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Part I:  http://open.salon.com/content.php?cid=99576

Part II:  http://open.salon.com/content.php?cid=99860

Part III:   http://open.salon.com/content.php?cid=100546

Part IV:  http://open.salon.com/content.php?cid=101109

Part V: http://open.salon.com/content.php?cid=102974

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When Al and Wilma stepped off the bus in mid October, 1945 Wilma expected Topeka to be the same as she had left it only a few months before.  But when Japan had surrendered on August 15 VJ Day (Victory over Japan) that was also the actual end of WWII..  And Topeka, like every other city of any size in the US, was filling up faster every single day as more and more soldiers, sailors and airmen were being discharged from the services.  

The ease with which she thought she would find a place to live turned into a difficult search. After a two day search they found a small, two room, worn out, furnished apartment in North Topeka. It was a weekly rental, paid in advance every Monday. For Wilma this was a big comedown in status.  North Topeka, the part of the city north of the Kaw (Kansas) River which flowed through the center of Topeka, was considered the “wrong side of  town."

But they made do with what they could get. Al went immediately on his own search to buy a car.   He found a not too abused 1937 Plymouth from a private party out in Seabrook which he bought for $150 and then spent another $50 getting it fixed up to be serviceable.  He was a good mechanic and knew that the car was in better shape than it looked and was confident it would be reliable.  Wilma took one look at it and said, “Well, hon, its not quite Daddy’s V-12 Lincoln but it will do."

The next step was for them to get jobs.  Al went to the local VA office to see what jobs were being offered to veterans.  He was in no condition yet to do a lot of walking but hoped to find something in a garage or gas station as a mechanic.  There was nothing at all to be found the first two weeks that they looked.

Al had talked by phone to his brother, George, who told him that he and his wife had just signed up to work the Wolfe farm outside of Humbolt, half way to Iola, and that Mr. Wolfe wanted another family to come work the farm as well.  The farm, at 640 acres with only 40 acres of pasture, was far too big for one man and woman to manage alone.

At this point Wilma was pretty beaten down by the disappointment of the apartment, the old car, and no prospect of employment looming on the horizon.  So she agreed with Al that maybe they had better drive down to Humbolt and have a look at the farm.  That was actually pretty brave of her because she knew nothing about farming.  Daddy kept a large garden in Burlingame which she sometimes helped him work by hoeing weeds for a half hour and then saying her back hurt.  That was the full extent of her experience with real dirt.

Al had more mixed feelings about going back to Humbolt than Wilma did. The reason that he had not called his family to tell them he was back in the States after he was wounded now came out: his father was furious with him for signing up at 16 to join the Army and had told him that he would never set foot in his father’s house again. But the VA advisor had told him that finding a job was only going to get worse because most of the GIs had not even been discharged yet. And Al had a wife that he expected to take care of  so he would go back to Humbolt, face his father, and look at the possible farm job. He called George and said that they would be down the coming Saturday.

When they got to Humbolt late on Saturday morning, two very nervous young people walked up to Al's parents small house in Humbolt.  They knocked and Al's father came to the door.  He just looked at them and said, "Come in. Your mother's in the Kitchen."  His father then sat down in his living room chair and motioned for them to go on through the dining room and into the kitchen. Al pushed the swinging door between the dining room and the kitchen open and multiple voices shouted out "Welcome Home!"

The couple found themselves surrounded by brothers and sisters, and their husbands and wives and children, as well as a couple of cousins and an aunt and uncle or two. Al's mother gave him a big hug and then burst into tears. About that time his father crowded into the overflowing kitchen and said in a gruff working man's voice "Aren't you going to properly introduce me to this beautiful wife of yours?" And, not waiting for an answer, he placed a big paw on Wilma's shoulder and said, "Welcome home, honey."

Both Al and Wilma were overwhelmed by the warm reception that they got.  Al was sure that his father would never speak to him again.  Instead his father never again spoke to him about joining the Army. After a typical Galemore weekend dinner of fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, collard greens and bacon, pickled beets and cornbread, with apple cobbler and bread pudding for desert, Al and Wilma followed his older brother, George, and his wife, Lena, out to the farm.

