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by Jillian Danback-McGhan
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Damp linoleum floors swallowed the sound of our passing steps, muting them as if we’d never walked through the nursing home hallway. Dad shortened his long strides to avoid outpacing the receptionist, who showed us the way to Eudora’s room. I scurried behind them both.
“You missed yesterday’s big party,” the receptionist said. Her long green acrylic nails reminded me of moldy bread. “Eudora’s seventy-fifth birthday. Had a bunch of visitors. Brownie troops, the historical society. And the standard group of loonies. Civil War re-enactors, North and South. This lady who swears she’s a psychic and can convene with the dead better when she’s around Eudora’s aura. Freaked the shit out of the Brownies.”
“Nice of everyone to visit,” Dad said.
“Eudora’s always got guests,” the receptionist said. “More than any of our other residents. Surprising, since she’s kinless and all.”
“We certainty appreciate the opportunity to speak with her,” Dad replied.
“What kind of loonies are you?” The receptionist asked.
“My dad is a professor,” I replied with all the indignation my fourteen-year-old self could muster. My words did not have their desired effect, because the receptionist smiled back at me, the bemused condescension I’d grown accustomed to receiving as a feisty child.
“That’s alright, Frankie,” Dad replied. “We’re down from Washington. I study nineteenth and early twentieth century civil-military relations. As you can imagine, I was quite excited to speak with Ms. Taylor about her childhood.”
“Sure,” the receptionist replied, stopping in front of the last door in the hallway. An overhead light flickered. “Good luck.”
***
Dad introduced our family to Eudora as he did with all his research topics- enthusiastically, without pausing for breath, during family dinner. My mother and I looked at each other and smirked during his exuberant rant. Dad’s pork loin grew cold.
He learned about Eudora Taylor from one of his students, who stumbled upon an article on Eudora’s upcoming birthday celebrations. Her father was a Union soldier, making the one of the last living children of a Civil War veteran.
“We think we’re so separated from historical events,” Dad said. “Yet here she is, a living testament to our bloodiest war, walking among us.”
“She’s in a nursing home, no?” My mother, the mathematician, asked.
“You know what I mean,” Dad replied. “She’s a link to a generation we thought we left behind. And history shouldn’t leave anyone behind.”
I rolled my eyes. Years would pass before I learned to appreciate the sincerity of Dad’s grandiose statements.
Dad discussed his research as we cleared the table and loaded the dishwasher. Eudora Taylor, born in 1922 to an aged Civil War Corporal and his much younger wife, resided in the Oak Ridge Veterans Affairs Retirement Home. Civil War veterans commonly married younger women to act as their nurses, many of whom were economically disadvantaged. Care for elderly veterans was limited, and as a Union solider living in Virginia, Eudora’s father wouldn’t benefit from the compassion of his community. These marriages rarely resulted in children, though.
Following her father’s death, Eudora entered Oak Ridge alongside her mother in the 1930s. When her mother passed in 1979, Eudora roomed with a series of strangers, outliving them all. Oak Ridge underwent several renovations and changes in ownership over the decades. Nurses and doctors rotated in and out of the facility. Veterans from other wars roamed the hallways. Eudora continued to collect the monthly $14.67 government pension she inherited from her father.
“Oak Ridge is only three-hour drive away,” Dad said. “But I don’t have the budget for a research assistant.”
“Take Frankie. She’ll keep an eye on you,” Mom said. Then, when Dad looked away, she mouthed, “Please.”
“How about it, Frankie?” Dad asked. His smile consumed half his face.
“Sure,” I replied impassively.
I’d long come to terms with my fate as an academic. Two of them raised me, after all, and I shared my parents’ penchant for seeking as much information on obscure topics as I could find. That summer, when other kids my age were chicken-fighting in pools and sneaking bottles of alcohol from their parents’ liquor stash, I accompanied Dad to the university library to research Frances Perkins, the first female Cabinet Secretary and the woman my parents named me after.
