The Proud Shall Stumble

by Gerald N. Lund

  Emilee started to sob and handed the phone to Paula, who grabbed it and put it to her mouth. “Emilee needs to be there, Wolfie. Even if she can’t see him.”

  “I know. And I agree. I want you and her to pack some things. Leave Bruno and the girls with Tante Inga. I’ll be leaving in about half an hour to drive down and get you. We can be back here before morning.”

  “Wonderful! Oh, thank you, Wolfie!”

  “But, Paula,” he cut in sharply, “Emilee has to know. It is very serious. The doctors are saying that the bullet may have cut the spinal cord.”

  “Oh, no, Wolfie!”

  His voice caught. “Yes. Hans could be paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of his life. You have to prepare Emilee for that eventuality.”

  Paula was too horrified to speak.

  “I have to go,” Wolfie said. “But I’m coming. I should be there by midnight.”

  Though he had lowered his voice, Emilee had bent over Paula and listened through her tears. Paula reared back when she saw blood on Emilee’s lip from where she had bitten it to keep from crying out. Now Emilee took the phone back from her aunt. “Wolfie?”

  “Yes, Emilee?”

  “Thank you so much for calling. You’ve done so much, but I need you to do one more thing for me. Please.”

  “Anything. You know that.”

  “Before you leave, will you call President Schindler of the Munich Branch? Tell him what’s happened. If he could meet us at the hospital in the morning, I’d like him to give Hans a blessing.”

  “But. . . .”

  “His phone number is in my little book at home,” Paula said quickly, leaning over so she could be heard.

  “I know. But, Emilee, they’re not going to let him into the hospital.”

  “They might,” Inga spoke up loudly. “He is an ordained minister of the Church.”

  “But Hans is a prisoner.”

  Inga smiled through her tears. “And the Master said, ‘I was in prison and ye visited me.’ Tell the guards that.”

  “I know, but. . . .”

  Emilee managed a wan smile. “This may sound strange coming from someone who’s not yet baptized, but, Wolfie, I think we’ll just have to have a little faith here. Don’t you?”

  Chapter Notes

  Here too the details of the clash between the alliance of right-wing political parties and the state police come mostly from Shirer’s account (see Rise and Fall, 73–75). In the later court trials, they could not definitely establish who fired the first shot, but some eyewitnesses swore it was Hitler himself. I chose to have it be him because it was established that he was angrily waving his pistol at the police and shouting at them.

  Other witnesses, including a physician who was a Nazi Party member and supporter of Hitler and who was marching not far behind him, said that the Führer was the first to flee the scene, leaving his wounded men to fend for themselves.

  General Ludendorff was the only one who didn’t panic. He marched straight ahead into the ranks of the police, who stepped back and let him through out of respect. But then they arrested him. He was held for a short time and then released. He was so bitter over the army’s refusal to support him that he swore he would never again wear his officer’s uniform nor ever again salute an army officer.

  Hitler was not seriously wounded, but his shoulder was dislocated when Max von Scheubner-Richter was killed in the initial volley and pulled him violently to the ground. He fled the scene and was harbored by wealthy patrons, who took him to their country home and cared for him. The police found him two days later and he was arrested. Hermann Goering received a serious wound to his upper leg and groin. Ironically, he was carried into a nearby bank where a Jewish proprietor bandaged his leg. Friends then came and smuggled him to Austria, where he lived for some time, escaping arrest. Rudolf Hess also fled into Austria and stayed there until it was safe to return. Ernst Roehm, whose stormtroopers had occupied the War Ministry for a time, surrendered without further resistance and was arrested.

  As Shirer noted: “The Nazi putsch had ended in a fiasco. The party was dissolved. National Socialism, to all appearances, was dead. Its dictatorial leader, who had run away at the first hail of bullets, seemed utterly discredited, his meteoric political career at an end” (ibid., 75).

  November 21, 1923, 5:37 p.m.—EDW Ranch, Monticello, Utah

  Mitch closed the book and looked down at the circle of children seated around him.

