The House on Seventh Street

by Karen Vorbeck Williams

  No wonder Ruth left Dad, Winna thought. He was famously frugal and probably wouldn’t part with the money to modernize the kitchen or anything else.

  She couldn’t enter the room without her mind reeling backward in time. More than any other room, the kitchen remained a monument to Juliana’s peculiar brand of logic. Though she had money to spend, she could not part with anything that still worked. She never owned a dishwasher. On occasion, she insisted on washing the dishes herself. When she did, she sang or recited poetry aloud from memory—the way she had as a child drying dishes for her mother.

  Winna had to believe that her grandmother must have made sense to herself. Not much interested in politics herself, Winna saw her grandmother as a rabid Republican with early feminist leanings. Most of the women in the country had to wait until 1920 for full women’s suffrage, but in 1893 Colorado women got the vote. Colorado men had crossed the mountains, settling the territory side by side with their hearty, steadfast wives. They knew their women were as smart and capable as men and allowed them the vote. As a young woman, Juliana helped in voter registration campaigns and talked to women’s groups about the importance of the vote. She conceived of and funded the first mobile library in Grand Junction, bringing books to farming families and the poor who lived in town. She left the church because she believed in evolution and thought the church was “pig headed” in insisting that the Bible was a science book. Although she treated her Mexican housekeeper like a creature well beneath her, she refused an opportunity to join the DAR. She thought they were a pack of snooty racists. Juliana was Juliana.

  Having a grandmother deeply involved in politics had made a strong impression on young Winna. In the fall of 1948, while playing jacks on the sidewalk outside the school, Winna and her girlfriends started talking about the coming presidential election. She was the only kid who wanted the Republican, Thomas Dewey. All the others wanted Democrat Harry Truman.

  One of her friends loudly announced that her daddy thought Dewey looked like a shyster.

  Wondering what’s a shyster? Winna shot back. “No, siree.”

  Her friend had another talking point. “Dewey’s just for the rich people. Truman’s for the common folks.”

  “So’s Dewey!” Winna argued, not sure if she was exactly right about common folks. In reaction to the Democrats’ frequent mentioning of “common people,” she had heard her grandmother say that she would hit anyone over the head with her pocketbook who called her common. Winna knew that Juliana passionately disliked Harry Truman because she had heard her call him “that haberdasher!” It sounded just awful.

  When Truman won by a hair, Winna’s elders thought the world had come to an end. For too many years already they had suffered Roosevelt’s New Deal. With her face screwed up like she had smelled something rancid, Juliana pronounced it “Rue-zee-velt.” She thought his First Lady was both scandalously leftist and arrogantly patrician. Eleanor Roosevelt, alone, inspired her to work for the Republican Party. By 1949, Juliana had become president of the Colorado Federation of Women’s Republican Clubs.

  WINNA HAD FIGURED out how to make coffee using the ancient aluminum drip coffee maker she found in the kitchen. At the table, mottled with light coming through the trees, Emily sipped her cup as she fed the baby rice cereal.

  Winna had some news. “You know the ring we found with the marbles? The jeweler said it’s a real canary yellow diamond—probably worth eighty-thousand dollars.”

  “What!” Isabelle jumped at Emily’s spirited response. She stopped eating and looked wide-eyed at her mother.

  “He said that if I didn’t believe him, I could get an appraisal in Denver, if I wanted to take it there.”

  “Where’s the ring now?” she asked. Isabelle kicked her feet impatiently, waiting for the spoon Emily had poised in midair.

  Her brand new Nikon D1 in hand, Winna focused on Isabelle’s enormous brown eyes, with dark lashes casting feathery shadows over her ivory skin. She got the shot and put down her camera.

  “I opened a safe deposit box at the bank.” Winna refilled her cup, then nuzzled her granddaughter’s plump cheek. She smelled deliciously sweet, even with cereal all over her face. She could hardly wait to hold her.

