Branches

Cornwall, United Kingdom
December 7th, 1871

Bewildered and tired of being sad and cold, eleven-year-old James Wright stared at the mound that was his mother’s grave. Instinctively, he reached for his older sister’s hand.
A feeling of numbness had enveloped the entire town. Fourteen other cholera victims lay beneath the ground, all buried in the past month. Four weeks before, the rain came in sheets flooding the Tamar River and every creek that fed it. Water backed up in the town, inundating the pits below the outhouses and then leaking over the entire area. The health officer said that the water at Mary’s well was contaminated, and it had sickened hundreds of people. The illness kept spreading; a person would be well one day and dead within three or four.
James had watched his mother over a three-day period. Diarrhea and vomiting began soon after visiting her sick sister. His father, Henry, could only think that she drank water at her sister’s home, because no one else in his immediate family became ill.
They tried to give her sugar water and rice gruel to prevent dehydration. But soon her eyes sunk deeply into her head, and she slipped into a stupor. The last thing James remembered of her was her hands–wrinkled like those of a very old person.
They had buried her in the church graveyard last Monday next to their three children lost in childhood. Today, during his Sunday sermon, the minister spoke again of Jane–her gentle ways, her kindness to others, and her love for her family. After services, they stood for a long time at her grave trying to accept their loss.
“Let’s go home,” Henry said at last.
Carrying Annie Letitia, 3, he herded his six children down the street to their house on Valentine Row.


Southampton, United Kingdom
1873

The Derby–finished in 1859 as one of the last American packet ships built to sail the western ocean–had been anchored all week for lack of sufficient crew. Captain Josiah McKay had finally resorted to filling his roster with young men ‘referred’ to him by the magistrate of the city courts. The choice was ‘go to sea or go to jail’. Anthony Wilkes, McKay’s first mate, was capable enough, but McKay was concerned at the inexperience of his charges.
“Every one of them has a raw neck–haven’t been to sea before, Wilkes. Be watchful with them,” he warned.
“We’ve had raynecks before, Captain. We’ll get them into their sea legs soon enough,” Wilkes said. “They’ll be climbing the shrouds in no time. And remember, we’ve got 35 other experienced men.”
“I don’t like taking to sea with new people in the winter,” said McKay. “Before we cross to America we have a short sail from here to Plymouth. We stop there to pick up more steerage class passengers. You know it will be difficult maneuvering into that harbor without proper packet rats.
“A sorry lot,” he said as he watched the police march twelve rascals on board, and Wilkes sign for them. “We may not get to the open sea.”
To be sure he had their attention, he gathered the crew together.
“You have shipped on a first class packet,” he said. “You will get good treatment and good grub if you behave. If you don’t, this ship can be merry hell, and I’ll be the head devil.”
Fredericksburg,Texas

With their extended families Franz Stein and Anna Jenschke, who was to become his wife, had come to Texas from Germany in the 1850s–Franz from the area northeast of Koblenz; Anna from Silesia, Prussia. They had come through the port of Indianola on Matagorda Bay and walked to the land promised to them in the hill country town of Fredericksburg

NORTHEASTERN MEXICO
1882

Vato was not his real name, but it was what he was called when he attended the mission school in Musquiz the year after his mother died. The teachers gave him a last name–Escobedo–to keep their records straight; but everyone knew him only as Vato.
Vato’s father, Pasqual, never felt that schooling was as important as hunting, fishing, or even swimming in the Sabinas River, but Vato did learn to read and to cipher. The People, as the members of his tribe called themselves, were ‘the ones who move about’. The Mexicans called them Kikapú, and the tribe had lived in this part of Coahuila for two generations. The town of Nacimiento, a three-day ride on horseback from the Texas town of Eagle Pass, was the only village on the reservation.

Panama 1907:
At the end of October, Stephen and his two boys, James and Charley, along with several dozen other new recruits of the Isthmus Canal Commission (ICC) caught the train for New Orleans and then boarded a chartered steamer for Panama. Ten days later they were all on deck looking at the port of Colón in Panama.
Anchored in the harbor was the battleship Louisiana, sitting beside two cruisers.
“And we thought the port of New Orleans was busy,” said Stephen. “This place is crawling with people. Can anyone know what’s going on?”
But, as they came down the gangplank there were men at tables checking their names, welcoming them, and assigning them to a railroad car parked right alongside the ship.
“You’re scheduled to go to the blacksmith shops in Gorgona,” said the clerk, handing an envelope with instructions to Stephen.
“What are those three big white warships doing in the harbor?” asked Stephen.
“Haven’t you heard? Teddy Roosevelt is here,” said the clerk, grinning. “He’s in Panama City right now. They say he’s everywhere looking over every part of the construction. He’s popped in on steam shovel operators and railroad track builders. The whole Canal Zone is buzzing. Don’t be surprised if you get a glimpse of him.”