Chapter Excerpt

Part XII

Salt Lake City
[September 13 - November 2, 1913]

1
Suicidal Tendencies

“Very tightly shall I [Josephine] bar my door against all intruders 
who come not in love & peace”

Exhausted from a bad night’s sleep on the Overland Limited, Josephine wearily descends onto the station platform in the City of Salt Lake, there to be met by Edith’s husband, Dick Chapman, and driven to their home atop a knoll just outside the city limits. The news of her arrival is transmitted forthwith to Heurtley by Edith but Edith’s real purpose in writing is to bitch about the girls. It seems that Edith and her husband had leased a cottage nearby on the assumption that the girls would be coming with their mother and now that they have failed to show up, the lease has had to be canceled, the Chapmans have had to forfeit the down payment and Josephine, much to Richard’s annoyance, has had to be taken into their own household. September 13, 1913:

Mother arrived safely. It is unfortunate the girls did not accompany her. The little cottage would have been very economical for them this winter. We are unfortunately bound to the little cottage, but Dick has arranged to cancel the lease for $75.00 cash. Mother asks that you will send a checque for the closing of the affair. I must also acknowledge the checque for $27.00 which has been paid over, making a total of $107.00 loss. Don’t you think, since it is their fault, the girls ought to contribute something towards this loss?

In closing, Edith notes that her husband expects to be in Chicago in November and “is coming to see you.”

Josephine, herself, is too weary and too depressed to pick up pen and paper for a fortnight. Buffeted by the vicissitudes of life, rocked by the winds of misfortune, she has withdrawn into a precarious shell from which her world looks ominously bleak. She has just fled Dunkirk for Salt Lake City, unwilling to face the music wafting from the cell block in Buffalo, leaving the whole bloody mess behind her to be cleaned up by her solid-as-a-brick if not-too-bright-on-top Ted, and everyone, but everyone, has turned against her. And all the time and energy she had spent with Heurtley and The Master Brain trying to come up and getting nowhere with some foolproof method of securing the girls’ future welfare: Her willingness to sacrifice her own interest in the Bigelow trust rejected by Judah with, to coin a Heurtleyism, a resounding OUT OF THE QUESTION; the papers for the Family Combine still sitting there on Judah’s back burner not even in a tentative, preliminary, first-draft form; and if ever the papers do get past the drawing-board stage, they may be -- make that probably will be -- make that, according to the scholarly Judah, cannot be anything other than -- precatory, expressing nothing more than a forlorn unenforceable wish. Indeed, the only “paper” that has thus far emerged full blown, adorned with blue ribbons, stamped with a notary seal and executed by all the necessary parties, is the form of “guaranty” required by the noble if over zealous Judah as a safeguard to any form of Family Combine (however voluntary) to protect the Trustee just in case. The turmoil she has been through in the past several months, as she will ultimately confess, has lead her to the very brink of suicide or, as she will one day to put it in a letter to Heurtley, “ to make all ready for the awful deed.” What exact steps Josephine took to make “all ready” she will not reveal, but given her penchant to dig, dig, dig, a likely instrument is the arsenic commonly found in the garden fertilizers then in use.

Although Josephine is not yet to ready to reveal to Heurtley how close she had come to committing an act which, in the eyes of the church, would be a mortal sin, a need to enter the confessional booth is upon her. To Heurtley then, on September 22:

The return of the girls has been such a disappointment to me. I do not see how it is all to continue -- that we three shall ever again come into each others’ lives in understanding & love again. If they could only see how much harm they are doing themselves by casting me away, & how dearly they will pay at some future day, if not now, for such an action. & how wrong it is to place me in such a position before the world, which injures them also, but they are blind to everything but their own wishes, & they hope to find happiness through others, not seeing that their only chance for happiness lies in their filial duty, and in not crushing and bruising the loving heart of their mother, who is their best friend on earth, & who has been given them to love and protect and cherish. But I must say no more, dear Mr. Heurtley, nor burden you with any more of my sorrows. 

I try to think of the beautiful words you spoke to me & of the white shaft erected to the memory of ‘those who have passed through great tribulation’ -- & I hope I, too, may pass through mine & emerge a wiser & better woman. ‘For as gold is tried by fire, so a heart is tried by pain.’”

