Ashes to Ashes – Dust to Dust Part 1

A fire, a funeral, an’ a place to call home

Listen to the audio narration on YouTube at: https://youtu.be/okgcmmjVSTY

It wasn’t long after my first real heart break in 1971 that Mama brought these family skeletons out of the closet.

I’s barely 14 an’ my world had come to an end a few months earlier when I’s forced to break up with the first boy I ever loved. I’d been tryin’ to right myself, without much success. Most nights, still cryin’ myself to sleep. It felt like I’d lost ever’thing that was important to me.

I suppose Mama wanted me to know that others had gone through their own pain, that I wasn’t alone. So, when she told me the truth of what Maggie an’ her boys had gone through, it held me in a grip I couldn’t release. People I’d never heard of entered my life alongside those I only thought I knew well.

Barely two-dimensional in the beginning, this story gave depth to the lives of people I barely noticed, like my Daddy, an’ Maggie’s boys. The details were all new, but the shared experience of childhood terror an’ unimaginable loss was all too familiar.

I tried to understand the pain a man felt when his only recourse was to hold a child’s head under ice cold water, an’ then go on to blame a baby for ever’thing else. I wanted to feel compassion an’ I suppose I did, at first anyway. But then, mostly all I did was feel mad at him for bein’ so mean. I said as much, too.

Mama said that when they’s gettin’ to know each other, an’ even into the first few years of their life together, Daddy was attentive, lovin’ an’ kind. He’d pick flowers on the way in from the field an’ bring ‘em to her. They’d sit on the front porch after supper when the weather was good, talkin’ while the moon came up. An’ they loved to square dance.

Two broken families came together to create somethin’ strong, somethin’ that would be whole again. They were the picture of a charmed life, for a little while.

In 1958, when we moved to Florida, Mama got to wipe the slate clean of anything that didn’t fit the picture she an’ Daddy had created. Come hell or high water, she would make our new life what she wanted it to be. Mama tried so hard. But no matter what she did, hell an’ high water would show up to burn it down or wash it away.

He’d never say it out loud, but this man who would be my Daddy had a tender heart to defend. It started long ago, an’ ever’ year that passed confirmed his choice to protect himself at all costs. He had tried to protect Maggie an’ the boys. But he failed.

It wasn’t the first time.

Those failures haunted him forever. He carried ‘em around like stones in his pocket, draggin’ him down. But the heaviest weight of all was sittin’ right there at the supper table, starin’ up at him with Maggie’s eyes; wide, questionin’, full of things that boy couldn’t know an’ Walter couldn’t answer. That smile… Lord, that smile didn’t belong to him neither. An’ that hair! A shock of strawberry blonde that had no business in this family. But it was the eyes that broke him, time an’ again.

Ever’ time he looked at that boy, he saw her; the girl he couldn’t hold on to, the woman he’d lost long before she was gone. Evelyn was a constant reminder of what could never be fixed, what might’ve been, what used to be, an’ ever’thing Daddy had lost. So he buried it. Work, demanding hard work, that would be his only salvation. He would never open the door to that hidden part of his life. Not ever.

But for Mama, after two decades of silence, there’d come a crash that would hit her hard enough to finally raise her white flag of surrender.

When Evelyn got sick in 1976, Mama opened that closet again, sharin’ with me more secrets she’d been hidin’ in her heart. By the time my kids came along, I thought I knew ever’thing.

But the biggest secret of all, that wouldn’t be revealed until I’s a grandmother.

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Clarinda State Hospital stood like a ghost on the edge of the horizon, its stone walls carryin’ the weight of countless sorrows. The first time Walter saw it, he was a boy, barely seventeen, standin’ in the shadow of his father’s breakdown. The Depression had taken nearly ever’thing from George Phillips, his hardware store, the family farm, an’ maybe worst of all, his pride. The drive up to that place, with his father silent in the seat beside him, burned itself into the boy’s soul.

Twenty years later, in the spring of 1953, Walter found himself drivin’ that same road, but this time it wasn’t his father in the car. It was Maggie, his wife, sittin’ in the backseat, blank eyes starin’ out the window. Maggie had learned to stay calm when Darline was near, her anger toward her husband made silent by Mama’s presence. Sittin’ beside Walter, with her hands folded in her lap, Darline was no stranger to heartbreak an’ drama. Like many women of her time who had to learn to face the worst, she could handle it with no problem. I sometimes wonder if part of her heart was still sittin’ on a porch swing back in Grinnell, where dreams of what coulda been still whispered in her ear.