The farm was only three miles outside of town and was impressive.  Mr. Wolfe had given up farming ten years previous, after an accident with an unprotected PTO (power take off) on the back of his tractor.  The PTO had caught his pant leg and badly crippled his leg before he could get untangled. He was very lucky to have come out alive since there was no one with him who could turn off the PTO. After his close call he refused to sell the farm that he had created largely by his own hand, and had hired tenant farmers from that time on.

The house was very nice; a large, white, two story frame rectangle with both front and back porches. The house had been divided into two apartments, one on each floor, with a shared kitchen and dining room on the first floor.  George and Lena and their three children had taken the upstairs apartment thinking that if the other family yet to be hired had even more children than they did it would be much quieter if they took the upstairs.

The REA (Rural Electrification Administration) was in the process of bringing electricity to the farms around Humbolt but had not reached the Wolfe farm yet, although the poles were set alongside the road out front.  For the time being light was still supplied by kerosene lamps, and the cookstove was heated with wood or corn cobs.  Heat was supplied by a pot bellied stove in the living room on each floor.

There was a bathroom with a tub, but no toilet, just an outhouse out back. There was no plumbing but Mr. Wolfe had run a water line from the well to an inside hand pump next to the kitchen sink. If you wanted a bath you pumped the water, set it on the stove to heat up, poured it in the bathtub, and moderated the heat with more water from the kitchen pump.  

There was a telephone, a party line, that had been put in only a month before on the new poles that the REA would soon use to bring electricity to the house. The inside of the house itself was beautiful with hardwood oak floors, ten foot ceilings and large walnut doors with large working transoms above each. There were hardwood chair bumpers in the dining room.  The house was fully furnished and the furniture was in good shape.

Wilma had the distinct and accurate impression that she might as well have been in 1845 as 1945. Al wondered if Wilma would be able to live without the simple modern conveniences that she was used to.  Wilma had the same thoughts, but in a surprise to Al she saw the whole thing as both a challenge and an adventure.  Other than the distinct feeling that she was in a time warp, she absolutely loved the house. Al was surprised at her enthusiasm and asked her several times if she really meant that they should try this. And the more he asked the more her stubbornness came to the fore; and the answer was always "yes."

George called Mr. Wolfe who invited Al and Wilma to come to his house in town as soon as they could.  Mr. Wolfe, who had himself served in WWI, was impressed that Al had volunteered for the Army and asked about where he served, which division and other military questions. What he did not ask, and Al did not volunteer, was whether Al had been injured in the war. Mr. Wolfe offered the job on the spot to Al and they shook hands on it.

Wilma had actually kept her mouth shut during all this conversation and was day dreaming when Mr. Wolfe said "Young lady, you are far too pretty for this young man to deserve so if he gives you any trouble you just call me, you hear?"  Wilma smiled her most demure smile and said, "Thank you, Sir, but my husband would never do that."  And, actually, that was God's own truth.

While the job was technically offered to Al, the understanding of tenant farmers was that the wife and any older children would also work around the farm. Wilma understood that she was being "hired" also. The compensation package sounds pretty bad by today's standards, but at a time when the average wage of an adult working class man was in Kansas often less than a dollar an hour, with no benefits and no guarantees of continued employment, it was actually fair, bordering on generous.

The two couples, George and Lena and Al and Wilma, were each paid $150 a month, and they could butcher one hog each and split one steer a year, along with all the chickens and eggs they wanted to raise, and all the vegetables that they wanted to grow. Mr Wolfe, who owned the local ice and locker plant in Humbolt, also gave them each a free freezer locker at the plant in which to store their meat, as well as free ice for their ice box. And the disability checks would come in monthly as soon as Al sent them their new address, which would definitely help.

With a roof over their heads and a paying job that was more secure than anything available in Topeka, they both felt that while this would not be easy they would be able to make it work. So there was only one other thing that Wilma wanted, something that Al very much agreed with, and that was to bring Monte Gene to live with them.

