The Amish Nanny

by Mindy Starns Clark

  “Except the names have changed along the way,” Alice reminded him.

  “And that is why you’ll have to tell me which is which. Kessler?” he asked, and Alice raised her hand. A little uncertainly, Christy raised hers as well, looking up at her great-grandmother, who nodded in confirmation. “Sommers?” he added, turning to me, and I raised my hand.

  “I’m sorry my grandmother wasn’t strong enough to make the trip herself,” I told him.

  “Ah, but she has sent you in her place. Thank you for coming, and please be sure to pay my regards to her on your return.”

  I nodded, saying I would.

  Herr Lauten looked at our little group from one end to the other and told us, “A few months ago, this moment would not have meant nearly as much to me as it does now. I have spent the last few weeks completely immersed in my search for the agreement, reading every old record and document and letter of Abraham Sommers I could find. I feel almost as if I have come to know the man. Now that I stand here looking at his descendent and the descendants of his friend and neighbor, I am very happy to meet all of you as well.”

  We all thanked him. There was something very likeable about this old man, and at that moment I was deeply glad we had come.

  He handed his cane to Oskar and then took Alice’s hand in one of his and mine in the other. “Just imagine,” he said, his voice resonating with a melodic charm. “Your forefathers, neighbors for all those years, torn apart by persecution, and then separated by the wide, wide ocean. And then, finally, descendants from both lines return.” He squeezed our hands. “And here I am, the man in the middle, eager to honor the legacies of both families.”

  Oskar cleared his throat. “Legacy or not, I am sorry he has brought you all here on this—how do you say it? A fool’s errand?”

  Neither Daniel or George seemed offended by Oskar’s comment, and Alice looked as calm as ever.

  The old man frowned at his son. “Nonsense, Oskar,” he said. “We are going to find that agreement and clear the title. And if we cannot find the agreement, we will try our hardest—with these ladies’ help—to get the title cleared anyway. We must have faith that their presence and statements will be sufficient.”

  “There are six days left, Father—correction, five, now that today is almost over. You would be more likely to sprout a tail than to make this happen now.”

  Herr Lauten seemed undeterred.

  “Well then, ’tis a good thing to have God on our side,” Alice said.

  Herr Lauten barked out a laugh, clapping his hands. “You are right, my dear! He did manage to create the whole world in just six days, after all. If He can do that, then surely He ought to be able to pull this off in no time.”

  TWENTY

  Herr Lauten asked if we’d eaten, and when Daniel told him we had not, he invited us to get settled into our rooms and then meet him in the dining hall for a simple supper of soup and bread.

  “We can strategize over the meal,” he added, sounding energized by the very prospect. I, on the other hand, thought combining dinner with that kind of conversation sounded like a good way to end up with indigestion.

  Oskar led the way to our rooms upstairs, opening the door to Alice and Christy’s first. It had two four-poster beds with a cherrywood dresser. It was furnished simply but everything was clean and tidy. Next was my room. Daniel had carried up my suitcase, and after he set it beside the dresser, the men continued on down the hall so that Oskar could show them to theirs.

  Left alone for the moment, I took in a deep breath and simply let myself soak in the quiet.

  My room held a double bed with a white comforter, the headboard carved with little flowers. Edelweiss, I thought. I left my suitcase where it was and sat down on the bed, running my fingers over the carvings. Abraham Sommers had led a productive life.

  The window was open and a breeze came through the room, ruffling the sheer curtains. I stood. It was completely dark outside now, but I could hear the waterfall. No wonder Herr Lauten didn’t want a hydro plant next door.

  I breathed in deeply. Elsbeth had grown up here. Mammi had owned the place but sadly had never seen it. For a minute I wished that when Giselle had come here from Lancaster County that Mammi had come along as well—and brought Lexie and me with her. The four of us could have lived here in this mansion, my sister and I growing up together with each other, our mother, and our grandmother. I could just picture such an idyllic childhood. Sliding in our socks on the slick wood floors of the great hall. Exploring the waterfall and its caves next door. Playing in the woods with the other children of the village. There were no Amish living here, of course, but we could have gone to church with the Mennonites and gone to school in the village. A beautiful dream.