As Clarinda drew closer, Walt’s chest tightened, his breaths comin’ shorter. Memories flooded his mind: he was a kid again, bent under the weight of his family’s survival. Watchin’ his father, strapped to a gurney an’ wheeled through the hospital doors, like he was bein’ eaten alive. His newly minted practice of buryin’ his emotions was the only way he stayed on his feet. But it cut both ways, endurin’ today’s crisis, while buildin’ walls between him an’ the people who needed him most. He’d survive, but it cost him nearly ever’thing.

The gothic red-brick complex, with its pointed arches, towers, an’ spires, came into view. It was a labyrinth of despair. Surrounded by lush green lawns, trees that had seen generations come an’ go, cast long shadows over his drive. Lookin’ at Clarinda State Hospital he was young again, a boy starin’ at a world too big to comprehend. This monster had consumed his father decades earlier. Now it was takin’ his wife.

Walt gripped the wheel tighter, his knuckles as white as the quartz rocks buried on the Arkansas farm he'd just bought in Springdale. That would be their escape, where he an' Darline could build a life of their own, far from Iowa's ghosts. This time, though, he wouldn't be leavin' Clarinda empty-handed. This time, four children depended on him: Leland, Evelyn Lee, Bunnie, an' Bonnie. An' beside him was Darline, his anchor, helpin’ him navigate a life torn between the past an' the future.

Clarinda wasn’t just a place. It was a reckonin’. An’ as Walter pulled into the long driveway, he knew he was crossin’ a threshold that no amount of runnin’ could ever erase.

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Born an' raised in the heart of Iowa farm country, Mama and Walter always expected the Midwest to be home. Even after Mama married Barney and settled in Illinois, Grinnell was never far from her heart. Neither of 'em imagined they'd leave that part of the country behind. From the outside lookin' in, farm life in Iowa appeared tranquil, but the ghosts livin' there were more'n they could bear.

Their decision to start fresh together was built on years of heartache an’ disappointment. A path shaped by choices and secrets neither could escape, an’ the fragile hope of what they might find as a family in Arkansas.

After sellin’ the farm, an’ takin’ that last trip to Clarinda, they finally settled into what they hoped would be the rest of their lives.

Springdale sits in the upper northwest corner of the state, ‘bout a hundred miles east of Tulsa, Oklahoma. Arkansas was a chance to start over, but some secrets followed ‘em like footsteps comin’ from behind you on an empty road. Shadows cast by choices made an’ secrets locked away, threatened their promise of a fresh start. They hoped new soil could bury old troubles, but some ties stretched further than state lines.

Daddy had been a farmer in Iowa, an’ he was good at it. But workin’ Arkansas farmland? That’s a whole different animal. Farmin’ is hard work no matter where you live, but in Arkansas, it’s stone-cold hard, packed tight with rocks an’ roots that make ever’ step a struggle.

In the spring, kids were given two weeks off school. You heard of Spring Break? Well, this ain’t that. This time off had nothin’ to do with sunshine an’ ocean waves. It was a fortnight of calloused hands, sore backs, an’ long days under a stretch of sky that seemed to go on forever. This was time to get ready for plantin’.

My brothers an’ sisters followed behind the tractor as Daddy did the spring tillin’, an’ except for Evelyn Lee, who wasn’t yet three, they had one job to do: gather up the rocks that bubbled up to the surface an’ throw ‘em in the wagon. Bonnie, who was six years old at the time, was amazed that no matter how many rocks they hauled away, there’d always be more come tillin’ time. They weren’t just any rocks, either. These were stones as big as your hand, some even bigger. Clear quartz crystal, amethyst, jasper, an’ even petrified wood—it was a treasure trove in Arkansas soil. Workin’ together, their small hands learned the rhythm of labor an’ how good it felt to help Mama an’ Daddy.

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At first, the good life they envisioned appeared to be theirs. They found their way into the local community when they joined Springdale Baptist Church an’ my brothers an’ sisters started school at the one-room schoolhouse less than a mile from their farm. Makin’ a livin’ from the good earth was hard, but it was a labor of love, somethin’ they did together, like most ever’body in Springdale. Besides, this is how Daddy grew up. It’s what he knew best.

