Mail-Order Kid: An Orphan Train Rider's Story

by Marilyn June Coffey

  After Regina left, Teresa lay with a damp cloth across her eyes. Bappa treated her so foully, she knew she should feel elated but she didn’t. His dying didn’t erase the past; it just brought it into sharper focus. Now he could never come to her, in that slow shuffling walk of his, hat in hand, and say, “I’m sorry, Teresa. Can you forgive me?” Not that he’d ever apologize. She supposed that if Bappa had it all to do over again, he’d do pretty much the same things.

  Tears trickled down her cheeks, warm beneath the coolness of the damp cloth. Bappa would never be dead for her. His treatment of her lived on inside her, coiling and churning in her stomach at the oddest moments. She knew she could never forgive him. His death did not elate her, but she did rejoice knowing that she’d never see him again.

  When Teresa recovered enough to return to work, she refused to clean any more churches. Instead, she did general housework and continued to sew on buttons. She also cared for sick people and pregnant women—work that the WPA reimbursed.

  With the additional money earned from these care-taking assignments, Teresa talked Jess into leaving The Jungles. They rented a second-floor apartment at 1711 Pine Street in a lovely residential neighborhood. The place delighted Teresa, primarily because of its distance—both literally and figuratively—from The Jungles. She didn’t mind working an extra day to pay the rent or crocheting hats in the evenings, “borrowing” a few groceries until she could pay for them and cleaning an occasional house to make ends meet. Living in a decent place made the extra work worthwhile.

  One night Jess came home elated. “Tootsy, guess what. My frigging brothers are building us a house.”

  Teresa winced. Build them a house? Why would his brothers want to do that? Where had they been when she and Jess needed them? If only they had lent her money to pay that one month’s rent, she might have kept out of The Jungles, but now she didn’t need help. She had a good job and lived in a decent area. Besides, what kind of a house could they possibly build, as uneducated and boorish as they were?

  “Don’t let them build that house,” Teresa begged, but when Jess resisted, she lacked the will to fight. By this time, her husband worked as a night guard for Pete Felten when he could, which wasn’t frequently. Jess could no longer drive, so he hated to watch anyone drive his old truck. A new house would not change that, Teresa knew, but Jess wanted to own a house so badly she finally yielded.

  Eventually the brothers hammered together a house at 98 Ash Street, next to a trailer park. Jess loved it, even though the house was only one large rectangular room divided into two by a curtain. Teresa hated it. What a stigma, living in such a hovel! The ugly thing looked like a shoebox to Teresa, so she called it the “Box House.” Although not a trailer, the house looked like one. It satisfied none of her desires to be respectable. She no longer wanted riches; she knew they were beyond her, but how she wished she had stayed in her reputable apartment.

  No matter how long the Binders lived in the Box House, it never seemed like a real home to Teresa. She tried to console herself by noting that the neighborhood on the side away from the trailer park was lovely. In that neighborhood lived Dr. Burnett, a professor of sociology; Teresa’s pride bloomed when she discovered she had such a refined neighbor. She taught manners to her daughters. Soon they consulted an Emily Post book to make sure they had placed each fork as correctly as the Mandevilles had.

  Teresa wanted her daughters to be well-mannered but not snobbish, so she told them about the man who went to a banquet at the royal palace. There he poured his coffee into his saucer, blew on it to cool it, and drank it. Guests up and down the long banquet tables snickered to witness such a violation of good manners, but the king did not. Instead, he poured his coffee in his saucer, blew on it, and drank it.

  “Don’t be sloppy about eating,” Teresa told her daughters, “but don’t follow the etiquette books about every little thing. Just do your best and be kind, like the king.”

  •

  As Teresa cared for the Ellis County sick, she decided to advance herself by training to be a practical nurse. The requirement—to take an on-the-job course—was minimal so, in 1936, she took the six-week WPA home-nursing course. She scored exceptionally well on the final exam, receiving the highest grade in the statewide class. Kathryn O’Loughlin McCarthy from Hays, the first Kansas woman to serve in the United States Congress, noticed Teresa’s achievement. The congresswoman knew that Sara Fields, head of the Hays Public Library, needed a helper, so McCarthy recommended Teresa as “a bright young woman.” Mrs. Fields hired Teresa on a three-month trial basis as a “glorified errand girl.”

