Ansley

By Philip A. Wigent

Every family must deal with both good and bad, along with the surprises of life. In Ansley, a fictionalized memoir, author Philip Wigent explores these issues among the early generations of his family. Building a narrative based on old letters and documents and oral history, Wigent tells the story of his familys first three generations, sharing fifty years of family lore.

Precipitated by an unwed pregnancy, two sisterseighteen-year-old Emmaline and twenty-year-old Sarah Shipmanleave their comfortable home in Pennsylvania in 1860 and travel to rural Indiana, where they must start a new life. As the story evolves, it shows how one generation merges into the next, forging the future for each subsequent generation. Ross, Emmalines grandson appears. Starting from his origins on the plains of Nebraska, Ansley follows him as he grows from a shy child to a teacher to a soldier on the fringes of World War I.

Providing insight into family dynamics in the early years, Ansley shows the range of psychological and physical problems that plague both individuals and families across the spectrum. It offers a look at how things and people change and how they react to that change from generation to generation.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Abbott Press
• Release date: Apr 22, 2014
• ISBN: 9781458215475

Philip A. Wigent

Philip Wigent is a retired educator with an interest in genealogy. He currently lives in Michigan.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

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Retreat from Pennsylvania

T he house on Fort Street was bustling with activity, but it wasn’t the kind of collective commotion where each person’s activities interacted with the others. It was more like a group of strangers, trapped in the same house, trying to work busily at their own task without coming into contact with one another. The strange part about this scene was that the four people: a mother, father, and two sisters, knew each other intimately. Each person knew what the other was thinking but no one was going to speak their thoughts since that might be the spark to set off further discussion which wasn’t needed or wanted. Silence seemed to be the best medicine to save what little was left of the love this family had once sh ared.

The lines were drawn, the two sisters on one side and the father and mother on the other. In reality there were actually three sides to the conflict with the mother acting as mediator between the other two factions. The girls were leaving but she had to stay behind, and live out the rest of her life with a husband she loved very much yet sometimes didn’t understand. Harriet knew she couldn’t say too much to her husband Sylvanus because she might alienate the only other family member that would soon be left with her in the large two-story house on Fort Street. Once her husband had made up his mind about a matter there was not much anyone could do to change it. She attributed his stubbornness to his strong German heritage.

As the sisters packed their bags the mother was torn between her devotion to her husband and love of her two children who were about to leave forever. Harriet carefully walked this tight line by not arguing anymore with her husband, but at the same time quietly slipping into the girl’s room to help them pack. The youngest daughter Emaline had to leave. Her father had not given her any other option. The older daughter Sarah was going along just to show her love for her sister and to let her father know how much she hated what he had done to Emaline. The train was to leave their small Pennsylvania town’s railroad station in just one hour, they would have to quickly finish packing and load their bags on the buggy which would take them to the station. As the family climbed into the buggy Emaline looked back over her shoulder at the house that had been her home for the past eighteen years. All of her senses told her that this would be the last time in her life she would see this house or her parents. Even though Emaline was strong and looking forward to her new adventure, there was still sadness and a fear related to severing her family ties forever. Still she did have her twenty-year old sister Sarah making the trip with her to Fort Wayne Indiana. What an adventure before them she thought, but what sadness and unfinished business she was leaving behind.

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As they pulled into the railroad station a light mist began to fall. It was the kind of rain that saturated every cubic inch of the nighttime air without giving the appearance that it was actually raining. Their father silently unloaded their bags as the young women went into the office to purchase their tickets. As they came out their mother slipped twenty dollars from her savings into Sarah’s hand. She did not want her husband to know what she had done with what little excess money she had saved. They waited in silence for the train to come around the curve at the East End of town. It was not unusual that it was thirty minutes late, but on this night it was particularly aggravating since four family members waiting together in silence were most uncomfortable. Suddenly the shrill steam whistle cracked the quiet of the scene as the train reached the edge of town. Sarah and Emaline quickly picked up the picnic basket and their smaller bags and headed for the edge of the railway platform. They were eager to get this process of separation over with as soon as possible. It was not that they particularly wanted to leave the security of their parent’s home. It was just that the friction within the family had recently become unbearable for everyone. As the train pulled to a stop the girl’s mother gave each of the girls a long meaningful embrace that said more than any words could have. The two young women shook hands with their father and quickly boarded the train. As the train pulled out of the station they both sank into their train seats like an exhausted prizefighter who had just gone 15 rounds. The emotional stress of the past days had taken a lot of energy from them and they were just glad to be moving away from it even though many things were left unresolved.