On the library’s microfilm, I found copies of letters Secretary Perkins wrote to her friends over the years. These proved far more interesting than the books I’d amassed, which focused on what she’d done as Secretary of Labor. Her letters showed me who she was as a person. I could practically hear her voice as I read them, and remember thinking how amazing it was that someone who spent most of her life in the public eye could still be so misunderstood. It made me wonder if anyone could truly be seen for who they really are.
“What did you learn?” Dad asked when we met later that afternoon.
“She hated the press,” I said. “They were really unfair to her because she was a woman, which was uncool, but also super awkward because she was friends with Elenor Roosevelt, who loved reporters. And her daughter and husband caused a lot of problems, which made her feel really guilty.”
“I meant, what did you learn about her work?”
“Oh. She came up with the idea of Social Security, I think.”
***
As we drove down route 95 on our way to Oak Ridge, Dad briefed me on the new information he collected on Eudora and her family. He ascertained Eudora and her mother were committed to Oak Ridge in either 1937 or 1938. A doctor diagnosed Eudora and her mother as mentally feeble and declared the women unfit to live alone.
“What does that mean?” I asked. “‘Feeble’ doesn’t sound like a real illness.”
“They weren’t as good about diagnosing mental conditions back then as they are today,” Dad replied. “It could’ve been anything – autism, a lack of social exposure, a learning disability, even. Schools didn’t know how to treat those, they just declared a student was slow.”
“That’s really sad,” I said.
“It is,” Dad replied. “Eudora was only a little older than you when her and her mother entered Oak Ridge. She’s been there ever since.”
The car’s radio dissolved into static and punctuated words. We ignored it. Dad wondered aloud about the insights Eudora’s interview would unlock. I looked out the car window and imagined what it must have been like to spend your teenage years in a nursing home.
***
Eudora sat in the corner of her room when we arrived. I remember pausing in the door frame, overwhelmed with feelings of pity and repulsion. Eudora looked both broad yet fragile, a thick-set woman hunched into as small a c-shape as her rolls of skin would allow. She waved as we entered, loose skin jiggling under her flabby arms. Wiry gray hair wilted down the sides of her temples. Bald patches exposed large sections of her pink scalp.
Dad introduced himself and explained the purpose of his visit. As he spoke, Eudora flapped her arms like a flightless bird, ignorant of its fate to forever dwell on the ground. She struck the fraying blue and gray upholstery on the arm of the chair with each downward motion.
“You’re a pretty little one,” Eudora said, pointing at me.
“Thank you,” I replied and smiled politely. Dad placed his hand on my shoulder.
“My daughter,” he said. “She’ll be helping me out today. Before we begin, Ms. Taylor, we’d like to obtain your permission to record our conversation.”
He signaled to me to start the tape recorder. I stood between Dad and Eudora, leaning against the sticky wall – another chair wouldn’t fit in the cramped space.
“I really like that clear bubbly drink,” Eudora responded. I expected her to have the distant look of someone who couldn’t comprehend her surroundings, like the older people our Girl Scout troop used to visit in hospitals. Instead, Eudora studied Dad closely. Her eyes darted back and forth to the beat of her flapping arms.
“Do you need a drink before we begin?” Dad asked. He tapped his pen against the notebook laid out in his lap.
“Yes,” Eudora said. “And crispy chocolate, too. Not creamy.”
“A drink and a snack?” Dad asked.
“Machine’s outside,” Eudora said. Dad surveyed the contents of his wallet.
“Can I get you something tomorrow?” He asked. “I don’t have any singles.”
“I’m tired,” Eudora said. “Think I’m going to nap now.”
“Go see if they have change at the front desk, Frankie,” he said, handing me a twenty dollar bill. “Ms. Taylor and I can start chatting while you run out.”
“No,” Eudora said. “Too thirsty.”
At the front desk, the receptionist laughed when I waved the twenty at her.
“She got you on the tax,” the receptionist said.
“Pardon?”
“That old lady’s got some extortion ring going. Can’t take a shit without missing the toilet, but she knows how to play everyone who comes knocking.”
She directed me to a convenience store across the street. I returned with a liter of Sprite, some Kit Kats, and a Tasty Cake as a tax of my own.
