This story began on November 13, 1950 at 4:38 in the afternoon.  That was the day I was born. My name is Herminie Rockefeller Barnes.  I know!  It’s quite a name for a tiny baby to have to contend with, so Mom has always just called me Minie.  I was named after my great-grandma.  I guess if she could live 96 years with that name, I could deal with it, too!

I have lived all of my seventy plus years in this small Iowa town called, Hastings, specifically in this rambling, six-bedroom, Victorian-style house on the edge of town.  My namesake, Herminie Johnson, and her husband, George, built this house in 1880.  Great-grandpa George owned and operated a lumberyard and a construction business and was very successful at both.  Herminie kept house and raised six kids, one of them was my Grandma Bertie.  Bertie was Mother’s mother.

   

This house is the only home I have ever known.  It is a typical Victorian style house, with long, narrow windows with white flower boxes at each one. Each box was full of white petunias and blue pansies. The rambling Painted Lady had a pale yellow coat of paint on the house and accent colors of periwinkle blue, sage green and deep pumpkin orange on the trim and window sashes.  The wide curving sidewalk leading to the wrap-around porch is edged on each side with yellow English roses and white Shasta daisies.  The sign at the front of the yard, announcing the establishment to the world, is in need of a fresh coat of paint, but you can still read:

MARGE’S ROOM AND BOARD

Marjory Barnes, Owner

Reasonable Rates

NO Vacancy

The sign always said “NO Vacancy” because the three people who rented from Mother had been there for years and they showed no sign of moving on.  They were more like relatives who came for a Sunday afternoon visit and never went home.

Mother and her three tenants have all passed on and I inherited the house.  I have many good memories about the house and all who occupied it.  Many stories could be told, but there is one in particular that you need to hear since you’ve stopped by.  But you need to know the people  first.

My favorite renter was a little lady who was born and raised here in Hastings.  Her name was Emily Jones when she fell in love with an elephant trainer, Adolf, the Great, who worked in a small traveling circus.  Emily ran away from home when she was sixteen to join the circus and be with Adolf.

Nobody knew what happened to Emily and her broken-hearted parents never saw her again.  She stayed with the elephant trainer for about six months, traveling all over the country.  Then he started treating her like he did his elephants, beating and abusing her until she ran away from him while the circus was in Las Vegas.

Emily found work as a cocktail waitress in a casino on the strip.  She loved watching the girls dance on stage with their beautiful costumes and flawless hair and stage makeup.  She would practice the dance steps she saw them use and became very accomplished with the steps.  One of the girls in the chorus line sprained her ankle and couldn’t perform.  One of the other dancers saw Emily practicing their number backstage and had her come up and dance with the line at rehearsal.  She knew every step and every position, so she danced with the girls that night.  She spent the next twenty years in the chorus line.      She went to work that morning as Emily Jones of Hastings, Iowa and left as Talula Spring of Las Vegas, Nevada.

Very few people realized who she was when she came back to Hastings after she retired from the chorus line.  She went by her stage name and of course, since nobody knew what happened to her when she left town, the name, Talula Spring, meant nothing to them.  They just looked at her as a strange old woman with bright red lips, round patches of rouge on her cheeks, baby blue eye shadow and long false eyelashes.  Her unruly, frizzy hair was dyed black with silver roots showing at the part. Her hair was held back from her wrinkled forehead by a colorful floral scarf.  She wore many gold rings on her fingers, bracelets on her thin wrists and dangling earrings.  Her perfectly manicured nails were painted a candy apple red.  She normally wore full-length caftans in bright colors and patterns and when she walked down the quiet streets of Hastings, Talula was quite a spectacle, drawing attention and interest whenever she went out.

Her bedroom and small sitting room that she rented from Mother was decorated in bright colors, feathers and head pieces that she wore as a dancer.  She had many stories that she would tell, during the long winter evenings when we built a roaring fire in the fireplace in the parlor.  I loved these evenings when all three of the renters would gather with coffee or tea and cookies and talk about the olden days of their youth.

One of the other renters was a retired grade school teacher by the name of Ernestine Morgan.  She was born and raised in Chicago, and  was an adopted child of two aging parents.  She attended  teacher’s college in Cedar Falls and taught second and third grades until her retirement five years ago.  She never married, but the rumor was that when she was in college, she did fall in love with a young man, named John, from Arizona who was also going to college to become a teacher.  The story goes that he was driving back to Cedar Falls to start their last year of college, when he lost control of his car and flipped it four times and hit a utility pole.  He died immediately.  It is said that Ernestine was never quite the same after his death. 

She was a very prim and proper lady who always dressed in ankle length skirts, white long-sleeved blouses, a yellowing string of pearls and matching clip-on earrings and sensible shoes.  On these cold winter nights, she wore a pale pink shawl around her shoulders that her mother made for her years ago.  That was the only brightly colored piece of clothing that she owned.  Everything else was grey, brown, or black.  She wore her hair in a tight braided bun at the nape of her neck and her wire-rimmed spectacles were always perched at the end of her long, straight nose.  She often looked over the top of the glasses when you were talking to her.  She rarely spoke, but when she did, she spoke quietly and with purpose.

Ernestine’s bedroom and small living room were very sparsely decorated and showed few signs of being occupied.  On her dresser, was a picture of her parents.  Stuck in the corner of the frame was a small, bent and worn picture of her as a very small child.  Next to the picture was a well-used rosary and a small wooden box.  Inside the box were all the letters that John sent to her before he was killed in the car rollover.  On the wall above her bed was a very ornate cross and on one of the adjacent walls was a picture of Jesus holding a lamb.  