  I frowned, knowing that a dream was all it was. Even if we had come here with Giselle back then, Mammi could never have afforded to maintain a place of this size. She would have had to sell it, and the four of us would have been forced to share a tiny cottage.

  Most importantly, had I been raised here by my birth mother, I would have been denied the love and care of my adoptive parents. I couldn’t even imagine that. Mamm may have been a bit controlling from time to time, but she was a good mamm and my father was a good daed, and we had had a good life.

  That life had been God’s plan for me, and I was grateful for it. Still, I couldn’t help but wonder what might have been.

  The dining hall was extremely long and narrow, designed so that it almost felt that the room had been built around the table rather than vice versa. As we sat, I glanced at Alice, who was gazing appreciatively at the shining wood surface. I knew what she was thinking, that a table like this would be a real treasure in an Amish home—or at least one with such a large family as hers. A table like this at our house, on the other hand, would have looked ridiculous. More than that, it would have been a sad and constant reminder to my parents that they had never been able to conceive any children of their own to fill the places at that table.

  Our simple supper of soup and bread ended up being a feast: thick potato goulash, crispy loaves of ciabatta bread, and a beautiful platter of fruits and cheeses. In response to our enthusiasm about the delicious food, Oskar said he’d been a chef before he’d gone into restaurant management. Obviously pleased by our reaction to the meal he had prepared, he seemed to warm up to us just a bit.

  I felt bad for poor George, who had decided to skip dinner so he could get some sleep. We were all very tired, but the meal had been worth staying up for.

  Over a delectable dessert of steaming apple strudel topped with vanilla cream, we finally got down to business. Thankfully, there wasn’t a whole lot to cover. We started by going over the schedule for the next day and where we would need to be when. Our first official act as the descendants of Sommers and Kessler was to take place in the morning, when Daniel would be bringing us to meet with Betsy Holt, an attorney who specialized in property law. Depending on her recommendation, later in the day we might also need to attend one or two other meetings relevant to our case.

  According to Daniel, because the written agreement had not yet been found, we were going to proceed for now on the assumption that it never would. By dotting every i, and crossing every t, the hope was that our presence would be enough to sway a decision in our favor anyway.

  In the meantime Herr Lauten would continue searching through the vast collection of old papers and documents that had already been here when he bought Amielbach. Here it had stayed, and I had the feeling he was the kind of man who never threw anything away. I supposed a lifetime of such a practice could actually come in handy to us now if it turned out he’d preserved the very papers we needed.

  For the past three weeks, Herr Lauten said, volunteers from the historical society had been working at Amielbach, poring through every ancient scrap of paper they could find and scanning and sorting and organizing, but all to no avail. They had, however, found a set of business ledgers containing numerous entries by Abraham Sommers over t
he years. At this point, Herr Lauten felt our best hope was going to come from those. One of Sommers’ entries mentioned the agreement he and Kessler had drawn up. Just as in the deed itself, however, there were no specifics about the requirements of that agreement beyond the main one, the first right of refusal.

  “One other avenue I am desperate to pursue,” Herr Lauten told us now, “is the letters.”

  “Letters?” Daniel asked, perking up considerably.

  “Yes. In his ledgers Sommers frequently refers to letters he and Elsbeth wrote to each other once she moved to Indiana. She had emigrated to the U.S. along with several other Mennonite families, including the Kesslers, and we know she was fully aware of the agreement and its details because he listed her as one of the witnesses when it was signed. I am hoping the subject might have come up in some of these letters that went back and forth between father and daughter.”

  “You have them?” Daniel asked.

  “Essentially,” Herr Lauten said slowly. “I have seen them, an entire stack of letters that Elsbeth wrote to her father. The man kept everything, you know.”

