CLARA'S BEST

 

CLARA’S BEST

Dedication

 Joyously Singing, with Heart Bells all Ringing,

This little Reminiscence is Lovingly Dedicated

To Mither, Da, and Ivy

 

By Shannon Thomas Casebeer

Copyright © 2021 Shannon T. Casebeer

All rights reserved.

 

 

May 7, 2021

INTRODUCTION

The following novel, while historical fiction, is, for the most part, historically accurate, and chronicles the trials and tribulations of my Irish ancestors, as told in the words of my great grandmother, Clara Kinnie Stancil. It encompasses the years from 1850, until the early years of the 1940s. While told with deep sincerity and an eye for humor, it shares, in occasionally painful detail, Clara’s most personal account of her own experiences, and our country’s many successes and frequent failures. As such, it is on occasion, deadly serious. I relate it here as faithfully as I’m able, just as it was told to me by my grandmother, Clara’s daughter, Ivy.

PROLOGUE

Ireland was all stony pastures and craggy bluffs, smelling of sea breeze and heather. So, said Mither. Then came the famine. Volumes galore have been previously penned chronicling the devastating potato famine that scattered the clans of Ireland. I’ll not prolong the misery with my words.

In the summer of 1850, while the earthly remains of her mom and dad were still leaching into the rocky ground of their beloved Emerald Isle, my mither, Mariah, fifteen years of age at the time, along with dozens of other bereft and grieving orphans were loaded onto sailing ships, much like unwanted cargo, and shoved off for the storied shores of America. Most sailed with little more than the tattered garments of their youth, which eventually served for many as their shrouds. Fortunately for Mariah, arrangements had been made.

Mother’s lamentable circumstance would become the responsibility of her aunt. Auntie Meg had already precariously established herself in America. Her humble laundry business was blessed with the regular patronage of numerous well-to-do members of a society who had arrived in America years previously and now considered themselves entitled natives.  They greeted these penniless newcomers and their baffling brogue with what we will charitably call a dubious enthusiasm.

Where, in particular, Mariah came ashore is of little importance to our tale. The east coast cities of the 1850s were, for the most part, all alike. Bustling centers of commerce, crowded with all variety of displaced citizens of foreign shores, each soul desperate to scratch out a meager living, under difficult conditions. If your visions of those long-ago days have come from perusing the romanticized pages of dime novels and penny dreadfuls, think again. If you believe the society of the times was genteel and cultured, think again. If you believe mercy and compassion came naturally to people struggling desperately to survive, or that polite society occurs naturally from chaos, think again. If you believe there is honor among thieves, you’re not acquainted with thieves. Cultured, Christian, hardworking folks of means don’t generally become thieves. The vast majority of ruthless theft and lawlessness is performed by the wealthy elites who consider themselves above the law, or the poor destitute folks who are sufficiently desperate to risk the consequences. The homeless may become thieves. The hungry may become thieves. The downtrodden, outcast, and demoralized may become thieves. People who can’t otherwise feed their families may become thieves. Crime becomes a way of life for those without options. When folks’ families are starving, rules get bent.

This was the society in which Mariah now found herself. Her Auntie Meg was a kind hearted and generous soul, to the extent to which mercy and benevolence were within her meager means. She was amenable to the prospect of providing food and lodging to her dispossessed kith and kin, under the condition that Mither was amenable to working diligently, sunup to sundown, to complete whatever menial task Auntie Meg placed before her. For the most part, Mariah spent the next several months entirely friendless and bent over a wash tub, elbow deep in soggy laundry. Each night found her considering it a blessing, to be clothed, and fed, and sheltered from the cold.

