Julie Read online

  Julie by Catherine Marshall

  Published by Evergreen Farm, an imprint of Gilead Publishing, Wheaton, Illinois, USA

  www.gileadpublishing.com

  ISBN: 978-1-68370-134-7 (paper)

  ISBN: 978-1-68370-135-4 (eBook)

  Julie

  Copyright © 1983 Catherine Marshall LeSourd

  Copyright © 1984 Calen, Inc.

  Copyright © 1986 Leonard E. LeSourd

  Copyright © 1995 Marshall-LeSourd LLC

  Unless otherwise indicated, Scripture quotations are taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

  Quotes from the Afterword are taken from History of the Johnstown Flood by Willis Fletcher Johnson (Philadelphia: Edgewood Publishing Co, 1889).

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage and retrieval system without prior written permission from the publisher. Published in the United States by Evergreen Farm, an imprint of Gilead Publishing, Wheaton, Illinois, USA.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.

  Cover designed by John Wollinka

  Cover direction by Larry Taylor

  Interior designed by Beth Shagene

  EBook production by Book Genesis, Inc.

  To the Wood-Marshall-LeSourd family

  for thirty-four years of forbearance

  and understanding and support

  Julie Paige Wallace, eighteen-year-old high school senior and part-time reporter at the Sentinel

  Kenneth Timothy Wallace, father of Julie and editor and publisher of the Sentinel

  Louise Wallace, wife of Kenneth and mother of Julie

  Timothy “Tim” Wallace, the Wallaces’ eleven-year-old son

  Anne-Marie Wallace, their nine-year-old daughter

  Randolph Munro Wilkinson, assistant manager of the Hunting and Fishing Club

  Emily Cruley, typesetter, assistant editor at the Sentinel

  Dean Fleming, retired railroad machinist and repairer of equipment at the Sentinel

  Hazel Fleming, sister of Dean

  John Hammond, pastor friend of Dean Fleming

  Margo Palmer, high school classmate of Julie

  Sam Palmer, father of Margo and owner of the Stemwinder, a roadhouse

  Graham Gillin, high school athlete

  Troy Gillin, his younger brother

  Spencer Meloy, pastor of Baker Memorial Church

  Thomas McKeever, Sr., board chairman of Yoder Steel and head of the Hunting and Fishing Club

  Thomas McKeever, Jr., son of above and president of Yoder Steel

  Bryan McKeever, son of above and high school classmate of Julie

  Munro Farnsworth, Pittsburgh businessman, board member of Yoder Steel and the Hunting and Fishing Club

  Cynthia Wilkinson Farnsworth, his wife

  Cyrus Stearns, executive of the Pennsylvania Railroad

  Neal Brinton, “puddler’s helper” at Yoder Steel

  Cade Brinton, brother of Neal and Union organizer at Yoder Steel

  James Sanduski, watchman at the Hunting and Fishing Club

  The Vincent-Pileys, across-the-street neighbors of the Wallace family

  Jean Piley, their daughter

  Donald Whipkey, chairman of Baker Memorial Church Council

  Florence Whipkey, his wife

  Ted Gillin, Sam Gaither, Salvatore Mazzini, Floyd Townsend, Wade and Stover Alcorn, Barry Simms, Sheldon Wissinger, Janet McIntyre, George Cummings, Alderton business people and town personalities

  I wish to express my appreciation to Ed Kuhn, longtime editor and friend, for his wise counsel until his death in December 1979; to Randall Elisha Greene for his creative guidance as my editor over several years; and especially to Elizabeth Sherrill, who has been my friend and editorial consultant extraordinaire since the early 1960s.