  “Imagine that,” Oskar said sarcastically.

  Ignoring his son’s comment, Herr Lauten continued. “I have not seen any letters Abraham wrote to his daughter, though that is not surprising. If anyone had kept those, it would have been Elsbeth herself, in America. There is no reason why they would have ended up back here.”

  Finished with his strudel, Daniel wiped his mouth with his napkin and placed that on the table beside his plate. “Let’s get to it, then,” he said eagerly. “If you have her letters to him, at least we have half a chance. I’ll be happy to translate.”

  Herr Lauten’s shoulders drooped as he said that he’d seen the letters but he didn’t currently have the letters. “In other words, I know they exist and I know who has them. I just haven’t been able to reach her to get them.”

  Looking suddenly at me, he added, “Actually, Ada, you might be able to help here. I understand that Giselle Lantz is your aunt. I gave them to her decades ago, when she first moved here, only knowing at the time she was somehow related to Frannie Lantz. Giselle was so reticent, and I thought sharing the letters with her might give us something to talk about. But doing so only made her distance herself even more from me. She’s the one who has the letters. Do you know where she is right now?”

  I was so startled by his question that for a moment I couldn’t even speak. Putting a napkin to my mouth to buy some time as I recovered from my surprise, I was glad when Oskar jumped in and answered the question instead.

  “She has that exhibit in Frankfurt, Father. Remember? She told you about it.”

  “Yes, I remember, Oskar, but I thought she would be finished and done by now. Does she not want to see her family?”

  His question hurt, yes, but as it was the same question I’d been asking myself for several weeks now, hearing him also say it, out loud, made me feel oddly vindicated.

  Frustration clearly evident on his face, Herr Lauten continued. “I just wish I had thought to ask her about the box before she left for Frankfurt.” He looked up at his son. “Why don’t you try calling her? I have a spare key to the cottage. Just ask her to tell you where the letters are and then you can run down and retrieve them.”

  Oskar shrugged. “I can call her. I’ll send an email too, but you know how she is. She might not respond for days.” Looking over at me, he added, “What kind of person doesn’t answer their messages?”

  Again, hurt yet vindicated.

  “How about the letters Abraham wrote to Elsbeth?” Daniel asked, looking at me. “Have you ever heard anything about that from your family, Ada?”

  I was about to say no when suddenly I sat up straight. “Yes! I have. In fact, I’ve seen one of the letters myself. Lexie gave me a copy. It was from Abraham to Elsbeth, and Lexie has the original.” Thinking that through for a moment, I realized Mammi had given it to Lexie. Though I’d never heard Mammi refer to any letters, nor had I ever seen any others, there was certainly a chance that more than just that one had been saved and ended up in her care. I said as much now, looking from Daniel to Herr Lauten.

  They wanted to contact Mammi immediately, though Alice reminded them that “immediate” in Amish terms wasn’t exactly the swiftest of actions. A message left on the phone in the barn might not be answered for several days, and by then it would be too late.

  We decided the best approach was to call Aunt Marta and enlist her help. She could run to Mammi’s and ask about the letters in person, and if Mammi really did have them, then Aunt Marta could drive into town and ship them to us via overnight delivery. I worried what such a shipment might cost, but Daniel assured me that it would be paid either by Herr Lauten or out of the budget of the historical committee.

  Thus, while Alice and Christy helped Oskar clear the table, Herr Lauten led Daniel and me to his study, where I used his phone to call Aunt Marta. It was just two p.m. at home, and our hope was that if she moved quickly she could get the shipment off today. She sounded pleased to hear from us and didn’t seem to mind our request for help. Fortunately, none of her patients were in labor at the moment, so she would be able to juggle around a few appointments and get right on it. If there were indeed letters at Mammi’s and if Aunt Marta was successful in sending them off in time, she would have Zed notify Herr Lauten via email.

