A TRIUMPHANT TAPESTRY

By Cheryl Bennett

A tapestry needs both the light- and dark-colored thread to compose a powerful image, just as life is made up of our joys and sorrows which are woven together as each generation grows. God's grace is generational and he has the pattern as the master weaver who pulls together all the threads on life's loom. Without the past threads, we wouldn't have the future pattern. Each tapestry is a living tribute to him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Jul 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781646703265

Book preview

Preface

This was a difficult journey for me but one I felt compelled to make. My quest for answers came three years after Mom’s death. It was then I made a call to Yankton State Hospital/Human Services Center. I asked for all Mom’s records from 1950 to 1971. Then for the next year, I read through everything and wept.

The events of her childhood were devastating. I take these incidents from her interviews with doctors and nurses at the hospital. Mom gave me little hints about her childhood, but once I started to ask questions, she’d clam up. So all this information was shocking and unexpected. I filled in details of how they could have happened, but all the events/situations are true.

I didn’t use everyone’s real name, because it was too painful. Using fictional names allowed me to detach myself from the story and move forward. Mom was a survivor, and that’s the legacy she has passed on victory against all odds with God’s love and care.

These lyrics from a song by Johnny Cash sum it up:

On your knees, you’re taller than trees,

you could look over heartache and pain.

When my faith is low to my knees, I will go,

growing stronger and taller than trees.

Chapter 1

The Secret

Rosie dashed toward the barn, her skin burned and the perspiration soaked through her clothes, but Rosie made her escape with elation. Her mother and her aunt had many disagreements with each other which resulted in screaming matches so Rosie took flight. She didn’t like her aunt much, because Aunt Bess caused problems for her mother. Aunt Bess had the conviction she knew more about running a household than Rosie’s mom, Mary. She made Rosie uncomfortable too. Her aunt, a woman with big hands, always wore long black dresses and large black shoes. Her face had some whiskers, but her worst feature rested in those beady eyes. They seemed to bore a hole right to your soul. However, Aunt Bess being her father’s sister would always have a place at the farm. Aunt Bess, born and raised on the farm like her father, had her room upstairs in the farmhouse’s attic.

*****

It was the fall of 1932 and the Walters family lived on their farm in South Dakota located southwest of Sioux Falls. It comprised six buildings: farmhouse, barn, canning house, chicken coup, machine shed, and an orchard and garden. Rosie’s favorite spot on the farm would be the barn; it stood with a deep red color and had a large white W above the enormous double barn doors. In Rosie’s opinion the worst place was the canning house, and that is where she headed on this day with her mom and her aunt. A canning house is a little shed with a cast-iron corncob stove, and there they canned all the fruit from the orchard. The women had stacked a large pile of corncobs at the side of the house which they used for fuel. After two hours of canning, the little house would heat like an inferno and the sweat poured off everyone’s body. So she decided when her mom and aunt returned to the orchard for another bushel of peaches, she would get out fast. And she did.

Rosie looked around the barn now and appreciated she was alone. Her dad was in the field with her two brothers, Amos and Jake, harvesting corn. Rosie recognized it as a back-breaking dirty job, but they had a good crop this year. The barn smelled of fresh hay, but as Rosie walked further inside, the stronger manure odor hit her in her face. She led out the milk cows that her mother had milked that morning. As she herded the cows back out to the pasture and listened to the sheep baaing around the water trough, Rosie had the sensation of peace. She hurried passed the pigpen, because it always stunk so.

Then strolling back to the barn, Rosie climbed the ladder to the hayloft and hid away. She realized she’d catch hell later, but Rosie didn’t care. She lay back on the hay and began thinking about yesterday, her twelfth birthday. There wasn’t much of a celebration because her family was too busy with the fall harvest. The only gift she received was a store-bought bar of lavender soap that smelled so good and had smooth round purple edges. It wasn’t anything like the rough square bars of soap her mom made. Rosie was so surprised when her aunt Bess gave it to her. It was such a nice gift that it confused Rosie; perhaps she had been wrong about her aunt.

An hour later, Rosie rubbed her sleepy eyes, scrambled to her feet, and ran back to the house. She listened to her mom grumbling in German in the kitchen, so the canning must have gotten done without her.

As Rosie walked into the house, her mom turned with a red and angry face. Where have you been, lazy girl? We toiled with our tasks, and you disappeared. Your little sister, Eve, worked so hard. Wash up and set the table. The men are coming in from the field.

Rosie walked outside by the front door to the water pump. She got the cold water flowing as she pumped the handle up and down a few times. She used the slab of soap lying at the base of the pump and washed her hands. Hearing her mother talking about her in German, Rosie interpreted what she was saying. Rosie is such a homely girl. If she doesn’t learn to work hard, no man will ever want her. Wanting to disregard her mom’s words, Rosie walked out to the front porch.

She saw in the distance her father and brothers walking back from the field, so Rosie moved back into the house to set the table. Rosie washed the long farm table to remove the dust that blew in each day. Next, she shook out the tablecloth with the red strawberry pattern and used the gray rag to wipe it down. Wiping the dust off each dish, Rosie could still hear her mom in the kitchen, but this time, at least, her anger was with something her aunt Bess had said.

The dining room had pale yellow walls, a brown wood floor, and a mishmash of other furniture pieces. There stood a worn-out black leather couch along one wall and a rusty kerosene lamp in the corner. Her mom had