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Rose of RiverBend

By Vikki Kestell

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Chapter 1
Denver, Early October 1923

Palmer House’s dining room was overfilled that Monday evening—not that dining at Palmer House ever boasted much in the way of surplus elbow room. With seventeen in residence, the evening meal was always a sizable affair. Two long tables, set end-to-end to form a single extended table, was the customary arrangement. However, for this special occasion, Palmer House’s cook, Marit, had requested that her husband, Billy, and Sarah’s husband, Bryan Croft, fetch a third table from storage to accommodate the overflow.

Overflow? Twenty-six individuals crowded around the usual dining configuration. In addition to the everyday household adults—Rose Thoresen, Billy and Marit, Bryan and Sarah, and ten young women—the dinner also hosted dear friends Pastor Isaac and Breona Carmichael, Minister Yaochuan Min and Mei-Xing Liáng, Mason and Tabitha Carpenter, and frail Mr. Wheatley, who now lived with the Carpenter family where they could offer him the loving care he required.

Edmund and Joy O’Dell were the last couple at the lengthy but crowded table. Their newborn daughter, Roseanne, slumbered in the crook of Joy’s left arm, oblivious to the world around her. Joy was seated to the right of her mother, an arrangement that allowed Rose to peer down upon the four-week-old infant’s peak of dark hair and occasionally stroke her velvety cheeks.

The adult diners were joined by Will, the older of Billy and Marit’s two boys, and Shan-Rose, Yaochuan Min and Mei-Xing Liáng’s daughter, who, at the ages of nearly fifteen and thirteen respectively, insisted they were “too mature to dine at the children’s table.”

Children’s table? Indeed! A dozen children, ranging in age from three through eleven years, occupied the third table. Billy had, some years earlier, reduced the table’s height to accommodate the shorter stature of the “little nippers.” Billy and Bryan had set the table near the dining room’s bay window, several feet from the adult table, where the youngsters’ antics, if not too boisterous, might escape their parents’ attention.

The young ones assigned to the children’s table grinned in delight, surreptitiously kicked one another under the table, and wriggled with barely restrained excitement. Even though their families dined at Palmer House on a regular basis, the invitations generally alternated between the other families so that the numbers never exceeded the dining room’s capacity. Only on high holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas were their families all together and the youngsters seated at their own separate table—to their immense delight.

The present gathering was not a holiday, however, and although the children sensed that the gathering marked a special occasion, it was likely that they did not yet comprehend how momentous an event it was.

Bryan Croft prayed a blessing over the food, Marit’s helpers served the platters, bowls, and dishes that had been kept hot in the oven, and thirty-eight hungry diners tucked in to the feast set before them.

Happy chatter accompanied the meal as the several families present caught up with their friends’ busy lives and shared their hearts with one another. Their conversation, often laced with humor and joyous laughter, was designed to include and draw out the young ladies of Palmer House. A few of this number were too newly arrived to feel truly welcome—yet. It generally took time and the development of trust for them to grow into a sense of “belonging” to Palmer House’s family.

Such an occasion was never complete, however, without one of Mr. Wheatley’s tall (and quite memorable) tales. His whispery recitations left the newer young ladies goggle-eyed and the more familiar girls giggling and chortling behind their napkins. Indeed, it was Mr. Wheatley’s great pleasure to charm Palmer House’s girls and tease them into shy, dimpling smiles. Only minutes in Mr. Wheatley’s company assured the young ladies that they had nothing to fear from this kindly—and somewhat eccentric—old gent, whose sparse tufts of white hair waved like a display of miniature flags atop and around his head.

The diners within earshot gave patient and loving attention to Mr. Wheatley’s oration. Most understood that their dear old friend, whose age was approaching ninety years, had few such opportunities ahead of him. They honored him with their thoughtful consideration.

As the empty plates were taken away, Marit excused herself, then reappeared bearing a large three-layered chocolate cake. The diners—particularly the children—clapped their hands with enthusiasm. Marit sliced the cake, and her helpers served portions to all. When everyone had their dessert before them, a profound hush fell. Forks clinked on mismatched china plates. Appreciative sighs followed the first bite. The children smacked their chocolate-smeared lips and grinned. And the adults praised Marit’s creation from first taste to last speck.

Over coffee and cake and as the dessert plates emptied, the adults spoke of anything but the reason for this evening’s celebration . . . until it could be put off no longer.