  I want to thank the following people for valuable research help: Richard Schubert, former president of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation, and Gary Graham for making it possible for me to go through their Johnstown plant; Governor Edward T. Breathitt, vice president, Southern Railway, for making his private railway car available; Alton Carns and other staff members of the Loudoun County Times-Mirror in Leesburg, Virginia, for anecdotes concerning weekly newspapers; Jane Price Sharp of the Pocahontas County Times, Marlinton, West Virginia, for information and suggestions; Lewis A. Pryor, Arcata, California, for material on printing presses; P. L. Gwynn-Jones of the College of Arms, London, for research on the Wilkinson family crest; Olive James, Chief, Loan Division, the Library of Congress, for her gracious help; Mrs. John Hershberger of the Johnstown Flood Museum; Louis McCready of the Johnstown Tribune Democrat; Bob Sefick of the Johnstown Tribune; and Miss M. J. (“Lyn”) Kreitzburg of the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown for all their helpful suggestions; and Margaret Shannon, my indefatigable research specialist, who always knows where and how to find anything and everything.

  I am grateful to my brother Bob for supplying the humorous account of the wine train mishap, an episode he took part in as a boy, and to my mother (the Christy of my first novel), whose steady guidance has been rocklike and whose confidence in me unflagging.

  I have been richly blessed by the following people for their expert secretarial and typing help during this project: Jean Brown, Ann Glegg, Belle Hill, Linda Johnson, Karen Shaw, Alice Watkins . . . and especially Jeanne Sevigny, my longtime personal secretary and close friend, whose broad knowledge and background made her invaluable in all stages of this project.

  Finally to my husband Len, with whom I have worked so closely and effectively since our marriage in 1959 that the writer-editor relationship has become an integral part of our lives. I am especially thankful for that prodding, insistent quality of his mind that has so often sparked my own thinking. Our mental “jousting” proved especially fruitful in the writing of this book.

  Julie is Catherine Marshall’s nineteenth and final book, and her second novel. It is a companion piece to Christy, her first novel, published in 1967.

  Both Christy and Julie give readers a fascinating look at unforgettable segments of American life and history. Christy portrays life among the mountain people of eastern Tennessee in 1912. Julie depicts the depression years of 1934–35 in a flood-prone town in western Pennsylvania. Both books took a long time to write: Christy, nine years; Julie, seven. Both works are based on Catherine’s family life: Christy Huddleston was nineteen-year-old Leonora Haseltine Whitaker, and Catherine’s mother. Julie Wallace, the central character in Julie, is in part drawn from Catherine’s own memories of her life in Keyser, West Virginia, as an eighteen-year-old.

  Research on Julie began in 1977 as Catherine became fascinated by both the Johnstown Flood of 1889 and the inner workings and mechanics of operating a small weekly newspaper. She also took a refresher course in the events of the depression years of the thirties. Soon the research spilled over into dam construction, the early union movement in America, steel making, and private railroad cars. Poems written by Catherine as a teenager found their place.

  I married Catherine in 1959 after she had been working on Christy less than a year. She was a courageous woman to become, at forty-four, a mother to my three young children, ages three, six, and ten. Christy was put aside for a time as we established a new home together.

  Soon it also became clear that as an editorial team, Catherine, the writer, and I, the editor, struck a good balance. We began spending countless hours together talking through characters and plotting the action and suspense of Christy. This close relationshi
p continued through Catherine’s nonfiction books: Beyond Our Selves, Adventures in Prayer, Something More, The Helper, Meeting God at Every Turn, and a book we bylined together, My Personal Prayer Diary.

  When Catherine spent forty-two days critically ill in the hospital during the summer of 1982, working on the manuscript of Julie was a form of therapy for me at this very difficult time. Even during visiting hours we sometimes found ourselves talking about the book’s characters. So often—perhaps too often—did our absorption in the editorial process spill over into family life, vacation periods, travel, even illness.

  By January 1983 Catherine seemingly had recovered from her lung collapse of the summer before. She and I began the new year by spending several days on Julie with our longtime editor, associate, and close friend, Elizabeth Sherrill. Months of revision work were still needed.

  Catherine was in the hospital for tests when she passed away suddenly of heart failure on March 18, 1983.

  What a tremendous loss to her family, as well as to a book audience of millions! Her writing career had spanned thirty-four years, including eighteen books that sold somewhere over sixteen million copies.