“Good girl,” Eudora said. “Pretty little one.”
***
After their preliminary interview, Dad and I checked into our hotel and stopped by a supermarket to pick up some treats for Eudora when we visited her the next day.
“What if she’s diabetic?” Dad asked and removed his hand from a box of cookies on the shelf. “We didn’t ask the staff whether she had any dietary restrictions.”
“What did you do this summer, Frankie?” I asked, mimicking the affectation of one of my teachers. “Oh, me and my Dad killed the last daughter of the Civil War.”
“That’s not funny,” Dad said, struggling to speak between his laughs. He nudged me with his shoulder and dropped the cookies into the cart.
When she saw our tribute, Eudora shuffled to her bedside table and pulled a small box from a lower cabinet. She made a surprised face, as if suddenly remembering it existed.
“A few treasures,” she said.
Eudora handed Dad some medals, tattered invitations to Grand Army of the Republic events, a letter from Governor Dalton congratulating Eudora on her sixtieth birthday, and old photographs. The pictures mainly featured her father: astride a tractor, with a group of men in front of a dilapidated barn, sitting for a formal portrait in a stained jacket.
“Handle those by the sides,” Dad whispered, cringing as Eudora left a chocolate thumbprint on each creased image she handed to us.
In the only photo of Eudora’s entire family, her father stands next to her mother, a diminutive, blank-eyed woman with dark hair trenched in a wide center part. Eudora stood in front of them. Her arms appeared blurry.
“Mama was really pretty,” Eudora said. She smiled as she studied the photo and ran a finger over her mother’s face.
“Beautiful,” Dad replied.
She handed us her parents’ wedding portrait next. Eudora’s father, with his hunched shoulders and drawn face, looked practically prehistoric standing next to Eudora’s nineteen-year-old mother. The date – May 2, 1921 – was scrawled across the back in fading ink.
“Daddy used to say Mama was too pretty to be so slow,” Eudora said. Her smile faded to a child-like pout.
“What else do you remember about your father?” Dad asked.
“He was always hollerin’,” she said. Her eyes narrowed as she spoke. “Would get hot and throw things.”
“Hmmm,” Dad said, taking notes. “What made him so angry?”
“That’s just how he be,” Eudora said.
“Did he ever mention his war injury?” Dad asked.
“He limp some.”
“In an interview, you said he was hit in the head at Spotsylvania. Do you remember saying that?”
“I like these cookies,” Eudora replied. She held an empty tray of Oreos upside-down. Crumbs sprinkled onto the floor. I handed her another tray.
“What do you think made your father join the Union?” Dad tapped his pen against his notebook. “Entire towns of young men enlisted with the Confederacy around here. He must have felt immense social pressure.”
“Dunno,” she said.
“I’ve read a few responses you gave in the past,” Dad continued. “You told some Civil War re-enactors your father was kidnapped by Union soldiers and forced to fight with them?”
“He said that once,” Eudora said. She bit into two cookies stacked together.
“But then you told a church group your father was an abolitionist.”
“Said that too,” Eudora replied. Dad rubbed his eyes.
“What do you think was the real reason?” Dad asked.
“Dunno. He couldn’t read none. Wonder if he knew what side he joined.”
I giggled. Eudora nodded slightly at me while she chewed. Dad sighed.
“Was it tough for you, growing up?” Dad asked. “I’m sure most kids had family, probably grandfathers, who fought on the Confederate side.”
Eudora exhaled a long, crumby breath.
“They would tease me, the other kids. Poke me. Teachers did nothing ‘bout it. They were even meaner. Used to tie my hands behind my back. Said I was writing with the devil’s hand. But that was the hand I use, the one God made me to lift my spoon wit’.”
“That’s terrible,” Dad said.
“No one ever asked what it was like.” Eudora’s arms hung still at her side. Then, she lifted another cookie to her mouth and started flapping again.
“I have to take a quick break,” Dad said. He urged me to keep Eudora company. I slid into his vacant chair.
