This story about a group of nuns who undertake the absolutely unthinkable, under the courageous leadership of their remarkable Mother Superior.
Here is a sample from the first Chapter:
Charlotte Rose
Jefferson was born at home on her family's farm near Gallipolis,
Ohio. She never knew her exact birth date, but she believed she was
born in 1938. She had three older brothers and one younger one. Her
father worked on a river barge on the Ohio River and was gone for
long periods of time, leaving her mother to care for the family,
alone, on a farm that was approximately six miles from the nearest
town. Their old truck broke down frequently, and, even more
frequently, they couldn't afford to put gas in it. The children often
had to walk to the store to buy supplies and then lug the groceries
home. More often than not, they did not have the money to pay for
what they needed, in which case they begged the store owner to give
them credit or made such a pitiful scene that one of the other
customers would give them some money. Frequently, one or two of the
kids would create a distraction and the others would simply steal
what they needed.
Charlotte never
remembered her mother leaving the farm for any reason.
None of the
children attended school. Occasionally truant officers nosed around,
but the children hid and their parents denied they had any children,
although they did occasionally admit to having some nieces and
nephews “visiting for a while.” Since all of the children had
been born at home and none of the births had been recorded, the
school had little information to go on in order to enforce the
mandatory school attendance laws. As a consequence, all of the
children were illiterate and almost completely ignorant of the world
outside of the farm.
The boys worked the
tobacco fields while their mother and Charlotte tended the vegetable
garden and took care of the house. The children were not allowed to
play with other kids. Other than their excursions to the grocery
store, they were not allowed to leave the property. Their mother was
a dour woman who rarely said anything to them other than to give
them orders. They had no telephone and no TV. Their parents had a
radio, but it was in the bedroom and the children were not allowed to
listen to it. There were no books in the house. Later, Charlotte
remembered her childhood as a dark and mean existence.
Their sole
potential source of entertainment was a battered and hopelessly
out-of-tune piano that had gathered dust in the parlor since
Charlotte's grandmother died when Charlotte was a baby. Charlotte was
fascinated by the piano and knew that somehow it could give great
pleasure if she could figure out what to do with it. She was not
allowed to touch it, but she spent hours every week contemplating the
wonderful things it might be able to do. For Charlotte, the mysteries
of the piano made it an almost an object of worship, which was the
closest thing she knew to religious faith in a family that had no
religion.
Charlotte's passion
was baking bread and pastries. She learned to cook at a very young
age, and she loved to bake. By the time she was ten or so, she had
taken over full responsibility for providing bread, biscuits, pies
and, occasionally (when they had eggs), cakes for the family. Baking
was the one thing that gave her pleasure as a child. It made her feel
she was contributing something valuable to her family, and that gave
her a sense of purpose. Moreover, the kinesthetic experience of the
touch, feel and smell of baked goods – particularly bread –
nurtured her sensuous nature, perhaps more than her mother would have
permitted had she known about Charlotte's feelings.
Life alone with her
mother and the boys on the farm when their father was away was grim
and hard. Life on the farm when Papa was home was hell on earth.
Charlotte described him as a mean, hateful drunk who terrorized the
household. He was physically abusive to the boys, and emotionally and
verbally abusive to his wife and Charlotte. Charlotte could not
recall her father ever hitting her or her mother, although her mother
occasionally turned up with bruises on her arms. He beat the boys
with whatever was handy whenever he lost his temper, but the worst
beatings were conducted in the barn – with a belt.
The entire family
lived in fear when their father was at home. Fortunately, during
Charlotte's early years, he was rarely home more than a few days at a
time.
At intervals the
oldest two boys left home. One day her oldest brother was gone when
the family got up. They never heard from him again. Two years later,
the next brother disappeared in the same way. Neither of the parents
ever mentioned either of the boys again. Charlotte missed them
terribly. For a while. Until they were reduced to vague sore spots in
her memory.
When Charlotte was
about fifteen, her father was seriously hurt on his job. He spent
several weeks in bed recovering from his injuries, and the children
came to understand (from eavesdropping on conversations between their
parents) that he would not be able to return to his job on the river.
Early one morning
Charlotte's remaining older brother cornered her in the barn. He said
he thought it was time to discuss what the kids should do now that
their father would be staying home for good. He told her that, as bad
as he had been before, he reckoned that things would get much worse
if Pa was going to be home all the time – and in pain, to boot.
Charlotte's older brother was about seventeen; Charlotte was a year
or two younger; the baby was seven. Charlotte and her brother decided
to run away and take their little brother with them, to keep him out
of harm's way.
The children had
never been further from home than the grocery. They were totally
illiterate. They didn't even know the name of their home town. They
had been taught to fear and mistrust outsiders. Still, they felt they
had to risk venturing out in the world to avoid the abuse at home,
and – most importantly – to keep their little brother safe.
That night each of
the older children packed a change of underwear and socks in a sack.
Charlotte packed some clothes for little Jerry and stripped the
blankets from both their beds. Then she stole some bread and a jar of
jelly from the pantry. Before dawn, they roused Jerry, and the three
of them sneaked off into the woods. They got far enough away from the
house to feel safe until dawn, but not so far as to get too close to
the river and risk falling in. There, they huddled against a tree
until the sun came up.
The children stayed
in the woods for fear their parents would come after them. (That
didn't happen.) They walked a whole day in the woods, venturing near
the highway only a couple of times in order to get water and allow
Charlotte to use the bathroom at gas stations. The next morning they
were out of food and it threatened to rain. They were near a town, so
remote hiding places were becoming harder to find.
They came across a
house with a detached garage, so they sneaked into the garage and hid
just before the storm broke. To their delight they discovered the
owners of the house had a spare refrigerator in the garage as well as
a storage pantry filled with dry goods and canned food. The
refrigerator contained such magnificent treats as soft drinks (the
kids had heard their father talk about “pop” but they had never
tasted it) and grapefruit. They loaded up on soda, grapefruit and
canned peaches. Then, after the sugar high wore off, they all
collapsed into an exhausted sleep, curled up in a heap like puppies,
in the far corner of the garage.
That is how the
woman who owned the home found them late in the afternoon, after the
storm passed and she went to the garage to check for leaks.
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