“After that experience, I said to myself I would never participate in war again. Therefore, I feel compelled by my conscience and a vow I made to my Maker to resist war every way I can.” Dan clears his throat and then goes on.
“Now, there are those who say, we must fight.” He catches my eye. “We have been attacked by Japan at Pearl Harbor and Adolf Hitler is a lunatic trying to take over the world. This may be true, and I respect other men’s and women’s decision to go to war, but I cannot.” Someone behind me whispers, “Coward!” but Dan goes on.
“I must resist conscription into the army, and have refused to sign up for the draft. I am a complete conscientious objector, and am obligated to protest even simple registration. The tragedy of war is that it never ends.
“In war there’s always a winner and a loser, and sooner or later the loser will seek revenge, and so it goes generation after generation, an unending human chain of hate and slaughter.” Here Dan puts down his script and looks across the gallery, taking in the faces of his friends and enemies.
“If going to prison for refusing to cooperate with the draft can save even one life, it will be worth the price. If over the years enough people all over the world refuse to serve, maybe war as a method of resolving international problems will end.”
Someone coughs in the very quiet room and then a small voice says, “Tell them about the horses, Papa.” It’s Mira.
Daniel smiles his lopsided smile and looks up at the judge, who is frowning. “Okay, Dr. Hester. The young lady thinks you should finish your story, but make it short.”
Dan shrugs and shakes his head, still smiling at Mira. “Sorry, Judge, my six-year-old is remembering what I told her about the first world war. . . . As a young man with farming experience, I was assigned to take care of the horses in my cavalry regiment. Most people don’t know that when that war began, the British army possessed only twenty-five thousand horses.
“The War Office was given the urgent task of finding half a million more to go into battle. It was thought that the big animals were needed to pull heavy guns and supplies, to carry the wounded to the hospital, and to mount cavalry charges.
“Soon the U.S. began shipping horses across the Atlantic. One thousand beautiful horses were shipped to Europe for the military every day. I was one of the men assigned to take care of them.
“In the end, I watched the beautiful, intelligent animals die of exhaustion, broken bones, bloody wounds, and tetanus. There was nothing we could do. They should never have been there in the first place. Modern weapons made them sitting ducks. Eight million died in combat. . . . Eight million beautiful horses that we buried in mass graves.” Dan sits down with a bowed head and I know there are tears in his eyes. The dead and wounded horses always get to him.
“Okay, Dr. Hester. That was quite a speech, and now it gives me no pleasure to hand down your sentence. Mr. Linkous. Mr. Hester. Please stand.”
Without meaning to, I rise too, and then the children and Bitsy.
“The maximum sentence for refusing to register for the draft is five years in federal prison . . . the minimum is six months. I found your statement to the court an honest display of conscience and I understand that you are not a draft evader, nor a coward. Your lawyer, Mr. Linkous, has presented the court with twenty letters of support for your character written by citizens of Union County, and I have taken these into consideration. Therefore, I sentence you to two years in federal prison. Marshal, take the prisoner away.”
Dan turns toward me, his hand over his heart sending me love. Bitsy feels my legs start to go and puts her arm through mine. The marshal and his men reach for handcuffs, but the judge stops them. “That won’t be necessary,” he barks, nodding toward the children. “They don’t need to see their pa marched away in irons.”
Though two years is a relatively short sentence, for the first time Daniel’s imprisonment is real and I feel twenty-four months of boulders rolling down Spruce Mountain toward me. The girls burst into tears, suddenly understanding that their father isn’t coming home, and Danny’s eyes blaze with hate, but whether it’s for the judge or his father, I can’t say.
“It will be okay,” Bitsy whispers and, with her arm firmly through mine, leads us out of the courtroom.
The Wake
Bitsy insisted on driving us home. It was clear I was upset and though I tried to comfort the children, I could barely talk.
Two hours after leaving Torrington, we pull across the wooden bridge over Salt Lick and into our drive and I’m surprised to see four other cars parked in the yard. “Who’s here?” Danny asks, pressing his face against the window. Mira, who’s fallen asleep on my lap, wakes up and asks, “Is Papa home?”