The third renter was the mystery man of the group.  He was originally from Great Britain and the accent was evident in his speech.  His name was Sir DeLorean Graham.  He was fairly well off and rented the entire third floor of the house.  He never had visitors and did not invite anyone into his rooms.  Mother had not been into the third-floor apartment in her own house since he moved into it!  He was very protective of his privacy and belongings.  Sir Graham rarely participated in the evening gatherings, but occasionally he would come down and sit silently observing the conversations and the pleasant fire. 

   

On this particular evening he had decided to make an appearance and I watched as he slowly made his way down the grand staircase.  Sir DeLorean Graham was somewhere in his 70’s and had the means to be retired for many years.  He had no immediate family and never married.  Any relatives who were still alive were in England and he had little or no contact with them.       

He was a short man with a slight build.  Sir Graham always dressed in a suit and tie when he came down for the evening.  Every strand of his thinning salt and pepper hair was in its perfect place to help hide his balding head.  His shoes were immaculate and polished and his unlit pipe was clenched between his teeth.  When he entered a room where a lady was present, he made a formal bow to the lady.  Ever the gentleman.

Nobody in the house knew very much about DeLorean.  There are stories that he came to Hastings from Chicago regarding the purchase of a business there in town.  Evidentially, the deal fell through, but he had fallen in love with the little town and some say, with a woman who lived here.  The name of the object of his love was never mentioned.   He never was seen with a woman, so the gossip died away. 

“It’s good to see you, DeLorean,” said Talula with a flirty little smile.  “We haven’t seen much of you lately.”

“Good evening, Miss Spring.  Always good to see all of you ladies!”  He blushed from the attention we all paid him.

“You seldom talk about your past, DeLorean.  Maybe you could tell us about your life in England.”  Talula was rather nosey and was always looking for a juicy story to pass on and add to.

“There is little to tell.  I was born and raised in a small village called Castle Combe, in Wiltshire.  Mother and Father had two children, I am the oldest and my younger sister, Gertrude,  was 8 years younger.  We moved to the United States when we were quite young, to the city of Chicago.  My sister was kidnapped when she was two and was never found.  When I turned 18, I returned to England to study. I had the absolute privilege of becoming a Knight of the Queen as a young man.”  He paused and looked nervously around the room to see if he had said too much.  The ladies were all leaning forward in their seats, taking in every word he spoke.

He cleared his throat, his blushing grew to an even darker shade of crimson and he nervously stood.  “I bid you all a good evening,” and he rushed out of the room, hurrying up the stairs to the security of his rooms.

“I swear that is the most he has ever said about his personal life!”  Talula looked pleased that she had pulled that much out of him.  The room was quiet as each one there was imagining his life in England and being knighted by the Queen.  

“Well, it’s time for me to go upstairs and go to bed.  My old bones are aching from sitting too long!  You gals all have a wonderful evening.  Sweet dreams!”  Talula went upstairs, anxious to visit her youth again as a Las Vegas chorus girl in her dreams.

Ernestine was the next to go to her room.  She left the room appearing to be deep in thought and hurried up the stairs.

And now, the story gets very interesting!  Ernestine told me what happened and I am going to tell all of you what she told me!

DeLorean worked into the night, just about every night, trying to find information on his little sister.  He kept running into dead ends, but he continued to work on it.  He moved to Hastings to purchase an insurance agency.  Since he was a stranger in town, nobody would loan him any money for operating capitol.   He decided to stay in Hastings for a while since he had no obligations elsewhere.  That was a year ago and he was still at Marge’s Room and Board.

Then Ernestine got the nerve to knock on his door.  She knocked several times before he finally opened the door, looking totally surprised to see her standing there.

“Hello, Miss Morgan.  What can I do for you this morning?”  he asked.

“Mr. Graham, I’m sorry to bother you, but I was hoping that I could ask some questions about your sister’s kidnapping.  I am very interested in this story.”  Ernestine was blushing.  She never was this forward to anyone, let alone a man! 

“Why don’t we meet on the front porch and I can try to answer your questions,” he offered.  “I will be down shortly.”

Ernestine settled in one of the rocking chairs on the front porch.  Marge had several hummingbird feeders hanging on the porch and they were alive with the busy little creatures.  She could smell the yellow roses as they nodded in the warm mid-morning breeze.  A beautiful start to a gorgeous early summer day.

DeLorean appeared at the front door and nervously found a seat near Ernestine.

“If I might, ask, why are you curious about my sister’s kidnapping?” DeLorean inquired.

“Thanks for talking with me about this.  I was adopted at an early age to two wonderful people in Chicago.  There is no birth certificate or information about my birth mother at all.  After both of my parents died, I found a folder with some papers about me.  I do know that because my parents were older, a regular adoption service was out of the question, I think they went through some pretty questionable channels to get me, and they paid a very high price to be parents,” she said, with tears in her eyes.

“Mother and Daddy knew nothing about me.  I was very fortunate that they took me in.  When you talked about your sister last night, I began to compare our stories and there are some similarities.”  She sounded hopeful.

“We are close to the same age.  Her name was Gertrude and that is my middle name.  I even have a picture of me when I was quite young with “Gertrude” written on the back.  I was dressed in the outfit I was wearing the day of the adoption,” she said.

All of this information was becoming very interesting to DeLorean.  “Would it be possible to see that picture?” he asked, desperately wanting to see it.

“Of course.  I will go to my room and get it,” she said excitedly.

Her mind was racing almost as fast as her feet.  Ernestine Gertrude Morgan grabbed the picture from the corner of the frame and ran back to the porch.

She handed the picture of the small, scared little girl in a dress that Mrs. Graham, their mother, had   dressed her in the day she was kidnapped.  DeLorean recognized that little girl in the wrinkled dress in the faded picture.

DeLorean reached his open arms to Ernestine.  As he hugged her, he whispered in her ear, “I finally found you, Sister!  Welcome home!”