Love's Amazing Miracle

By Richard H. Nelson

Christopher Martin was born in the early twentieth century in a small Rhode Island town. His childhood days were typical of a country boy growing up in the 1920's. Grammar school was eight grades in a one room schoolhouse, and high school was regional, serving the local area.

In his junior year of high school he meets Grace, the new girl in town. They date and eventually fall in love. After high school they are off to college. World War II is in progress, and the United States is drawn into the battle. After graduation Chris is off to flight school to training to become a fighter pilot.

He returns home as a decorated war veteran. He and Grace are married and settle into family life in their home town. As their two children grow to adulthood, life is good for the Martin's and Chris and Grace become more involved in the local community. Then, a tragic event falls on the Martin Family, and leaves Chris retreating into deep despair.

He retreats into himself, having no interest in living, until Lisa; a 47 year old school teacher moves into town. In his 79th year he meets this younger woman and it is truly 'Love at First Sight'. He prays to God and is blessed with an unbelievable miracle. He must now leave Rhode Island and travels west to try and figure out how he is going to cope with this second dramatic change in his life.

A year later, after he heads back east, he meets Lisa in Maryland where she is now living with her son. He buys his dream house, an old farmhouse in need of restoration. What will happen? Will Lisa and Chris get together? Will she know him? Read 'Loves Amazing Miracle' to find the answers.

Faith and trust in the living God can give assurance of things hoped for.
Read Love's Amazing Miracle and believe.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Nov 3, 2008
• ISBN: 9781426981449

Richard H. Nelson

Richard H. Nelson is in his ninetieth year. An Air Force Veteran that served in the China Burma India Theater of operations during WWII. He traveled completely around the world in thirty-four months by air, ship, and troop train while serving in the US Army Air Corp. During this time he and a team of ten men spent one year in remote northwest China constructing and operating a Loran Master station to guide the B29 and B24 aircraft on their missions to east China, Burma and Japan. Upon returning to civilian life he worked for the US Navy for 29 years as a Radar Technician retiring as superintendent of the Avionic division. This is his second book, the first is his autobiography "While I Can Still Remember" 2006.

Book preview

Love’s Amazing Miracle

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Illustrator: Janet Lofgren

Editor: Gary P. Nelson

Cover: Karen L. Murtha—Artist

Designer: Richard H. Nelson

© Copyright 2008 Richard H. Nelson.

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Printed in Victoria, BC, Canada.

isbn: 978-1-4251-6341-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4269-8144-9 (ebk)

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Contents

Love’s Amazing Miracle

Dedication

Acknowledgements

PART ONE

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

PART TWO

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

PART THREE

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Epilogue

Authors Note

Love’s Amazing Miracle

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This is a story written by a person with a vivid imagination and deep spiritual convictions. It is in three parts, each part in a different time period and location. It is a fictitious novel. The names, places, characters, and events are the result of the author’s imagination and spiritual beliefs. Any resemblance to actual places, events, persons living or deceased is purely coincidental.

Dedication

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This book is dedicated

to the glory of God

and to my beloved wife

Frances B. Florek Nelson

May 30, 1919–January 22, 2003

Acknowledgements

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First a sincere thanks to my son Gary P. Nelson for the great job he did in editing the manuscript. It required a great deal of work and patience.

Sincere thanks to Janet Lofgren for the illustrations of the house before and after restoration.

Heartfelt thanks for the final design of the book cover by Karen L. Murtha, artist, art educator.

A sincere thanks to Sarah Kennedy, my support representative at Trafford Publishing Co., for her patient guidance in the final preparation of the package into an excellent designed book.

Finally to all my friends and family for their encouragement. There were times when I wanted to scrap it, but you were always there for me.

PART ONE

Chapter 1

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Christopher Noah Martin was born in the family homestead on Maple Valley Road in the village of Pottsville; so named by early settlers who established a pottery factory there in the late 1700’s. It was an ideal location for this type of business as there was a small river which flowed through an area of reddish clay earth. This quaint small village had two short streets ending at Front Street, which ran parallel to the river. About 10 duplex cottages for workers lined the streets. There were several Victorian homes of varying sizes along Maple Valley Road, which belong to the owner and management staff at the mill. The Carpenter Homestead was located about a half mile out of the village. It was built in 1832 by Noah Carpenter’s father, Hiram Carpenter.

Christopher arrived early in the morning of November 20, 1920. His mother Jenny Carpenter-Martin was a strong woman of New England Yankee stock. She had no problem delivering this seven and a half-pound boy with the assistance of her mother Maggie Carpenter, and Henry, her husband, who did the praying. They named their first born after his maternal grandfather Christopher Noah Carpenter, a Civil War Veteran who had died at the age of seventy five, a year before Christopher’s birth.

