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Family Secrets
by Elisabeth Hewitt Bantz
"Shall not God search this out? For he knoweth the secrets of the heart."
Psalm 44:21
FOREWORD
I had just given Ruth Solomon the manuscript, the story of her life I had been working on for the better part of the year. I searched her face, eager to see her response. Instead, she ignored my mound of hard work and gazed off into the distance, about to say something profound I suspected.
"You know, Kinzey," she began, "long before I was born, decisions were made that would effect the direction of my life." Then her kind, sage eyes caught mine and reeled me in. "We are all given a kind of script at birth. It's written and rewritten as each new decision is made. Characters and circumstances are already being acted out. And God is watching, waiting to see if we're going to play the role we've been handed, or submit the script to Him for a rewrite. . . . I'm glad I let Him revise mine."
My mouth turned dry as I broke eye contact and scribbled what she had just said. I'll have to include this somewhere in the final text, I told myself, all the while knowing I was writing it down for my own benefit. Meeting this ninety-something bundle of wisdom and spunk sure had changed my career. My whole life, actually.
But I'm getting way ahead of myself. . . .
I first met Ruth [Blanchard-Melliere-Reiser] Solomon at a wake. Her husband's wake.
I hadn't known either of them. I was there on assignment.
You see, as a feature for my "Through it all" column, I had been trying for months to set up an appointment with Bess Oerter, the busiest pro-life advocate I've ever tried to interview for my magazine. (Landing her story would definitely be good for my image.) So, when she called saying she'd be making a flying visit to Chicago to see her dearest friend (the aforementioned Mrs. Solomon) whose husband had just died, and asked, "Would you please pick me up at the airport?" I jumped at the chance.
"You can interview me on the way to the funeral home and back," she suggested.
So, I hired a limousine and met Mrs. Oerter at O'Hare and interviewed her all the way to the funeral home in Aurora. That's how I happened to be at the wake of a man I never knew, and met the woman who was about to unwittingly launch me into a new venture.
As I entered the large viewing parlor with Bess (we were on a first name basis by then), the first thing I noticed was how royally her friend Ruth Solomon treated each guest. The room was full, and the waiting line long, so it gave me an opportunity to watch her, and to pick up on the conversations around us. Each voice expressed a similar story about how Ruth had touched his or her life. (As it turned out, Mrs. Solomon proved to be the key to Bess's story, and would become an integral part of the article I eventually wrote.)
"Aunt Ruth," Bess greeted her friend with a warm hug when we reached her at last; "I'd like you to meet my friend, Kinzey White, a columnist from NOW Magazine."
I was surprised when Aunt Ruth turned and greeted me as warmly as she had her old friend, Bess.
"Kinzey White!" She enfolded my hand with both of hers. "How nice to meet you. Thank you for coming. I've read Christian Women NOW, and I like the concept of Christian women nurturing other women. You must enjoy your work. Would you like to meet Saul?" she asked as if her husband were standing right beside her.
I nodded with more poise (I hope) than I felt (I absolutely hate that part of funerals), so she took me over and introduced me to her husband resting peacefully in the flag-draped casket. Two highly decorated Veterans stood at attention, one at his head and one at his feet.
Fortunately the viewing wasn't as awkward as I had feared. Ruth's face glowed as she told me a little about Saul and how God had brought them together and blessed them through the years. "He was a hundred and four, you know. Lived in three centuries," she said proudly. Such a vibrant little lady. She was beginning to intrigue me.
"What can you tell me about Ruth Solomon?" I asked Bess on the way back to O'Hare. We had just concluded our official interview on her lifesaving efforts across the country.
"Well, for one thing, she opened the nation's first travel agency specifically for women in Aurora back in the Thirties. That's how my mother met her, although for the first five years of my life, Ruth was the only mother I knew."
"Whoa! Back up, please. What about your real mother"
"Okay, here's what happened. My mom had been on her way to an abortionist (although they didn't have that tidy a name back then) when she first met Ruth at the travel agency. Instead of selling her a ticket to Chicago, where her father had told her to go to get rid of me, Ruth took Mom into her own home until I was born. But my mother was too young and mixed up to take care of me, and her family had disowned her, so Ruth kept me until Mom got her life straightened out with God and the rest of the family. You see, Mom had been 'taken advantage of'---that was the phrase used back then. If it hadn't been for Aunt Ruth, I certainly wouldn't be here now, doing what I do. So you see, I have a very good reason for being a spokesperson for the unborn."
"That's amazing. Is it okay to use this in the article also? You don't think Ruth would mind?"
"I don't see why not. She's such a treasure. She--- Say, why don't you talk to her yourself? Her story would make a great article, much more interesting than mine."
"I wouldn't say that. But it is a good idea." (I didn't let on that the idea had occurred to me already.) "Do you think she'll see me?"
