Chapter 6

November 16, 1847

"Is it a boy or girl?"

I had been concentrating on Louise so much that I hadn't noticed. Claire spoke up, "You have a beautiful girl". Louise watched the baby as it suckled on her breast, a tired peaceful look on her face. She had been in labor for the last 10 hours and was exhausted. She soon fell asleep with the baby still nursing. Claire moved the baby from the one breast to the other and we moved to the kitchen.

I looked at Claire and confessed, "I was paying so much attention to Louise I didn't even notice anything about the baby after I cleaned her mouth and nose. Is the baby completely black or a mixture?"

"She looks at least half white. In fact, if we never told anyone she might be able to pass as white."

This slipped by me for a second and then it hit me like a dash of ice water. The race of a child had mostly ceased to be a problem in my time, except for some of the more rabid racists. Here it mattered so much to people that Claire was talking about pretending Louise's baby was white. Claire was an abolitionist, who believed that blacks should be free, yet even she unconsciously showed the prejudices of her upbringing. You were either white or you were nothing.

(Authors note: Members of the Territorial Legislature introduced laws that attempted to exclude blacks from the benefits of full citizenship rights. These efforts were unsuccessful. However, anti-black attitudes surfaced again during the Constitutional Convention of 1857. In this session anti-black delegates managed to secure passage of ballot measures that prohibited further immigration of blacks and mulattoes to Oregon, although efforts to make Oregon a slave state failed. The voters approved overwhelmingly measures that both outlawed slavery and prohibited blacks and mulattoes from residing in Oregon. Laws that discriminated against African Americans remained in place through the late 19th and early 20th centuries, despite passage of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth amendments to the U. S. Constitution.)

It simply had never occurred to me what the reaction of other people to the children of Louise and I would be. I had naively assumed that they would react like the people of my time and think of them as children first, with their race as a fact of minor or no importance. The idea that people would think less of Louise's child because she wasn't 'white' was repugnant.

"I hope none of our children ever think they're better than Louise's or I'll spank their butts." I warned. "This is a family where no one is better or worse than anyone else." Claire looked shocked that I would even bring up the subject, while Elizabeth slowly nodded.

I was beginning to understand more about Claire and Elizabeth's personalities the longer I knew them. Claire was calmer and more confident because she was so certain of her beliefs, although she could be a bit of a fanatic at times about them. She tended to look at everything through that prism of belief and ignore other facts or ideas until she was forced to confront them. Elizabeth was more of a free thinker who looked at what she believed through the lens of reasoning.

(Authors note: The 'Free Thinkers' were the secular descendants of the thinkers of the 'Enlightenment' period. They were active in many of the social reform movements of the 19th century and believed that beliefs should be examined through reasoning.)

November 16 - 29, 1847

I have got to find some better way of bathing. Louise has been complaining about me taking up her stove for heating water to bathe in and the time and effort it takes to bring the water in. The galvanized tub we have is too small for me, although the women don't seem to mind it, having never had anything else. I need to find if the blacksmith in Salem can get enough plate iron to make a tub with legs on it so that I can build a fire underneath. I may build a bathhouse next year on the Japanese pattern with showers where we can get clean and have a hot tub to soak in. I am insisting that every adult take a bath least every week to prevent disease, as well as for personal cleanliness, and that the baby is bathed daily.

Louise was quick to recover from the birth of her daughter, who we named Helen. Helen is a happy baby who suffered only minor illnesses during this period. She nursed on Louise's breasts and grew rapidly. She is a favorite of all three wives and could be seen being carried and cuddled by all of them at one time or the other.

Helen has been suffering from colic and the only thing that seems to settle her down is holding her and walking. Three wives make it much easier for all of us, but I still have my turn every so often. She is a pretty baby, who when not suffering from colic, is always smiling and cooing. She is being spoiled by my wives as she is always being played with or held by one of them. I teased them that she would never learn to walk as I don't think she has ever touched the floor since she has been born.

It has rained every day since Helen was born and the ground is becoming soggy. The only things we can do easily are tasks that can be done inside away from the constant rain. Louise spends a lot of her time cleaning the house, cooking and taking care of Helen, while Claire is busy teaching. Elizabeth and I take care of the chores on the farm, with me doing the heavy labor that doesn't take too much skill and her supplying the knowledge and skills that I lack. It is difficult to keep busy but we find that being together too much in such a small place creates arguments unless we do.

December 1, 1847

We have learned to live with the rain, learning by trial and error as we did so. The roads became boggy and then impassible. Wagons would sink up to the beds, and horses up to their hocks. The only way to get around was by walking. Our root cellar flooded and we lost most of the vegetables we had stored there. After rescuing the vegetables that remained unspoiled, we dried and stored them in the attic. We planted several cold season vegetables to make up for the ones that got ruined. We got seed for cabbage, peas, dandelions and carrots from our neighbors and planted them for winter vegetables. We are continuing our training in self defense but I am reaching the limits of my own knowledge. Soon I will have nothing left to teach them. We were almost finished putting in the interior walls and plastering them. The only thing that remains is to paint them. We have read every book we have and are played out on games. Now I know why the 19th century was such a hotbed of progress; they were bored stiff and tried anything to keep themselves occupied.