“No, honey. . . . What’s going on?” I whisper to Bitsy.
“I guess people have already heard about the outcome of the trial and want to be supportive. Word travels fast.”
The truth is, I was hoping to go to my room and let my tears fall, but that’s not going to happen until the children are in bed, so I take a deep breath and march up on the porch and stare bleakly at the American flag on the door.
The first person to greet me is Oriole Jackson, who takes me in her strong, brown arms and holds me to her bosom. “I’m so sorry to hear about Mr. Hester, honey. The time will go fast and in a few years he’ll be home. Women with men in the military have to face the same thing.” She pats my back.
“Can I get you some coffee?” Mrs. Miller asks, wiping her hands on her flowered apron. “Mrs. Maddock sent over a peach pie, but she couldn’t come because her legs hurt. . . . I made some sandwiches in the kitchen. I hope you don’t mind.”
“Come on, kids,” comes a man’s booming voice. It’s Lou Cross. “Grab a sandwich. I want to see that colt of yours. Can I ride him?”
“No, silly. You’re too big,” Susie answers, taking his hand. “You can pet him though.”
“We’ll save you some pie and some of my sweet bread,” Mrs. Jackson calls as they leave. Only Willie looks back.
Then Gertrude Miller takes me in the living room with a cup of coffee and sits me down on the sofa. “How are you holding up?” she asks.
I smile, but it’s with half a heart. “Okay, I guess. As good as I can be. I’m just worried about the children and all the farm work. Dan was my rock.”
“Well, don’t be too concerned. Things have a way of getting done when friends are around. Mr. Roote and Bitsy are outside feeding the chickens and getting eggs and Milt Maddock will feed the stock. I can help milk the cows. I bet you didn’t know I grew up on a farm, did you?”
I let my head fall back on the sofa, watching the fire, feeling these kind men and women around me. Though I fear the dark days ahead, for the moment we are safe. We are loved. We are cared for.
39
September 20, 1942
The Big House
Sheriff Hardman has kindly offered to drive me in his squad car to the West Virginia State Prison for my first visit to Dan. I am so apprehensive, partly because I cannot forget what I’ve heard about the conscientious objectors in the last war, especially the news stories about the three Hutterite brothers who were tortured by guards, chained to the wall, and eventually starved to death.
When we get to Moundsville, I smile. It’s a pleasant place with wide, tree-lined boulevards and Victorian houses along the Ohio River, but the prison is nothing like the town. It’s more forbidding than anything I’d imagined—a dark sandstone castle on a hill with guard towers and a ten-foot wall topped with rolled barbed wire.
“Oh, Sheriff,” I exclaim when he parks the squad car out front. “I don’t know if I can go in. This place is scary. I’m so glad you came with me. I’m sure if I was alone, I’d turn right around and head back to the Hope River.” There are tears in my eyes and I don’t care that he sees them.
“Now, Miss Patience, we came all this way, don’t fall apart on me. Daniel is expecting you. Remember, years ago you told me midwives were warriors?” I nod weak
ly and wipe my eyes. “You just put on those white gloves and walk in there proud and proper. I’m going to go with you as far as I can, but there’s only one visitor at a time.”
I smooth my red flowered dress and pull my navy blazer closer. When you’ve been a radical, lived with radicals, marched in the streets and spent time in jail, you are always wary of guards and coppers.
Sheriff Hardman holds the heavy steel door open as we enter the fortress. The door slams behind us. A small man sits at a barred window, looking like a teller at a bank, except for the gray uniform and the silver badge.
“I’m Sheriff Hardman of Liberty, and this is Mrs. Patience Hester to see Dr. Daniel Hester, her husband,” he announces in a deep voice, as if I’m being introduced to Eleanor Roosevelt in the receiving line at the White House.
The official looks me over and deduces, probably by the dainty white gloves, that I’m not a regular visitor at prisons. “You’ll have to sign in, ma’am, and I’ll need some ID.” He pushes a form under the window bars. “Also, I have to confirm you’re on his visiting list. Then you give me your handbag and anything else you’re toting . . .” He indicates the paper sack I’ve brought with me.