“Your daddy is a nice man,” Eudora said.
“He is,” I replied.
“Mine wadn’t,” Eudora said. Her arms fell motionless at her side again. “These men who come, they ask me these questions about why daddy joined, where he did his fighting. Truth is, I never cared ‘bout his stories. Just ‘cause a man fought for a good side, don’t make him good.”
“No,” I said. “It doesn’t.” My heart beat faster in my chest. No adult had ever shared such personal details with me. The possibility of saying something insensitive made me nervous. I tried to imitate my father’s dispassionate posture, his discerning facial expressions, but my interest betrayed me. I leaned toward Eudora as she spoke, eyes wide, listening best I could.
“Maybe the war made him bad,” Eudora said. “Or maybe he was just bad to begin wit’.”
“He was bad to you?” I asked.
Eudora nodded. “People used to tell me I was pretty once. Too pretty to be so slow. Daddy didn’t like that. It’s why he made me get the op’ration.”
“What operation?” I asked.
“To take away my fever,” Eudora said. “He said girls like me’d get a fever that make you run off with men. Which’d make more slow babies. Like me and Mama. So they says it’d be better if I don’t go having ‘em.”
I hit pause on the tape recorder.
“That’s horrible,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.”
“Thing is, I didn’t mind none,” Eudora said. “Mama’s life was nothing but scrubbing and wiping in the day. Moaning at night. All for some angry old man. No. This place ain’t nothing, but I’m not the one doing the scrubbing and wiping now, am I?”
She resumed her flapping, continuing to flail her arms faster and faster as if to compensate for this temporary pause.
“That’s the way it is, pretty one,” Eudora said. “Ev’ryone comes for the battles. No one wants to hear what comes after.”
***
Dad cited his interview with Eudora in his book on early 20th century social services. Her entire life captured in a few footnotes. The book’s dedication: To Frankie, future historian.
In college, I initially started down the historian path, but I also wrote for the university newspaper. During my junior year, I learned about several campus sexual assault victims who decided to leave school rather than stay and face their attackers and pitched a story about it. One of the women used to live in my dorm, so I visited her to see if she’d be willing to share her perspective.
“No one ever asked what it was like,” she told me during our interview. Involuntarily, I thought of Eudora, her arms falling placidly at her sides. I recalled my reaction after first reading Frances Perkins’s letters, when I heard her voice come alive. Maybe history shouldn’t leave anyone behind, as Dad liked to say. But maybe people shouldn’t be overlooked in the present, either.
My story caused an uproar. Students protested for campus reforms. Others sent me nasty emails. Every interaction felt electric – in channeling the indignation I’d carried with me since childhood, I managed to shape my own little piece of history instead of studying it. The graduate school applications sitting on my desk remained incomplete. Instead, I found a job working for a news magazine. While my colleagues covered politics or technology, I sought stories about people everyone else overlooked or misunderstood. Stories about hurricane survivors and terminally-ill patients and drug counselors and asylum seekers. Stories about who people were, not just what they did.
Dad and I continued visiting Eudora together, making sure to bring sugar-free candy, as her caretakers cautioned us about her dangerously high blood sugar. When Dad grew grayer and heavier, and the long drives aggravated his back, I visited Eudora on my own, though I honestly couldn’t tell you why. There were deadlines to meet. Interviews to conduct. In time, a family to raise.
Eudora withered with each passing year. Loose skin draped from her body like flags left out in the rain. Dementia consumed her remaining mental faculties and her words made little sense, a series of mmmms and uhhhhs she delivered with utmost seriousness.
“I’m here,” I’d reply in those moments when she tried to speak, noting the weak flapping of her arms. “I’m listening.”
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Jillian Danback-McGhan is an author, Navy veteran, and the winner of the 2020 Col. Darron L. Wright Memorial Writing Awards. Her work appears or is forthcoming in Boston Review, Wrath-Bearing Tree, Line of Advance, and is anthologized in Our Best War Stories (Middle West Press, 2022). She lives in Annapolis, MD with her family where she is currently working on Midwatch, a collection of short fiction.
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