Martin

Every time she looked at the aged, hand painted, photo there on the parlor wall, she was flooded with memories with the heart warming tenderness they stirred in her tired bosom.  Staring into it she could feel years lift off her, time spun backward to a time when there were open, rolling grasslands for miles outside the walls of this old house, where children chased through fields of wild flowers in spring and butterflies filled sunny, tranquil days throughout the summer. The snap shot taken so long ago, of a little boy in a worn racing cap pushing a little girl with honey hair and ginger brown eyes in a bumpity style home made cart, still had the power to make her happy and sad at the same time as those memories played out inside her.
He was her first love, her little German boy friend that she’d known since she was four years old. He lived two miles away and his family and hers were neighbors and the best of friends through the depression. They all came by on weekends and grandpa made the cart for them to play on. They spent hours at play, swimming and splashing in the stream near by through summer, and sledding in the winter. Afternoons she and he would seat themselves on wooden swings that hung from a low branch on the great old black walnut tree, while he told her his stories and adventures and she listened enraptured. This was their first playground, there in the west field, where sweet grass grew tall, inviting boys and girls to run and squeal and play and, as they grew older, to tumble and tangle and experiment with those first kisses as the sun set in the distance to the song of the lark and the silhouette of crows dancing against that melting copper gold orb. With each passing year his stories grew more enchanting and she knew he would, one day, be a great author and fascinate thousands of young women with tales of love and romance and adventure as he had done with her, captivating her spirit and winning her soul. 1

Martin's parents the Wolfs were farmers, just as hers were. They lived in the same house there in south west Washington that their parents had lived in before them. Millicent and her folks lived in a small one story house her father, her uncle and her grandfather with the help of friends had all pitched in to build there on her grandpa's land. A little box shaped tutor house with wooden window sashes a front porch with a porch swing, flower beds all around, a pump house, a root cellar and a two holer all located around back, it was the containment of all the memories of growing up for many of her first years. In a depression with everyone learning to work together and live off whatever they could gather from the land around them it was a symbol of the sort of neighborliness which seemed to have evaporated with the times they were born in. 2

Back then she remembered, she spent long hours with grandma and momma in the garden breaking sod and planting seed, watering and tending plants and finally harvesting the bounty that the garden provided in such abundance. Martin worked with the men out in the fields bringing in the hay, chopping fire wood from the forested land nearby, straightening ruts in the muddy roads and doing the milking. Martin’s pop would help her poppa as he went out to round up the milk cows and bring in the goats. They would trade off and work around each others farms when they weren't getting work. That wasn't too often since they lived so far from town and there weren't many jobs to be had. But, times weren't too bad, since there was plenty from the garden, fish from the stream, rabbits a plenty in the fields and always enough eggs in the hen house. Momma made her dresses out of empty sugar and flour sacks and Martin's momma did the same for him. Shoes were no problem, since they usually went barefoot and what one didn’t know they lacked was seldom missed. 3

Those days the days were long and filled with work but weekends families gathered for picnics and Sunday dinners and relaxed, forgetting all their troubles and enjoying a few hours of peaceful neighborliness. That was when she and Alphonse took turns pushing each other on the old cart in the dirt road, swerving to miss the mud holes and racing up and down till dinner was prepared in the kitchen while the grown ups sat and talked over glasses of hard cider grandpa made. Martin's dad would play his violin and her pop would bring out the old cigar box guitar he'd made himself and the music would drift across the clean, blue country air with purity and wholesomeness that made her heart happy. Then they'd sit before the table, covered with fried chicken, meat loaf, home made pickles, fresh baked bread and black berry jam and eat till she couldn't hold another bite. But, she'd have to make room because mom would bring out the cake, for the last course. That cake, with the nuts and raisins, spices and sugary icing dripping all over it. And, the ice cream, made in the old ice cream freezer which she and Martin would take turns cranking until it was done. She would eat each spoonful with a satisfied smacking of her lips and every thing in the world seemed perfect.4