  Teresa felt ecstatic to have the job even though libraries seemed foreign, but not as alien as they had when Sister Rosina described “rooms full of books.” Still, Teresa didn’t understand how books were cataloged until Mrs. Fields taught her to shelve books. “Frisch begonnen,” Mrs. Fields said, “ist halb gewonnen.” Teresa agreed that well begun is half done.

  Teresa’s need to keep the job pushed her to work exceedingly hard. She knew she must; the Depression created more workers than positions. Her paycheck also motivated her. At the library, she earned more than a minimum wage for the first time, markedly improving her family’s finances. She could not bear the thought of returning to work for the WPA with its low pay.

  After Teresa had worked at the library a few months, she overheard Mrs. Fields tell Congresswoman McCarthy, “Mrs. Binder’s doing fine. We’ll keep her.”

  Teresa blanched; her stomach tightened. She had forgotten that Mrs. Fields had hired her “on trial.” Just as well. Being on trial for anything made her nervous. Her palms would sweat, and she made stupid mistakes. If only she weren’t an orphan. She knew people looked down on her, that they considered her “among the lowest of the low.” She wanted to better herself, but no matter what she did, she never felt better. Still, the library job seemed to help.

  By 1938, Teresa’s library career appeared secure. Her weekly paycheck had grown to $30 for a forty-hour week, which was $14 more than the minimum wage. She considered herself blessed and set aside any thoughts of returning to nursing.

  Later that year, Mrs. Fields told Teresa she needed someone to type.

  “I can’t type,” Teresa said.

  “Well, neither can I,” Mrs. Fields said. “What are we going to do?”

  They decided to send Teresa to typing class at the high school.

  “As long as you’re taking typing, you might as well take some other classes,” Mrs. Fields said. “In fact, you should finish high school. You’re too bright to flunky around.”

  In 1939, Teresa and Mildred, now a freshman in high school, “took up books” together. Mildred went full-time, Teresa attended as she could.

  Teresa hadn’t entered a classroom for twelve years, but she bolstered herself by remembering Mrs. Fields’ saying: “Frisch begonnen ist halb gewonnen.” Despite her determination, typing class proved difficult. She typed so slowly that her teacher, George Gatschet, said, “You’ll never make it. You’re too old to learn to type.” However, Teresa knew lack of practice, not age, slowed her down. The typewriter’s clatter made Jess nervous, so she couldn’t practice at home. Finally, she practiced in the basement of a neighbor, Mrs. Zimmerman.

  Despite daily practice, by semester’s end Teresa typed only thirteen words to the minute. She knew she would fail, but instead, to her relief, Mr. Gatschet gave her a “D.”

  •

  “Come into my office,” Mrs. Fields said to Teresa a few weeks later. “We must talk.”

  Sweat broke out on Teresa’s upper lip as she followed her boss into the small cluttered room. What had she done?

  “Sit down, Mrs. Binder.” Mrs. Fields lifted a pile of papers off a chair. Teresa sat, her back as straight as her ironing board. “A woman came into the library today and asked for your job. Of course, I told her, ‘No.’ But she pressed me, so I put it more clearly. I said, ‘I’m satisfied with Mrs. Binder’s work. I don’t want to replace
her.’”

  Teresa took a deep breath. At least the problem wasn’t losing her job.

  “Then the woman said, ‘But she wasn’t even born in the United States.’”

  Mrs. Fields stopped talking.

  “Of course, I was,” Teresa said. “I was born in New York City.”

  “But can you prove it?” Mrs. Fields looked at her sharply. “Because this woman isn’t going to stop here. She knows that you have to be a citizen to work for the government. So you better get an affidavit, if you can. Maybe they’ll give you one at the courthouse.”

  Shaken, Teresa asked her friend, Euphersine, to come with her to the Ellis County Courthouse to ask an official to vouch for her citizenship. By this time, Volga Germans, who had learned to vote as a block, occupied the courthouse. Since most people who worked there knew her, having her citizenship verified would be a simple matter, she thought. However, the official she asked, Bappa’s cousin Karl Bieker who’d known her since she was four, drew himself up and, in garbled English, said he wouldn’t consider it.

