Hunter kissed my cheek. “You’re the best, you know that?”
I rubbed his fingers between mine. “They’re good people, and I like surprising them with lunch.”
“So, I’m meeting a shop owner in Hayes Valley today,” Hunter said, pulling on his jacket. “We’re going to talk about possibly stocking our shirts in his store.” He smiled, his hazel eyes crinkling at the corners. “This could be big, Sar. You know how badly I want to expand to brick and mortar.”
I squeezed his hand. “I know. Good luck.”
Hunter tilted his head. “Stay here and write as long as you like.” He winked at Niki. “And make sure this one stays out of trouble.”
Niki rolled her eyes. “Okay, boss man.”
After Hunter left the office, I settled into my chair at the spare desk and Googled “Havensworth Art Academy.” Maybe the more I knew about its history, the more Gwyneth would feel I supported her. I had the nagging sensation she expected me to be doing more outreach for her charity galas, especially now that I was no longer at the magazine. But my heart didn’t lie in event planning or fund-raising.
The school’s website popped up in my browser, and I opened it.
A backdrop appeared of the city’s skyline, faintly visible through the fog. I read the accompanying quote.
Like the city it has called home since 1880, Havensworth Art Academy has always been a source of creativity and innovation. Take a look back at notable moments in the Academy’s San Francisco history.
I clicked the first slide in the timeline. A sepia-toned photograph showed the columned building on California Street I’d visited earlier. I read the caption.
Lucas W. Havensworth founds the Havensworth Art Academy in the year 1880, in a purchased commercial space at 315 California Street, with 40 students. A real-estate mogul with a silver fortune from the Comstock Lode, Havensworth establishes the academy as a nonprofit, its doors open to any student with a passion for the arts.
I smiled to myself. The entrepreneurial spirit must run in the family. How funny that Hunter was so like his forefather, Lucas Havensworth.
Clicking through the remaining slides, I looked at pictures of Hunter’s great-grandfather and then his grandfather, a 1927 Stanford graduate, reading how the academy grew in size to eighteen thousand students and more than ten urban campuses.
In a color photograph from the seventies, Walter sat unsmiling in his study, barely recognizable with thick sideburns and full head of hair. My mouth fell open as I read the caption.
In 1973, Walter S. Havensworth succeeds his predecessors, becoming president of the school and turning it into a for-profit institution.
So Hunter’s father had turned the university into a moneymaking operation when it had originally been established as a nonprofit? How typical of Walter. What irked me more was that Walter Havensworth was at no loss for lucrative streams of income. His investment firm, Havensworth & Associates, amassed more wealth than I cared to know about. Part of why I loved Hunter was because of the bravery he’d shown in leaving the banking world to start his own clothing business.
“Hey,” Niki said, calling over to Brian, whom I recognized as one of Hunter’s original employees. “Do we have any back stock on our Mother’s Day orders? It looks like our special-edition flower T-shirt has sold out already.”
“Crap,” Brian said, his fingers flying across the keyboard. “You’re right. See if we can get more in production today.”
I tried to hide the tightness in my voice as I looked up from my computer. “I’ll tell Hunter. He might be able to run by the screen printer after his meeting.”
“Awesome,” Brian said. “Thanks, Sarah.”
I nodded, swallowing hard. Mother’s Day never went by without me feeling a sharp pain in my chest and heaviness in my heart. My mom had died from lung cancer five years ago, and Dad from an unexpected heart attack six months later. When I’d realized how sick my mother was, I’d flown home to spend time with her, even though I’d had a panic attack on the plane. I couldn’t face the whispers in the street or the gossiping neighbors at the grocery store.
Nothing could bring him back.
But Mom had been diagnosed late, and I was only home for three weeks before she passed, most of which I’d spent holed up inside. I’d been grateful she’d asked to be cremated. My father and I spread her ashes to rest in Lake Winnebago, Mom’s favorite camping spot. In that private moment, I’d wondered if she understood how I couldn’t have read a eulogy to a room full of people, feeling the crowd’s judgmental eyes.
A jackhammer struck the pavement outside, jarring me from my memories.
“God, that’s annoying,” Niki whined.
“Seriously,” another girl said. “How are we supposed to concentrate with that awful noise?”