Margaret Carpenter, now a widow at seventy-three years of age was the town clerk in Smithfield for forty years. Everyone in Smithfield knew her as Maggie. She and Noah had two sons older then Jennie. Their older, Joshua was killed in the Battle of Ardennes in World War 1. Their younger son, Caleb, decided he wanted to seek his fortune in Alaska and did very well there. He married a Canadian girl, Susan, who had sought adventure in Alaska. They raised a family of six boys and made their home in a small settlement near Juneau. They started a commercial fishing business with their sons and operated a fleet of fishing boats plying the waters of the northern Pacific.

Henry Martin, Christopher’s dad, had also served in World War 1, and returned home safely. He grew up in the town of Smithfield and had been employed as a maintenance machinist in one of the many textile mills in the town. He was an only child and supported his mother after a drunken father abandoned them. His mother died in the flu epidemic while he was in France. Maggie befriended her, as she did many of the less fortunate folks in the village, and arranged her funeral and burial. Upon returning home, Henry went back to work as a machinist and helped out at the Carpenter homestead trimming and spraying fruit trees in spring and harvesting fruit in the fall. He and Jennie soon fell in love and were married in the First Baptist Church on February the 2nd 1920.

The Carpenter family homestead was a Victorian Style home that set back from the road approximately seventy-five feet on about twenty acres of land. It had been a small dairy farm with an orchard of about fifty fruit trees. There was a roadside stand for selling fruits and vegetables in summer and fall that was managed by Jennie and her mother. The large eat-in kitchen, with cupboards and sink, was located at back of the house. The original large soapstone sink and pitcher water pump had been replaced with a white porcelain sink when the kitchen was updated a few months before Chris arrived. The sink was located in front of a double mullion window that looked out onto the orchard of some fifty apple, pear, peach and plum trees.

The parlor was located in the front of the house on the right side of the front entrance hall. A beautiful oak stairway with white spindles led to the second floor. There were white curtains and maroon satin drapes on the three windows to coordinate with the couch and chairs. The sofa was a camel back style and the two wing back chairs were all finished in brocaded satin. There was a fireplace on the inside wall. Hanging above the mantle were grandpa’s rifle and pistol that he brought home from the war. The chimney had a double flu to accommodate the coal and wood black iron stove that shined brightly in the kitchen. There were two marble-top tables. One was in front of the window with hurricane lamp and family pictures. The other table set against the back wall with more photos of happy times of past years. A large painting of Grandpa Carpenter in his Sergeant Civil War Uniform hung between the two windows on the south wall of the room. There were a couple of straight back occasional wooden chairs with upholstered needle point cushions and a foot stool with the town seal in needle point. The floor was wide boards polished oak with a round carpet in the center of the room. A doorway in the back wall led into the kitchen.

A formal dining room was located on the other side of the front entrance hall. The dining room furniture consisted of a cherry dining table and ten matching chairs upholstered with needlepoint done by Maggie and Jenny. It could extend to seat ten people. There was also a matching sideboard, and china cabinet filled with china and crystal. A large fine leaf fern on a matching cherry stand stood in one corner of the room near the doorway leading to the kitchen. A rectangular Oriental rug covered the oak floor, except for a two-foot border around the edge of the room. A large painting of the Lords Supper hung on the north wall in between the two windows. Upstairs a small hallway led to the two large bedrooms on each side of the stairs and to two smaller rooms, one of which became a bathroom in later times.

As is the custom in the Baptist Faith, Christopher was dedicated to God at the First Baptist church when he was two months old. As he grew into his first, second and third years it was apparent that he was a brilliant child, eager to learn and to explore his surroundings. In the 1920’s most country schools did not have a kindergarten. His parents, Jennie and Henry, were not college graduates; but both had graduated from the regional high school. Maggie had gone to secretarial school in Providence before she became the Town Clerk in Smithfield.Chris was reading at the age of four and knew how to add and subtract. He had a love for books, so his parents bought a set of Encyclopedia Britannica when he started first grade. By the end of November he was promoted to the second grade, as he was far advanced of the other children.

The school system in Smithfield at that time consisted of eight grades of grammar school and a regional high school supported by several towns in northern Rhode Island. Some of these grammar schools were one-room schoolhouses. As Christopher advanced through grades three, four, and five he excelled in math, geography, history and science.

While riding his bicycle on Maple Valley Road one summer afternoon, in the distance Chris noticed a tall antenna with rods across the top. It was in the field beyond Mr. Johnson’s house. The antenna aroused his curiosity to the point where he finally knocked on the door and waited for a response. After about a minute, which seemed like ten to Chris; Mr. Johnson, a man of about sixty-five and over six-foot tall, opened the door.

What can I do for you sonny? he asked.

Chris almost lost his voice, but finally got the words out,

Mr. Johnson my name is Chris Martin, and what is that funny looking antenna for in the field.

If you have some time I’ll show you what it’s for.

So Chris followed Mr. Johnson into a back room of the house and there his eyes popped open wide.

Golly wow a radio transmitter!!

Mr. Johnson, a retired electrical engineer, immediately recognized the wisdom in this ten-year-old blue eyed, blond boy.