But try as she will not to burden dear Mr. Heurtley with any more of her sorrows, there are a few subjects which must be brought up. Finances to start with:

I feel I have been dipping too freely into my income of late, to meet the various demands made upon me, & that at this rate it will be impossible for me to even get free from the indebtedness. After you have met the enclosed bills for me, which  should have been paid out of the money I had to pay over to Bill at East Aurora, & which does not include the dress maker & dentist, I will now ask you not to pay out anything more to any one, unless for sickness or otherwise, & that we all get down to our allowances & not exceed them until I am free from debt. Ted of course must have his 100 for a time, or until he is either successful or seeks some other position which is, I now feel, what he should do very shortly. I find there is a chance here of my having my own little money for myself, since Edie is comfortably provided for, although not lavishly, & I am not allowed to carry any burden here, but they only wish to carry me. I am not yet used to the idea, but it is very sweet of them to so feel towards me, & I am more than appreciative.

And on to Bill and the girls:

No one has written me a word since I left. I am completely in the dark as to what has been done regarding Bill & Caskalean. Will you be so kind as to let me know if you have any news? It is quite necessary I should know where Bill has gone for many reasons. How sorry I am I brought him East! & had it not been that the Hubbards wished Caskalean to be brought, I should not have attempted that. I shall be blamed so much by Dorothy & Olive, & yet, dear Mr. Heurtley, it was my very highest & best attempt for Bill, & only such as you, my dear friend, will see its really beautiful & spiritual side & the wondrous & forgiving love which prompted the action. Strange! how this wonderful love which has been mine to give, has only in return brought me sorrow & pain. No matter how high the motive, or how selfless the act, the recoil has always been pain & suffering for me. & yet, I [have] given much, not only of my possessions, but of my self, my sympathy & understanding, & I have never failed them yet in any way. & this they only reluctantly admit. but again I transgressed, but for the last time I hope. My own life hereafter must be my own & as such I intend to make it.

Ending with a touch of the “paranoic [sic] streak” she had attributed to Bill in her letter to Heurtley  of May 13, 1913, not thinking as she wrote that perhaps he inherits this from his mother.

Very tightly shall I bar my door against all intruders who come not in love & peace. Amidst growing things & nature I intend to pass the remainder of my days. Nor give too lavishly as of old to anyone. In spring I am to have my furniture, or what remains of it, & with this, & your help, I shall enter into my own new life. I shall want a companion, a gentlewoman, one who will be able to help me, in other words, a Scientist. If you should think of such a person, or meet with such, who would like a good home, please bear me in mind. I only mention this to you because I wondered if you had some friend you could place with me from your church, who can heal my mortally wounded & sick soul. My head troubles me greatly & my memory leaves me strangely at times.

Clearly, Josephine needs help, perhaps from a shrink. Alas, the Jungs and Freuds of her daughter Olive’s generation are not there to probe her psyche. At least, perhaps fortunately, there is Heurtley, her true and trusted friend to turn to:

I shall be so grateful if you could help me in this way. & while here I will read & try to help myself through faith & understanding which I have tried to do for the past year. There is a church here. I shall go to it some Sunday & remember what you said. My strength cannot fail me, for it is all around me. The days fly for me as I am very busy, & thus I haven't time to cry & think much.

This kind of back-sliding from Mrs. Caldwell, his prize pupil, needs a stern lecture from her Preacher. From Heurtley to Josephine on September 26: “I think if you can cease from worrying over things that really you cannot help, you will regain your peace of mind and strength of body. You know how it ought to be done so I cannot add anything to what I have already said. It is hard for parents to realize that their children are no longer children, and after they have reached a certain age they have an undoubted right to live their own lives in their own way. All that can be done is to advise them.”

Of course, if in the process the children burn their fingers, well, too bad... “It is greatly to be regretted of course if they burn their fingers, but sometime lessons, will only be learned in just that way. So far as the girls are concerned, I am sure they will ultimately come out all right. Just be patient and while sometimes it may seem hard to do so, yet remember that the Master said that the erring one should be forgiven not merely seven times, but seventy times seven.”