  Once the call was over, we said our goodnights, and I headed upstairs to my room. My body was tired but my brain was spinning, so once I was ready for bed I puttered around a bit first, going through my suitcase and organizing Christy’s schoolwork. We wouldn’t have time to do much more until the trip home.

  Finally, I could feel myself winding down, so I climbed into bed and turned off the light. Pulling the downy comforter up to my chin and snuggling into the soft mattress, I felt as though I could sleep for a month. As I drifted off, I could hear the rush of the waterfall through the open window. It sounded like music, soothing my soul.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Our visit with the lawyer the next morning lasted almost two hours. We spent most of that time going through papers, both the ones that Ms. Holt had already acquired and those that Alice and Mammi had rounded up from back home. The lawyer seemed disappointed, of course, when Daniel told her that the actual agreement hadn’t yet been found—if indeed it still existed at all. But she seemed especially upset to learn that no one in either of our families had ever heard of the agreement or knew anything about it. At least she was relieved that we’d been able to provide ample documentation of our lineage and of Mammi’s inheritance, with numerous birth certificates, wills, deed transfers, and much more.

  She did perk up a bit when Daniel showed her an entry in one of Abraham Sommers’ business journals, dated May 22, 1877.

  “This is the most direct reference to the agreement that we’ve been able to find,” he told her. As she looked it over, he explained to Alice and me what it said. “Abraham documents the price he paid for the land and says that in conjunction with the deed transfer, the two men had also signed an agreement that would preserve the property for the potential return of Kessler or of his descendants.”

  I nodded, glad to know that at least we had that much.

  “You saw this part here?” Ms. Holt asked Daniel, then she glanced over at Alice and me before looking back down at the paper and translating it into English for us. “Once the sale was completed, he says, ‘The notary has filed the deed with the land register and has provided me with the appropriate transfer of ownership papers. I have retained the related agreement myself, preferring not to have its contents available publically, and have put it in a safe place, one that offers more privacy than the land registry office.’” Looking up at us, she added, “I guess that explains why the agreement hasn’t turned up. Sounds like ol’ Abe tucked it away somewhere a little too safe.”

  Alice and I looked at each other. Though I was feeling more defeated by the moment, her expression was still calmly, faithf
ully optimistic. I knew I would do well to follow her example.

  We moved on from there, reviewing the rest of the documents. The ones I found the most interesting were those dated in the late 1870s that related to the small group of Mennonites who had emigrated together from this region of the Emmental to Indiana, including Elsbeth and her husband, Gerard Gingrich, and Ulrich Kessler and his family. The various marriage licenses, naturalization records, land patents, survey plots, and more provided an intriguing picture of how their story might have played out. I only wished there was some way to go back and get more details straight from those who had lived it. Perhaps the letters between Abraham and Elsbeth would end up giving us exactly that—providing we’d be able to find them, of course. At breakfast we’d learned that not only had there been no word yet from Marta as to whether she’d had any success at Mammi’s or not, but Oskar still hadn’t heard back from Giselle, either.

  Once we’d reviewed all of the documents and answered Betsy Holt’s many questions, she sat back in her chair and explained to us what would happen next. She said that the registry handled this type of matter at the district level.

  “That means our hearing will be here in Langnau,” she said. “We’re scheduled for Wednesday morning at ten.”

  My heart sank. That was just two days away! Even if we were somehow able to get all of the letters by then, that wouldn’t give us enough time to go through them, at least not thoroughly. Daniel was obviously thinking the same thing, because he asked if the hearing could be postponed until Thursday.

  Ms. Holt shook her head. “With such a complex case, I feel sure we won’t be handed a ruling the day of the hearing. The more time the judge has to make his decision, the better. If the case is heard on Wednesday, that gives him until Friday to give us a ruling. The land commission’s deadline is at four p.m. Friday afternoon, so it has to happen before then. We’ll make sure the judge is aware of that, and as long as he can decide this case in time, we’re good.”