  Teresa stared at him, remembering how Bappa used to say, in German, “You can look on a person’s forehead but not read his brain.” That’s how she experienced Karl.

  Beside her, to her amazement, Euphersine exploded. “You retard. You can’t even speak English but you’re an American citizen. Why can’t she be one?”

  Afterward she and Euphersine laughed about it, but Teresa knew her friend’s outburst closed the testimony avenue. She wrote the Foundling and asked for proof of her birth. But the Sister in charge of records wrote that Teresa’s case was closed. Teresa seethed. How could the Foundling close her case? She wasn’t dead.

  Undeterred, she wrote to New York City’s Department of Health, asking it to search for her birth certificate. To her surprise, she received notice that the department had found no record of her. No record? How could that be? It seemed as though she was the only person who knew she was alive. She and her mother. Her breath shortened as she contemplated losing her job.

  Teresa decided to write once more to the Foundling, saying, “I’ve got to know.” This she did.

  But the nun again wrote back, “Sorry. The case is closed.”

  Teresa became alarmed. What if she didn’t prove her birth? What then? Maybe, she thought, the nun doesn’t understand how much rests on this information. So one night, she composed a detailed letter to the Foundling. She told the nun that her library job supported her semi-invalid husband and their two children. “If I can’t prove my citizenship,” she wrote, “I will lose my job.”

  The Foundling nun’s reply—that Teresa’s mother had named her Jessie, not Teresa—shocked her. Jessie! She had never known her name to be anything but Teresa. Quite unexpectedly, the nun had returned a name that Teresa didn’t know she’d lost. Which name should she use? Which one was really hers? Or were they both hers? Eventually Teresa decided to use “Teresa” since so many people knew her by that name.

  The nun suggested Teresa search for information about Jessie Feit, so she did. This research took months. Teresa had to pay a quarter each time she wrote to New York City’s Department of Health, so she taped the quarter to her letter. She mailed a lot of quarters before she received her birth certificate, but eventually the certificate, stamped November 18, 1940, arrived.

  Making sense of the inscrutable birth certificate took Teresa several hours because of the odd statement on the bottom of the page. The Registrar of Records of New York City’s Department of Health had printed: “NOTICE: In issuing this transcript of the Record, the Department of Health of the City of New York does not certify to the truth of the statements made thereon, as no inquiry as to the facts has been provided by law.” Teresa read that and reread it. Finally she concluded her birth certificate was bogus, which didn’t matter to her as long as Mrs. Fields accepted it as proof of United States citizenship.

  Even though Teresa believed her birth certificate was fraudulent, she hesitated to examine it for fear it might be true. She now knew her given name; she knew that her mother had placed her in the Foundling and presumably paid for her for fourteen months, so she didn’t care to know any more about what had happened more than thirty years ago. But her past simply refused to disappear.

  If her birth certificate were true, then her mother gave birth to her on May 25, 1906, in New York’s Lying-in Hospital. When she read that, her heart jumped. For the first time, she knew when she was born. Before, even though she celebrated her birthday on May 26, she actually knew only that she had been born somewhere between May 23 and May 30. She didn’t even know what year, but now she knew she was thirty-four years old. If the certificate were true.

  Teresa next learned that her mother, Rosie Breitowich Feit, had been twenty-one when she gave birth to Teresa. “Rosie,” Teresa said. “Your name is Rosie, isn’t it?” Teresa repeated the name, rolling it around her mouth. What a treasure, knowing her mother’s name! Rosie had listed her address as “No Home” and her birthplace as Austria. Austria! Hadn’t those two women asked if she were Austrian? What if one had been Rosie, seeking her? What if Monie were wrong?

  The prospect sat like a lump in Teresa’s throat. Determined not to cry, Teresa pushed her thoughts away. She couldn’t consider Austrian ladies right now; right now she had to read her bogus birth certificate.