On an unseasonably warm evening in October of 1850, just as crickets began chirping and the night air smacked of dusk, Mariah, who was returning from the market, laid eyes unexpectedly on a familiar face. This was remarkable! Mariah knew practically no one. She stopped in her tracks and stared awestruck at a young man pushing a wheelbarrow through the crowded street. Simultaneously, the young man paused and returned an equally startled gaze. After a moment he hesitantly approached wiping his brow with a tattered sleeve and lowered his jitney to the ground. Noting Mariah’s concern, he smiled sheepishly and announced, with a comforting Irish brogue, “I’m Lidge Kinnie. You may remember me from the ship.” Mariah and Lidge had not previously spoken, but she did remember Lidge from the ship. “Oh yeah!” Answered Mariah, blushing, “I do remember you!” The two visited very briefly about the lamentable circumstances the two had in common, and then Mariah excused herself and continued dutifully on her way.

Some moments later, rounding a corner in the alley which led back to the laundry, several forms lurched from the shadows, two men grabbed Mariah’s arms, and a third man stood facing her, with a terrifying mix of disgust and lust glaring from his bloodshot eyes. Mariah immediately screamed and began squirming and pleading to be released. Noting her brogue, the third man began viciously poking his filthy, boney finger into her ribs, and making crude, racist remarks about her ethnicity.

Just as Mariah’s fate looked ominous, a fourth man approached at a dead run, from the direction from which Mariah had previously come. Grabbing a cant hook from a construction site, he began hollering at the three men who were abusing Mariah, and waving the cant hook threateningly over his head. A terrible scuffle ensued, during which shots were fired and one man pulled a knife and began thrusting it threateningly at Mariah’s mysterious benefactor. Mariah suddenly recognized this fourth man as Lidge. Lidge eventually rendered one attacker unconscious with a blow to the head with the cant hook, and another deft whack injured the arm of another, before two limped off, leaving the third man sprawled bloodied and motionless in the cold, dank alley.

Lidge breathlessly confessed to Mariah that he had been following her for some distance, in the hope of determining where she lived. Had he not, Mariah’s fate would have undoubtedly been unthinkable. Examining the fallen assailant, they were horrified to find that the blow to the head had lacerated the man’s skull. Within a few moments, he breathed his last and lie stone cold dead. Lidge’s blow had killed him.   

Mariah’s immediate reaction was that of appreciation and relief, but Lidge was clearly mortified! He collapsed to the ground, rocking and moaning inconsolably. Mariah brushed the wet hair from his bloodied face and gazed into his panic-stricken eyes. “What is it Lidge.” she enquired?  “That was clearly self-defense. You probably saved my life!”

Lidge’s very soul had been irreparably transformed by this incident. He’d remember its horror all the days of his life. He’d remember the guilt and searing burn of conscience, tinged with a terrible satisfaction and the copper smack of adrenalin that thrilled his heart and swelled his throbbing veins. He’d remember the horrible rush of vengeance, and the anguished invigoration of surrendering entirely to rage and unbridled passion.

“I’ve already been hauled into the precinct twice” Lidge grimaced, “once for vagrancy, and once for pinching biscuits. If I’m taken in for this” he said, “they’ll almost certainly lock me up for good.”

Just then, a lantern light cast its dim glow at the end of the alley. The security guard was working his way toward them, shaking and checking doors as he came. Mariah helped Lidge to his feet and the two staggered for a cargo container, some thirty feet away. They cowered in the shadows and waited, panting and praying silently to themselves. Moments later, the lantern cast its flickering light on the bloody corpse of Mariah’s assailant, and the night air was violently pierced as the guard began blowing his whistle. “This way.” whispered Mariah, and the two sprinted to the far end of the dark alley and into the moonlit stillness of the foggy harbor and its docks of anchored ships.

Just as the two stopped, bent over and gasping for breath, another whistle blew to the left, followed quickly by another fast approaching from the right. Some thirty paces ahead, a streetlight revealed a gangway, which climbed quickly to the quiet deck of a dark and silent vessel. Panicked by the whistles of the approaching officers, and seeing no better alternative, Lidge led Mariah up the gangway and into the inviting doorway of an open supply room, closed the door, and bolted it behind them. Moments later, voices approached their refuge and the muffled conversation continued as several men took up vigil outside their door. After about thirty minutes, unwilling to reveal themselves to those who inadvertently held them hostage, and exhausted by their ordeal, Lidge found a scrap of canvas and prepared a makeshift bed on the cargo strewn floor. There, he and Mariah collapsed, and were slowly soothed by the rolling ship into a fitful sleep.

