A Flickering Light Page 38

  She recalled the morning of restoration, which was how she’d come to think of the day her father demanded she speak the truth. She hadn’t realized how weighted she had been by her forbidden actions. Now she felt the weight lift.

  Grace. She’d been given grace, an unwarranted second chance.

  Light reflected on the water, sparkling like diamonds. Above, puffy clouds filtered rays of sun. That photograph she’d taken over Lake Winona of the sunset breaking through the clouds came to mind. She saw the spears of light as signs that she was not alone.

  Here she was, walking to work in a new city. She was making her own way. It would be a lovely path to work each day. But there’d be other trails to take too, in Milwaukee, paths that didn’t have any connection to the life she’d left behind.

  She had to do what was right; she had to do it on her own.

  She stopped to watch two boys lift red and yellow kites into the air, watched them rise ever higher in the increasing warmth. She knew the Author of this plan, the One who deserved gratitude for allowing her to turn prohibited love into this: a new beginning.

  She’d meet with Mrs. Johnson and propose actions she’d thought of on the train. Then she’d decide about her living arrangements. Everything didn’t have to be done in a moment. She was strong enough to go slowly. She would hesitate before she leapt this time, be certain of her source, and so guard her heart. She waved at the boys with their kites. Better yet, she stopped. She took out her Graflex and was about to take a shot of the boys unraveling their kite strings when a mourning butterfly flitted by, then landed just a foot from her, moving its white-trimmed gray wings back and forth on a red rose. She heard a boy shout. She looked around. They played, nothing more. No one needed her attention. She turned back to the butterfly. The lighting was perfect. She felt her heart fill up with joy as she snapped the shutter.

  Timing and Lighting

  This photograph was my first taken in the Johnson Studio. I discovered while developing it what Mr. Bauer so appreciated about a studio portrait. The child became more than what she was, the way a great story can become greater than its writer or a magnificent statue overtake its humble sculptor. Certainly it wasn’t I who made this child look like innocence. It was the light and shadow, the exposure, the setting, everything rolled into one. And the timing, of course. Maybe not perfect timing, but close enough to make me think of this subject as without guile.

  Her mother had cut her hair because the girl had gotten into pitch and smeared it in her long locks, and it proved impossible to remove. They’d tried turpentine, butter—“good butter too,” her mother had said—but nothing worked, and so they’d trimmed it out.

  A natural wave formed. The mother said her daughter’s hair had always been straight as a clothespin and just as stiff. But after they cut it, soft curls capped her head without the use of the iron, a treasure appearing as the result of something otherwise unwanted.

  The lighting, natural from the studio window, brought out the side of her face so one eye is seen clearly and the other is in shadow. The girl had an injury to her right eye, so I posed her with focus on the left side of her face. In developing it, I dodged the area behind her to bring more light where I wanted it. I like the effect, with the viewer’s eye moving to where it should go. There’s a smile on the child’s face, a sweet smile that always makes me wistful when I look at her image.

  The timing was perfect. Even though the portrait had been scheduled weeks before, when the girl’s hair was long, they decided to take the picture anyway after the fracas. They’d been pleasantly surprised by the results and told me so. I was pleased. So was Mrs. Johnson.

  I also made the background in the portrait soft. And I asked the child, Pearl was her name, to look down. I placed a flower in her hand, but you can’t see that. Her narrow little shoulders, bare as the day she was born, hold her steady and true. The pose reminded me of the one Mr. Bauer took of Winnie when she was three. There is blamelessness in the child’s face. Purity. Innocence.

  The poet Lord Byron calls innocence “the unbounded hope, and heavenly ignorance.” I read that at the library. Milwaukee has more than one. I admit, I read dictionaries and little short pieces like poems because my mind otherwise seems to wander over words in long books. I’m more patient with pictures.

