The Year We Were Famous (15 page)

Letters received October 13, 1896, in Omaha, Nebraska

From: A. J. Waterson, 95 William Street,
New York City, New York

To: Helga Estby

Your request for a two-week extension of time is granted, but do not use your daughter's sprained ankle as an excuse to steal
rides on the train. My spies are watching you to make sure you walk all the way.

Salt Lake City
September 25, 1896

Dear Miss Estby,

With your wager at stake, no wonder you were frustrated by your mother's detour to Cripple Creek. I have heard rumors of another gold find in the Yukon Territory, so perhaps your mother's next plan for making the family's fortune will be to send you to the Klondike!

As I predicted, I have no news to rival yours. I trust my best wishes for your ankle's complete recovery will be sufficient excuse for writing.

Truly yours,
Charles Doré

P.S. A friend of mine, Miss Ernestine Fleming, has asked me to ask you if you would visit the class of high school freshmen she teaches when you pass through Salt Lake City on your way back home. I would consider it a boon if you would, for it would boost me greatly in her esteem. C.D.

I nearly crumpled this letter and heaved it as far as it would sail, but I perversely read the postscript again. Miss Ernestine Fleming. Oh,
ish da
! I jammed the letter into my pocket. But why should I care if he was courting Miss Ernestine? I'd only met him twice and exchanged a few letters ... but the way he looked at me ... I thought for sure he was a kindred spirit.

I took the letter out of my pocket and read it yet again. He showed great tact in mentioning Miss Ernestine in an offhand way that let me know his heart was elsewhere without presuming that I had been thinking of him as more than a friend.

I wished I could think of a diplomatic way to tell Erick I thought of him as a friend, not a husband. I had already torn up three letters I had drafted in my journal. To be honest, though, it wasn't just wanting to be tactful that made me tear up those letters. I was also afraid to burn my bridges. Erick might be the only young man in the world who wanted a shy, gawky, gap-toothed girl for a wife. Did I want to spend the rest of my life alone?

At the sound of my sighs and paper rustling, Ma looked up from rereading her letters. Her eyebrows were raised, inviting me to share, but it was my life, and a decision I had to make for myself.

Miss Ernestine. Maybe lightning would strike her down as she hung the laundry, or her weak heart would fail at the shock of finding a pit in her plum pudding.

A
T THE
office of the
Des Moines Register,
Ma launched into her standard talk as soon as she found a reporter to listen.

Then the reporter turned to me. I cringed as I waited for his question.

"Who do you think the young women of Washington State would vote for next month if they could?" he said.

It was the first time a man had asked me, Clara, what I thought about the presidential election. I shrugged. "I don't know what all the young women in the state think."

"Then what do you think?"

I looked at my hands, folded schoolgirl fashion on my lap. Right or wrong, I blamed our current Democratic president, Calvin Coolidge, for the depression. William Jennings Bryan was another Democrat, so wouldn't the country be better off trying McKinley's ideas instead? But after meeting Mrs. Bryan, I wasn't so sure. Maybe I would vote for Bryan if I had the chance.

Just as I raised my head to speak, Ma jumped in with her opinion. "I would vote for William Jennings Bryan. Even the experts disagree about whether Bryan's free silver or McKinley's tariffs would pull us out of the depression. But Bryan is on the right side of the most important issue."

She pointed her finger at the reporter like a gun. "The most important issue in this election is simple: Does the female half of the population have the right to vote? Ex-slaves can vote, as long as they're male. Someone who can hardly read can vote, as long as he's male. It seems like criminals, idiots, and women are the only ones who can't vote." She put one hand on her hip, daring him to disagree with her.

He let off a belly laugh. "No fisticuffs, ma'am. You're among friends and preaching to the choir. The Iowa Equal Suffrage Association is meeting today to get ready for a demonstration on Election Day. You really should go."

"How far is it?" I probably sounded like a peckish child, but I didn't care. My ankle had started throbbing again, and the thought of having to make small talk with a roomful of women I didn't know gave me a stomachache. Before I could express dissent, the reporter whisked us off in a borrowed buggy to a meeting of the Suffrage Association.

Ma strode up the broad stone steps of a grand house and straight to the front door. I limped two steps behind. I wouldn't want to be here even if my shirtwaist were clean and pressed and I'd had a bath this week. Ma leaned over and flicked a few weeds and briars off my skirt and tucked straggles of hair behind my ears. "
Ja, da.
We'll pass."

As the door opened, we heard a babble of a lively discussion. The front hall was overdecorated with both lace under-curtains and velvet drapes. Oriental rugs covered almost every square inch of marble floor. The hall table was heaped with calling cards. Ma looked happy to have one of her own to hand to the maid. "The reporter in town told us about the meeting today," Ma said.

The maid opened a set of double doors and preceded us into the dining room. The babble of voices stopped as twenty-seven faces looked between the maid and our sorry selves. Despite being the daughter of Mica Creek's most notorious (well, only) suffragist, this was my first suffrage meeting.

The maid gave our card to the woman at the head of the table, who looked like someone's favorite schoolteacher, with round spectacles, curly graying hair, and tiny, plump hands. She read Ma's card aloud: "'Mrs. H. Estby and daughter, Pedestrians, Spokane to New York.' We've been reading about you!" she said. "I didn't remember your names, but I do remember the reporter's doubt that two women alone could set out across the country and reach New York alive." She grinned. "I'm happy to see you're proving them wrong."

"Ladies," she said, turning back to the table. "We are privileged to have with us two women who are risking their lives not only to save their farm, but in the cause of women's suffrage. These two women set off on a bold plan to walk clear across the country to New York with only what they carry in their satchels, without so much as a quilt or a frying pan." She went on for another five minutes, outdoing Ma in her talent for filling the air with words.

