The Quilter's Legacy

by Jennifer Chiaverini

  Eleanor nodded in sympathy, but as the sharp-voiced woman went on to describe her various concoctions, her thoughts raced to Miss Langley—Mrs. Davis—in Boston, to her parents in New York.

  She must send word to them right away and invite them to wait out the illness in the safety of Elm Creek Manor before they succumbed to it themselves. Mr. Davis, too, of course, and any of their friends who wished to take precautions.

  She murmured her excuses to the woman and left the line, retrieving paper and pen from her purse with trembling hands. By the time she finished the letters and rejoined the line, the woman and the two men had left. Others had taken their places, but the newcomers continued the anxious murmurs: The disease had spread as far west as St. Louis; no, it had halted at the Mississippi; no, it ravaged the nation from coast to coast. It was an affliction caused by unsanitary conditions and overcrowding, which is why it afflicted soldiers and the poor. It was simply the same flu they saw every season, nothing to fear. It was a deadly germ released on the Eastern seaboard by spies put ashore from German U-boats.

  Eleanor finished her errand and fled.

  Outside, Lucinda sat on a bench reading the paper while Clara read over her shoulder. “Lucinda,” Eleanor began, and hesitated.

  She did not wish to alarm Clara. “It seems the sickness has spread beyond Boston.”

  “It was never confined there.” Lucinda folded the paper and tucked it under her arm. “It's everywhere, or it will be soon.”

  “But the paper says the doctors have it ‘well in hand,’” said Clara.

  “I know, dearie. I was reading between the lines.” Lucinda rose and strode off in the direction of the public library, where the quilting guild met.

  Eleanor and Clara hurried to catch up with her. “There's no flu in Waterford,” said Clara, a question in her voice.

  “Not yet there isn't,” said Lucinda. “As far as we know.”

  Clara looked up at Eleanor, anxious. “Don't worry,” Eleanor said quietly, placing an arm around Clara's shoulders. “It's just the flu.”

  The meeting had already begun when they arrived, ten minutes late, so they quietly found places in the back. Gloria stood at the podium calling for nominations for the next year's slate of officers. One of the women in the front row called out, “Since she's not here to object, I nominate Eleanor Bergstrom as president.”

  There was a murmur of assent. Gloria grinned at Eleanor and shrugged as if to say she was powerless to object. “Wait,” began Eleanor. “I—”

  “I second the nomination,” declared another.

  “But I've already been president,” protested Eleanor. “Twice.”

  “And you did a wonderful job. That's why we all want you back.” Gloria regarded the two dozen quilters inquisitively. “Any other nominations?”

  The women shook their heads, and a few turned around to smile at Eleanor, who suppressed a sigh.

  “It looks like you're running unopposed again,” called out a friend of Elizabeth's.

  Over the ripple of laughter, Eleanor said, “At least keep the nominations open until next month. Perhaps someone who isn't here today would like to run.”

  “Everyone's here,” the guild secretary noted. “Everyone comes on nomination day.”

  “That's because if they don't, they'll find themselves president,” said Eleanor, but she smiled to show she would be glad to resume the office.

  The rest of the guild's business was quickly concluded, for everyone was eager to work on the charity quilt. Each woman had pieced a block in her favorite star pattern using red, white, and blue fabrics; in the Bergstrom family, where several quilters shared the same dwindling supply of precious fabric scraps, necessity had compelled them to adapt their patterns to make the best use of the available materials, but Eleanor was proud of the results. The five blocks representing the Bergstrom family were among the prettiest presented at the meeting, but what mattered most was that when the quilt was completed, the guild would raffle it off to raise money for the county chapter of the Red Cross.

  The women pushed two tables together and placed all the blocks upon it, each contributing her opinion as to the most pleasing arrangement. The blocks were shuffled, considered, and rearranged until all but Gloria and Lucinda were satisfied, and their disagreement came down to the placement of two particular blocks. Lucinda wanted to exchange a LeMoyne Star block in the center of the quilt with a Sunburst block along one of the edges, explaining that the more intricate design would make a better central focal point. Gloria insisted that the two blocks should remain exactly where they were.