  Byron’s unbounded hope makes perfect sense to me, and I see that in the face of this child. Hope. But heavenly ignorance, no. We are closer to heaven when we are born, I believe, and walk away from it throughout life, even while we may confess to be walking toward it and wonder why we keep doing things that separate us from it. Distance. Perhaps that’s what Byron meant: that when we are made new, when we are innocent once again, our trails of wrong turns point us back to what is good. Maybe we become ignorant of heaven’s judgments. Or perhaps, as we begin again, take that second chance, we return to the hope of innocence no longer bound by fears of judgment. We act out of love instead of fear. I made such a turn and, with my family’s help, hope to sustain it.

  All things come in due time, my father says, or they were not meant to be.

  I kept a copy of this print, and Mrs. Johnson placed it in the window, framed in smooth wood. A little piece ran in the Milwaukee Journal about the photograph and my new association with the studio. I sent the article to my family.

  A letter arrived soon after from Mr. Bauer. I was afraid to open it at first, wondering why my family would have shared the article with him!

  But I was strong enough now, and I opened the letter.

  “Congratulations, Miss Gaebele,” he wrote. “Mary Harms sent me the article about your fine portrait. I’m pleased at the success of my student.”

  My portrait was nothing so grand as what he’d done recently. I’d read about his latest work in the photographic journal I subscribed to. He had made an enlargement of Bishop Cotter for the literary society in Winona. It must have been a fabulous portrait. Thirty by fifty inches. Practically life-size. He’d generously offered it to the society. It must have taken him hours in the darkroom. I worried about the poisoning, but perhaps Voe did that work now. And it wasn’t my place to worry.

  The remainder of the letter shared stories I might not have heard from my family. Robert grew well; Winnie enjoyed school. Russell had taken an interest in the camera. And J. R. Watkins had passed away. “Remarried last September and died in December. Life is fleeting.”

  He also said that Mrs. Bauer’s health was much improved following a visit to Rochester. I was grateful he mentioned her and his family because it made the letter platonic, simple words expressed to a colleague. Still, I debated about whether to write him back. He understood my dream to become the photographer I am, but he was also a part of my nearly destroying the joyous possibilities.

  I looked at this fine photograph—and I think this one of Pearl is that—and remembered something Mr. Bauer told me in my training: the source and understanding of light marks a portrait master. I held that thought close, ever grateful for the lesson, hoping always to reflect that learning in my life.

  A Flickering Light is the first book in the series Portrait of a Woman. Look for Shimmering Grasses from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group in the spring of 2010 to learn more about what happens to Jessie and her family. The publisher and author thank you for making room in your heart for these stories.

  AUTHOR’S NOTES

  AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  A Flickering Light was inspired by my grandmother, a photographer’s assistant who traveled and worked as this novel portrays in Winona, Minnesota, and many other places in America’s heartland. Winona is the city my mother was born in. I was named for my grandmother, Jessie, though it was said she didn’t like her name because in the nineteenth century jessy was used as a swear word. So I was given the name Jane as a derivative; we share a middle name. I say this story is inspired by her because this is a work of biographical fiction, or as a writer friend of mine, Linda Crew, calls such novels, “a true story, imagined.”<
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  My aunt Fern Griffin, Jessie’s oldest child, was a lover of stories and genealogy. Fern is the aunt who, when preparing to move, wrote on some boxes: “Books I have only read once.” A true reader and a gifted writer, Fern wrote short stories and captured many of her mother’s memories on paper that she later sent to me. It was her love of genealogy and self-publication of a family story that formed many of the details of this work of fiction. I am deeply indebted to her research and her writing. We often exchanged letters and phone calls about her mother, my grandmother. I wish she had lived to see my version of a family story.