Millicent and Martin were both six in 1930, going off to the first grade, a little worried about leaving home but anxious to see what new wonder awaited them. He carried his lunch in a lard can and she had hers in a little basket grandma had made for her out of rushes and grapevine. It was her favorite possession and all the other children envied her it. Martin met her, along with his big brother James, wearing their home made clothes with Martin sporting his racing cap, a hand me down from his pop, but his pride and joy all the same. Together they all walked the six miles each day to the school house, which was a converted woodshed on the edge of a neighbor’s property. Mr. Abrams, the leather worker who also raised pigs and sold the best hams, cured in honey, had donated the big old shed and a wood stove to keep it warm in winter and his wife, who had taught school in Chicago before they came to live there, volunteered as the school marm. 5

Mrs. Abrams was a particularly big woman with a heart even bigger. She taught the children what they needed of writing and arithmetic and history, but left them plenty of time to work with art and play in the fields around the school house, and on the equipment her husband had made especially for the children who came to classes there. There was a big see saw and swings, and the field had been cleared for the boys to play kickball and Mr. Abrams had even built a little house for the girls to play with their dolls in. Each day they went here to school, learning, playing in the afternoon and taking dips in the nearby lake when the weather was good after school. There was a deep well with the sweetest water she could ever remember and the trees were filled with plums, apples cherries, pears and nuts from late summer till nearly winter. The rest of the year they were the perfect place to climb high above the world and sit and dream of what it would be like when they were older. 6

It was then that the children met their neighbors for the first time. There were the Zumsteins, and the DeRyhders, the Provoks, and a host of others. The country side was a melting pot, a tapestry of different folks from all over Europe, each with a different story to tell. The hierarch of the school was decided in different areas by different factors with the Provok brothers, Hedrik and Stephen the champion athletes, being the biggest kids in the whole school. They were the absolute rulers on the playground and when ever the teams were chosen up for kick ball they were inevitably the team captains and fiercest competitors. The other kids all had their sports and Millicent and Martin loved to take part in the running races and the games of four square that went on beside the school house. In doors, the DeRhyders, Hans and Selma were the leaders, with their father a former college professor who insisted they study and read the Bible each day, they far excelled over the other children. But, no one could touch Martin when it came to the sharing time at the end of the day, with his stories. So often did he fall into a fantasy when he took turn to speak in games of let’s pretend, the teacher had long decided to let him and listened with as much fascination as the children. She even encouraged him to write his stories down and gave him extra credit for them, if the punctuation and grammar was good. With Martin this was like promising him a sure A since he was the most meticulous of writers, even then. And as the first year turned to the second, the third, and so on, his fame as a story teller grew legendary. Millicent couldn’t understand how so many stories could be caught up in his head, but the spilling of them never seemed to wane and he was soon writing everything he thought of down hoping one day to be a great writer. 7

But, by the ninth grade, things had begun to take a decidedly dark twist in Europe and the country was watching with anxiety at the developments going on in Europe. Children came to school each day to tell of some new anti government, anti American action and all about the coming of war. Millicent’s poppa and momma too talked in hushed tones each night after listening to the news. At age fifteen it all seemed so remote and unfathomable to Millicent, but she saw the nervous looks going back and forth between her father and mother and wondered what it was that bothered the two of them so. The German nation under Adolph Hitler had been growing more and more aggressive, first annexing territory in Austria and taking the Sudeten Land in Czechoslovakia.8

That year the German army marched into Poland and war broke out between France and England and Germany. For the first time the war was coming home to the people of the United States, many of whom were first generation immigrants from these countries. Even those who were not, proud of their heritage were beginning to grumble against the German people. Unfortunately for Martin, his family was the only German family living in a community with many Norwegians, and Fins and the only family of Poles. It wasn’t long before all the children in the school had taken a decidedly different attitude towards Martin, some openly shunning him. Millicent ignored them and continued a friendship which had grown into a simple childlike love affair. Together they would go to the fields each day and sit by the stream watching the sun sink low into hills and talk about how it would be when they grew up. They would leave this place behind and go where there were no people who would hate and make war on one another. Martin made up a world for the two of them, where there would be roads filled with sweet smelling flowers all years round and fruit trees filled with every kind of fruit Millicent could imagine. They would have a house just like the one her family had built and there would be horses to ride and endless nights of laughter from their children. Over and over they talked of these things, thoughtless of the fact that they were committing an unsaid pledge of eternal faithfulness and commitment in their conversations, until one night when Martin looked at her and whispered. “Are we in love Millicent?” and she answered, “Yes, we must be because we’re going to get married, aren’t we?” And he had nodded and they had kissed for the first time. They held hands all the way back to her house that night and every night and each day after that, on the way to school and coming home. And, the first kiss became the first of many wonderful kisses which grew longer and more intense with each passing day.9