I peered out the open window. On the street below, workmen in vests and yellow construction hats crowded around a hole in the pavement. But the moment of silence was short-lived. The foreman placed his gloved hands around the jackhammer’s handle, and resumed his pounding.
“What are they doing?” someone moaned.
Brian shook his head. “Tearing up the street to build more overpriced condos, probably. Rents are skyrocketing. I bet you could charge someone, like, two thousand dollars a month to live in one of those creepy camper vans parked under the freeway.”
A lightbulb clicked on in my head. Of course.
I was no stranger to the sleek glass skyscrapers that had popped up around Folsom and First Street, forty-story luxury condos with names like Infinity Towers and Millennium Tower, and the endless construction around the site of the new Transbay Transit Center. A Salesforce tower was being built there, but I’d remembered reading an article about the discovery of gold rush artifacts during construction—an exhibit that was now being housed on Mission Street, over near Beale.
“Thanks for letting me hang out, guys,” I said, powering off my laptop and sliding it into its leather carrying case. “You’re all doing a great job.”
“You’re leaving?” Niki asked.
I slung my bag strap over my shoulder. “I’ll be back next week.”
“Thanks for the pizza!” a few employees cried in unison. I smiled, giving them a thumbs-up. “My pleasure. I’ll bring burritos next time.”
Outside on the street, I tugged my zipper up to my neck. If I planned to add a human element to my story about Hannelore and Margaret, I would need to know how the working class in the 1870s really lived. Maybe seeing the items they used every day would help me to feel more connected to these two women.
Twenty minutes later, the doors to the lobby of 201 Mission Street opened, welcoming me with a rush of warm air. I felt invigorated from my walk. The building was empty, and refreshingly quiet compared to the construction noise at Hunter’s office.
I walked toward the glass display case along the back wall, housing remnants of the past. My eyes lingered on the plaque above the display:
WHILE CONSTRUCTION OF THE TRANSBAY TRANSIT CENTER MOVES AHEAD, WE ARE EXCITED TO SHARE AN ASSORTMENT OF ITEMS DISCOVERED WITHIN THE FOOTPRINT OF THE PROJECT SITE WITH OUR NEIGHBORS AND BAY AREA RESIDENTS. THESE OBJECTS PORTRAY THE RICH HISTORY OF SAN FRANCISCO’S GOLD RUSH ERA. RECOVERED ARTIFACTS SHOW THE WAY NINETEENTH-CENTURY RESIDENTS OF THE SOUTH OF MARKET NEIGHBORHOOD PLAYED, WORKED, AND LIVED, INCLUDING INDUSTRIAL TOOLS, HOUSEHOLD ITEMS, AND VESTIGES OF NEIGHBORHOOD BUSINESSES.
I peered into a case filled with colored vials of assorted sizes. A pale blue bottle thick like sea glass read “Schenck’s.” That company made a syrup to cure consumption, but like most nineteenth-century medicines, it was flavored alcohol.
My eyes passed over plate fragments, ceramic doll parts, iron pulleys, bone toothbrushes, pipes, and rusted spoons. A thrill of excitement worked its way down my spine seeing the objects people had used in their daily lives over a hundred years ago.
I looked up at an enlarged sepia photograph of a clapboard building with a balcony jutting over the stre
et. On the ground below stood horse-drawn carriages and men wearing overcoats and top hats.
1876: 57–61 MINNA STREET. THE TOMKINSON LIVERY AND STABLE OPERATED OUT OF THE GROUND FLOOR, WITH A BOARDINGHOUSE ABOVE.
Fleetingly, I remembered my novel, and the boardinghouse owner, the widowed Mrs. McGeary. But my heart was already invested in finding out what happened to Hannelore and Margaret. My graduate advisor would understand. Without a spark, there would be no story—and I knew I had a story here.
I read the description of the South of Market neighborhood in the 1870s. It had been densely populated with Irish immigrants, many of whom worked in the nearby tar flat industries. My eyes moved to an 1876 map that showed small houses crowded together on narrow lots along Natoma and Minna Street. Had Margaret lived in one of these houses with her family?