Wilma was thankful that Lola had kept the boy for almost four years. And she meant that.  But now she felt that she could give the boy the security, love and care that he deserved.  If she had not been able to handle a child then she was sure she could now.  So she thought that Lola would be relieved that she could now assume her responsibilities.

She knew that she and her mother had parted on very bad terms but that had happened many times before.  She thought that they would patch things up as they always had done. So she called Lola and told her what had happened since she had stormed out of the house.  She said she was very sorry for the fight and apologized several times.  Then she told Lola that she would like to come and get Monte Gene as soon as they could get back to Topeka, pack up their things at the apartment and come by Burlingame on the way back to Humbolt.  

Lola listened to all this is total disbelief and the longer Wilma talked and apologized the more angry Lola got. When Wilma finally quit talking Lola was ready. She literally screamed into the phone, telling Wilma that she was nothing more than a little slut who had no shame and had proven it by marrying some poor white trash scum. She said that Wilma was unfit to be a mother and that there was no way she, Lola, would give up "Little Monte" to be raised like some trashy no good urchin.

And she went on to invent another line of attack saying that Monte Sr., whom she called "Big Monte," intended to sue for custody of the boy on the grounds of her parental abandonment. And when the judge granted him custody, Wilma would never see the boy again.

Lola knew that she was lying about that, although, of course, there was no way for Wilma to know that she was lying.  But Lola and Monte Sr,'s mother, Ola Canfield Shade, had been working on Monte Sr. for several years urging him to sue for custody of the boy.  And they  believed that eventually Wilma would go back to Monte Sr., especially if that was the only way to get her boy back.  The trouble with those theories was that Monte Sr. wanted nothing to do with their plans.

After Wilma left him he gave up the reporting job he had at Harvard, Illinois and got a job on to the Kansas City Star as a junior city desk reporter. He was enjoying life in the big city.  And he had met a pretty young copy editor at the Star named Gloria Meade that he had married the year before, much to the dismay of the two scheming mothers.  Lola also knew that Gloria had no interest in having a step son.  She didn't even want her own children until she and Monte Sr. were financially better off.  Wilma would not learn any of this until long after this  whole crisis was over.

Wilma did what she always did when her mother screamed at her: she screamed back. Louder.  With more cuss words.  With more acidic remarks.  With more of every nasty thing she could think to call her mother.  So Lola did what Lola always did when Wilma did that. She hung up on Wilma.  This was a predictable dance between the two and Wilma was, again, predictably furious. Once she calmed down, Wilma knew that she needed a plan. It didn't take her any time at all to hatch one.

Wilma called back several times over the next few days and whenever her mother answered the phone she would hang up. Then one time the right person answered the phone.  Wilma said, "Billy, I've got to talk to you in private.  Can you get to a phone somewhere else and call me and reverse the charges?"  Billy said yes, he could do that, so she gave him her number and waited for his return call. He called about an hour later from the high school music room after getting permission from the music teacher. Billy was by far the best musician in the school so it was easy to get the OK to call his sister.

Billy was the only son of Bill and Lola together. Both had been married before. Bill had seven children that he had brought to the marriage, all of whom were at this point married adults living in the area, and Lola had six, all of whom were adults living elsewhere. Billy, actually William Isaiah Isaacs, Jr., was about five years younger than Wilma.  

She was the closest sister to him in age and in affection. Wilma was the one who knew and kept a secret that Billy had not told to another soul.  Billy was gay. When he told Wilma that fact a couple of years before, her reaction was, "so what?"  Her only advice was to not tell their parents, and if somehow they did find out to just come and live with her. And she meant it. They loved each other unconditionally.
 
Wilma answered the phone and said that she needed his help for something vital to her. Billy would never even think to deny her something important so he said, "Just tell me what you want me to do."  So she explained what she wanted because their Mom had said that she would never get her own child. "Billy, Monte Gene is my flesh and blood; and he belongs with his mother.  I have legal custody and I want my boy.  Here's what I need you to do."