  “That’s good. Why in the world was a ring like that put away with the marbles?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” Winna said, ready to change the subject. “I love seeing Isabelle here—in this room—the fifth generation. It’s my favorite room. Not because of its beauty—it has none—but the memories. At this very table I ate at least a million of Gramma’s waffles with chunks of cold butter and warm maple syrup. She called me Edwina and corrected people who erred by calling me Winna.” Smiling at the memory, she placed her camera on the table and sat down. “It’s strange; even though Dad lived here for years, you wouldn’t know it. All I see is Juliana—her amazing taste, her elegance, her strange personality.”

  “Why didn’t Ruth make Poppa throw out all the junk? She just moved in and lived with it?” Emily asked, opening a jar of applesauce.

  “Not for long. As I remember, she didn’t like the house on Peach Tree Ridge so Daddy said they could sell it and live here. She probably thought she’d become the lady of the manor but got a horrible surprise when he refused to part with anything that had belonged to his mother. I think she gave up and left for California not too long after that—maybe a year.”

  “Why wouldn’t he want the place cleaned out? Keep the treasures and dump the rest?” she asked, her spoon headed for Isabelle’s open mouth.

  “Your trash is my treasure—that kind of thing. Daddy was his mother’s devoted acolyte. He was always dragging out some old thing from a closet and bringing it to me for show and tell.”

  “Sounds weird to me,” Emily said, smiling at her daughter’s messy face. “My favorite room is the master bedroom—all that light. Mom, if you want to give me anything, I want that bed—the whole bedroom set, really.”

  “Sure, if Chloe doesn’t want it. I’m surprised you like it so much—it’s so heavy and masculine.”

  “I like masculine—remember I live with a man.”

  “I like Juliana’s room better—all that cool light, the quiet colors.”

  “It’s interesting that she took the room at the back, as far as she could get from her husband.”

  “You’re right. It would’ve been logical for her to take the room next door to his—it’s a far grander room.” Winna paused for a thought. “Often when I go into her room, I remember a story she told me—the most romantic story I’ve ever heard. She was ill then and resting in bed. She thought she was dying, I suppose—otherwise I don’t think she would’ve told me.”

  Emily wet a face cloth at the kitchen sink. “You were her favorite.”

  “Yes. She never said so, but everybody else pointed it out to me. Especially Mother and Chloe. It seemed odd to me that she wouldn’t call me Winna. If I was her favorite why would she call me ‘Edwina’ when she knew I hated my name? Probably because I knew I was supposed to have been ‘Edwin.’” Winna paused, sipping the strong hot coffee. She had never felt comfortable as the favorite. It had been impossible to believe she deserved lt.

  “I went to visit her when she was sick and Gramma told me a fantastic story. One that’s almost hard to believe. She said that she had fallen in love for the first time in high school, but he went away to college, to work, to war—I don’t remember where he went—but he went away for several years leaving her behind—as she put it—to pine for him. When he finally returned to Grand Junction, Gramma had already married Poppa Ed.”

  “He was a catch,” Emily said, dabbing at the baby’s mouth and chin.

  “One of the richest men on the Western Slope. Anyway, sometime later Gramma and her old sweetheart became reacquainted. She gave me no details, saying only that she’d decided to leave Poppa and my father—who was a baby at the time—and run away with her lover.”

  “My God, weren’t you shocked?”


  “Actually, I didn’t think about it like that until later. I was a romantic teenager with stars in my eyes—you know. Gramma said she packed her bags. She went to the train station to meet him, but at the last minute she couldn’t get on the train. When it came down to the moment, she realized that she couldn’t leave her baby son. She said she kissed her lover goodbye and watched the train pull out of the station. Later, she learned that he had died on that trip.”

  9

  1932 – 1946

  LOOKING DOWNCAST, her hair a touch out of place as if she had been slaving somewhere in the house, Juliana approached her husband in the library. Edwin was relaxed in his favorite leather easy chair with the evening paper, a cloud of cigar smoke around his head. His wife came quietly and sat at his feet, leaning against the ottoman. He lowered the paper and gazed down on her.

