The Immigrants' Reality

Turn Around

The young couple looked forward to their goodnight kiss after the children

were asleep.  They held each other close and gently rocked until they fell

asleep.  It reminded them of their nights on the ship, soothed away the trials

of their long days.  Stephan made Mary feel as if she was the most beautiful

woman in the world.  His desire for her never waned, even when she was

ungainly in pregnancy.

“Oh, Stephan,” Mary blushed, “How can you want me when my belly is as

big as a watermelon?"

“Everything is as it should be, Marinka,” he whispered, stroking her abdomen

with his fingertips.

The young lovers expanded their family with astonishing regularity, Stephan

proud and awed at Mary’s fecundity.  Fourteen months after Anna’s birth

they welcomed Matthew, then Elizabeth, Andrew, Katherine, Thomas, and

Christine, their births no more than a year and a half apart. 

Mary was a tender and efficient mother, each baby weaned by the cut of

the first tooth, the older children sent to school happy and secure.  The

children were hugged, listened to and well fed.  They excelled in school,

earning high marks, and to their parents’ pride, skipping grades.  Stephan

delighted in coming home from work to have his children greet him at the

door with joyous shrieks, hugging him around the legs.  He scooped the

little ones up in his arms and soundly hugged and greeted his bigger

children.  

The Voloshins were raised within the Christian Orthodox religion. 

Sundays were reserved to attend Divine Liturgy.  Stephan and Mary

now felt a kinship with the church despite its lengthy service and strident

laws which had bored them as youngsters when they were forced to sit

quietly and attentively beside their parents.  The priest performed the

service in Russian, and though America was their home, they felt comforted

to hear their native language spoken, to be able to understand every word.  

They were grateful for the gifts God had given them, each other and their

love, their healthy children and their beloved Anna Kessler and the farm. 

God had seen them through their journey to America, granting them the

stamina and grit to arrive alive when many stowaways did not.  As scarce as

money was, a penny or two was always spared for their church.

Stephan and Mary were often pensive and somber after the service. 

Hearing the Russian language made them think of the parents they had

left behind in Austria.  Stephan’s parents approved of him going to

America; they had grand plans for their boy.  He was to earn a fortune,

then send for them.  After all, his father’s two siblings, Archie and Tetta,

had settled in America.  They didn't understand nor quite believe that

life was so difficult for him.  Though everything Stephan wrote

to them was verified by his uncle Archie and aunt Tetta, the senior

Voloshins remained disappointed in their son, implying that had Mary

not impulsively followed him onto the ship, he would have been

able to dutifully fulfill their plan.

Mary’s parents were heartsick when their fourteen year old daughter

ran away from home for Stephan.  Her father felt that she simply had

a crush on him, that perhaps he had even coaxed her into

following him.  But Mary’s mother was of a different opinion; she

knew Mary loved Stephan and wanted to marry him since she was a

little girl.  Mary dearly missed her parents, often thinking of them with

regret.  Her mother never stopped crying over the absence of her only

child.  Neither the Nazarovs nor the Voloshins ever saw their children

again.

It was now nineteen twenty-two, and Mary was pregnant again,

her bump exceptionally large for being just five months along. 

Then again, she mused, perhaps she had miscalculated her

due date.  Her children had just come home from school that

Friday, happily chattering about their weekend plans when she

heard a knock at the front door.  Her oldest son, John came

into the kitchen: “Mama, there is a policeman at the door.”

The rest of the day blurred in Mary’s mind.  She could barely

comprehend it.  Stephan, oh, God, Stephan…. She hastily

instructed the weeping John and Anna to look after their siblings. 

She heard her little ones wailing as she hastened to the hospital.   

There was an accident at work.  Stephan was on a ladder

repairing a shelf; the shelf and its heavy contents collapsed

on his head. 

A nurse led her to his bed.  He lay there unconscious and still. 

Mary trembled as she took his hand.  She spoke in Russian, her

quaking voice a whisper, “Stephan, you will be all right.  You

cannot leave us; please, Stephan….” Her voice broke as she

looked at her love, the boy she had followed to the ends of

the earth, her children’s father, their Dada.  She gently laid her

head on his chest.  His heart still beat; he did not move.