The following Saturday evening Billy took Monte Gene into the bathroom to help him with his bath as he often did. Billy did it at exactly 7 pm when Lola's favorite radio program came on. Lola would be glued to the big old Zenith radio console in the living room listening to the Lux Radio Theatre for the next hour.  At least that was the plan.  

The bathroom was off the hallway immediately between the kitchen and the living room and so this was going to have to be a quietly orchestrated effort.  First Billy started the water running in the tub to provide background noise, and while it was running he went to where the coats were hung in the mud room and got Monte Gene's coat and woolen cap.  Back in the bathroom instead of telling the boy to get undressed and get into the tub he helped him get into his coat and told him that they were going to try a trick that he heard on the radio.  Billy was going to help Monte Gene out of the bathroom window where his mother would catch him and take him for a car ride and get him some ice cream.
 
The big question mark was whether the boy would buy into the game. The truth was Monte Gene didn't know what to think.  But he and Billy had played many fun games together and the boy admired Billy because his Uncle Billy was smart, could play the piano, and, most of all, never treated him like he didn't exist. So, if Uncle Billy wanted to play some silly game it was OK with him.  And he had not seen his mother in months, and while he really hadn't missed her, he enjoyed the little time he had spent with her.  So, yes. It would be OK.

Billy carefully opened the window, unlatched the screen and lifted it off its top hooks and handed it down to Wilma.  Then he helped the boy onto the window sill, gave him a kiss on the cheek and held him under his arm pits and handed him down to his mother.

The problem was the water.  The damned water. It had been running way too long for one bath and during a commercial Lola came and knocked on the door. "Why is that water still running?" Billy was desperately trying to quietly close the window and praying that Lola would not just open the door and walk in.  This time prayer didn't work. "Billy, I'm coming in there."  And she did.

"Where is Little Monte?" And being just as conniving as her daughter she immediately put two and two together and came up with -- a shout.  "Bill, get in here.  We've got a problem." Bill didn't like problems but he came to the bathroom and she said, "Billy, tell your father what you have done."  While Billy was a sweet and warm hearted soul, he also could not lie or deny anything that his parents wanted.  So he told the story, slowly.  As slowly as he could.

Lola was impatient with his stalling tactics, and got on the phone to the sheriff, whose wife was one of her best friends,  She told him that the boy had been kidnapped.  The sheriff asked by whom and Lola had to admit it was by the boy's mother. So they argued for a while over whether is could actually be called a kidnapping, which the Sheriff doubted very much, but for the sake of peace with both his own wife and Lola he agreed to go out and look for them.

Meanwhile Al, Wilma and Monte Gene were heading south to Osage City and on through Lyndon and then straight south on US 75 heading for Humbolt.  With the Sheriff in something less than hot pursuit they managed to cross the Osage County line into Coffey county and out of the jurisdiction of the Sheriff.

So far it had been a pretty exciting evening for Monte Gene.  And when they got to Iola it got better because they stopped for a hamburger and a Coke at the Crossroads Diner and topped that off with a hot fudge sundae.  Which, of course, made Monte Gene very tired and he slept the last few miles to the farm.

If it hurt his legs he never said so, but Al picked up the sleeping boy and carried him into the house and placed him, fully dressed, on the bed in the room which from then on would be his.  Al kissed the boy tenderly on the forehead, and placed a light blanket over him while Wilma watched from the doorway.  

They left the door partly open and walked into the kitchen where Wilma threw a few sticks into the stove and started to make coffee. Al came up behind her and slipped his arms around her waist. She leaned into him and laid her head back upon his chest.  He said, "I love you, Wilma. And now we are a family."

Which is how Monte Eugene Canfield, Jr. came to be known, until after he graduated high school, as Monte Eugene Galemore, son of a tenant farmer, alleged poor white trash from which nothing good could possibly come, but who was now blessed with the finest man for a Dad that God could have put on this planet for that purpose. 

 

But that is yet another story..................

 

 Rank Noodle