Tom Faley - Treated Like Family

The Gentine family: Back row: Thomas and Leo Middle row: Josephine, Jules, Louis, and Joseph Front row: Joseph Jr.

Joseph had brooded over his options during the prior winter. In the end, he and his wife, Josephine, grew to accept a distasteful solution: leave Chavannes-les-Grands with their five sons, and start their life over elsewhere. As the winter winds howled in the evenings, they plotted.

There were friendsGerman friends he had come to knowthat had left behind their homes, forsaken their familys past, and found a new life in a German community in the United States west of a city called Milwaukee. Just months earlier, in the fall, he had sent a letter to them. Late winter, their response reached him. Come, they wrote. They would house his family until land could be purchased for their farm.

That would be their destiny, he and Josephine agreed. Unlike their intolerable life in Chavannes-les-Grands, they would begin a new life in America, a country thatunlike Germany or Francerespected its citizens, a country that found no value in prejudice and hate, a country free from onerous taxes. With them, they would bring their valued possessions, their French traditions, and their family history. Just as important, they would bring cuttings from the familys vineyard, securing their sons future.

Mentally, Joseph calculated the number of cuttings needed from their vines to reestablish a sizable vineyard at the end of their journey. With determination, he plodded through the mud, toward the oldest vinesthose closest to the house. These he valued above all. They symbolized the roots of the generations before him, the history of their family.

He bundled the clippings in a damp cloth, tucked them into a lidded wooden box, and entered the house. The room, lit only by the flickering flames of the fireplace, caused his familys shadows to jump and dart furtively along the walls.

Im all set, Jo, he said. All the vine cuttings are wrapped and loaded in the wagon. Have you packed everything we need?

As Josephine turned toward him, the orange-copper glow from the fire revealed only part of her face, leaving the rest in shadow. A tear tracked silently over the crest of her cheek. She didnt answer. Just nodded.

He studied her as Josephine took a slow look around, as if she were etching details of her home in her mind. Pulling her into him, he wrapped his arms around her, giving a long, reassuring hug.

She had borne him a family of six children: five boys and one girl. The oppressive weight of melancholy nearly crushed her years ago when Marie passed away as an infant. Josephines emotional wound healed as she reconnected with her family once again. But the scar remained, along with a residue of sadness at the corners of her eyes.

Josephine took a long, shuddering breath in his arms as if she once again recalled the reality of her sacrifices. Of the family she was leaving behind and the only life she had known for forty years. Of her daughter and the small grave she was abandoning, to be left unattended, overgrown with weeds and forgotten by generations that would follow.

They stood embracing in the middle of the room. Are you OK, Jo? he whispered in her ear.

Im fine, she said, pushing away from him. We must do this for the children Then, meeting his eyes, she repeated, Ill be fine.

They stood in silence until a loud rap on the door trespassed the moment. The door eased open and the toothy smile of their neighbor poked in.

Just me, Joseph. Would have been here earlier, but roads are getting muddy.

Joseph raised his hand in welcome. Your timing is perfect. We were just loading the wagon.

As his three oldest sons gathered their baggage, Joseph snuffed the flames in the fireplace with water and a poker. The house grew dark. A rectangle of early-morning light seeped through the open front doora light leading them away. He grabbed his wifes hand and together they closed the door behind them for the last time.

With an air of solemnity, the family piled into the wagon, slick from the morning mist. Their neighbor would accompany them as far as Belfort before returning with the horses and wagon to the Gentine homestead. Joseph sighed. The