Unfortunately for Martin, though, it would soon become impossible to ignore the growing hatred in the children for him and the things they would say and do to him. Everyone calling him a Nazi was bad enough, but the Hedrik and Stephen made poor Martin the object of their attacks on the playground, after Germany marched into Poland, ambushing him on the way home from school and even going as far as to throw things at him in class whenever the teacher wasn’t looking. To Martin, always a shy boy except in his story telling, this was simply too much. Finally, he stopped coming to school. Millicent waited each morning for him until she had to run to keep from being late for school, but he never met her anymore and his family announced one day they were thinking of moving, as the entire family had become the whipping post for all the hatred and aggression of the community. Millicent begged her parents to stop the Wolfs from leaving, but they simply shook their heads sadly telling her there was nothing they could do if the family wanted to leave. Both momma and poppa would be losing their best friends too if the Wolfs left and the entire thing cast pallor over the household. Millicent cried herself to sleep each night and prayed to God that he would make things right, but they only got worse when Martin was beaten so bad his arm was broken. Everyone knew it was the Provoks who had done it, but no one could prove it. That, it turned out was the final blow and the Wolfs packed their belongings and fled the town before anything more could happen. Though no one knew it they had already had windows broken and someone had killed the family’s cat, but the harm done to Martin made the decision to go imperative.10

The morning the Wolf’s left, Millicent woke to find a neatly folded note book sheet taped to her window and read the worst news of her life.11

Dear Millicent.12

I write you this to tell you that you are my true love and the only love I have ever known and will ever know. I die this moment knowing I might never see you again, but momma and pop tell me we must go to Idaho. They say there is a place there where they have relatives and many German people live. They tell me I cannot write you because it might endanger your family if the people of the community think you are friends of ours and there for friends of Nazi’s. I feel pain Millicent, such as I have never known could possibly exist. I feel emptiness that will never be filled. I wish I could be someone else so that I could stay here, but I will always be Martin the Nazi to the Provok’s and they will surely beat me again. Momma says they could even kill me and she will not allow that to happen, so we must go away. 13

I will miss you terribly Millicent and will always think of you. One day, perhaps, things will be good again and, when we are grown up, we may find one another again. I will pray that it can be so and I will tell you one last time that I love you more than all the things I love best in life even if they could all be one, for you are all that is life to me.14

Good-bye love. Yours forever Martin15


Millicent read the note and charged out of the house, down the rode, running all the way to the Wolf’s farm without stopping, as fast as she could run. But, when she arrived all that greeted her was an empty house and she broke down and cried, sick with grief. She cried all that day, the next and the next and for months after that. The other children all told her they were sorry for having been so cruel to Martin, even the Provok’s but she was so angry with them all she refused to speak to any of them for months. And, she never spoke to either Hedrik or Stephen again. 16

Years passed, and the war ended, and Millicent went off to college, alone. She told herself she would meet Martin again one day, as he had said they might, but as the years passed she became more and more aware of the fact that he would be, forever, only a memory of the most wonderful boy she had ever known. And, she grew old, still yearning for the only love of her life. Millicent became a teacher herself and encouraged the children to dream. She watched love grow between other students and tried to make all the children know they were all children of God and should never let national pride lead them to hate. And, she grew happy with her efforts, but inside she knew she would never truly be happy again. Though she tried to love again, it always ended in another failed attempt and she always came back to stare at the picture on the wall and ask herself why. 17

Now, standing here staring at the picture, she felt a sharp pain in her chest and settled herself in her arm chair, sure she had indigestion. She rose to go to the kitchen and make herself a bicarbonate of soda and that was the last thing she remembered. The next morning, when she did not come to school the school called, but got no answer. The head master finally came around to investigate and found her there on the floor, by the kitchen. And, there was a picture lying on the floor beside her. It had been knocked off the wall when she fell to the floor. It laid across her and in it a little boy and girl laughed and played on a cart, forever young.18

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