The two young women, one eighteen and the other 20, sat in silence for a long time as their train made its way through Pennsylvania toward the state of Indiana. It suddenly dawned on the girls that they had been living within their own thoughts and were unaware of what was really happening around them. They both were getting hungry and realized they had a snack right at their feet in the picnic basket their mother had packed. As they began to look through the possibilities for calming the rumblings of their stomachs, the girls began to relax enough to focus on each other. It’s amazing how food can sooth the frazzled nerves that occur when the mind tries to make too much sense out of the world around you.

For the first time since they boarded the train the girls spoke to each other about thoughts which had been trapped within their private worlds. Did you see the way father looked at us as we boarded the train? It was as if he was glad to get rid of us and to be able to go on with his own life without having to think about what is happening to us, asked Emaline. Jolted out of her own thoughts, Sarah replied to Emaline’s question. I don’t know Em, it seems to me that father was almost as sad to see us go as was mother. Did you look closely at his eyes? I think he was angry but sad at the same time. I know we won’t ever see them again and that has to be just as hard on them as it is on us. Well, I won’t worry about whether I see them again after the way they treated me, replied Emaline. They want me to be perfect and anyway it wasn’t my fault. I don’t see where they are so perfect themselves. I know what I did was a major blunder, but since when is what I did such a sin that you have to be banished forever; and who ever heard of Indiana anyway? Well replied Sarah, you have to realize that what you did reflected not only on you but mother and father and even me. Do you think I’m coming with you out to the wild desolate west just because I’m a nice big sister? Not in the least, I have to get away just because of what you did and how the people back home would look at me. You’re just lucky father didn’t take the buggy whip to you along with telling you that you had to get out. Emaline was surprised by the anger in her sister’s voice since she was usually the quiet one who always seemed unable to express negative thoughts to anyone. It also hurt a little to find out that her big sister wasn’t always going to back her up just because they were sisters and had been close all of their lives. In fact, it seemed that this was the first glimpse of a different kind of relationship between them. Emaline had thought that they would always be inseparable and probably live in the same town and maybe even be next door neighbors. Sadness came over her with a chill when she acknowledged to herself that Sarah would not always be an intimate part of her new life. As the train made its way toward Fort Wayne, Indiana the two sisters withdrew into their own thoughts and drifted off to sleep with the aid of the rhythm of the train moving down the track.

As the girls were awakened by the noise on the train they noted that it was now morning and the terrain outside the windows looked quite different from the area around their old hometown. The farmland was flatter and the soil looked much richer than northern Pennsylvania. Emaline had many uncles back home and most of them were farmers who worked farms where rocks were almost more plentiful than the wheat they produced. This Indiana was quite different, but her relatives in Pennsylvania would sure enjoy farming on land that didn’t take so much fight out of you just to get the crop planted. All these changes in her life were coming fast and furious, which made Emaline a tad bit nervous. She was not only in a very different part of the country, but she now had to rely on an aunt and uncle she had never met to find her a job to support herself and her unborn child.

CHAPTER 2

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Early Years in Indiana

S arah was the first to step off the train at the Fort Wayne station. Since the Shipman women had never laid eyes on their aunt and uncle that were going to meet them at the station they would probably have to wait till most of the passengers left before they found them. Suddenly there was a tall slender man touching Emaline’s elbow and asking, are you Sarah Shipman from Pennsylvania? As was often the case, Emaline had been mistaken for her older sister. Maybe it was because she was a little bigger than Sarah and for some reason she looked and acted more mature, in most cases, than her older sister. No, replied Emaline, I’m Emaline and that’s Sarah over there. As the two families greeted each other there was the usual clamor of several people being introduced at the same time with names flying in all directions at once. Em, as she had asked everyone to call her, was quite good at picking these names out of the air as they whizzed by and tagging them on the correct continence that stood before her. This was one skill that Sarah had yet to develop even though her skills in some other areas surpassed her highly intelligent sister. The Indiana Simpsons had three active young children ages three, five and seven. This meant that the buggy ride out to the farm northwest of town was going to be a little crowed. Lora the three year old didn’t say much as Em held her during the ride to the farm, but the older boys David and Gregory were full of questions, most of which couldn’t be answered before a new question was forthco ming.