  “She cares more about herself than the quilt,” said Lucinda in an undertone only Eleanor could hear. Then Eleanor realized the LeMoyne Star block was Gloria's.

  “If she cares about it so much, let her have her way,” Eleanor murmured back. “Honestly, what does it matter?”

  Lucinda's eyebrows rose, since Eleanor never settled for less than perfect where her own quilts were concerned. Still, Lucinda gave up the battle, and the women separated into smaller groups of friends to stitch the blocks into rows.

  Eleanor expected the conversation to focus on this mysterious outbreak of disease in the East, but instead the women chatted about more ordinary things closer to home. Hungry for news, Eleanor introduced the subject herself, but no one volunteered anything she had not already heard at the post office. The general consensus seemed to be that the illness could not be as dire or spread as swiftly as rumor had it, and that they were fortunate to live in a pleasant little hamlet like Waterford, where they were spared the evils of the cities.

  But the rumors did not die out, and swiftly the voices of authority gave them credibility. State health officers advocated the wearing of gauze masks. Eastern governors warned their Western counterparts to start making coffins. All the while, the disease stole closer, creeping along the highways and rivers. Thousands of cases reported in Philadelphia, hundreds more in Harrisburg. The first case in State College. And then the first case in Grangerville, only ten miles down the state road.

  Hours after this announcement came, an emergency meeting was called at the town hall. Eleanor, David, and Lucinda attended, along with so many others that the meeting was moved to the Lutheran church on Second Street. As they squeezed into a pew, Lucinda remarked that this was the most unruly crowd in the church's history and that they should have used the Catholic church instead. David chuckled, but Eleanor was breathless from anxiety and unable to smile at the joke. Her eyes locked on the mayor as he entered and went to the front, followed by three men: Robert Cullen and Malcolm Granger, Waterford's two doctors, and a third man Eleanor did not recognize. He was tall and slim with a neatly trimmed black mustache, and he sat slightly apart from the two doctors, who were engaged in an urgent, whispered conversation.

  The room quieted as the mayor took the pulpit. A portly, jovial man, he thanked them for coming and got straight to the point: No cases of Spanish influenza had yet occurred in Waterford, and he meant to keep it that way. A collective sigh of relief went up from the crowd, and as the murmurs rose into a crescendo of questions, the mayor raised his hands for silence and announced the formation of the town's first Health Committee. The two doctors had agreed to serve on it, and the third man, a professor of social sciences at Waterford College named Daniel Johnson, would direct their activities as Health Officer.

  The mayor stepped down and was replaced in turn by each of the members of the Health Committee. The elderly Dr. Cullen took the pulpit first and somberly described the symptoms of the disease to a suddenly silent room. Once infected with the influenza germ, the patient's descent from robust health to incapacitation was sudden and savage. Raging fever. Racking coughs producing green pus and blood from the lungs. Gushing nosebleeds. Delirium. Pneumonia. Bluish or even purple skin, followed within hours by death. If anyone suspected the onset of these symptoms, they must report to his clinic at once.

  “What will he do for us once we get there?” asked Luci
nda in an undertone, but David said nothing and Eleanor could only shake her head.

  Malcolm Granger spoke next. As he approached the pulpit, Eleanor took comfort in the reassuring presence of her own physician despite the scattered throat clearings and shuffling of feet that greeted him. Doctors from the Granger family had served the people of Waterford respectably since before the Civil War, but none had been as controversial as the youngest Dr. Granger, who was praised as a modern thinker by some and disparaged as a dangerous fraud by others. No one questioned his ability to set a broken bone or deliver a baby, but his ideas about disease aroused skepticism even among his own faithful patients. Eleanor trusted him, not because his ancestors had cared for Bergstroms since their arrival in America, but because under his care she had given birth to a healthy daughter. Furthermore, while Dr. Granger acknowledged that her heart did appear to have sustained damage, he also said that neither he nor any physician could truly know if it would cut her life short, so she would do well to discount any dire predictions and instead embrace each day as a gift. His advice brought tears to her eyes each time she recalled it, so it was little wonder she had become one of his most loyal defenders.

