Bridle Path - Chapter One - New Beginnings

 Hello Everyone,

Here is the first installment in my Pack Horse Librarian mini novella.  I will try to post a short chapter by the 5th of every month while you are working on you Bridle Path quilts. This is totally a work of fiction from my overactive imagination about what I thought life might be like in 1935 delivering books into the hollers of Eastern Kentucky.  

While writing this, I drew from my own memories of growing up in the small town of Paradise in Northern California in the 1950's.  Yes, the infamous Paradise that burned to the ground in 2018. I refrain from going back to Paradise as I want to remember it as it was, an idyllic place to come of age.  

So, grab a cup of your favorite beverage and start your journey with my pack horse librarian, Lexington Ruth MacQuarrie, who has many stories to tell in a folksy manner as she travels the hollers of Eastern Kentucky delivering the gifts of literacy and goodwill.  

Chapter 1 Month 1 - NEW BEGINNINGS

September 1935

Dear Grace,

            You are not old enough to read my words now, but before long I hope you will be thirsting to read anything written by your mother in her own penmanship about our life here in Cobble Hill, Kentucky. Now that I have a real job, I can afford to buy a new pencil and a couple of sheets of writing paper. I no longer must write my thoughts down on an old paper bag that is crinkled and so wrinkled it looks like your Grammy’s dried apple weathered face. The brown paper bag that I have been writing on forever is now limp from use and I can no longer find a space big enough to write my own name or draw you a small picture.

            I know when I was about twelve years old, I loved to read diaries written by women who set out with their families across the Great Plains into the unknown during the 1800’s. I found their everyday life, description of the landscape, and survival of the elements fascinating. Oh, I would have loved to see the grand vistas of the wide-open prairies, and the majestic buffalo grazing on the rich bounty of the earth, and the sharp jagged peaks of the Rockies and the Sierras thrusting up to the heavens. Therefore, I am starting a diary about our life here in Kentucky so you will know about your heritage and where you first learned your sense of place and how we will always have an emotional attachment to this land and each other.

            Life has been hard for us since your daddy died while working in a coal mine. The plans for our life together melted away like butter on a hot biscuit; the kind of biscuit that is crispy on the outside and warm, soft, and flaky on the inside just like the chicken and biscuit dinner we enjoy in the social hall in the basement at the Protestant church. I guess in a way it is lucky for him that he no longer must see the anguish in my eyes as he told me stories about his nights working underground. I find it ironic that he perished during his graveyard shift; and that is where he now forever rests, in the graveyard. 

            The graveyard shift got its name from the cemetery workers who were hired to listen in the graveyard for sounds from those buried and made noises in their graves. Some were buried with a string attached to bells they could ring just in case they were buried alive.  I know that’s a horrible thought, so let’s move on.

Now, many of the coal mines are shutting down in response to the factories closing nationwide due to the Great Depression. Life is going to get ever so much harder here in Kentucky.  Many of the men are leaving the area and looking for work elsewhere leaving many women home and trying to hold the family together and provide food and clothing.  Some of the men were lucky enough to find employment and send money home.  Some men never returned for whatever reason.  Maybe they are in graveyards pulling strings to no avail.

            I must look at the bright side of life during these challenging times.  We live in a cabin that was handed down to us by relatives, so we don’t have to live in a ‘company-owned dwelling’. It is, however, so hard to look around and see all the evidence of your daddy’s absence. His slippers under the bed, shaving mug in the bathroom, his shotgun leaning against the wall by the front door, his earthy, coal-dusty scent which always stayed with him even after washing up after a long night toiling underground. Many a night I have curled up with his favorite flannel shirt wrapped around me.  I get great comfort from that as the tears roll down my cheeks onto the top of your curly head of hair. I also find myself digging through the pockets of his clothing looking for answers even when I don’t know the questions. I have gotten stronger through hardship; I am a survivor.

            Let me start at the beginning. My mama was going to name me Grace until she saw the size of my feet when I was born. She never thought I would ever have graceful movement from my long lanky body. She decided to name me Ruth instead. The name Ruth is of Hebrew origin, and it means ‘compassionate friend’. I guess my mama thought I would make a good friend but never a good wife. Grace means grace…period. I know you will live up to your name since you have tiny delicate feet.