As they pulled into the yard of their new temporary home, both Sarah and Em saw a very neat but very small farmhouse. This house was half the size of their home in Pennsylvania and it would have to hold seven people rather than just the four who lived together back home. There were just three small bedrooms and so the sisters found themselves in the same bedroom together. What they hadn’t counted on was that little Lora was also expected to sleep with them in this room with the unstated thought that they would be required to take care of most of her needs. These arrangements weren’t the best but considering the fact that they were asking this family to support them until they got on their feet they couldn’t complain much. As they were to find out later, their aunt and uncle had the bedroom right next to them with very little in the way of a sound barrier between the two rooms. After eating supper and retiring to their room the two women played with Lora for a while before they tucked her in to her small bed in the corner of the room. As the sisters lay in bed quietly talking about their experiences of the past day they became aware of some sounds coming from the bedroom next to them. It only took Em a little while to be aware of what was going on next door but Sarah had not had quite all the experiences of her younger sister and so she asked her sister, Em, what’s going on in there? Well sister, replied Em, I think this Simpson family is going to have a lot more than just three children before everything is said and done. Sarah snickered a little as she finally understood what Em was saying. It seemed to her it sounded a little more like two people fighting or wrestling than two individuals who were showing the loving side of their nature. As the combat in the next room subsided the two women fell to sleep, one wondering what that type of experience was like and the other remembering.

As the young women adjusted to their new environment over the next two weeks, they were gently nudged in the direction of securing a job by the subtle comments of the older aunt and uncle. In fact, her uncle thought he might just have a job possibility for the younger sister, Em. He had heard of a man over near Orland Indiana who needed some help taking care of his invalid wife. The pay probably isn’t much but she would get room and board. It wouldn’t require a great deal of heavy work that might be hard on the young woman expecting her first child. It seemed that Mr. Curtis had a wife who was losing her ability to coordinate her muscles, especially the ones in her legs, and she could no longer be left alone as he worked in the fields. The position seemed ideal for Em who was physically strong and actually very sensitive and caring under her tough outer shell. Mr. Curtis was a devout Christian man who had helped establish the First Methodist Church in Orland and thus Em’s aunt and uncle felt it would be acceptable for her to live at the Curtis house where she was to work.

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Sarah was on her own. Her aunt and uncle felt no great need to find her suitable employment since she was a young healthy woman of twenty who did not have the added burden of being three months pregnant. Tomorrow she was to take a trip to the county seat at Angola Indiana where her uncle felt the chances of finding work would be greater than if she stayed around the smaller towns near her aunt and uncles’ home. This seemed like a good plan except for the fact that this would be the first time in her life she would be separated by quite a distance from her younger sister. Sarah had worked as a clerk in a dry goods store in Pennsylvania and this seemed to be her best bet for finding employment. The next day as she rode into the bustling little town of Angola she looked for the local newspaper office to get information on businesses which might need extra help. Sarah stopped the buggy and asked a woman carrying a shopping basket where she might find the newspaper office. Well, replied the woman, if you go two blocks east and then one block south you’ll come right to it. As Sarah was about to leave the women casually added, but it’s not open today, just Monday and Friday and this is Tuesday if you didn’t already know. This might not be the friendliest town in the nation, she thought, but she knew that someone in town might just give her a chance to prove she was a good worker. The only thing left to do was to get out of this buggy and go to each place of business and ask about possibilities of work.

As she went from store to store she found that many were run by a husband and wife team and the women seemed to be doing the hiring and had little interest in a pretty, twenty-year-old woman. Her next stop was the feed mill that sold various farm tools and equipment along with the feed and grain business. A short plump forty-five year old man approached her as she entered the store and asked if he could help her. Sarah instantly felt that his eyes focused too much at her as he talked. She really needed a job so she ignored his eyes and asked if there would be any work available for her. Silas, as she was later to find out was his name, hesitated as he ran through his mind all the possibilities for this young woman. Some of his thoughts couldn’t be spoken of out loud and this caused him to hesitate for a moment as he sorted out what he could say to her without scaring her off. Well, if you can keep books a little and sell some of this stuff I have up front here I might be able to use you. Sarah was one of those women who had an inner sense of which men could be trusted and which couldn’t. This gift is like being able to read between the lines of