Bold Spirit - Linda Hunt [61]
The Sun, a sensationalist “danger and doom” newspaper, headlined an article with “Walked Here from Spokane: Mrs. Estby Tells a Harrowing Tale of Eight Years of Tribulation.” In reporting on her plea to the city Commissioners of Charities to pay their way back to Spokane, it gave a litany of misfortunes Helga and Ole faced in the past years, including her accident and surgery, the family’s inability to pay the mortgage, Ole’s accidents, and children’s illnesses. Although not all facts can be verified, what is apparent was Helga’s sense of being besieged at this point. Known for her independence, determination, and innate confidence, these traits appeared to be waning. In shock and grief, she lamented, “Now my daughter Bertha is dead.”18 While searching desperately for funds to return, unbeknownst to Helga, even more sorrow was coming to her home.
Helga and Clara had their pictures taken again in New York at the Obermüller and Sons photography studio, perhaps with hopes of selling these to earn money for their trip home. Helga titled this The Pedestrians.
Courtesy Robert Mackintosh Family Collection. Detail of this photograph on this page.
Within days after Bertha became ill, Ole’s fear that he had not protected the other children in time came true. Nine-year-old Johnny also complained of nausea, a fever, and sore throat. Rather than a mild beginning, Johnny immediately showed stronger diphtheria symptoms because he was younger and more vulnerable. Both tonsils became so swollen he had the “bull neck,” a devastating warning to the doctor that the most lethal form of diphtheria had entered the Estby household. Now Olaf and Ole tried to nurse Johnny. Although older children like Olaf often recovered from diphtheria, the same disease could be fatal to younger children. Unseen germs often lingered for months in an environment, suddenly taking a new victim long after a family believed their sanitation efforts were sufficient. They did not dare try to comfort the other children, so fourteen-year-old Ida had to take care of William, Arthur, and three-year-old Lillian all by herself in the cold shed during the quarantine. They could not go to school, could not have their papa hold them, could not say good-bye to their cherished sister Bertha, and could not help with Johnny. They also lived with an invasive fear that one of them could be next.
Four days later, on April 10, Johnny died. Once again, Ole had to yell this terrible news to the children in the shed and listen to their wails of grief and fear. This time Olaf helped his father build the coffin, rode on the wagon to the Mica Creek cemetery, and dug the grave for his little brother alongside his sister Bertha’s grave.19 But when they returned home, they still dared not comfort the other children or let them back in the home until the county health officials arrived to disinfect the house. Ida cried to Ole that they were so cold in the shed, but he was afraid to give them extra blankets that might harbor the invisible killers. The family now had lost their third child within a year and a half. He listened to the complaints from the shed and prayed that no other child carried the bacteria that was destroying his family. As he crawled exhausted into bed, the heartbroken father must have wondered again if he had done enough to save his children. Did he give the right care? And he asked a question that remained until he was on his own deathbed, a question he knew his children also wondered: Would this have happened if Helga had been home?
17 HOMEWARD BOUND
For the first time in history this continent is traversed
on foot by