“Do I have to? I just have some clean underwear for my husband, pictures drawn by our children, and two novels, The Farm by Louis Bromfield, and My Life and Hard Times by James Thurber. Can’t I bring the bag to him? I thought the presents would cheer him.” Here my voice trembles.
“No, ma’am. The sack has to be searched for contraband. I’ll give it to him later. Now, can you just sign? Visiting hours start in five minutes and you’ll be late.” I quickly give him the paper bag and my purse, sign his form, and then look at Hardman.
“I’ll wait here,” he says, taking a seat across from the door and pulling out a worn pocketbook western.
The admitting officer presses a buzzer, and a woman guard comes through a second metal door, one that slides shut behind me with a clunk, and we’re in a tiny room about the size of a closet. There’s only the one window in the room, and it looks back to the waiting room, where the sheriff already sits reading.
“Hello. How are you today?” I say politely, but the matron in gray uniform is having none of my pleasantries. She motions for me to raise my hands high and then she pats me up and down, both my arms and legs and then my front and back.
Finally, she nods that she’s satisfied and says in a low smoker’s voice, “When the door opens, you’ll be in a large visitors’ room. There are ten tables. You should see your inmate sitting at one. You can sit across from him, but you must not touch. If you do, a guard will terminate your visit.”
“But I brought him some clean underwear and some drawings from our children . . . will someone bring them in?” I try again.
“No, the inmate will get them when he’s back in his cell.” A buzzer rings, the steel door slides open, and the matron almost pushes me out. “Now, move. You’re taking up valuable time. Other visitors are waiting.”
I step through the door and scan the large gray room with high ceilings. There are bars on the small high windows that let in dim light, and there’s an observation deck where sentries with shotguns sit watching over the scene. Daniel is at a table against the far wall in a gray uniform with 14077 stenciled on the front. He’s staring down and away, and for a minute I don’t recognize him. His skin has lost color and he hasn’t shaved for three days.
“Oh, Daniel!” I exclaim as I run to him. A loudspeaker squeaks and then a guard’s voice orders, “Walking only! No sudden movements.”
Whoops!
I sit down across from my husband. “Hi.”
Dan smiles. “You’re a sight for sore eyes. You even wore my favorite red dress.”
“I brought you some clean underwear, some books, and some presents from the kids. I hope they don’t get lost or stolen. The admission officer had to search them to make sure I didn’t bring in a knife or a file.” I think this is humorous, but Dan shakes his head.
“Don’t even joke about it,” he says. “The walls have ears. And by the way, watch what you say in letters. They are censored and read.”
I make a bad face, like I’ve been caught by a teacher chewing gum.
“How are you getting along with the other prisoners? Are they mean?”
“Some hard-core patriots give me a bad time whenever I pass, and no one will sit by me in the dining room, but a man of conscience has to suffer a little for his beliefs.”
“Are there really many flag wavers here?”
“You’d be surprised. This is a hot bed of loyal Americans ready to fight if they weren’t in prison. They’d probably make good soldiers too . . . if they could read the oath of allegiance and if they could follow orders. That might be the problem. One thing though, it makes you wonder if they took to a life of crime just because they were illiterate and couldn’t find work.”
“No touching, Bill!” barks the voice from above and when I whirl around I see a big bald man kissing his bleach-blond woman on the lips. “I’ve told you that before.” The guard laughs.
“How come they’re not making her leave? The female guard warned me that if we touched I’d be sent away.”
“That’s Big Bill Boggs, from Huntington, part of the West Virginia gambling mob. He runs this place.”
“Are you kidding? It sounds rough.”
“It’s safer than a battlefield, if you look at it that way.”
Before we drop into the canyon of our difference about the war I ask him to tell me about his days in the fortress. A clock on the wall indicates we have thirty more minutes.
“Not much to tell. There are three meals a day, hardly worth eating, and one hour in the outdoor area called the yard, weather permitting. It’s sort of like recess at school.