  This is what it is all about.

  The thought struck him hard as he looked into their bright eyes and upturned faces. Each was so unique in his or her own way, but all were an equal delight to him and Edie. Early on in their marriage, it had looked as though they might never have any children. Edie was the only child who survived birth in her family, and her mother had been an only child. So Edie had a deep fear that difficulty in bearing children would be her inheritance too. It took three years and a small miracle before they had their first child, a boy. They named him after his father. Now everyone called him Mitch Junior, or MJ for short. MJ and his wife, June, now had four children of their own, two boys and two girls. Three of them were here before Mitch. The youngest one, who was nine months old, was taking a nap in a crib in the back bedroom.

  Three more years had passed before Edie gave birth to their second child, a little girl. They named her for Edie’s diminutive German grandmother, Oma Renate Zimmer, who had lived with them for many years. Renate was quickly shortened to Rena. At twenty, Rena had married a rancher’s son from La Sal named Rowland Redd. They too had four children—three looking up at Mitch now, and a baby girl born a year ago, who was also napping.

  For a time, it seemed that was all the Lord was going to send to Mitch and Edie. They lost a beautiful little girl after she lived for only two days, and seven more years passed before they had Franz, or Frank, who was named for Edie’s father. Then four more years went by before they had Christina Rae, or Tina. She was born the day after Christmas, almost fifteen years ago now.

  By that point, Edie was thirty-eight years old, and they assumed Tina would be their last. Considering that they had worried they might have no children, they considered themselves richly blessed. And then came the miracle babies.

  On Edie’s forty-fifth birthday, she gave birth to two healthy twins, a girl first, and then a boy nine minutes later. They named them Abigail and Benjamin, both names taken from the Old Testament. Now they were Abby and Benji. Their birth had created the unusual situation of Mitch and Edie having children who were younger than some of their grandchildren. People had often commented on that oddity early on, but now everyone just thought of them all as “cousins.”

  There was a ninth grandchild that they had not yet seen. Frank, who was back east attending the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, had met and married a Boston girl the previous October. In August, they’d had a baby boy. When his paternal grandparents would see him was still unknown.

  With a sigh, Mitch shook off the reverie and held up the book. “So, children,” he asked solemnly, “what lessons do we learn from the story of Peter Rabbit?”

  Six hands shot up and started waving wildly back and forth.

  Mitch pointed at MJ and June’s second child. “Yes, Edna June?”

  “Peter Rabbit was very naughty and disobeyed his mother. So he lost his coat and shoes.”

  “Yes, he did,” Mitch said. “And that made him very sad.”

  Little Rena stood up, came over, and crawled up Mitch’s lap and snuggled in against him. “And him got sick from eating vegetables from Mr. McGwegor’s garden,” she said gravely.

  Mitch kissed her on the top of her head. “That’s exactly right, Liebchen.”

  After having two boys seventeen months apart, Rena and Rowland had finally gotten themselves a little girl. They named her for her mother and for her great-grandmother, and now eve
ryone called her Little Rena. And that was not just to distinguish her from her mother. She was this petite, tiny little three-year-old pixie, with large brown eyes, chubby cheeks, and the ability to melt Mitch’s heart in a second.

  Mitch turned to the other children. “That’s an important point, kids. Peter did get very sick, didn’t he?”

  Without waiting to be called on, Edna June spoke up again. “Peter should have been more like his sisters, Mopsy, Flopsy, and Cottontail, right Grandpa?” She turned and glared at Noah, her older brother. “Girls aren’t naughty like boys.”

  “That ain’t true!” Noah shot back. At nine, he was the oldest of MJ and June’s brood. He was already doing a pretty serious amount of work around the ranch, so he was quite mature for his age. “Girls are naughty sometimes too.”

  “But you’re naughty all the time,” Edna June said sweetly.

  Mitch laughed at that, but Noah simply ignored it. “Grandpa, there is another very important lesson we learn from Peter Rabbit.”