An article from the Sacramento Daily Union, September 2, 1872, had been printed on the wall. I’d seen clippings from that newspaper in the digital archives online. Until it closed its doors in 1994, the Sacramento Union was the oldest daily newspaper west of the Mississippi. The article gruesomely depicted the murder of Mrs. Annie Brown, the wife of a sea captain. With murders so commonplace in the 1870s, the prospects did not look good for Hannelore and Margaret.
I pored over the artifacts. Victorian children’s toys, red and blue marbles, had been found in the backyards of 40 Natoma and 41 Minna. A copper-plated spoon, now green and corroded with age, was recovered from 45 Minna Street.
My eyes lingered on a fragment of a blue-and-white plate, painted with women in traditional Bavarian dress, sitting beneath a weeping willow tree. In careful cursive, the signature read E. Schaeffer.
My breath hitched.
HAND-PAINTED PLATE. THE REGISTRY MARK ON THE BACK OF THE PLATE TELLS US THIS PIECE WAS MADE IN JULY 1868, BY DUHRER & CO. BAVARIA, GERMANY. ARTIST NAME: E. SCHAEFFER. PLATE RECOVERED AT 43 MINNA STREET.
I swallowed, taking a notebook out of my laptop bag and writing down the name and address. Census results online or an 1876 directory in the library archives would show me if E. Schaeffer was a member of Hannelore’s family. African-American and immigrant households were accounted for after the Civil War. Though they were working-class people, the Schaeffers would have had an address.
As I stepped back out onto the street, the wind assaulted me. I shoved my hands into my jacket pockets as I walked up Market Street. At the Flatiron building, I turned onto Sutter Street, pushing open the doors to Caffé Bianco. It was one of my favorite cafés, thanks to the European feel of the decor and the delicious pastries. I ordered a raisin swirl and a chai latte, and sat down at a round table by the window. Assorted flowers arranged in glass vases filled the room with a sweet fragrance.
Scooting my chair closer to my computer screen, I typed into Google “San Francisco census, 1876, Schaeffer.” Nothing. I sipped my chai latte, then tried again, typing “E. Schaeffer.” Still nothing.
I sighed. My phone buzzed in my bag, and I took it out to look at the screen.
Hey chica! Can’t wait to see you for beers tonight!!! Xo
My heart warmed, looking at Nick’s text. We’d become close when we worked together at the magazine. Nick had taught me everything I needed to know about gay subculture (apparently he was a wolf, like celebrity wolf Joe Manganiello from Magic Mike), and we’d gone out for happy hour together every Thursday.
We’d bonded over how both of us had been too afraid to go to our high school proms, Nick because he’d have to “dance like a straight man” and me because . . . well, I didn’t tell him the truth, but I’d chalked it up to teenage awkwardness.
I brought my fingers to my lips, remembering the laughing fit we’d had when Nick’s Men’s Health magazine arrived at the office, addressed to Nico Rogers.
“Who am I? Mr. Rogers’s gay cousin?” Nick had asked, wiping a tear from his cheek. “How hard is it to spell Rodriguez?”
My eyes zipped back to the computer screen. The plate fragment from 1868 was first-rate source data. But a census would be a second source. And perhaps the census takers at the time didn’t know how to spell a German name, especially if no one in the household spoke English. I thought about Schaeffer phonetically.
This time I typed: “Shaffer. San Francisco census 1870,” knowing the census was taken every ten years, on the years ending in zero. Nothing came up. I tried again with one “f,” Shafer.
A transcribed document appeared of the San Francisco County census taken in March 1870. I read the names.
My missing girl stared at me from the screen. The census had been taken six years before she disappeared. I thought of Hannelore’s physical description: a dark-haired girl with light eyes and strong features. She was starting to take shape in my mind.
A search of the family’s address on Greenwich Street revealed the early immigrant settlements of Telegraph Hill had been demolished, except for a few historic homes belonging to wealthy sea captains. What a shame. Hannelore’s house was no longer standing. Likely, it hadn’t been much more than a shack.
I spent another hour searching for follow-up articles using the newspaper archives online, but I hadn’t learned anything other than Johannes Schaeffer’s trade—a blacksmith. No information existed on him or the family after 1870. It was as if they had all vanished like ghosts into the San Francisco fog.
Great, back to square one.
Then I remembered the name of the bar owner from yesterday, when I’d visited the Tavern. Putting on my journalist hat, I looked up his phone number online, and then called, an air of authority to my voice.