“I live in a cell that’s five by seven, white concrete walls, and an open toilet. You’d like that. Indoor plumbing,” he jokes. “I have a hard mattress—no sheets, just a blanket. I also have no cellmate, because the steel bunk above me is broken. This place is not in the best repair. I do have two friends, though.”
“That’s nice,” I respond, wondering what kind of man in this hellhole could be his friend.
“The first is a murderer called Bones. Sometimes we sing together after lights-out. I’m teaching him how to read. The second is a rat named Ronald.”
“A rat as in a snitch, a thief, or . . .”
“No, an actual rat.”
“Not really!”
“Yep. I’ve got him so he will eat out of my hand and he sleeps in a little box under my bed.”
“You better not mess with him, Daniel. He could have fleas. Didn’t rats spread the bubonic plague?”
“I’m going to get a pet cockroach next,” he jokes.
“How did you tame Ronald anyway?”
“I think the fellow before me already had him tamed. He just came and sat by my bed when I was eating. I dropped a few crumbs and little by little, over the days, I got him to eat out of my hand. I’m a vet, you know, good with animals, and I think he looks quite healthy. Bright eyes and smooth fur, probably a little overweight though.”
“Well, if you bring even one cockroach into our house when you get home, I’m going to throw such a fit you’ll wish you were back in the Big House.” It’s here that my tears come, because I realize that Dan’s not likely to be home for another two years. Mira will be almost nine when he gets out. I wipe my eyes and force a brave smile.
Dan reaches for me but decides against it, and then under the table I feel his foot against my pump. He slips off his shoe. I slip off mine, and just for a moment we find comfort.
“HOW DID THE visit go?” Bitsy wants to know when she stops by after work the next day. The kids are all playing Candy Land in front of the fire.
I’m still very tired and emotionally spent, but I describe the stone prison, getting searched, and sitting at the table with Dan. I tell about the faces of the other prisoners, some innocent as babes, some as harden
ed as the cliffs at the White Rock CCC camp.
Eventually, Danny and Willie join us and we laugh as I tell them about the rules, no touching, no running, no sudden movements. I even mention that Daniel has a rat for a pet and that he’s teaching the murderer, Mr. Bones, how to read.
What I don’t reveal is the two sock feet under the table and that I’ve never loved Daniel more, Dan in his prison uniform with the number 14077 stamped on his chest.
September 28, 1942
Public Disturbance
A stiff wind blows out of the west, but the low sun is still shining when Bitsy and I leave the House of Beauty at 6:30 P.M. It’s half-price day and Ida May stays late, so Bitsy said she’d pay for the hairstyles and matinee movie tickets for the kids. In her “strong opinion,” I had to start taking care of myself.
I’m wearing a loose silk scarf over my hair so as not to flatten my smooth pageboy, and Bitsy has a new hairdo that makes her look like a young Lena Horne. “The movie should be over soon,” I say. “I wonder if Mr. Flanders will let us wait in the lobby until the kids come out.”
“Hope so,” says Bitsy, protecting her hair with both hands.
We don’t have far to go and soon I can see Sheriff Hardman’s black-and-white squad car parked in front of the theater with the flashing red light on. “Wonder what’s happening,” I say.
When we get to the theater, we see that the sheriff is sitting in his car and so are our children, all five of them. Susie’s parked in Hardman’s lap, crying. Sunny and Mira are both in the passenger seat playing with the buttons and dials on the dash, and Willie and Danny are sulking in the backseat. Danny has a black eye.
“What in holy hell!” Bitsy swears.
I tap on the squad car’s window. “Did something happen, Sheriff? Is everyone okay? Bitsy and I were just down at Ida May’s.”
“Well, there has been some trouble,” the lawman answers. “I was called about a disturbance in the theater lobby, a fight. I don’t know who started it or who’s to blame, but I took your boys into custody for their own protection. If you don’t mind, Mrs. Hester, I’d like to get to the bottom of this. Okay if I drive them out to your house on Salt Lick Road? Otherwise we’ll have to go up to the cooler.”
Once a Midwife Page 23