  In the 1980s, when Jessie was in her nineties, three of her children and their spouses interviewed Jessie and made copies of those audiotapes for family members. I treasure them and listened often to hear the cadence and lilt in her voice, which expressed her independent spirit. She had opinions. She also had talents, including photography, an unusual occupation for a woman at that time. Corinne Kronen, her youngest child, also answered tons of questions and let me speculate about what might have been. She shared family information, such as Roy’s fall or Selma’s singing. Corinne and her husband, Ron, also made copies of photographs and documents and written remembrances that added greatly to this novel and to the one to follow. I deeply appreciate her allowing me to speculate and explore. My aunt Helen, wife of Jessie’s son, Stanley, also shared memories, photographs, glass negatives, and documents with me, for which I’m grateful.

  I thank the staff of the Sherman County Library in Moro, Oregon, who located that 1913 copy of The History of Winona County, compiled by Franklyn Curtis-Wedge and others, and acquired it through the University of Minnesota. This reference book proved invaluable; I’m grateful for it and other materials they made available. My sister-in-law Normadine Kirkpatrick introduced me to the treasures of eBay and the items I collected from the St. Louis World’s Fair of 1904, the July 1907 issue of Woman’s Home Companion, and the 1910 Home and Household edition of The Library of Knowledge edited by Francis Neston Thorpe, PhD, LLD (which offered remedies for every kind of ailment, insect management, and home furnishing for the period). My paternal aunt, Idella Rutschow, remembered hearing Selma sing and had a few other stories of the region as well. I’m grateful for her good memory at the age of ninety-two.

  My brother and sister-in-law, Craig and Barb Rutschow of Red Wing, made trips with me to find our roots in the Cream valley, located photographs, and shared stories. Her sister and brother-in-law, Curt and Bev Youngbauer, made it possible for us to visit the original homestead in Cream and gave me a place for Voe’s wedding to occur. At various times throughout the writing, Barb sent me “landscape images” of the season, reminding me of the nearly thirty years I lived in the Midwest, restoring my sense of the countryside and the small treasures that keep Minnesotans warm through long winters and grateful for spring. My family at home, Matt and Melissa, tended the homestead while Jerry and I researched and when I wrote; Kathleen and Joe Larsen and family in Florida sent words of encouragement; friends Blair and Kay, Judy, Gabby, Carol, Sandy, Loris, and Susan, and nieces Arlene and Michelle gave prayers and sustenance as needed. Carol Morrison, friend, psychotherapist, and writer extraordinaire, especially shared insights about passion, fear, and self-sabotage that offered possible motivation for Jessie’s actions. I’m grateful to them all.

  Despite the wonderful help of others, this is my version of my grandmother’s life, and I’m responsible for any errors about it or any other mistakes related to photography, the everyday lives of people in Winona between 1907 and 1910, or other factual data presented. Often two people who attended the same event remember it differently, and so it is with family stories. These are my memories woven into Jessie’s life and history, and I hope it brings alive the actions she took and the difficulties she had to deal with because of those choices.

  I learned of the availability of digitized articles of the Republican-Herald, a Winona newspaper, from writer Dianne Gray. Compiled by Winona State University, the collection provided invaluable information about the rare tornado, Mrs. Bauer’s work with the Ladies Aid Society, Jessie’s sleigh-ride parties with her sisters, F. J. Bauer’s awards, his photograph of President Taft, the double exposure, activities on the North Dakota ranch, and best of all, an article revealing that Jessie did come to own her own studio—but those details come with the rest of the story. The mention of other studios and businesses in Winona, the baptism at Levee Park, as well as the Harms family and the Johnson Studio mentioned near the end of A Flickering Light are authentic parts of the historical record.

  The Winona County Historical Society staff was wonderful! They provided me copies of city directories so I could see where people lived, who lived with them, their occupations, and just how close the library was to the Bauer Studio, among other things. They answered my strange questions about cycle liveries and streetcars, and archivist Marianne Mastenbrook even found an avid reader, Audrey Gorney, to review the manuscript. I am indebted to Audrey, the society, and especially Marianne.

