I tried to stop him. “Walter! No, please! I’m okay, he did not harm me!”
“He’s gonna pay for this!”
He left in a rage, confronted the man, shot and killed him. Then he was gunned down by the man’s brother. Walter died that night.
Time would not allow me to forget Walter. Not a day went by without Walter in my thoughts. The pain and sorrow were deep, like a knife in my heart. That pain of complete loss had devastated me once again, my parents taken from me at such an early age in a horrific way, and now the only man I loved. Once again, I withdrew into a world of solitude.
I was running out of money fast. Walter was no longer there to support me. I had to find work.
I found a job at the Wrampelmeier’s furniture store. I was hired almost immediately at the showroom on Fourth Street. It was a privilege to work there selling such fine quality furniture. Mrs. Wrampelmeier was in charge. She ran a well-oiled machine and she was treated like a queen. I enjoyed my job. It was fun working with Mrs. Wrampelmeier, she was always pleasant and full of stimulating conversation. It was a family owned business and I was treated like family, too. They always invited me for Sunday dinner and special holiday meals. They were good people.
The Summer of 1877
One day as I went on my afternoon stroll, I walked by the orphanage. I stopped and stared at it. My eyes scanned the imposing brick building. It looked like a fortress with all my memories etched there within its walls. Tears streamed down my cheeks.
“Are you okay, Miss?” An old gentleman said.
“Yes, yes, I’m fine, thank you, kind sir.”
I visited Katherine. She married and had children. She lived in a nice two-story house on Chestnut Street. I felt much better after my visit.
We continued to keep in touch and got together with Pelina often.
I still lived at the hotel. The rents there had fallen as it had become somewhat run down over time. I lived alone, and I did not marry.
October 1883
Pelina became very ill in the autumn of 1883. I took care of her two girls when she was in the hospital. They were quite a handful, running, yelling, bouncing on the beds. I was afraid that they would get me kicked out of the hotel. We spent many hours at the park running off all that excess energy. The girls stayed with me until the spring. I must say that I did enjoy their company, and I always looked forward to their visits whenever Pelina came to town.
I did not want to stay at the hotel any longer. In the fall I moved into a small white wood frame house on 7th Street. I liked that house very much and it was a short walk to my job at the furniture store.
My uncle died in 1885. He willed the farm to me. Not long after he died it fell apart. I was not able to maintain it because of my job. I was working every day at the furniture showroom.
Pelina fell ill again in the spring of 1889. I took care of her two lovely daughters during this time. Pelina went into the hospital and thereafter she took a turn for the worse. This was distressing to watch my best friend in such condition. She passed away the first week of May. I promised that I would take her daughters as there was not a stable home for them with their father, and he agreed with these arrangements.
Pelina’s two daughters, Sara and Kate, became my legal stepdaughters. Sara was seventeen and Kate was fifteen. I loved them both dearly like my own girls. They both married and moved away in their 20th year.
In 1895, the furniture factory closed permanently. Mrs. Wrampelmeier became seriously ill and they moved to San Diego to be with family. She died the following year. I missed them very much, and the closure of the furniture factory was a great loss for Louisville.
Kate’s marriage did not last long. She left her abusive husband and moved back in with me in 1897. We both lived together in the small white wood frame house on 7th Street. She worked as a waitress.
Kate had two children, Grace, born in 1895, and Clara, born in 1896. They were adorable! They always called me their “Granny”.
In 1901 I visited the farm for the first time in many years. The house was gone except for the chimney and one wall. The land was overgrown with weeds.
I decided to invest my time and money into fixing up the farm house. I had the house rebuilt, keeping the old chimney and fireplace. It took the workers about five months to construct a new two story wooden frame farm house on the old foundation. I used it as a summer house for several years.
I moved back to the farm to live there permanently in 1910. I bought several horses. Kate continued to live in Louisville, but she and her children visited the farm almost every weekend. Clara especially loved the horses and goats.
June 17, 1917
I came to visit Clara today at her new house on Story Avenue. Kate was there also, Clara’s husband and their two children.
After lunch I decided to go for a walk to visit all the places that I remembered from my youth.
I saw the hotel where I had lived for many years. It was abandoned, and it had been wrecked by vandalism. The front lobby was dirty and covered in cob webs. I was the only one there. I walked up the stairs to the second-floor parlor. There was broken glass everywhere and debris strewn about the floor.
The hotel was in shambles. Something attracted my attention to a pile of trash on the floor. Could it be? No, was this possible? I picked up a book with a tattered tan leather cover. I opened it. There on the inside cover, about half way down, I saw my name written in cursive handwriting.
Ginny
It was my long-lost journal. I wiped off the cover and skimmed through some of the pages.
On the walls, I saw the old tattered portraits. But the portraits were not as they once were. They were faded and peeling. I saw Union soldiers in dark blue uniforms in each one. Sarge, Flynt, Gus and Josh. They had blindfolds over their eyes, as though they were about to face the firing squad. I sensed the shame and guilt in every face. They paid for their crime. Yes, they paid.
It was getting late. The storm had passed but I still had no lights. I closed Ginny’s journal. I thought of the old farm house on Mint Spring. My Grandmother (Clara) had sold it many years ago and it was no longer in our family.
I thought about the old trunks my mother and I had found in my Grandmother’s house on Story Avenue. Those trunks were in an upstairs closet in my house now. That edition of the Cincinnati Enquirer from July 16, 1867 was still in one of the trunks. The gun was also still there, and Ginny’s wedding dress which she never wore.
I looked at my watch. It was half past twelve. I walked slowly down the hall with Muffin at my side, carrying the hurricane lantern. As I opened my bedroom door I felt a cold draft of air on my face. Muffin growled. I shivered.
I would throw an extra blanket on the bed to keep warm on this chilly Kentucky night.
Kentucky Sky Page 10