  Dr. Granger addressed the treatment of the disease. The germ of influenza was thought to be a bacterium, perhaps Pfeiffer's bacillus, perhaps something else. Until a vaccine could be developed, the only treatment was rest, fresh air, cool baths and compresses to reduce fever, and fluids to replace those lost in the body's natural responses to the affliction. Make the patient comfortable and pray for the best, he told them, and remember that since the disease seemed nearly always fatal, the best remedy was prevention.

  A rumble of protest and disbelief followed Dr. Granger to his seat, and Eleanor wished he had not spoken with his characteristic bluntness and brevity. He had spoken for less than half the time Dr. Cullen had, and he had left his listeners with little hope.

  “And just how are we supposed to keep from getting sick?” a man shouted from somewhere in the crowd. “It's knocking strong young soldiers flat on their backs. What chance do we have?”

  Amid the chorus of agreement, the Health Officer rose. “I believe I can address that.”

  He took the pulpit and regarded his listeners coolly. As his gaze swept over the crowd, over Eleanor, she had the sensation of tallies made and percentages calculated, a feeling reinforced when he began to speak. Professor Johnson had observed bubonic plague in San Francisco and other epidemics both at home and abroad, but if the reports were true, this Spanish flu was more virulent and more deadly than anything he had experienced. The only way to prevent Waterford from succumbing as Boston and Philadelphia and New York had was to make sure the germ of influenza never entered the town.

  As of four o'clock that afternoon, he declared Waterford under quarantine. No one not currently within the city limits, whether stranger or lifelong resident caught away from home, would be allowed to enter until the danger of contagion had passed. All citizens must wear gauze masks or handkerchiefs over their noses and mouths. All indoor public gathering places, including schools, restaurants, taverns, and churches, were closed until further notice.

  At this the grumbling rose to a roar. “We cannot close down the churches when we need them most,” called out a man to Lucinda's left.

  Near the back of the room, a young man with a jauntily loosened tie stood and shouted, “What of the students? If there's a crisis, our families may need us. You can't expect us to stay in our dormitories instead of going home.”

  Professor Johnson waited for the shouts of affirmation to fade. “The quarantine functions in only one direction,” he said. “You may leave any time you wish, but you may not return.”

  The mayor hurried to the podium, raising his hands for quiet. “These measures are only temporary.”

  “How temporary?” a woman shouted. “My son works for the railroad. Are you saying he can't come home?”

  “That's precisely what I'm saying,” the professor said. He looked to the rest of the Health Committee for support. A muscle in Dr.

  Cullen's jaw tightened. Dr. Granger nodded.

  The mayor withdrew a handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his brow. “Listen. I don't like it any more than you folks, but we have to take drastic measures if we want to stay alive. We've all had news from friends to the east. Do you want your neighbors dropping dead on the streets? Do you want coffins stacked chest-high on our sidewalks? Do you want your loved ones flung into mass graves because there aren't any more coffins? Well, I don't, and since I'm the mayor of this goddamned town until you elect a new one, what these gentlemen have decided stands.”

  He flung his handkerchief on the floor and stormed out.

  The people were shocked into silence for a heartbeat before their voices rose in a cacophony of anger and alarm. Eleanor took a deep breath and felt Lucinda's hand close around hers as her father-in-law urged them to go. Rising, they steadied one another in the rush for the doors, barely keeping their feet. Outside, the crowd quickly dispersed, and among the men and women hurrying home, Eleanor spotted several who had already knotted handkerchiefs over their faces. Only their eyes were visible, wide and frightened above the white cloth.