  The Buffalo County Historical Society of Wisconsin and the Buffalo County clerk helped us locate original farms and the Herold Cemetery where my great-grandparents are buried and made our journey to walk there an adventure.

  The images that make up the sequence of photographs referred to as “Subjects,” “The Pose,” “Exposure,” “Setting,” and “Timing and Lighting” are from the family collection. It was always believed that these were photographs (glass negatives) taken by my grandfather, but that was before my discovery that Jessie owned her own studio. On the audio interview tapes, we learned that she did photographic work herself in addition to retouching and coloring, but she did not mention being an owner. Newspaper records report not only the purchase of the studio but also her work within it. In this novel, I’ve ascribed the photographs to Jessie and given them her voice of explanation.

  Among Jessie’s personal artifacts given me when she died was the red glass cup from the St. Louis World’s Fair with the Gaebele name inscribed on it, an elegant green glass vase, many glass photographic plates, ledger books, sheet music, a tied quilt, a list of coloring pigments she used in coloring photographs, and several postcards, including one from D. Henderson urging resolution of a complaint. Through these disparate objects, family stories, and my imagination, I hope I’ve told a true story worthy of her faithful life.

  Jessie did grow up near Cream, Wisconsin, not far from the Mississippi River (and as it happens, not far from where my father grew up and where he met my mother). Jessie’s parents were dairy farmers until, because of her father’s health, they moved into Winona, where he ran a drayage business. Roy, her brother, did struggle with stuttering said to be related to a basement fall. He loved music and plants and as an adult supported himself as a jeweler and entertained us by playing his Hawaiian guitar. Lilly worked for the Stott Glove Company of Winona and later in the drapery section at a department store in Minneapolis. She did have strong feelings about Jessie’s employer. Selma was a milliner for Lottie Fort and with her beautiful voice sang duets at the Winona Immanuel Evangelical Church and, later, on the radio with “Cowboy Jim.”

  Jessie was trained by F. J. Bauer, who hired her and another young girl when Jessie was fifteen. He was married to Jessie Otis, and they had four children together, three of whom survived. Stories of Mrs. Bauer’s fragile health were shared by her family members, and I’m indebted to Molly Bauer Livingston Hanson (one of Robert’s daughters) and Patricia Bauer Butenhoff (Russell’s daughter) for sharing their stories. Other events and stories were provided by my own memories and my brother (Craig Rutschow), my sister (Judy Hurtley, before her death in 1997), cousins Joanne Krejca and Barb Strand, especially. Having written fourteen novels based on other people’s ancestors, I also gained immense appreciation for those in the past who have allowed me to write their stories. Exploring who I am through who my grandmother was brought me personal insights and a degree of sadness I could not have anticipated.

/>   Jessie was an adventurer. My brother took her up on a Ferris wheel at the Minnesota State Fair when she was in her nineties, something she loved to do. I remember her climbing the sand dunes of Florence, Oregon, while on a trip to Oregon. She even took off her whalebone corset to don Levi’s jeans so we could pick blackberries together on our Wisconsin farm when I was in my teens. She did like to go places, and her profession before she married was to manage photographic studios when the principal photographer was waylaid by mercury poisonings or other circumstances. She did this work throughout Wisconsin and Minnesota and later North Dakota, also part of the rest of this story.

  It appears from the record that she made decisions that probably brought her heartache, but she also kept finding ways to redeem herself, to restore her integrity, and make the best of things as she learned the importance of forgiveness and starting again. Even as a widow later in life, her daughters remember her riding the streetcars and later buses to the end of the line and back. Traveling, even a short distance it seemed, allowed her to put her life into perspective and restored her hopeful outlook. Her involvement in the Joyce Memorial Methodist Church in Minneapolis strengthened her faith, and she transferred that love to many of her grandchildren, who have gone on to become pastors, missionaries, writers, musicians in service, and loving parents. In business and as family members, they reflect her abiding faith and commitment to community.