That was months ago. Ruth not only granted me an interview, but her story gave me an idea for a brand-new endeavor, which is why I'm driving back out to the boonies (anything west of Chicago) on such a lovely Saturday afternoon to see Ruth.
"Come in. Come in!" Ruth exclaimed, ushering me into the spacious living room of her elegant ranch house.
"Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, Mrs. Solomon."
She led me through to the kitchen, the homiest spot in the house. It's where we usually ended up during my previous interviews anyway. The room was bright and airy, with a lingering aroma of homemade bread, fruit pies, and roast beef. Splashes of bright yellow in the wallpaper added to the room's cheerfulness.
Ruth watched me with an indulgent smile as I set my oversized carrying case beside my chair and rummaged through it for a stack of magazines.
"I came to give you these copies of Christian Women NOW, hot off the press."
"How thoughtful of you." Ruth reached out and took them, fingering the magazines but showing little interest. She eyed me with a question mark as if to say "and?---"
"The one on top is opened up to our interview," I added.
Ruth nodded, still waiting for the real reason why I was here. She studied my face, my tailored suit, my manicured nails, my dark, newly-trimmed hair, until I squirmed under her scrutiny. There was no malice in her eyes, just a knowing expression that made me feel exposed, like she knew my appearance was my armor. My defense.
"Would you like some lemonade?" she asked, breaking the silence. "I squeezed it fresh this morning."
"You still do that?"
Ruth shrugged. "I have a juicer."
"I'd love some, thanks! I can't remember the last time I've had anything but the powdered stuff with artificial sweetener."
Ruth moved to the refrigerator with surprising agility for her age, and poured two glasses, adding ice from the slot in the freezer door. "I still can't understand who'd want to read about me in your magazine," she said as she joined me at the table once more. "I've led such an ordinary life."
"That's not what my editors think. In fact, 'extraordinary' is the word they used. You may not realize it, but you've got just the right combination of spunk and submission the women of the twenty-first century need. Actually, that's the second reason why I'm here."
Aha! I could see Ruth thinking. Now we get to the real reason for the visit. "I was waiting for the second shoe to drop," she said with a nod.
I smiled. There wasn't much she couldn't perceive. "As I was trying to reduce your story to fifteen hundred words for the article, it became clear to me that it would make a good book . . . a really good book . . . so I wrote up a proposal and took it to my publisher, and she agrees. The company has authorized me to ask you if I may write the story of your life; fictionalized to preserve your privacy of course, with names and places changed for anonymity."
"I can't imagine why," Ruth said.
"Well, they've read what I've written so far, and like the idea."
"I still say, why me?"
"I came prepared for that question. I'll quote a verse from the book of Esther: ''Who knows but that you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?' There are women out there hurting, going through much the same things you've experienced, and it's made them bitter, angry at God, and estranged from their husbands, yet you obviously found peace with God and contentment with your husband in the midst of painful losses. I'd like to share with them---"
"My dear Mrs. White, I'm honored, of course, but---"
"Please don't say no yet, Mrs. Solomon. This could be a ministry far beyond anything you've ever imagined. Call it a Mission for Modern Women, if you wish. It's a story that needs to be told."
"But---"
"Wait! That's not all. If this book sells like I think it will, I have ideas for sequels featuring some of the women you have helped."
"I never set out to help anyone," Ruth said quietly. "It just happened. They were just there, needy and alone. It's almost as if they found me. And I remembered what it felt like to be alone with no one to turn to; it wasn't much, but I did what I could."
"That's exactly my point. And you could help even more women in similar situations with this book. Well, what do you say? May I have your permission to continue with more interviews? You'll receive your share of the royalty."
"You know I don't need the money, dear. However . . . there is this place called Hope House---they help battered, deserted women and children---and it needs all the help it can get. Yes. Okay. Let's do it!"
"Thank you, Mrs. Solomon."
"Please call me Ruth, or Aunt Ruth. Almost everyone calls me that."
"I'd be honored to, Aunt Ruth. Do you have time now for some question?"
Again she gave me that indulgent smile, like, "What else do I have to do?"
"Let's start at the beginning again, only this time with more detail. Go back as far as you can remember, to set the scene. Tell me about your parents, your grandparents."
I quickly set up my equipment, readied the tape recorder, opened my laptop and powered it up, then switched the recorder on. With my fingertips poised to take notes, I looked over at Aunt Ruth expectantly.
Ruth Blanchard Solomon, hands folded, gazed past me, already deep in the past. "How can we know, when we are young, that the path we take, the things we do, will affect generations to come? My parents certainly didn't back then, but in hindsight I see a pattern that has set certain factors in motion. I'll have to start with the story I learned from Grandpere Melliere, my mother's father. . . . It will shed light on how I happened to be born and raised in Columbia, Illinois, fifteen miles due south of the now famous St. Louis Arch. In my day, it was the Eads Bridge that garnered all the fame."