Dinner conversation wound down, and a stillness crept over the adults. The quiet was pronounced enough to catch the attention of the children at the other table. They noticed the shift in the atmosphere and lapsed into watchful silence.

Pastor Carmichael spoke into the general malaise. “Marit, we thank you, and we thank your helpers, Gracie and Liza, for a marvelous meal. What can compare to sitting down to wonderful food accompanied by the love and good fellowship of close friends?”

He sighed. “However, I suppose we must now address this evening’s purpose, as loath as we all are to do so.”

Most eyes were downcast, but a few solemn nods answered him.

Carmichael swallowed down the lump in his throat. “Speaking of the love and good fellowship of close friends . . . Ed, Joy, and Miss Rose? You must surely know how sorely you will be missed. We . . . we can scarcely bear that you are leaving us and that it may be . . . years before we see all of you again.”

Heads around the table bobbed in agreement, and all pretense that this evening could compare to any other vanished. Eyes glistened with tears. The men at the table, the effort to master their emotions too great, shifted in their seats and cleared their throats.

The children stared at their parents as they weighed Pastor Carmichael’s words and tried to understand why emotions were running high among the adults.

Red-haired Sally Carpenter, a forthright child of ten years, could abide the tension no longer. “Mum? Mum! Where’s Grandma Rose a-goin’?”

Tabitha softly answered, “We have talked about this, Sally, remember? Grandma Rose is moving to Chicago with Uncle Ed and Aunt Joy. They will leave on the train tomorrow.”

“Wot? Leave on the train? Tomorrer?” Sally’s objection, already expressed at an unacceptable volume for drawing or dining room, pitched higher and louder. “And Matthew, too? Jacob and Luke? Even baby Roseanne?”

“Sally, lower your voice, please,” her father interjected.

“But, Da, Mum said—”

“Shhh, Sally.”

Sally may have been shushed, but she was not done. She jumped to her feet and ran to Rose’s side. “Grandma Rose! Is Chicago far away? You ain’t a-goin’ far, are ya? You’ll come home soon?”

Rose opened her arms to Sally and hugged her tight. Sally’s hold on Rose’s neck was as fierce as it was afraid, and Rose’s throat was so tight that it squeezed her words until she could scarcely get them out. “I will always love you, Sally. Please remember that, all right? Remember: Grandma Rose loves you. I always will, even while I am away.”

“But . . . but won’t you be here no more?”

“No, child. I am going with your Uncle Ed and Aunt Joy. We won’t be back for . . . a long time.”

The unspoken words “if ever” hung in the room like black crepe draping hung from the windows at a funeral.

Sally pulled back from Rose, stomped her foot, shook her head of red curls, and shouted, “No! No, Grandma Rose! I don’ want you to leave on no stupid, stupid train to stupid Chicago!”

Mason left his seat, came around, and lifted Sally into his arms. She was a big girl now, but it did not matter.

“It will be all right, Sally,” he whispered, holding her, comforting her as she shuddered with tears. “It will be all right.”

But it wasn’t all right, and the children understood that now. Wailing and sobbing, they rushed to Rose’s side. “Don’t go, Grandma Rose! We love you! Please don’t go!”

Matthew and Jacob, ages six and four, had known that their grandmother would be coming with them on this grand adventure called “moving” and had not worried or fretted on that account. Only now did they realize they would be leaving behind their many honorary aunts and uncles and all their beloved cousins. They scurried to their father and buried their faces in his arms, howling their dismay. Luke, at two years old, only needed to see and hear the room’s universal sorrow before he, too, crawled from his chair to climb up into his papa’s lap and hide his sad little face in another part of O’Dell’s suitcoat.

The parents around the table were undone. Whatever control they had tried to exert over their emotions melted. They wept with their children, and they were joined by Mr. Wheatley and the girls of Palmer House.

They were, all of them, saying goodbye to loved ones they might never see again. But those who lived at Palmer House sorrowed the most acutely over Rose’s imminent departure.

Never again would they hear Rose’s gentle voice reading Scripture during morning devotions.

Never again would they hear her explain so clearly and with such deep, personal relevance what the passages meant.

Never again would she lead them in heartfelt prayer.

Never again would they lean their wet cheeks on her shoulder while she loved them into God’s healing and wholeness.

Only Sarah remained dry-eyed, for she had already shed the bulk of her tears. Tomorrow she would face the greatest challenge of her life, and she wondered, as she had for weeks, Father, how can I possibly replace Rose? Neither Olive nor I will ever fill her shoes. Oh, we need you, Lord God!

It was the end of an era.

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