EMMETSBURG:Six

At barely two thousand souls, Emmetsburg was a smudge upon the green tiled mosaic of northwest Iowa. It was an anchor to most who called the place home, a sanctuary for others, and purgatory to a few. To big city people it might have proved a backwards place, the sort of town where slipping behind the times was as much a virtue as a curse, depending, that is, on one's mood, the weather and the time of day. Sort of the way most folks came to the good Lord; it all depends.

Make no mistake, Emmetsburg wasn't separate from the world. It wasn't a “world” onto itself. No, it was whipped and tossed and seduced by the unstoppable winds of history just as surely as any other place, and, arguably even more than some. The town had spilt its share of blood on the battlefields of France fighting the Kaiser's army. Fewer than a lot of places in the country, but in a place where everyone was just about family those losses resonated deep, and took generations to fade. If there was any blessing to be found in that, it was that here a body could retreat a bit from those fickle and stormy winds of history.

The burnt ochre steeple of St. Mary's Catholic Church rose welcoming and prideful at the tattered approaches of town met farm fields and pastureland draped upon lazy stretches of low hills. Sunoco station marked the edge of town. From here Main street runs straight as an crucifix through the heart of town, where it crossed Broadway before descending sharply to the marshy and wooded shores of Medium Lake.

Tree lined streets ran away from main, through modest houses set among bright spacious lots. Gardens have grown to over take the yards as families learn to depend more and more on themselves as the times grow tougher. Likewise, folks collected all sorts of things no rusting and rotting along walls, in corners, adorning yards like some sort of vagabond sculpture garden. The longer and deeper the Great Slump continued most learned to save everything out of some belief there might be some use or some exchange for something useful in an indefinite future.

The Mulroney house was hardly a stones through north from St. Mary’s. The house, with its great yard, sunny turrets and grand porch was perhaps the closest thing to an estate Emmetsburg could boast. It was built by the late John Mulroney, who along with his kid brother Kieran, were among the first Irish settlers in these parts. They'd hardly settled in when Little Crow's Lakota warriors swept out of the Dakotas to raid and massacre settlers on the frontier. Those two boys proved themselves as heroes, but the war weighed heavily on John. It left him terribly torn, and made him a harder man for it. The Irish could well sympathize with the Lakota's plight. It was after all broken promises by the government and corrupt traders that compelled them to war, much as the British had forced the Irish to assert their own uniqueness. But the brutality and the wanton cruelty against innocent settlers and children at the hands of Little Crow's warriors was more than a just man could bear. Poor old John T. carried that long burden every Sunday to St. Mary's, when finally the good Lord solved it once and for all.

Further one, the railroad cut across the waist of the town. The Chicago Rock Island and Pacific came through like clockwork three days a week. Together with the Chicago-Milwaukee-St. Paul Emmetsburg maintained its greatest connection to the world beyond Iowa's sheltering borders.

The centerpiece of downtown was the white-domed town hall. The grand entrance was framed by tall granite pillars. Tall, broad windows looked down from all sides upon a pleasant park filled with the welcoming shade of chestnut and maple that grew tall and straight from the black Iowa earth. There was a Union cannon overlooking main. On the benches beneath one could always entice a long-winded tale from the usual collection of old timers with hardly more than an unguarded glance or an inquiry as to the time of day.

There was talk of putting up a statue to the town's namesake, Robert Emmet, who'd died fighting for Irish independence. Times being what they were there just wasn't the money for such things. Hard as they were, these times couldn't last forever. They'd get to the statue soon enough. In a practical place like Emmetsburg everything had its own time.

The jail was just behind the town hall. Set back enough to make it inconspicuous, the jail was a short walk to court in the town hall. Not that Emmetsburg saw anything approaching the murderous mayhem of big cities like Milwaukee or Chicago. There was hardly anything more insidious than the occasional bootlegger, a brawl or two at the local watering holes, a few drunks and a hand full of small time thieves that come in on the trains from time to time.

Most days a passer-by could catch George Bremer, the town sheriff, out on the porch of the jailhouse having a smoke with his deputies, or trading gossip with fellas whose butts generally made peace with the town hall benches. Bremer was tall and slender with wispy golden hair so light and thin made him appear ancient older though he wasn't much older than John. He'd gone bald as a young man, but never much seemed to care. A pair of bifocals teetered at the edge of his nose. Most folks recalled him as a man whose expression seemed almost whimsical and wise, like an oracle or a travelling man. It was full at odds with reality, as Bremer was a man of deep conviction who took all those fiery Sunday sermons to heart, but with temperament and patience of a man who believed all men were always one fool hardy decision from sin.

Just a block up from the courthouse, past the Main Street shops and homespun family restaurants stood the two story Hotel Kermoore. Elegant to a fault within, it seemed all but impervious to the hard times. Might have seemed unlikely that such a small town, hidden away as it was, but the Kermoore had become a destination for people far and wide. All the fancy expensive cars, ritzy flapper girls and dapper suits provided ample faire to locals about gangsters and G-men. Saturday evenings these curious visitors would stroll along Broadway, take in a movie and walk by the lake. There would always be a hand full of kids, hovering somewhere between delinquency and entrepreneurship, trying to hustle a few pennies for a shoeshine or a cigarette.

Next to the Kermoore, a silent film was showing at the movie house. Cost a nickel to get in, and another two cents for a bag of buttered popcorn. A lot of movie in these hard times. Still on a Saturday afternoon seemed like half the town turned out for a matinee It was evidence how Emmetsburg had been spared the worst of the Great slump. Not that it had escaped it completely, but it had come through better than most. And if the Sunday Masses were any indication the townspeople were surely counting every blessing. But the raging river of the world would soon overrun the banks of Emmetsburg and threaten it in ways no one could have foreseen, pitting neighbor against neighbor and brother against brother. John Perkins would soon find himself at the center of that flood