Durin’ the summer, families took turns hostin’ pot-luck dinners where the days work was set aside for an evenin’ of good company an’ laughter. Daddy could play a mean fiddle an’ he an’ Mama used to love to square dance. I never heard him play an’ I sure never saw ‘em dance. By the time I came along late in 1957, those days were ‘bout over.

They bought a beautiful old farmhouse, built thirty years before the Civil War. A long, cool breezeway connected the six-bedroom house to a large kitchen, a separate structure all on its own, built to keep the heat of cookin’ an’ the risk of fire away from the main livin’ area. The original wood stove was still in use an’ a hand pump served ice cold water from a spring deep under their property.

Mama said that kitchen could get pretty hot in the summer, but step outside onto that breezeway, an’ she could find her breath again. A big broad porch wrapped itself around three sides of the house openin’ up to a wide set of front steps that held large pots full of marigolds, petunias an’ zinnias. Wild ferns, collected from the woods, hung in baskets from the porch ceilin’ over white wicker chairs that sat near small round tables. It was a beautiful place, but Mama’s restlessness never quite settled there.

Ever’ year, after the tillin’ was done, while Walter stayed behind tendin’ the farm, Mama would load up the kids an’ head north for a few days. Their first stop was Greenfield where Leland and Evelyn Lee would spend time with Maggie’s folks, Peter an’ Anna Jensen. They were kind people, happy to make room for Mama an’ the girls to stay the night. After eight hours on the road, Mama was grateful for a home cooked meal and a comfortable bed.

Ever’one could see that Leland belonged there. Maggie would always be his Mama, but Darline was the only Mama Evelyn had ever known. So when mornin’ came an’ breakfast was over, Leland stayed with his grandparents an’ Darline took Evelyn Lee with her an’ the girls.

The Jensen’s loved their youngest grandson, but they understood the bond he had with Darline. The last thing they wanted to do was cause that child more confusion.

When I’s fourteen, I asked Mama why Peter an’ Anna hadn’t stepped in to help Walter raise the boys after Maggie came home from the hospital.

She just shrugged.

At the time, I thought she just didn’t know. Now I’m not so sure.

That little shrug has stayed with me for over fifty years. It carried more weight than words ever could. I know Mama understood things she wasn't ready, or wasn't willin', to tell me. How much she knew, I may never know.

Maybe Peter an’ Anna knew about Maggie’s affair. Maybe they understood more about what had happened than anyone was willin’ to admit.

Maybe they’d had painful conversations with Walter that I can only imagine.

Maybe grief, shame, love, disappointment, an’ loyalty had become so tangled together that there were no right answers left.

---

Leavin’ Greenfield the next mornin’ with a promise to come back for Leland at the end of the week, Mama headed east to Winterset where they’d visit their cousin Sis an’ her husband, Earl. A few hours later, after a light lunch, they’d start the final leg of their journey that got ‘em to Granny’s house by mid-afternoon.

Our Mama loved these reunions with family, but more often than not, with Barney nearby, those early happy visits would be followed by trouble. Promises twisted, plans upended, an’ Barney stirrin’ the pot. Her heartache in Arkansas wasn’t just about what she’d left behind. It was about what wouldn’t leave her alone.

Even after plantin’ roots in Springdale, that road home to Iowa kept callin’ her name. She went back often to see her mama, to tend to old ties, an’ maybe to stand once more in places where her heart still wandered.

Whenever Mama talked ‘bout her life in Springdale I felt like I’s back there with her. She’d get a faraway look in her eyes an’ ever’ story ended with a deep sigh. I never saw that farmhouse though. The spring before I’s born it burned to the ground.

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Two weeks after spring tillin’ in 1957, Mama woke up with a migraine headache to beat the band. These headaches had become more an’ more common ever since she made an unplanned trip to Grinnell back in February. That trip she was on her own. No kids allowed. Her Mama was sick with the flu an’ this was gonna be all work. An’ except for a surprise visit from Barney that turned into something she would later regret, it was.