  “Edwin, my dear,” she said. “You are a dear and generous husband, but soon I must face the Spring Ball and have nothing to wear.”

  “When’s the dance?” Having just remembered that he had wanted an old book from one of the top shelves, he was distracted. His eyes fixed high up on the wall as he tried to zero in on the large volume—brown, he thought. He promised himself that the moment he was free of her he would find it.

  “April twenty-fifth—only a month away.”

  He appraised his wife and had to admit that at the moment she looked a bit tatty.

  “Surely you want me to make a good impression, to look like the wife of a prominent man.”

  Edwin’s eyes narrowed. He rubbed his chin and nodded, hoping to show some empathy.

  “I looked through my closet, dear,” she said, looking hopeful that her plea would reach him, “and found that I would have to present myself wearing last year’s fashions. You can be sure that my friends will have shopped in Denver for the very latest.”

  “If they are your friends,” he said, “why don’t they shop at Grumman’s?”

  “Well, dear, I can’t answer that.” She removed the comb from her hair and, gathering stray strands together, repinned them. “You are a man, and don’t understand the consequences of these things, but I tell you, Edwin, it’s important to keep up.”

  Edwin squashed the newspaper in his lap and puffed harder on his cigar. “My dear,” he said, “you know all you have to do is ask and the doors at Grumman’s are opened for you. I’ll tell Wilcox to expect you in the ladies’ department day after tomorrow—will that be time enough?” He knew she would rather take the train to Denver for a few days of shopping, but was relieved to see her nod weakly.

  She had let him know that he was her second choice for a husband and he got back at her quietly through his pocket book and by withdrawing his affection and attention. Edwin hadn’t analyzed his feelings for her. He didn’t know why he had adopted what he saw as his refusal to argue with his wife. Juliana had suffered a nervous collapse in 1918, early in their marriage when Henry was still a toddler. He remembered how hopeless she had been, how miserably unhappy, her rages at him and their son. Since then, he had given her wide berth.

  “I have one more request, dear,” she said. “The Conrads and the Hendersons are coming to dinner Friday night and I want to serve something special—from the butcher. You know Mr. Ricci runs a cash-and-carry business. He does not accept checks nor will he let me charge.”

  “You can charge at the market,” he said as he lifted the newspaper. “Why do you insist on patronizing that dago place anyway?” He frowned at her over the paper.

  She winced. “I wish you wouldn’t use that awful word, Edwin. Mr. Ricci has the very best meat in town.”

  Edwin shook his head. “Very well.” He reached deep into his pants pocket. From the wad of bills in his hand, he peeled off two dollars. “Will that be enough?”

  “I’m serving roast beef. I wanted to make you proud by serving a lovely meal.”

  “Well, then here,” he said, dipping inside his pocket for more. He produced a handful of coins, selected three quarters, and placed them in her eager palm. “Here’s enough to provide a feast.”

  EDWIN GRUMMAN WAS born outside Kansas City where both of his grandfathers farmed. His parents migrated to Grand Junction in 1882 where his father, Edwin Sr., founded the original Grumman’s department store. No matter how successful he was as a businessman, Edwin Jr. remained a man of unsophisticated tastes and little education. He had quit high school to go into the family business. His manners were rusty at best and though he was tall and handsome, with gentle blue-gray eyes and fine-chiseled features, he came across as unpolished.

  Juliana had no money of her own, not until her parents died just after the war. The devoted couple passed away within weeks of one another, her father following her mother. Juliana believed her father had been unwilling to go on without his beloved wife. By the time her father passed, he had amassed a small fortune, leaving Juliana free from her husband’s control.

  Edwin was quite aware that except when she needed his favor, Juliana never let him forget her superior education and breeding. She had come from educated people and money—though not as much money as he had amassed. He supposed that when she corrected his English and manners in front of family and friends, she did not want people to think she didn’t know the difference.

  “Get to the point, dear,” she would suggest, interrupting his meandering stories.