Several hours later, Lidge groaned and struggled to his feet. Cautiously making his way through the darkness to the doorway, Lidge unbolted the door, peered outside, and then returned aghast for Mariah. The two walked speechlessly to the railing and stared in disbelief! There before them, awash in the blinding sunlight of midday, and ringing with the raucous cries of gulls, lay the vast, uninterrupted ocean, in every direction, as far as the eye could see.

They stood for a moment, wide-eyed and dumbstruck, and then, before either could muster voice, a firm hand came down on both their shoulders. Turning cautiously, they grimaced up into the stern, gray bearded countenance of the ship’s first mate. Without a word, he shook his wooly face in disapproval and led them unceremoniously to the captain’s quarters. The captain’s reception was equally disconcerting. He had absolutely no interest in their tale of woe. “You two have two options”, he grunted, as though he himself had no particular preference and was entirely unmoved by their whining protestations. While it would be an unwarranted expense for the ship, and a dangerous roll of the dice for the stowaways, he was prepared to put them adrift in one of the ships rowboats, to fend for themselves on the merciless Atlantic, or, if willing, they could sign on as galley help and peel potatoes from here to San Francisco. They thought it over briefly, swallowed hard, and chose what appeared to them the lesser of several unimaginable evils. Next stop, Recife, Brazil, with good sailing, one month away.  

 

Episode One

The voyage to Recife would be a bitter sweet blend of excruciating drudgery in the ship’s galley, the captivating alure of life at sea, and crippling indecision over a number of lifechanging choices. Early on, they set their sights on surviving one hour at a time until they reached the port, with the expectation that, once there, circumstances would somehow reveal some currently incomprehensible opportunity for returning home.

Of course, above all else, this leg of the voyage afforded endless opportunity to become intimately acquainted with the inconceivable vastness and everchanging moods of the ocean, the never before fully appreciated depth and detail of the night sky, and the unparalleled intrigue of the workings of a sailing ship. The constant undulation of the rolling sea beneath them, in conjunction with the incessant symphony achieved by the creaking and groaning of the wooden hull and the contrary wind as it tested the riggings and swelled the canvas sails, combined to achieve an alluring environment that has captured the imagination of man since the day when Noah was raised by the floods and tested the patience of God.

Life at sea gradually became routine. Occasionally, on a stifling hot day, without a breath of breeze, all at once there’d be the unmistakable fragrance of flowers, and they’d peel their eyes and scan the horizon for some heavenly tropical shore, but all they’d find was that vast expanse of unrelenting sea.  Sometimes, while enjoying a break from the tedium of the galley, they’d lie on their backs on the sunny decks and point out the shapes they believed they could see in the endless columns of constantly changing clouds. On many nights, when weather permitted, they slept out under the stars. According to Mither, there’s something about sprawling on your back on a cool, clear night, and staring up into myriad twinkling lights, that tends to open your heart and clear your mind. Some nights, they’d lie there in the stillness, with the North Pacific rolling beneath the decks, and the only sound they’d hear was the rhythmic beating of their own heart. It seemed as though they could almost hear the throbbing of their blood as it pulsed within the channels of their veins. It was as though they sensed the waning of their own lives, as the minutes and the seconds of existence ran their course and ticked away. On cloudless nights the stars were bright as campfires in the snow, and thick as sparks when you stir a fire at night. Sometimes the moon had a golden ring, and if the moon were full, the sea glowed with a green translucence as its teaming fathoms rolled beneath their bow. On more than one occasion, while drifting in a calm, they’d float along in the midst of resting whales. They could hear their steady breathing, and once in a while they’d blow, or a whale would roll and a giant leviathan arm would reach into the moonlight just as though it were in prayer, as if to touch the very face of God.   