Comin’ home ten days later, grateful to have avoided gettin’ sick herself, she realized she was too exhausted to drive all the way home. She stopped in Kansas City, Missouri to get a room. Checkin’ in at the front desk she thought she was halucinatin’ when an old familiar voice called her name. She turned around an’ there was Elton Fawlks standin’ at the far end of the room.

The last time she’d seen Elton was when she gave notice that she was leavin’ her job at Kresge Company in Rock Island. He kissed her that day, beggin’ her not to leave. He said he’d always been in love with her. Please stay. They could build a life together. Elton was her boss an’ the poundin’ of her heart when he declared his love left her shaken. Mama couldn’t say she was surprised that he felt that way. She’d seen the way he looked at her, but she was more’n a bit shocked that he was willin’ to say it out loud. Elton was married, an’ Darline wasn’t a home wrecker.  But in that split moment, if she could have said yes to him, she would have.

He talked her into goin’ to dinner with him that evenin’ an’ then nearly convinced her to throw caution to the wind an’ let him make her an’ those two little girls happy. Bunnie and Bonnie loved Elton like they shoulda loved their own Daddy. He was kind and made 'em feel special when they came to town an' stopped by the soda counter where Mama worked.  His proposal was as temptin’ as anything would ever be. An’ Mama had more’n a few chances like this one. But never with a man like Elton, a man she could love in return.

He had been there for her when she lost her baby just a few months after she started that job. Her tiny baby boy born way too early was no bigger’n a kitten. It was her third pregnancy with Barney, an’ she nearly died. The doctor said she wouldn’t be havin’ anymore babies after this. Not that she wanted more, but a verdict like that was hard to hear.

It was weeks before she could work again. Anyone else would have fired her, but Elton kept the job open for when she could return. He may never know how he helped ease her grief, just a little. That was just one example of the dozens of times he had made life better for her and her girls.

But like always, what Mama wanted never outweighed the wants of those who depended on her. So, she broke his heart an’ her own when she said no. When she left him that night, she thought she’d never see him again.

Now she was standin’ in a Kansas City hotel lobby lookin’ at a man who made her regret her devotion to family.

Elton was tall an’ slender with a kind face. At first glance, you might think you were lookin’ at Jimmy Stewart’s brother. But when he opened his mouth to speak, an’ you heard that low rumble, you knew better.

“As I live and breathe, Darline Barnhart, what are you doin’ in Kansas City?” The deep resonance of his voice vibrated through her an’ settled at the base of her spine.

He walked toward her, arms open wide.

Elton had a thick gray mustache that curved over his mouth an’ around his chin like a hug, givin’ him a look of adventure, like he’d just stepped out of one of her favorite cowboy movies. He’d once made her believe good things were possible. An’ standin’ there in that lobby, part of her wondered if maybe they still were.

“I’m headin’ home from Grinnell,” she heard herself say. “Stopped for the night.”

“Grinnell.” He let the word linger, like he already knew what that meant.

She gave a little nod, not trustin’ her voice.

“Where’s home these days, anyway? Last I saw you…” he stopped talkin’ for a second to take a good long look. Then he said, “Greenfield was gonna be home. Doesn’t look like you’re goin’ that way today.”

“That’s a long story, Elton. Too long for standin’ here in this lobby.” As soon as the words tumbled out of her mouth, she regretted it. Sounded like she was fishin’ for somethin’.

“Well, Darline,” he said her name gently, “I’d be honored if you’d let me buy you dinner. You can tell me all about it.”

She knew she should say no. She should’ve turned him down right then. But the years had been long, and the ache in her heart was louder than reason. Besides, she had a few questions for him too, like why he was here in Kansas City, of all places.

“I’d like that,” she whispered.

When I’s thirteen years old, Mama an’ I took my Granny from Florida where she lived to visit family in Grinnell, an’ we traveled those same roads. That’s when Mama told me this story, long after any regrets had faded away. But she never said what happened after dinner. She didn’t have to. She wanted me to believe that’s where it ended. As a kid, I gave her that wish. But now, recallin’ the softness in her voice, the faraway look in her eyes, an’ the way she paused before changin’ the subject, tells me all I need to know.

I guess some roads are paved with duty, others with desire, and sometimes they meet for one night in a Kansas City hotel.

Listen to the audio narration on YouTube at: https://youtu.be/okgcmmjVSTY