  Teresa’s father, Wolf Feit, a twenty-two-year-old baker with no address, had been born in Russia. This news devastated Teresa. To her, “Russian” meant “Volga German,” and all she knew about Russians were the prejudices she had learned in Ellis County. “Dumb Roosians” and “dirty Roosians” were words that leaped to her mind, so she couldn’t believe her bad luck in having “Roosian” blood. Only the notice stating that the facts might not be true gave her comfort. Still, she couldn’t bear giving Mrs. Fields a certificate that stated Teresa Feit had half-Russian blood. So she took her pen and, as carefully as she could, changed the “R” in Russian to “Pr.” There. Now she had Prussian blood. That felt auspicious.

  So did Mrs. Fields’ acceptance of the “fake” certificate, making Teresa’s job secure.

  •

  On December 7, 1941, the Binders woke to news that Japanese planes had attacked the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor. Stunned, Teresa and Jess listened to the radio. More than two thousand people dead, eight U.S. battleships lost and the base suffered immense destruction, the broadcaster said.

  The next day, President Roosevelt declared war against Japan. When Jess heard, he cried, “I’m going! I’m going to fight.” Teresa looked at him, astonished, for there he sat, crippled, obviously unfit to join the army. Determined to enlist, Jess registered despite his 4-F classification. The army declined his services.

  Soon Germany and Italy declared war on the United States, Congress voted to declare war on them, and World War II became official on both fronts. Like many Americans, Teresa held her breath.

  For the next six months, Japan beat the United States repeatedly in Guam, Wake Island, Hong Kong, Malaya, and Singapore. Each loss made Teresa flinch. The gloomy war news troubled her—so many young men losing their lives.

  Still she could not help but love how the war had changed Hays. Streets teemed with GIs from the nearby Walker Air Force Base. Teresa volunteered to wash dishes at the United Service Organization, a group designed to help soldiers. Some soldiers asked her for dates, and Jess said, “Oh, no!” but other married women dated the soldiers. Sometimes local women fell in love with the young energetic air force boys. Teresa envied these women, not their boyfriends but the way they typically met, at the dance hall for soldier boys. How she wished she could whirl around the big polished floor with men who might fly U.S. missions! Of course she couldn’t. Jess would have a hissy.

  At the library, thanks to regular practice, Teresa now typed fast enough to handle all the typing chores, including the catalogue cards. In fact, she typed so well she passed a civil service exam; Walker Air Force Base offered her a job.

  �
��I think I should take it,” Teresa told Jess. “The Air Force could use me.” She was just as patriotic as Jess, in her own way.

  “Why do you want a frigging job out there?” He looked up from the comic strips. “Folks say the goddamn base will hire any baboon who can tell a typewriter from a washing machine. You’re better off at the damn library.” He would not let her leave.

  Jess’s stubbornness didn’t disappoint Teresa too much. If a job at the base was no big prize, she did not want it. Still, she wished her teacher, George Gatschet, saw how fast his “D” student typed.

  During the war, the government issued stamps to ration gas, shoes, coffee, meat, butter, and sugar, but the Binders didn’t suffer much from rationing. Since Jess owned no car, gas rationing didn’t affect them. Between Jess, too sick to eat much, and Teresa, perpetually dieting to keep her slender figure, the family had plenty of food. Coffee rationing affected them most. Jess loved to drink coffee but Teresa didn’t, so she guaranteed plenty of coffee for Jess by pretending she, too, was a coffee drinker when she picked up the coffee stamps. She did not like to lie; dishonesty made her queasy, but better a small lie than Jess’s angry face over an empty coffee cup.

  Inflation hit the Binders harder than rationing. Prices rose rapidly. What cost fourteen cents on Monday might cost nineteen cents by Thursday. Wages didn’t keep pace, so Teresa’s earnings seemed to dissolve. As she bought fewer and fewer groceries home for the same amount of money, Jess complained, “You son-of-a-bitch! Where’s the frigging money going?”

  Teresa tried to show him. “Everything’s so high,” she said, “even the Post Toasties.”

  Talking failed to convince Jess. His stubborn anger so frustrated Teresa that she retreated into the bedroom, closed the door and cursed Jess under her breath. Then she pulled her curly hair until she calmed down. She had to keep calm. Since that doctor said that riling Jess could cause his death, she’d managed to curb her quick temper—at least most of the time.