked for help.

  ***

  Raymond Gildea was born in 1893 in the bedroom of a small house in Hollidaysburg, Pennsylvania. The eldest of eight children in a devout Catholic family commanded by his father, Harry, he developed a keen sense of independence from a young age. As his mother’s attention shifted to the younger children and new babies, Raymond was often left to his own devices.

  A smart, scrappy boy, he liked to tinker with toys and tools, and was always curious about how things worked—a skill that would become central to his career as a yard engineer on the Pennsylvania railroad. His upbringing wasn’t entirely terrible—bright moments of delight sprinkled in—yet it was far from pleasant. Little parental affection and a “do or die” attitude greatly shaped the way Raymond understood the harsh realities of the world.

  Much like other parents of their generation, Harry and Mary Gildea were not the warm and cuddly type. This rough suit of armor intensified after Raymond’s deployments to France and Germany during the First World War. Akin to many of his brothers in arms, Raymond was hardened by the things he witnessed abroad. These traumas manifested in self-imposed distance on good days, blatant meanness on the worst. It would take decades to soften him at all.

  Working the railroad put Raymond’s ingenuity to good use, shifting the cars in the yard and orchestrating their placements. He was busy, focused—work ethic something he valued above all else. He also came to enjoy his fair share of after-hours activities when the work day was done.

  “Hey Ray! Join us for a drink after your shift?” Eddie, a buddy from the line, asked one Friday afternoon. It was 1923—the peak of Prohibition—but people still found ways to track down their coveted alcohol.

  “Yeah, sure. Why not,” Raymond replied, cranking a heavy steel gear. He pulled a bandana from his back pocket and wiped the sweat from his brow.

  An hour later, the whistle blew, signaling the end of the day. Raymond, Eddie, and a few other men walked from the rail yard into town, each step leaving another work week behind. They passed the U.S. Hotel Tavern, a mainstay in the little town since the 1830s. A favorite bar among the younger crowd, the tavern—once a prominent spot for food and entertainment—was now all but shut down thanks to the Volstead Act.

  The group continued on. Raymond, the oldest of the gang at thirty-one, led the way, his natural swagger rubbing off on the men nearly a decade his junior. A few blocks down, they came to a discreet door along a side wall between two buildings. There was no marking, no address numbers to account for its location. A solitary metal knocker hung in the center of its frame.

  Raymond rapped the knocker twice and a few seconds later, a muffled voice penetrated through the wooden door.

  “What’s the password?” a man’s gruff voice asked.

  “Nice teeth,” Raymond said, turning and winking to his buddies.

  The door swung open and the men slipped inside. The speakeasy was busy that evening, groups and couples packing the secret saloon for a taste of happy hour. Women swapped their house frocks for something fancier, the men freshened up and clean shaven after a long week of work.

  At five-foot-ten Raymond wasn’t particularly tall, so he stood on his tiptoes, scanning the bar to see who else was there and locate an open stool. That night, in addition to a place to sit, he was looking for a certain someone in particular: Helen. The daughter of the local pharmacist, she was his latest romantic fling. They’d been out on a few dates, nothing serious, and while he enjoyed having a pretty little thing on his arm, he didn’t envision it going much further.

  Raymond glanced around the room, searching for her auburn hair, but he came up empty. She wasn’t there tonight. He felt disappointment, followed quickly by relief. Whereas the women he dated were prone to falling hard and fast, Raymond wasn’t interested in anything too serious.

  Too much time together could send the wrong message. He was a bachelor, and planned to stay that way.

  Raymond returned his attention to his railroad pals who had gathered at a table near the back. The men ordered beers and clinked glasses.

  “You know,” Eddie said, in between sips, “I’m thinking about asking Ruth to marry me.” His eyes darted from friend to friend, waiting for a reaction.

  “You’re what?” Raymond replied, his nose scrunching and eyebrows furling in repulsion. “Why in God’s name would you want to go and do that?”

  “I love her, Ray. I mean, she’s a good woman. Good to me. Not bad on the eyes either.”

  “Love,
huh? Well, I don’t know why you’d want to get yourself tied down like that. But go ahead, Ed, if ya think that’s what ya want.” He took a long gulp of his beer. The others at the table offered congratulations. “Way to go, Eddie,” someone cracked.

  They raised their glasses and toasted to Eddie and Ruth’s future. But all the while, Raymond couldn’t help but question whether he’d ever feel the same. He’d been single for so long, free to do what he wanted, when he wanted. Most of the boys he went to school with were long married with children. Maybe marriage wasn’t part of his fate.

  While his friends saluted Eddie, Raymond shifted his focus to the other patrons, out enjoying the evening. There were many familiar faces in the room, a result of living in a small town. Several people made eye contact and gave a wave or a nod in his direction. Still, once in a blue moon a newcomer would show up, giving the locals a new subject about whom to gossip.

  Raymond peered around the room toward the door. That’s when he saw Madeline.

  She breezed through the entrance with a girlfriend, their arms linked. They had a sense of carefree ease in their body language, light and cheerful, the way one feels after the first glass of champagne. She wore a pale blue cotton dress with a dropped waist and long Chelsea collar—not the fanciest in the room, but enough to catch Raymond’s eye. Upon closer inspection, he saw her brown Charleston heels were scuffed at the toes.

  Still, he couldn’t avert his gaze. It wasn’t her lack of fashion statement that drew Raymond off his chair to approach her table, but rather her big smile and the glint in her eyes. Moving closer, he noticed how her cropped chestnut hair framed her round face in a way that gave her a youthful look. She seemed approachable. As he neared the table, his confidence grew.

  “Can I buy you a drink,” he dared, catching her off guard. He stood to her left, hands in his pockets. Madeline snapped her head toward him and then back to her friend across the table, a coy smile on her face.

  “Yes,” she replied, looking up through her eyelashes. “Sure you can.” She blushed as he turned to get them a drink, returning a moment later and pulling a chair over to join her group. Minutes turned into hours and before they knew it, the barman announced last call. Leaving the speakeasy that evening, Raymond knew Helen had been replaced—Madeline was the new object of his desires.

  They spent the next three months together, savoring frequent dinners, the occasional night of dancing, and plenty of hours passing the time the way young lovers do. He learned she was a Catholic grade school teacher and had come from Newry, a small town about fifteen minutes outside of Hollidaysburg. He noticed her lips were always chapped, and she’d pick at them as they talked late into the night, peeling off thin layers of lipstick-stained skin. Raymond found the quirk surprisingly endearing.

  She told him her father was a pig farmer. A drunk and moody man, Madeline was anxious to escape her home life. Raymond enjoyed Madeline’s company—she was sweet, and they had fun. Things were light and easy. Just how he liked it. That is until one Sunday afternoon when they met for lunch and he was startled by the ashen look on her face.

  Her hands trembling, her voice shaking, she couldn’t look him in the eyes.

  “I’m pregnant,” she whispered. Her thumb nervously scraped against the nails on her other fingers. “What are we going to do?”

  Jennifer Craven holds degrees in fashion merchandising and textiles from Mercyhurst University and North Carolina State University. Her writing began with parenting essays and reported pieces for numerous national outlets before writing her debut novel, “A Long Way From Blair Street.” A lover of words and chocolate, she lives in northwest Pennsylvania with her husband and three children.