  “And what’s that?” Mitch asked.

  His eyes twinkled. “If you eat too many vegetables, it makes you sick.”

  Trying hard not to smile as the others squealed with laughter, Mitch nodded slowly. “A profound observation, I’m sure. But, Noah, if you are as smart as I think you are, you’ll not be saying that around your mother or grandmother. Otherwise you’ll be having vegetables for dessert every day of the week.”

  They all thought that was hilarious and clapped their hands in delight.

  Just then, they heard the back door open and the clunk of boots. Everyone turned toward the kitchen door. A moment later, MJ appeared in his stocking feet. “Car lights just turned off of Main Street, headed our way. I think it’s them.”

  “Yay!” Instantly the children leaped to their feet and ran to the window.

  But it wasn’t the women of the family, as they had expected. It was Rowland Redd. As he hung his coat on a hook in the front entry and took off his boots, they all gathered around him. “I thought you were driving the girls to Grand Junction,” Mitch said.

  “That was the plan,” Rowland agreed, “but the roads were good and we checked the forecast, which was good. They decided to go without me. I had a ton of things that needed looking after at the ranch, and June said she’s comfortable driving if the roads aren’t slick. About an hour ago, Rena called from Thompson Springs. They were just turning south on the last leg home. They had been talking and decided that since tomorrow is Thanksgiving and we’ll all come down here anyway, I should come down tonight and help you guys get the kids something for supper.”

  The shopping trip to Grand Junction had become a necessity when Willie Adams, a grandson of George and Evelyn Adams, had shyly approached Christina about three weeks before. He had asked her to be his date to the Monticello High School Christmas Ball. It was to be held on the first Saturday of December.

  Mitch quickly learned that this was a much bigger deal than he had supposed. This would be the first school dance in the Westland household since Rena had started dating Rowland more than a decade ago. And it would be another seven years before Abby would be old enough to date. The ladies were determined to make the most of it, and the first and most pressing issue was what Tina was going to wear. And so the shopping trip to Grand Junction was planned.

  Rowland set his boots aside and stood up. “Mama Westland suggested that we warm up the pot of stew she left out in the ice house. They don’t want us waiting until they get home to eat.”

  “That’s simple enough,” Mitch said.

  “I like simple,” MJ agreed. And that settled it.

  6:46 p.m.

  “All right, kids,” Mitch said. “Keep the noise down. Your mothers and grandma should be home in the next little while. But if you wake up the babies, the games are over. You’ll be tending them. Understood?”

  “Yes, Dad,” Benji said with a weary sigh, as if he had heard this a hundred times before. They were seated around a table where two checkerboards and sets of checkers were placed.

  “And I want you older kids to let the younger kids play too. Teach them how to play it.”

  When they all agreed to that, the men went out of the kitchen. MJ and Rowland went into the living room, but Mitch turned and tiptoed down the hall. He stopped outside the door of the back bedroom and leaned in. After several seconds, he moved away and returned to the living room. “Cross your fingers,” he said. “They’re both still asleep.”

  He was barely settled when Rowland turned to his brother-in-law. “Hey, MJ, I was up in Moab a couple of days ago. Saw Burton Smith from Thompson Springs. You know him, he’s the guy that runs the farm equipment store up there.”

  “Yeah, I know Burt.”

  “Well, he was passing through on his way to deliver one of them new Farmall tractors to a farmer to the east of you out in Ucolo.”

  “Carl Jorgenson?” Mitch asked in surprise. “He has a spread right on the Utah-Colorado line. I heard he was getting a new tractor.”

  “That’s the one.”

  “And he’s buying a Farmall?” MJ asked. “That’s a surprise.”

  “I’ll say,” Mitch drawled. “He seemed like a much more intelligent fellow than that.”

  Rowland hooted, but MJ just groaned. “That’s my dad for you. Ford man until the day that he dies.”

  “And proud of it,” Mitch replied. “My Ford runs circles around the Farmall when it comes to durability and simplicity of repairs. Give me a pair of pliers, some baling wire, and a stick of chewing gum, and I can keep a Ford running forever.”