December 10, 1847

After the planting was finished, the townspeople had built a new schoolhouse in the town with the lumber we had donated and Claire began to teach the children who did not have chores to do around the farms. This was usually the younger children, but occasionally older children would attend for a while. With the end of the active farming season, more children were able to go to school and Claire had a classroom full of students at every level. She used Webster's American Spelling Book and his Grammar for her texts when teaching writing, McGuffey's Readers for reading and Adam's Scholar's Arithmetic for her mathematics class. She had brought copybooks with her and the children have been learning to write with a quill pen. I am also learning how to write with a quill, as the ballpoint pen I have is almost out of ink. For this she received the grand total of $30 a month for the school term. She and I are campaigning to increase the time the children spend in class to at least 6 months for all the younger children and to have her salary paid by the town so all the children can attend not just those whose families can pay for it. Until farm machinery becomes more common, the older children will have to do chores on the farms.

I have served as the doctor to our town caring for the children who attend Claire's school and anyone else who comes there with emergencies. I have a small office that opens up to Claire's school house so we can share the heat from the Canada stove she took from our house. Most of the work is taking care of cuts and bruises with the occasional broken limb. I continue to worry about tetanus and other soil borne diseases as I have no antibiotics. My attempts to grow mold for penicillin have not been successful.

Many of the new births are attended by other women although I have been asked to assist three times when the child needed to be turned or the mother had problems with the delivery. I have learned to use the curved forceps and have practiced using it in case I need it. Most people still believe I am eccentric because of my insistence on having boiled water available and constantly washing my hands when I am treating people. I just wish I knew how to make a microscope so I could show some of these people what germs look like, so they don't think I'm making them up.

In my spare time I have been putting together the horse drawn disc and harrow plows for the spring planting season. I am anxious to see how they work. I am attempting to build a thresher, but I'm having a lot of problems trying to develop a working model. I will have to think on it a lot more.

December 20, 1847

Christmas is coming up and I have found out why Claire bought so many of the white cotton shirts with linen "collars & bosoms". She has given one to each child who is attending the school to wear when performing their elocution at the end of the term. She has spoken to me privately about how to give some of the children some sort of clothes for Christmas as they are wearing rags to school. I suggested that she give them some sort of chores to do so they can earn them as I didn't think their families would accept charity.

December 25, 1847

Christmas is not the big affair it is in my time. There are no public celebrations and gifts are exchanged only between family members and very close friends. We invited Willy and Ola to celebrate Christmas dinner with us. It has been almost a month since I last saw them and I was shocked at how thin they are. There has to be some way to get them to stay with us for a while, until they get their weight up at least. I asked Willy to help me around the farm while Claire and Elizabeth are pregnant to give him work for a while. I figure we can pay him with provisions that should help them get through rest of the winter in some comfort. I guess even Willy can't find game when there isn't any to be found.

Claire made me some wool socks, while Elizabeth made me several pairs of deerskin gloves and Louise baked me some cookies. I made my wives a wood chess board and gave them a carved set of black and white stone chess pieces from the Hudson Bay Company and each got several finely decorated linen handkerchiefs. I gave Willy a large bag of pipe tobacco and a clay pipe, and Ola got some linen handkerchiefs. My wives have made the dogs small straw filled beds which I quickly placed in the kitchen. They told me that Claire gave Ola a housewife's 'starter kit' of needles and thread with two small bolts of cloth, Louise gave her a set of filled food canisters and Elizabeth gave her some chickens and feed to last for the winter.

There seems to be a race between Claire having the baby and finishing the school term. She is still walking the two miles to and from the school building six days a week, though she is starting to get slower as she gets bigger. Elizabeth is slowing down as her pregnancy progresses as well although she is stressing her body too much practicing self defense moves. I have spoken to her about this but she refuses to listen. Claire and Louise have agreed that they will watch her to make sure she doesn't hurt herself or the baby.

Louise and I have started having limited sexual intercourse again, but we are trying our best to avoid her getting pregnant again too soon. It is difficult as there are no condoms or sponges available in the local area to help prevent her from becoming pregnant. We have been mostly doing oral sex. Any other sexual contact we have limited to just before she has her period.

March 7, 1848

Claire had her baby today, a boy that we named Robert after Claire's father. She had a much easier time with Robert than Louise did with Helen. She was in labor only 6 hours after her water broke and had no complications during the delivery. She just barely held off giving birth before the school term ended. The term ended on February 28 when the children gave their elocutions. As a reward for their hard work on their elocutions Claire gave them the white cotton shirts they wore for them.

I am worried about Elizabeth. She is having more trouble getting around than Louise and Claire did. Her small size and thin shape make me worry that she will have a more difficult time in delivery. The effort she is putting into learning more self defense is also worrying me. I think that she is still showing the effects that the rape had on her. Corrie has been coming around fairly often and is learning the basics of Krav Magen and Tai Chi when she visits. She talks to Elizabeth frequently and Elizabeth seems calmer afterwards. I know that other women are coming around as well and getting training, but I am not involved with them. I haven't heard about any unexplained disappearances of abusive husbands so I feel better about the fact I've trained the women to defend themselves.

April 15, 1848

It's strange. I woke up this morning in a panic; sure I'd forgotten something important. That's when I realized that in my time I had to get my income tax forms mailed by today. I began to laugh but I couldn't explain why I was amused since none of my wives would have understood. They would have laughed at the idea of an income tax and the things that it paid for. Welfare, social security, a standing army of several hundred thousand, they would have been sure I was making a joke at their expense.