            My daddy wanted to name me Lexington whether I was a boy or a girl.  When he was young, he visited Lexington, Kentucky and loved it. The happy memories of his visits to his grandparents’ house stayed with him his entire life. He thought he could call a son Lex for short….and he was sure I was going to be a boy.  Well, surprise, a little girl with big feet popped out and I became Lexington Ruth MacQuarrie. Do you know how hard it was for me to learn to write my entire given name when I was in school?  I quickly changed my name to Lexi Mac.  Of course, there always were a lot of kids in school with the last name of Mac-something due to the Scottish influence in Kentucky.  I eventually had to learn to write my entire name using the Palmer Method of Penmanship.  Many a time I grumbled under my breath while learning to write my long name. I swear I still have scars from the crack of the ruler on the back of my hand by the schoolteacher, Miss Van Asperen. She was Dutch and didn’t much care for us ‘Mac-somethings’ in the classroom. Oh well, I really have her to thank for my beautiful penmanship and years of practice writing between the lines with a flourish.

            Fate has a way of placing us where we belong even though we don’t recognize it at the time.  You and I stopped by Stratton’s General Store to read the handbills out front on the weathered bulletin board.  Our local newspaper, the Cobble Hill Quill posted an advertisement about hiring Pack Horse Librarians to deliver reading material to rural areas in Eastern Kentucky who didn’t have access to public libraries.  I was intrigued as I read how Eleanor Roosevelt wanted to create jobs specifically for woman. Our president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, started the WPA program which means Work Progress Administration with the purpose of putting Americans to work during and after the depression. Most of the jobs were manual labor such as building bridges and roads. I could not see myself building a road let alone ride anything but a horse on one. I have never ridden in a car, and most likely will never learn how to drive one either. Give me a sure-footed horse anytime over a noisy car which tends to get stuck in our Kentucky mud.

            I applied for the job as soon as I checked with my mama to make sure she could take care of you Grace during the day while I was out on my rounds.  The interview was terrifying!  I was interviewed by Mrs. Jerome Reginald Steiniger who my mama called a ‘pearl-sucking-prude’. Her glasses slid down to the end of her nose while she looked at me disapprovingly over the tops of the wire frames. I’m not quite sure why she hired me, maybe it was my excellent Palmer Penmanship on the application.  Thank you, Miss Van Asperen!

            I already had a horse, so I didn’t have to pay for one out of my monthly salary. I was well acquainted with the area and the small communities and cabins up in the hollers. I was responsible according to Miss Van Asperen who wrote a lovely letter of recommendation. I was employable and now employed!

Because of the project, I am now making $28.00 a month as a Pack Horse Librarian.  I travel about 20 miles a day delivering books to folks living in inaccessible areas. At first, I did not have saddlebags to carry my books, so I stuffed them in a pillowcase for the journey and tied it around my saddle horn. That poor pillowcase wore out mighty fast, so I had to use some of the precious money and purchase saddlebags to carry the treasured books.

At the same time, I started my job for the WPA, my mama, your grandma, started making a quilt which she saw in the Nimble Thimble Column in the Cobble Hill Quill.  The quilt is called Bridle Path, and she is making it with scraps from your daddy’s shirts, and other pieces of fabric from old clothes, housecoats, and leftover scraps from older quilts. Nothing goes to waste in this household. Mama is making the quilt on her Featherweight sewing machine and is not sewing it by hand.  I love to listen to the purr and hum of the Featherweight late into the evening.  I was amazed when I saw all of the tiny pieces in the first nine, star blocks. I’m able to buy the thread for her and help out when I can in the evenings. She loves cutting out the pieces with her sharp scissors and matching the fabrics together, and this is something that I can help her with also. She has much more patience than I will ever have.  Maybe that’s why her mama, your great-grandmother named her Patience.

So, Grace, by the end of the year, you will have a diary about my travels and my job as a Pack Horse Librarian. I would do anything to make our lives better, just as Miss Eleanor promised. We are survivors Grace, even though there were days when I did not think our horse Starky, our Australian Shepard dog named Blue, or I would survive.

Soon,

Mama