“Un-huh. Do you want a biscuit? I’ve got five of them under the towel. I’m German; we like to eat a lot.” She then reached under and pulled one out and handed it to Beatrice. “Here, eat this. I’ve got some jam, too.”
After they had eaten all the biscuits, and petted the little duck some more, Elner said, “I can do a somersault. Do you want to see it?”
“Yes.”
She did. And when her dress went up over her head and Beatrice saw her long white bloomers, it made her laugh.
Later, when Miss Beemer rang the school bell, they went back in together, and Beatrice wasn’t scared anymore. They didn’t know it yet, but from that day on, they would be friends forever.
—
THINGS WENT ON PRETTY MUCH as usual, but then, in the spring of 1916, the men in Elmwood Springs began to feel very uneasy, and they weren’t sure why. It seemed their wives had begun to look at them in a strange way. They also noticed a lot of whispering going on among the ladies.
Soon women began to attend secret meetings held in the middle of the day in the back room of the pharmacy, and after they all arrived for the meeting, they would lock the door. Hattie Smith, the pharmacist’s wife, stood guard outside. When her husband, Robert, politely inquired what they were doing in there, Hattie would only reply, “That’s for me to know.”
The men didn’t know it, yet, but inside the room was a meeting of the brand-new Elmwood Springs Suffragette Club.
Birdie Swensen, a subscriber to The Missouri Woman magazine, had passed an article regarding the subject of the vote to all the other ladies for them to read and discuss. There was a struggle going on, and even though Elmwood Springs was just a small town, they wanted to be a part of it.
Birdie had been corresponding with the president of the St. Louis Woman’s Suffrage Association, and she told Birdie that something very important was going to happen in June. She warned them that it could be dangerous, but to a woman, they vowed to stand together shoulder to shoulder when the call to arms came. They might be a small group, but they were determined to take their place in history, no matter what the consequences.
As the days went by, men would come home from work only to find their wives, still locked in their sewing rooms, working away on what, they did not know or care. They just knew there was no supper on the table, and Henry Knott, for one, was not happy about it. He wanted his creamed noodles and schnitzel at six o’clock on the dot.
—
ON JUNE 14, 1916, the Democratic National Convention was to take place at the St. Louis Coliseum, the largest convention hall in the county. St. Louis was in a festive mood, with each building colorfully decorated with bunting of red, white, and blue. The town was packed with delegates from all over the country.
On the first morning of the convention, as all the male delegates poured out of their hotels and began marching down the middle of Locust Street, toward the convention hall, they were in for a big surprise. Both sides of the street were lined with hundreds of women, young and old, each holding a yellow parasol and wearing a long white dress with a bright yellow sash that read VOTES FOR WOMEN. As far as the eye could see, women from all over the country stood together in silent protest in what they called a walkless, talkless demonstration of solidarity.
The sight was very effective. By the time the men reached the St. Louis Coliseum, they had passed by many ladies who, by the look of them, could have been their own wives or mothers. Some delegates had been swayed to reconsider their position on the matter of votes for women. And it had been done without making a sound.
That day, twelve Elmwood Springs women stood proudly on the Golden Lane alongside women from all over the world, holding their homemade yellow parasols and wearing yellow sashes over their long white dresses.
Birdie Swensen, Nancy Knott, and Nancy’s little girl, Elner, were there. And although her eyesight had worsened, and she had to be led, Katrina Nordstrom and her daughter, Ingrid, were there, too. She knew Lordor would have been proud.
Yes, their cause was noble, but the Elmwood Springs ladies were not averse to having a little fun while they were in St. Louis. After the demonstration, they all went to the movies and saw Irene and Vernon Castle in The Whirl of Life and went wild over Irene Castle’s short hairdo. The next morning, six of them went downstairs to the hotel barbershop and had their hair cut in an Irene Castle bob. Nancy Knott went first, then Ingrid, followed by Lily Tildholme’s seventy-two-year-old mother, who said she was just dying to learn to do the turkey trot.
When Nancy Knott came home from St. Louis with her new short bob, her husband, Henry, about fainted. “Momma, where’s your bun?”
“Up in St. Louis, with everybody else’s. Why?”
By the look in her eye, he knew not to push the issue. “Just wondered,” he said.
As Henry opined to the men at the barbershop the next day, “We’re doomed, boys. The women have all gone as wild as heifers in a snowstorm. No telling what they’ll be up to next. Hell, I’m living with four of them. I’m liable to be killed in my bed, just for the gold in my teeth.”
Of course, Henry didn’t have any gold in his teeth. He just liked to embellish a bit.
Katrina Nordstrom, who sadly had completely lost her sight in the last few months of her life, succumbed to a sudden consumption, and in December 1916, was laid to rest beside her husband.
KATRINA OLSEN NORDSTROM
1865–1916
She Arrived a Stranger
and Died Among Friends
When Katrina opened her eyes, she heard her husband’s voice saying, “Katrina? Can you hear me?”
“Lordor? Am I dreaming?”
“No, darling. It’s me.”
—
AFTER THEIR LONG-AWAITED AND happy reunion, Katrina sighed and said, “Oh, Lordor, I can hardly believe it. It’s so wonderful up here….I can see again…and everything is so beautiful, the sky, the clouds, the stars. Even more beautiful than I remembered.”
He said, “So I made the right decision? This is a nice spot?”
“Oh, yes,” she said.
“Good, but I’m so glad you’re here with me now.”
“Me too.”
“I miss the children, but you know what I missed the most, Katrina?” asked Lordor.
“No, what?”
“Listening to you talk. I could listen to you talk forever.”
It was a lovely moment. Just the two of them, so happy and content to be together again. Then, suddenly, someone said, “Hello there, folks!”
A startled Lordor asked, “Who the hell is that?”
A gravelly man’s voice answered, “A deceased man by the name of Evander J. Chapman.”
“Where are you?” asked Lordor.
“Acrost the way…up to your left.”
“My God, how long have you been there?”
“June of 1854. How long’s that?”
“A long time. Why didn’t you say nothing before?”
“Well, mister, you hain’t said nothing, so I hain’t said nothing. Truth to tell, twern’t aware I could…tilt I heared you greet your missus here. How do, ma’am,” he said politely.
“Hello, Mr. Chapman,” said Katrina. “My name is Katrina Nordstrom, and this is my husband, Lordor.”
“How do, Mr. Nordstrom. Pleased, I’m sure.”