—
AND SURE ENOUGH, LATER that year, Elner, a big, tall girl at five foot ten, surprised everyone in town by marrying the little skinny hardscrabble farmhand named Will Shimfissle, who stood only five foot five in his stocking feet. But as someone said, “Every sock has its mate, and little Will Shimfissle is Elner’s.”
—
THAT NEXT CHRISTMAS, TO everyone’s delight, when Beatrice came home for the holidays, she agreed to marry Ander Swensen in the spring.
When the time came, Elner was her matron of honor, and as such, Elner had to come to town and was outfitted from head to toe for the big occasion.
The wedding was lovely, marred only by the fact that the groom embarrassed himself by sobbing his way through the vows.
Later, at the reception, wearing her new high heels, Elner hobbled over to Ander and Beatrice and said, “Now that the big shindig is finally over, you two have to promise me to stay together because I can’t go through this torture again. I’ve never felt so trussed up and gussied up in all my born life. My feet are killing me. I can’t wait to get back to the farm and jerk this girdle off. Then I’m going to have Will take it out to the yard and shoot it to death.”
They both laughed. And Beatrice said, “Oh, Elner…what would I do if I didn’t have you to make me laugh?”
“You’d have to go through life being miserable, I guess.”
—
THAT SAME YEAR, SOMETHING so sweet and unexpected happened. A brand-new grammar school was built on the Still Meadows side of town, and on days when the wind was blowing just right, everyone up at Still Meadows could hear Miss Beemer ringing the school bell and the voices of children laughing and playing in the schoolyard. It was such a happy, cheerful sound.
Many summers had passed since the day Katrina joined her husband, and she knew that one of the children she heard playing must be their own grandson, Gene. On one such day, she turned and said, “Oh, Lordor, is this heaven? Surely, it must be.”
Lordor smiled. “Well, if it’s not, it’ll sure do until the real thing comes along.”
By 1930, the Great Depression had hit the country hard. Elmwood Springs, still being somewhat of a rural town, survived it better than most. Because of the Swensen dairy, the children had milk, and they had plenty of corn, wheat, and alfalfa to feed the cows and pigs. They grew their own vegetables, and a lot of people had fruit trees in their yards. Figs and apple trees did very well, and almost everybody kept chickens. They knew they were lucky. They were spared the hunger that a lot of the rest of the country suffered. The dance school still held their recitals, and Lucille Beemer saw that the town’s annual Founder’s Day pageant honoring Lordor Nordstrom continued as well. “Tradition is the hallmark of a civilized society,” she said.
As usual, in Elmwood Springs, there were more weddings and more babies born; thankfully, in that order. In 1930, the Warrens, who ran the hardware store, had a baby boy they named Macky. And in 1931, Beatrice and Ander Swensen moved into a brand-new house in town and planned to start a family as soon as possible.
That same year, Elner’s sister, Ida, married Herbert Jenkins, the banker’s son, and Ida moved from the Knott farm into town. A respectable eleven months later, she gave birth to a baby girl she named Norma.
Ida, who was prone to putting on airs since birth, had informed everyone that she had named her daughter Norma not after the popular movie star Norma Shearer, but after the lead character in the opera Norma. Ever since she married the banker’s son, she had aspired to join the highbrow set she read about in magazines.
To Ida’s everlasting dismay, her sister Elner listened to The Grand Ole Opry radio show out of Nashville. Elner still lived out in the country, which suited her just fine. Unlike Ida, Elner enjoyed herself, no matter where she was.
Thanks to her own good cooking, Elner was now a large, soft young farm woman who wore her hair swept up in a bun, and although she was a grown woman, she still had the sweet, open face of a child. She loved all animals and people. “I like anything that is living,” she said.
When Lucille Beemer died of breast cancer in December of 1932, it was a great loss for the town and the annual musical pageant. Luckily, Dixie Cahill was able to step in and take over the reins of the pageant. She added a lot more dancing, and the following year, the cardboard farm animals held by her students danced as well in the big finale. The founder’s grandson, ten-year-old Gene Nordstrom, wearing Swedish clothes and a large round black hat, was cast as his own grandfather. Everyone said that with his blond hair and blue eyes, he looked very much the part.
Later that year, when the “all-singing, all-dancing” film 42nd Street, starring Ruby Keeler, came to the Elmwood Springs Theater, it seemed the whole town suddenly went tap dance crazy.
That was the year Dixie Cahill first formed the Tappettes, a group of young girls who would dress in their signature blue spangled outfits, march in every parade, perform at any local county fair, attend any special occasion, and welcome any dignitary. So far, no dignitaries to speak of had shown up, yet. But they were hopeful.
It seemed that movies were getting better than ever. Every Thursday night was dish night at the theater, and popcorn was only a nickel. And with her snappy way of talking and her bleached platinum-blond hair, Jean Harlow was the new swoon girl at the movies among the younger set.
—
WHEN TWO OF THE older, more staid ladies in town, Mrs. Bell and her friend Mrs. Hazel Goodnight, attended a matinee featuring Miss Harlow, they had been shocked. When the blond bombshell, originally from Kansas City, sashayed across the screen in her long white satin gown, Mrs. Bell gasped and whispered so loudly that everyone in the theater heard her. “My God, Hazel…the girl’s not wearing underwear!”
Later, while they were sitting at the Rexall drugstore counter having their weekly hot fudge sundae, Mrs. Bell was still in a state of shock. “And she’s a Missouri girl, too. What will people think? I wouldn’t be caught dead going out in public without my girdle and bra, would you? Much less parade around on the screen for the whole world to see. I tell you, Hazel, if our morals slip any lower…I just don’t know what. Whatever happened to modesty? Why, to this day, Mr. Bell has never seen me in the altogether.”
The seventeen-year-old soda jerk who overheard her couldn’t help but wince a little. It was much more than he wanted to know.
April 1933