  In many ways Julie is Catherine’s own story, because the passion for causes, the quest for faith and the courageous spirit in Julie Wallace were also in Catherine.

  I know. I lived with these qualities for twenty-three years. Though the void she leaves in my life can never be filled, I am sustained by memories of our adventures in faith, of our tumultuously creative family life, and of our fulfilling editorial partnership.

  —Leonard LeSourd

  January 1984

  As I stood on Lookout Point and viewed Alderton seven miles below, I wondered what changes I would find. Fifty years had altered the town very little. The population was now about forty thousand, with the growth centered in residential areas built on higher ground, but downtown Alderton was much as it had been when the Wallace family first arrived in September 1934. A few more stores, several new shopping centers, two more theaters. Yoder Steel still dominated the town’s economy.

  Lake Kissawha glistened a short distance away in the bright sunlight. Boats with multicolored sails covered the water, just as they had that fateful summer of 1935. I noted that a few more cottages dotted the surrounding shores than at my last visit. The rebuilt dam was not visible from Lookout Point.

  A mile or so below the lake, on the twisting road leading down the mountainside toward Alderton, I spotted the Fleming cabin. What would I discover there? Would the ax still be above the fireplace—a sign that The Preparers were continuing their work? For so many years I had yearned to write about this group. Permission had finally been granted three years ago when it was agreed that I should tell the whole tragic story of Alderton 1935. I had done that, and sent copies of the manuscript ahead to my family. Only one small piece was missing. This visit now would complete the story and end the book.

  Each of my trips to that cabin had been a turning point for me. What would it be this time? With growing anticipation, I walked back to my car. I started the engine but still did not pull out onto the road. So many years, so many memories. I recalled the night a group of us had celebrated our high school graduation on this very spot, dancing on the asphalt to the music of a Chicago station on Bryan McKeever’s car radio.

  And before that, the very first time I stood here on Lookout Point. That was in September 1934, when my family and I stopped for a glimpse of the town that was to be our new home. The sky was freshly washed that afternoon, the storm clouds lifting. How soon those clouds were to return, and with what devastation, none of us in the fall of 1934 could have dreamed . . .

  Our 1928 Willys-Knight had been climbing for at least ten miles, one hairpin turn after another, under a threatening sky. Though it was early September, the temperature was close to ninety degrees. There was a stillness in the air and a steady buildup of dark, lowering cloud banks to the east.

  “Kenneth, the car’s overheated!” Mother’s voice was anxious.

  “I’m aware of it,” Father replied. Rivulets of perspiration were streaming down the back of his neck.

  “Shouldn’t we stop and let the radiator cool off?”

  “I will, Louise, as soon as I can find a place to pull over.” There had been increasing irritation between my parents ever since Mother, custodian of the map, had suggested some sixty miles back that the most direct road to Alderton was west on Route 30. Dad did not agree and had chosen Route 143, which approached Alderton from the northeast. A mistake. Route 143 was poorly paved and endlessly curving.

  We were all on edge this late summer day of 1934. Four consecutive days on the road, seven-hundred-odd miles, four blowouts, five people jostled all the way from Timmeton, Alabama, to western Pennsylvania. Mother had driven most of those miles because I had yet to obtain my driver’s license and my father was still having those attacks of malaria.

  For most of the trip I had been shut up in the back seat with the animal energy of Tim, eleven, and Anne-Marie, nine. Every waking moment my younger brother and sister had wriggled and fidgeted, poked one another, and me, and chattered incessantly. I felt bruised and battered, my clothes a mess.

  In an effort to ease the tension, Mother began giving us a running commentary on what we would see on Dad’s alternative route into Alderton. “We’ll be going down Seven Mile Mountain now. The map shows a little village not too far ahead. Yancyville, it’s called. Oh, and here’s something interesting,” she added. “A lake.” She held the map to get a closer look. “It’s called Lake Kissawha. Indian name, I suppose.”