  The following morning, more than thirty people reported to Dr. Cullen's clinic fearing they might have contracted the Spanish flu before the quarantine was enacted, but after examining them, the doctor declared that not one suffered from anything worse than a bad case of nerves and a head cold. The next day, half their number appeared and were sent home with the same diagnosis. On the third day, only a handful came, and on the fourth, none. Two mask slackers were fined fifty dollars apiece. The newsstand parted with its last out-of-town newspaper. A week passed, and it seemed that thanks to the foresight of the Health Committee, Waterford might be spared.

  The next time Eleanor went into town, the streets seemed unusually quiet, the shops nearly empty, filling her with a sense of unease that the beautifully mild October day could not dispel. She completed her errands and, ignoring the inner voice that urged her to hurry home to baby Claudia, she found herself wandering through town. Before long she realized she had been searching for news, only there were few passersby and little conversation to overhear, and that much muffled by masks. Some people wore gauze masks like her own, given to her by Dr. Granger, others wore bright scarves or fine white handkerchiefs. Eleanor's mask moved as she breathed and made her feel as if she could not fill her lungs completely.

  She wandered down by the riverfront. The wharf was almost deserted, and the few boats tied up at the docks looked as if they had been there a while. She walked to the end of the nearest dock and read the sign nailed to a piling: WARNING! THE TOWN OF WATER FORD IS QUARANTINED. ENTRY FORBIDDEN BY ORDER OF THE MAYOR .

  She walked on, leaving the riverfront and the downtown behind until she had reached the only road bearing east out of Waterford. The heaviness in her breasts warned her she had been gone too long; Claudia needed her. Yet she continued until she found the sign posted by the road, identical to the one on the dock but for the additional line printed in smaller letters: FOR PITTSBURGH AND PARTS WEST, TAKE DETOUR FROM GRANGERVILLE 5 MILES BACK .

  A westbound automobile or carriage would have little choice but to turn around and take the detour, for two overturned wagons blocked the road in a spot bordered by deep ditches. A traveler on horseback could circumvent the barrier if he were a skilled rider, and a man on foot would encounter no difficulty at all. The people of Waterford would have to pray that the word quarantine would be interpreted to their advantage, and that all who read the sign would assume that the sickness was worse within the town than without.

  Eleanor stared at the sign, catching her breath, her hand on her heart. On other days she could have hoped for a ride back into town, but no one passed now.

  The signs were working.

  By mid-October, churches resumed Sunday services in defiance of the law. Masks disappeared. Merchants and their customers wondered when th
e quarantine would be lifted; how would they know when the danger had passed if they did not? Someone should venture out to Grangerville and investigate. Everyone thought so, but no one wanted to be the envoy in case he would not be allowed to return home.

  Eleanor hungered for news, news of the sickness, of the war, of Fred. The Bergstroms resumed their normal activities out of necessity, but they rarely left the farm and had few callers. Sometimes their nearest neighbors would come to see if the Bergstroms had any news, bringing little of their own to report, and twice Gloria Schaeffer had shown up in tears to beg Elizabeth to allow the quilting guild to meet at Elm Creek Manor. The Health Committee had banned gathering in public places, not private homes; the Bergstroms had room enough to comfortably accommodate the whole guild and they were unlikely to attract attention here on the outskirts of town. Gloria argued that they needed to work on the charity quilt, but Eleanor suspected Gloria was simply desperate for something to distract her thoughts. She was frantic with worry for her husband, who had been delivering the town's mail to Grangerville when the quarantine signs went up.

  The Bergstroms needed no such distractions, for the farm and Bergstrom Thoroughbreds kept them so busy they rarely had time to think of anything but the tasks before them. Sales had dropped off with the start of the war, but with his oldest sons gone, David needed the help of everyone else in the family just to take care of the horses. Eleanor spent most of her days rushing from the nursery to the stable and back, so that at night when she finally crawled into bed, she was too exhausted to lie awake worrying. She ached for Fred every moment she was awake, so sleep was a blessing.

  She and Clara were weeding the garden while Elizabeth played with Claudia on a blanket nearby when she heard a horse coming up the road. She sat back on her heels and shaded her eyes with her hand.