  Edwin never snapped back at her. He obeyed her commands or ignored her. He took comfort in his favorite easy chair behind a newspaper or one of his railroading histories, smoking his Cuban cigars, as if her jabs had not hit their mark.

  JULIANA RESENTED EDWIN’S stoicism, his womanish ways, his lack of interest in her, his careless social graces, his barely passable manners, and most of all, what she saw as his sluggish intellect. His habits irritated her. Even in summer, after he washed his hair, he was so afraid of catching a cold that he wore a knitted cap on his head for half the day until his hair had dried. She hated driving with him in the car. He insisted on going just under the speed limit while preaching about the rudeness of the honking drivers held captive behind him. The more they honked the more he self-righteously hogged the road. Edwin would gladly hold up traffic until a train of cars behind him covered half a mile. She was so angry with him one morning that she told him she did not mind one bit if he did not come home to dinner.

  “Stay at the store forever. I can’t bear looking at you!” she had raged.

  Juliana herself was appalled by her rages. She dreaded her memory of the time when little Henry was about two years old, and she had flown into a rage at some little thing he’d done. When she had calmed down, she saw how much she had frightened him, how he shook with terror, how his crying made him vomit his lunch. She cried for days after that.

  Edwin had to shorten his hours at the store. She could no longer be left alone with the servants or take care of her child. The doctor said she needed a rest cure.

  Before Juliana left for California and her best friend Laura’s loving care, she wrote a long letter to her husband outlining exactly how she wanted her son raised if she should die, then made a list of her belongings and to whom each possession should go upon her death. She slipped the list into an envelope, sealed it, and wrote, “To be opened only after my death, Juliana S. Grumman.”

  She left little Henry with her mother in Grand Junction and took the train west. In Santa Monica she stayed in a guest cottage on the beach at her friend’s estate. For two months she walked the beach, slept under an umbrella stuck in the sand, and thought how different her life would have been if she had waited for her first love, if she hadn’t been so impatient and sure that wealth would make her happy.

  Edwin’s letters from home proclaimed his love. He promised to be more thoughtful and begged her to return. While her mother took care of her child, she watched seagulls dip over the rolling waves. At night, she was lulled to sleep by the gentle moon-rays coming in through the window and the sound of the sea.

  WHEN HER GRANDCHILDR
EN were young, Juliana was always delighted to receive Winna and Chloe. The girls spent many days and nights at the house on Seventh Street. They slept in the guest room at the front of the house—the one with the turret bay windows and a door to the north balcony. From there, they could look down on their grandmother’s shade garden.

  Juliana taught them the names of the plants there: Colorado columbine, lady’s mantle with its soft-as-velvet leaves, apple green sweet woodruff, tiny nodding coral bells at the border’s edge and, in spring, crocuses and jonquils. It was a great luxury to have a cool green place to sit in the dappled shade of trees on a hot summer day and she had made sure the children understood that.

  As they sat together in the garden, Juliana would tell stories, and one time she taught them a nursery rhyme: “Mistress Mary quite contrary, how does your garden grow? With silver bells and cockleshells. Sing cuckolds all in a row.”

  ONE SUMMER, FOLLOWING days of scorching heat, the girls came to stay for a couple of days. From the summerhouse, Winna watched as violent thunderheads moved into the valley. After splashing the sky with lighting and beating the clouds with thunder, down came a torrential rain. Like little natives whose prayers had been answered at the end of a rain dance, Winna and Chloe ran out into the rose garden.

  Once the thunder had passed, the children found the rain showers to be a kind of magical play. They danced in the rain and the flickering light of the sun as it peeked in and out of the clouds. They were South Sea island maidens bathing under a waterfall, or fairies frolicking beneath rain-drenched shrubs. They shrieked with joy when a rainbow arched out of the clouds. Their skin soaked in warm drizzle, they watched droplets of rain, like shining diamonds, roll into the pollen dusted hearts of red and pink velvet roses.

  Into this bliss Poppa Edwin came. His galoshes protected polished black wing tips as he picked his way carefully through the wet grass under a big black umbrella.