Would you like to see it in operation? he asked, as he turned on the master power switch and the meter started to read volts and amps and indicator lights lit up. The power transformer made a pronounced sixty cycle hum. Mr. Johnson sat down at his desk and started to send out dots and dashes on his key (cq cq cq W1LDC calling.) Then he started turning the dial on the big box that was calibrated in megacycles. That was his receiver. A coded signal came across in dots and dashes, rather weak, so Mr. Johnson turned another knob on a box that had a compass dial on it which made the signal louder and stronger. Chris, with his eyes and mouth wide open, was filled with awe. Mr. Johnson started to send more dots and dashes and then ended the transmission. He told Chris that the person he just talked to was named Hans, D5GT, in Berlin, Germany.

He turned to Chris and asked him if he would like to learn the Morse code.

Chris looked at his watch and realized he had ten minutes to arrive home before dad and suppertime. There was no excuse accepted for being late in the Martin home. He thanked Mr. Johnson and said he would be back to start to learn the code. Mr. Johnson had now made a new friend in this ten year old.

Sven Johnson had been a resident at this location for about three years. He stayed pretty much to himself and people considered him a snob in the community. He drove a Mercedes sedan and always wore a sport jacket and tie when he shopped at the local market and picked up his mail at the post office. Little did they know that he was a widower for four years, losing his wife to cancer at the age of sixty. He had one son who was an MIT graduate and now climbing the cooperate ladder in California. He had little time for his father now, except when coming to the East Coast on business; when he would drop in and visit for a few hours.

Now; this curious, bright, ten-year-old boy entered his life and started him thinking about how he could possibly be a part of this boy’s up bringing. Chris’s eagerness to learn the code gave Sven the impetus for another project. A battery operated buzzer with a telegraph key for Chris to practice the dots and dashes: the Morse code language. The next morning he was on his way to Providence and Bill Edwards’s electronic store on Broadway to pick up the necessary parts to build the code practice set. They were available as a manufactured item, but Sven wanted to show Chris how to build it himself. Bill a long time friend and fellow ham operator kidded Sven asking if he was forgetting the code and had to practice off the air. Sven told him about Chris and Bill could see the gleam in his eyes as he told of his meeting with this ten-year-old.

At the dinner table that evening Chris’s mom, had to keep telling him to stop talking about his afternoon discovery with his mouth full of food.

You can tell us all about your meeting Mr. Johnson before bedtime. After the dishes are washed and the news was over on the radio.

Chris began to tell of his afternoon spent with Mr. Johnson and the operation of the amateur station W1LDC. He told his mom and dad that Mr. Johnson was going to teach him the Morse code so when he was older he could be an amateur radio operator too.

After Chris went to bed, Jennie asked her husband if he knew of this Mr. Johnson and where he came from. Henry said he was a well-dressed gentleman, drove a high priced German automobile, and he paid for his groceries with a check. He had told the grocery store owner that his wife died a few years ago and that’s why he moved from the city to rural Smithfield. A couple of fellows at the mill had helped him erect the transmitting tower, and they said he was a nice guy and paid them well for their help.

The next morning Chris was up bright and early and ready to go to Mr. Johnson’s home.

Hold up there young man. Where do you think your going this early in the morning? You have chores to do and some summer reading to do for your book reports. Beside, it could be Mr. Johnson is not out of bed yet.

So Chris went about his chores of carrying out the garbage, cutting the lawn in front of their home, which took a couple of hours with the 42 inch lawn tractor. After lunch Jennie gave him permission to go to Mr. Johnson with the instructions to remember his manners and to be home for supper before dad.

Chris peddled his bicycle as fast as he could up the hill on Maple Valley Road and rang the bell on the front door of Mr. Johnson’s home. In a short time Sven answered the door and greeted Chris with a big smile and invited him into another room in the house. Here he had a small workbench, some cabinets for electronic parts, and parts of a transmitter and power supply lying on the floor under the bench. He took the parts from a bag that he had bought at Edwards Electronics Store and spread them out on the bench.

Now Chris he said, You are going to build yourself a battery operated buzzer so you can start practicing the code.

The first step was to mount the buzzer on a small ten by fourteen-inch board, which Sven had sanded, stained and varnished. Chris completed this and then proceeded to mount the shiny brass sending key, with the black plastic knob. The third component to be mounted was a battery holder for two D dry cell batteries. Sven gave him a wire stripper and some varied lengths of colored wire. Next Sven showed him how to use a wire-stripping tool. The terminals on all the components were screw types so there was no soldering involved. Chris had to be shown only one time how to strip the proper length connecting wires and in no time the buzzer was buzzing loud and clear. Mr. Johnson showed Chris how to change the tone of the note and Chris was now ready to start his training.

Mr. Johnson had written down the alphabet and the dot and dash combination to send the letters A through Z and the numbers 1 thru 9 and 0. He then instructed Chris on how the length and spacing time creates a rhythm. Every operator