The ship itself was an endless source of wonder. This ship’s primary purpose, beyond the astounding feat of defiantly staying afloat, was twofold. Most importantly, it was charged with providing profit. To this end, it carried paying passengers and cargo. Among the passengers were merchant’s intent on merchandizing, and argonauts bound for California’s gold.

Gold had been discovered at Sutter’s Mill in Coloma, California, in 1848. From that time forward the possibility of fame and fortune had drawn folks to the West coast of America in numbers of biblical proportions. There was no denying the appeal of the prospect of gold. Folks on board talked of little else. For Lidge and Mariah, their determination to return east was further undermined by the nagging reality of what awaited them. For Mariah, the prospect was one of continued destitution with only her affection for Auntie Meg as enticement. For Lidge, the prospects were far worse. For Lidge, his return would be plagued by the constant foreboding that Mariah’s surviving assailants awaited him, along with the very real possibility of arrest. By the time the shores of the Brazilian seaport shown as a purple haze on the far horizon, Lidge and Mariah were rethinking their plans.

No sooner had the ship dropped anchor off the coast of Recife, than Lidge and Mariah were approached by the first mate. The Captain was satisfied with their efforts thus far, and had indicated his willingness to continue their arrangement, if Lidge and Mariah were willing. The first mate suggested they not dally, as once the longboats had returned from the shore with supplies, they’d hoist anchor and the ship would be underway. If they were going ashore, there was no time to waste. Lidge looked enquiringly at Mariah, and she hesitantly nodded in compliance. Lidge offered his callused hand into the gnarled and ironlike grip of the first mate, and said, “We’ll stay.” The first mate smiled his satisfaction, slapped Lidge on the back, choked on the resulting cloud of dust, and returned to his rounds with a jaunty gait while whistling a seaman’s chanty. Lidge and Mariah briefly inhaled the fresh sea air and sunshine, resolved themselves to their fate below, and dutifully returned to raunchy bowels of the boat. Next stop, Rio De Janeiro.

Episode Two

There was no more unspoiled spot on the planet than Rio De Janeiro in the 1850s. The captain anchored off shore for an entire day, in order to give the cabin weary passengers an opportunity to wet their whistles and get a feel for the natives. We’ll say no more on the subject. Where’s there’s something to ruin, there’s someone to ruin it. Then the Captain called a halt to the carnage, and they set sail for the dreaded Cape Horn.  This leg of the voyage would test their faith. Faith burns most brightly when all other hopes are spent.

Rounding the Horn would prove to be the most heart wrenching, soul searching, white knuckled misadventure of their lives. But the Captain’s experience and the expertise of the crew would prove more than a match for the treacherous storms and cross currents that impeded progress and introduced many gallant ships to the depths and Davy Jones. Eventually they rounded the tip of south America and headed north along Patagonia’s rugged coast. For several days, the chilling winds off the Andes reduced most everyone to shivering for warmth in their quarters. A quick stop at Valparaiso proved uneventful. The equatorial regions blistered the decks and left the ship adrift for days in stifling calms. And at last, the much-anticipated trade winds filled their ample sails and they headed northeast for the California coast. Point Conception was a welcome sight, and after 169 trying days at sea, they sailed at last into San Francisco Bay.

Well, here they were, but where the heck were they? Neither had ever dreamed of anything like this, let alone made plans or preparations. Once they’d said their goodbyes to the first mate and everyone with whom they’d become acquainted while on board, they had absolutely no inkling how to proceed. Once ashore, they sat quietly in stunned silence, marveling at the sea of ships and the squirming masses of miscellaneous humanity, until eventually it occurred to Lidge, he was starving, and they didn’t have a dime! They had absolutely nothing but the wet and raunchy clothing on their backs.

Copyright © 2021 Shannon T. Casebeer

All rights reserved.

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