“Hi, Edward,” I said, reaching his voice mail. “My name is Sarah Havensworth, and I’m a freelance journalist, currently working on my master of fine arts thesis in creative writing. I was hoping you could help me with a story.”
Leaving the café, I threw on my coat and picked up my laptop bag, feeling I had made some progress. With a bit more research, I’d feel confident presenting my new thesis proposal to my advisor and asking for the last-minute switch.
There was no guarantee she’d approve it, but with enough evidence to support my story, I hoped she would. After all, guidelines stated that my master’s thesis had to be a publishable piece of work. Even after incorporating the critique from my peer workshops, my novel felt far from publishable. Plain and simple, it was crap.
But this story, finding out what had happened to these missing dressmakers, was where I felt at home. As a journalist, I had motivation, reverence for the truth, and a hunger to discover and inform. Why create a fictional account of what life had been like for working women in the late nineteenth century when I had the chance to truly show it?
As I walked up Market Street, I passed homeless men and women bundled into sleeping bags and huddled in doorways. I thought of Hunter and his open heart, his endless capacity to give. His favorite thing to say to me was, “I’ve got my health, I’ve got Redford, and I’ve got you. Even if I had no money, I’d still feel like the richest guy in the world. The least I can do is help those who have no one.”
Suddenly, a thought dawned on me. Had Hannelore given the plate to Margaret as a gift? If Hannelore had lived on Telegraph Hill, then why had the plate fragment been found on Minna Street, an address nowhere near her family residence? I remembered a line from the artifacts exhibit.
BY THE 1870S, THE SOUTH OF MARKET NEIGHBORHOOD WAS DENSELY SETTLED, MOSTLY BY IRISH IMMIGRANTS.
Margaret and her family most likely lived in one of the row houses on Minna Street or Natoma Street. Being gifted the plate was one possible explanation. A chill ran through me as another idea hovered on the edge of my mind.
Maybe Margaret and Hannelore hadn’t gone missing at the same time. I looked down Montgomery Street, staring off in the direction of the old Barbary Coast. The twinge in my gut made me wonder . . . What if Margaret had disappeared first, and then Hannelore had gone looking for her?
Chapter 6
Hanna, 1876
Schooners bobbed in the
choppy waters below Telegraph Hill, their grand masts pointed skyward and their sails billowing like wings. Wouldn’t that make a pretty picture?
In Mittenwald, Hanna had once seen the artwork of a man named Renoir. There had been a girl painted in oils, with flowing red hair like Margaret’s, and a scene of people dancing beneath the Paris streetlamps. They were the most beautiful compositions Hanna had ever seen, breathing life into her like a flame.
Today she had stolen moments in the early dawn, the sky streaked poppy orange. No one could claim her here: not her mind or the product of her hands. With her mother’s brushes and paints, Hanna lent beauty to the gritty landscape, the factory smoke fading away. Mother’s soul did not reside in a dark church, where the pastor’s eyes bored into Hanna’s. Mother was here in the wind rushing through Hanna’s hair and in the ocean spray.
I love you, Mother.
Hanna’s silent words caught in her throat. Steadying her hand, she signed her name and the date with her smallest brush, forming the letters how Mother had taught her to. Mother had given her everything she needed to make her own way in the world. Hanna stared up at the sky, wishing she could see her mother’s face.
Frau Kruger’s chickens clucked as Hanna set the painting down to dry. No one would discover it behind the chicken coop. She crouched low to open the gate, then reached for the eggs. Frau Kruger could not bend as easily as she once had, and allowed Hanna to keep two eggs in exchange for bringing her the rest.
With the warm eggs cradled in her hand, Hanna looked down at the steamboat chugging its way across the bay. She nearly had enough money saved for her passage, along with Martin, Hans, and Katja, to Sacramento. From there they would take the train to the Sierra Nevada Mountains, where she could mend and wash clothing for men in the mining towns. Would Margaret run too? Hanna would ask, but not until it was time.
Plumes of gray smoke rose into the air from the cluster of small houses on the hillside, fires burning in their hearths. It was a hopeful day. In another month’s time, Hanna would be gone like the smoke, vanished in the wind.
The Dressmaker's Dowry Page 6