  “You’re right,” MJ said. “They are great machines. So why is Henry Ford so darned stubborn about offering some of these new improvements on his tractors? I’d buy a Ford in a minute if he’d do that. But oh, no. It’s the same philosophy he has with his automobiles. ‘You can have any color you want, as long as you want black.’”

  Rowland jumped in on that one. “I read in the paper the other day that McCormick is cutting deeply into Ford’s share of the farm equipment market, and their Farmall tractor is the major reason for that. People really like it.”

  Mitch sat back, making a steeple with his fingers. “Actually, to be serious, I’m not going to fight you if you want to buy one, MJ. You’re smart enough to study things out in your mind and then make the right decision.”

  “What?” MJ turned to Rowland. “Did I just hear him say what I think he said?”

  “And,” Mitch went on, unfazed, “if the Farmall outperforms my Ford, then. . . .” He shrugged.

  MJ pounced on that. “Then what? You’ll buy one?”

  “When the time is right. But that’s a big if. But believe it or not, I’m not like Dan Perkins.”

  “Has he still not bought an automobile?” Rowland exclaimed.

  “Nope,” MJ said. “He still drives Nean and the kids around in a buggy. Oh, he’ll come and borrow Dad’s truck every now and again, but he keeps saying that the time-honored ways are good enough for him.”

  “And I agree with that up to a point,” Rowland said. “I think that’s true of some things—like morals and values and family traditions—but I’m pretty sure the Lord is not displeased with us for using automobiles and electricity and telephones and the like.”

  “I totally agree,” Mitch said. “But on the other hand, I think we need to be careful about jumping on the bandwagon with every new trend or fashion that comes along. Going all gaga just because something’s new and different? That can actually be dangerous.”

  MJ was clearly taken aback by that. “Seriously, Dad? Dangerous? How so?”

  “Because some of these things have moral implications. Look at what’s happening all around us right now in America. And the world too, for that matter. They’re starting to call our times the ‘Roaring Twenties.’”

  Rowland nodded. “Yeah, I’ve heard
that. I’ve wondered why they call it that.”

  “I was reading an editorial about it in the newspaper the other day,” Mitch continued. “The writer thinks someone coined the phrase because it describes what’s happening right now. ‘Roaring’ doesn’t just mean noise, though we are seeing an increase in that too. He says the term is used metaphorically, like when we say that a freight train goes roaring by us. It’s not just the sound but the speed and the rush of excitement. He believes that we are entering a new age, that we are undergoing a major cultural revolution.”

  “I can see that,” MJ agreed.

  “Take liquor and cigarettes as just two examples. Those have always been a curse for humanity, but in the past both of those have been mainly the vices of men. Now look what’s happening. We passed a Constitutional amendment making liquor illegal, and we all celebrated that. But law officers are saying it is the most widely ignored law in our history. People go to saloons and speakeasies and drink to their hearts’ content, and the women are flocking there too. They drink and smoke right along with the men.”

  “Yes!” Rowland said eagerly. “A couple of weeks ago, Rena was reading this article in a magazine. It said that the big tobacco companies are now targeting women with their advertising. And it’s very clever. Do you know what Lucky Strike’s slogan is?”

  Mitch was nodding. He had seen some of those advertisements. “‘Reach for a Lucky instead of a sweet.”

  MJ looked puzzled. “I don’t get it.”

  “I guess smoking helps keep you thinner,” Rowland explained.

  “Good example,” Mitch said. “Do you remember what it says in the Word of Wisdom, just before the Lord said that tobacco is not good for the body or the belly? It goes something like, ‘In consequence of the evil and designs which do exist in the hearts of conspiring men in the last days, I warn you about these things.’ That gives a whole deeper meaning to ‘conspiring men,’ doesn’t it? People seem to be turning away from traditional standards and values everywhere. Look at women’s dress styles nowadays. Sleeveless blouses. Shorter skirts.”