Each time she paused in her monologue praising our courage and the importance of our demonstration of woman's endurance and self-reliance, Ma opened her mouth to speak, but Mrs. Blackstone—for that was her name, as I learned—took a quick breath and beat her to the next word. Finally she wound down. "Mrs. Estby should be an inspiration to us all, as I'm sure she is to her daughter. We'll look forward to hearing from them after our business meeting, which I hope you will help me keep as brief as possible."

The room burst into applause, probably for the relief at hearing it would be a brief business meeting. Ma took the applause as approbation for her venture and nodded toward each cluster of ladies as graciously as a queen acknowledging her subjects. Ma immediately took a seat near the end of the table. I was left standing like the loser in a game of musical chairs. The committee reports droned on, but I was more interested in food arrayed on the buffet table at the side of the room. Once I'd had my fill of macaroons and tea breads, I scanned the women seated around the table, pencils in hand or holding a cup of tea. The overhead lamp glinted off a few diamonds or gold bands on ring fingers, but several left hands were bare. Not a one of those unmarried looked as if she lived in a gutter. They were proof that a woman had more choices than marriage or poverty.

Suddenly, everyone stood and shuffled to form a circle. Ma took my right hand, and a woman in a perfect pompadour and starched white shirtwaist took my left.

Mrs. Blackstone led off like a pastor with the responsive reading:

If your husband asks you what you're serving for
dinner,
(Mrs. Blackstone)

Tell him you want the vote. (All)

If he says he needs new shirt collars,

Tell him you want the vote. (All)

If he asks you if you think it will rain today,

Tell him you want the vote! (All)

As the circle dissolved in grins and chatter, I struggled to stay close to Ma. But I quickly regretted it, because I was immediately swarmed by the inquisitive women. Ma, of course, was in her glory and described our trek like a dime novel:

"Turned out into a rainstorm!"

"Walking fifty miles in a single day!"

"Traversing the Blue Mountains in a ferocious blizzard!"

"Fighting off an evil assailant!"

Listeners rewarded Ma's storytelling with cries of astonishment, sympathy, and outrage.

"I can't believe any woman would let you be turned away into a rainy night in the middle of nowhere," Mrs. Blackstone said. "At least you have a place to stay tonight—right here with me."

I didn't even have time to finish my sigh of gratitude for a dry bed when the room erupted in helpfulness.

"Where are you planning to spend the night tomorrow?"

"Are you going through Indiana? I have an aunt in Fort Wayne."

"My sister's married to the stationmaster in Pittsburgh."

By the end of the evening I had the names and addresses of twenty-three women between Des Moines and New York City who would take us in or give us work. And those twenty-three women would know more people, who would know more people. Those names would be more precious than our maps and canteens.

To: Miss A. J. Waterson, 95 William Street,
New York City, New York

From: Helga and Clara Estby

Monthly Report # 6: approaching Chicago, Illinois

Miles covered, October 5—November 4: 650

Notes: Have made good time on flat ground.

Ma fretted that we were only as far as Hodgkins, Illinois, on Election Day. She was sure she was missing a magnificent women's rally two days ahead in Chicago. I fretted that we had forty-one days to our revised deadline of December 16, and the rest of Illinois and all of Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey to cross. We had no time for rallies.

She wrote ahead to the Marshall Fields store in Chicago to see if they would hire us to attract customers to their store with a talk about our travels. I still didn't like parading in front of strangers, but we could earn more money in an afternoon by modeling than we could in a week of scrubbing floors or laundry, and we had to get warmer clothes.

McKinley won! If we had already been in New York, we could have seen the election results cast up by a magic lantern against Pulitzer's New York World Building. Every time someone asked us if we had heard the news, Ma winced. At least we could both celebrate passage of the referendum giving Idaho women the vote.

As we walked along the tracks past frozen fields and orchards toward Chicago, we saw more and more itinerant men that the depression had left without work. Some greeted us as one of their own, calling out "Ho!" for fellow hobo as they passed by. I "ho'ed" back, for Ma and I were little better than beggar-tramps ourselves.

We washed in the train station and found our way to the offices of the
Chicago Post.
From there, we went to Marshall Field and Company's new store at State and Washington. Ida would be giddy at the thought of nine floors filled with beautiful goods from all over the world. I was too tired to be excited about acres of silk scarves and silver. I just wanted to earn enough money for a warm coat and hat.

The next day while Ma talked, I scanned the crowd, imagining that somewhere in the crowd Mr. Doré was poised with notebook and pencil. Ma slipped in a few references to women's votes as well as the superior qualities of the bicycle costumes we wore. After she told our sad story of Henry's death and debts that threatened our farm, she sold all but a few of her remaining pictures of ourselves. We made enough money for a hotel room tonight and wool coats, jaunty Tyrolean hats, and gloves.

This morning we collected mail before setting off for Indiana.

Dear Clara,

I hope you are getting adventuring out of your system and will be ready to settle down when you return. This winter I have started to make us a table and bed. Alma says she'd be so happy to
have another woman in the house she'd be willing to give up her room and sleep in the kitchen until we get our own place built. Could anyone ask for a nicer sister?

Oh, Clara, do not forget all those who wait impatiently for your return.

Very truly yours,
Erick Iverson

"Oh, no!" I moaned.

Ma looked up from her letter from Pa.

"Erick is already making our wedding bed, and he's probably alerted the pastor to start announcing the wedding banns three weeks before we are expected home so the wedding can take place before I've even unpacked."

"I thought you were writing him a letter," Ma said.

"I tried, but I tore them up. I don't want to hurt his feelings."

"Sometimes the kindest, gentlest way of saying no is 'no,'" Ma said. "Anything less than a firm refusal will let him think he still has hope." Ma's face fell into a sad and wistful expression.