  As she spoke, dark clouds suddenly blanketed the landscape. Then the sky emptied. There were no separate raindrops; rather it seemed as if giant hands had overturned cloud-buckets. Lightning and thunderclaps followed—eerie, terrifying. And at that moment white steam began to rise from the car radiator.

  Anne-Marie started to cry softly. Hunched over the wheel, Dad searched through the downpour for a place to pull off. There was a bump; we skidded off the road and began sliding to the right. Frantically Dad twisted the wheel, fighting the slide. No use. We ended up with the two rear wheels in a water-filled ditch.

  As Dad turned off the ignition, his hands were shaking.

  “Now let’s all stay calm,” Mother said crisply. “Nobody’s hurt. We’ll be all right.”

  After about five minutes the deluge stopped and the sky lightened. Gratefully we rolled down the windows; the closed car had been like a steam oven. Dad started the engine but the back wheels only spun crazily, churning mud. Gunning the motor merely sank the heavy old Willys deeper into the ditch.

  Then we heard a heart-stopping sound—a roaring, crashing noise from the steep slope just above us. Startled, we looked up to our right and saw a river of water pouring down the side of the mountain. It crashed onto and over the car, water gushing through the open windows, soaking us. Then it surged across the road, tore off a route marker, and churned down the asphalt surface for fifty feet before plunging over the side of the mountain to our left, sweeping along rocks and small trees in its path.

  We sat silently in the car, paralyzed by our narrow escape. Then dazedly, almost like a film in slow motion, my parents began mopping up the water in the front seat. Suddenly Dad’s body slumped forward against the steering wheel. I could see a vein throbbing in his neck.

  In a panic I clambered over Tim and opened the car door. “I’ll go for help,” I said, catching Mother’s distressed eyes.

  High school tennis had strengthened my legs. I ran back along the road we had traveled, avoiding the debris and the worst puddles. My eyes were searching the downhill side of the road, now to my right, for the building I thought I had glimpsed through the trees.

  Yes, there it was, some kind of rustic lodge or inn near the shore of the lake. The side road I turned into was steep, slippery underfoot. As I ran, I spied in the distance the figure of a man in a green sports shirt emerging from the building.

  At th
at instant my foot caught in a fallen branch. Down I went, sprawled on all fours—mud all over the front of my skirt, spattered on my blouse and face.

  “I say, what a nasty tumble—”

  The man was now standing over me, hand outstretched. He was younger than I had thought.

  “My family needs help,” I stammered, spurning his hand and scrambling to my feet. I pointed toward the road. “Up there.”

  “Was there an accident?”

  “Yes, our car slid into the ditch. I think my father’s hurt.”

  “Should I call an ambulance?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Let’s have a look.” He set off at a rapid pace, with me trotting to keep up, trying to get my tangled hair out of my eyes and wiping furiously at the mud.

  “Beastly day for motoring. Tell me what happened,” he tossed over his shoulder at me.

  A clipped English accent, reddish-blond hair. He seems nice, I thought. “We were driving up from Alabama. My father’s Kenneth Wallace, the new publisher of the Alderton Sentinel.”

  At the main road I pointed the way toward our disabled car. After rounding several curves we saw it. My father was still in the driver’s seat, but I rejoiced to see that he was sitting upright.

  The young man bounded forward. “I’m Randolph Wilkinson. Are you injured, sir? How can I help?”

  Insisting that he was all right, my father climbed slowly out of the Willys. By now Mother too was out on the road to greet us, with Tim and Anne-Marie tumbling after.

  “Julie!” Mother cried. “What happened to you?”

  To my relief the two men became absorbed in examining the car as I explained my fall to Mother while wringing out my sopping skirt. What a way to meet a stranger . . . fall on my face in the mud practically at his feet.

  Brushing aside Mother’s protests, my father climbed back in behind the steering wheel, turned on the ignition, and began a gentle rocking motion—forward, back, forward. As the rocking pattern stepped up, the Englishman didn’t hesitate to step into the water behind the car, flex his muscular arms, and at the right moment give a mighty shove. The heavy old Willys lurched forward from the ditch onto the road.