The Awakening of Annie Hill

By Allen R. Remaley

In 1905, in Washington, D.C., a young newly-trained nurse is called to the White House for special duty. With the money earned on that venture, she sets out on a cross-country trip by train for California. Along the way, the young woman encounters events and people whose stories enthrall and excite. These anecdotes are recorded over the years, 1905 and 1908 in the young womans diary. Upon her death in 1946, the diary disappears. The missing diary is discovered by a boy who, for some mysterious reason, cannot forget what he has read and is reluctant to allow the book out of his sight. The boy, now a man, breathes life into the former nurse who, seemingly from her grave, recounts her early years and allows us a look into a fascinating portal of time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jun 18, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477220542

Allen R. Remaley

Allen R. Remaley has written fifteen novels, collections of short stories, letters and professional articles. While most of his novels are categorized as fiction, some are bathed in actual experience. He is a four-year veteran of the United States Marine Corps, a thirty-seven -year teacher at the elementary, secondary and graduate-school levels of education. He holds a doctorate in French and in the Teaching of Foreign Languages. Dr. Remaley no longer skydives, but he does play pickle ball and strums the banjo. He lives with his wife in Saratoga Springs, NY and in Scottsdale, AZ.

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© 2012 by Allen R. Remaley. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 06/13/2012

ISBN: 978-1-4772-2055-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4772-2054-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012910534

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Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Preface

Obituary

The Awakening

Washington, D.C., Summer 1905

The White House

The Wedding

Back Home

Back Home, Part 2

Pittsburgh

Cincinnati

St. Louis

Wichita

Colorado Springs

Overnight in Albuquerque

Phoenix

The City of Angels

Epilogue

About the Author

Dedication

To all those who visit the past, their departed loved ones, friends and relatives who rest in peace waiting . . .

Acknowledgements

To all those who listened to my verbal rehearsals of the life Annie led during parts of the first decade of the 20th century, I offer my thanks. Most of those preliminary accounts were done during happy hours where my listeners would ask why it had taken so long to bring Annie back to life and how was it possible that a young woman from a small town along the Susquehanna River would have been able to do such things. My answers always left some frustration with those who questioned me. For that, I offer apologies.

To Marilyn, my wife of over fifty years, the woman who saw me lug the little hard-back diary everywhere we went and who listened to the same revelations coming from Annie’s writing, I am and always will be indebted.

The editors of my efforts to breathe life into Annie Hill were, for the most part, my happy hour listeners. For their patience, I say, Tchin, tchin.

Preface

All too often, we dismiss the departure of those we knew or loved as being the end, the final step in this trek we call life. We light candles, send flowers, utter silent and verbal prayers and go on our way in our own paths and occupy ourselves with enterprises which help cover our loss and saddened state. We forget.

The following account was taken from a diary written between the years 1905 and 1909. The writer, a young woman who grew up and was educated in a small town along the banks of the Susquehanna River, takes our mind’s eye and leads us through the early years of her career as a nurse in the Nation’s capital and beyond. She escorts us on a journey across the United States by train, and along her path, she encounters fellow Americans who played a role in the first decade of the twentieth century, and she does so from her grave.

Obituary

June 22, 1946, Curwensville, Pennsylvania, Annie Whipple Hill, born in 1875, residing on State Street, Curwensville, died suddenly yesterday, June 21 at her home. Doctors report that Miss Hill, age 71, died of a stroke. She will be buried at Oak Hill Cemetery in Curwensville. There will be no viewing. Friends may contact Mrs. Jama Spencer for further details.

The Awakening

February 12, 2012: Oak Hill Cemetery, Curwensville, Pennsylvania.

Where am I? Why can’t I move? I was preparing a cup of tea. The kettle was boiling when that sharp pain in my shoulder felt like I had been hit with a hammer. I couldn’t breathe. I must have passed out and fallen on the floor. It must have been my heart. The flu . . . ? That’s it. The clamminess and cold sweats afflicting me for the last several days explains it; I became weakened and fell. But, why am I here? I cannot see. There is no sound. Not even my neighbors’ voices, usually so loud, can be heard. Young people returning from the war can stir up things with their parties. When all those young men returned from the war in Europe and in the Pacific, they brought back some nasty habits. I used to hear those big, throaty sounds of the cars those boys bought as soon as they returned home. But, everything is quiet. I feel nothing, neither cold nor warmth. Yet, it is August, and yesterday was stifling hot. I should be feeling the summer’s heat. How could I be here without my friends looking in on me; they come by like clock work every day. Could I have had a stroke? It’s possible that I could be in a coma. My training as a nurse tells me that people in a coma cannot communicate, that they are oblivious of their surroundings. Am I at home or in hospital? Confined, not able to move, feel pain, hear, speak; yet, I am able to think. I must be being specialized by someone. That word, specialized, seems odd now. But, when I started my career as a nurse, that’s what we were called. We were told that the term came from the Civil War, that battlefield artists and even Clara Barton were specialists. So, I must be in someone’s care. If so, there is nothing for me to do but wait. I remember doing similar things when I started out so long ago back in the Nation’s capital. How young I was. Let me think. Washington, D.C., 1905, what a wonderful beginning.

Washington, D.C., Summer 1905

Ah, Washington. That was where I started my career. I arrived there, fresh out of Bethlehem, PA and the School of Nursing, which prepared us specialists, professional nurses. Thanks to Dr. Rixey, one of my teachers, I did well. After graduating from the Patton Building in high school in Curwensville with six others, I didn’t know what to do. The graduates were called the Daisies of 93. I guess we were given that term because flowers were starting to spring up when school was out. Upon graduation, we graduates thought ourselves so privileged. We all signed our names in what we were told was a yearbook, attended parties and then waited for a few years before making our way out into the world.