Sandra Dallas - The Diary of Mattie Spenser

The Diary of
Mattie Spenser

ALSO BY SANDRA DALLAS

Buster Midnights Cafe
The Persian Pickle Club

SANDRA DALLAS

THE DIARY OF MATTIE SPENSER. Copyright 1997 by Sandra Dallas.
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information,
address St. Martins Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.

Design by Ellen R. Sasahara

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Dallas, Sandra.

The diary of Mattie Spenser / Sandra Dallas.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-312-18710-6 ISBN 978-0-312-18710-1

1. Frontier and pioneer lifeColoradoFiction. 2. Women pioneersColoradoFiction. I. Title.

PS3554.A434D53 1997

20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13

For my beloved Dana
Child of love, child of hope

For historical help, I am indebted to Larry Cox, Todd Ewalt, John Hutchins, Stanley Kerstein, Lee Olson, Nell Brown Propst, Roy Coy at the St. Joseph Historical Society, Rebecca Lacome at the National Park Service Homestead National Monument, Don Dilley, Augie Mastrogiuseppe, and Barbara Walton at the Western History Department of the Denver Public Library, Jerry Sloat in Ft. Madison, Syrma Sotiriou at the Treasured Scarab, and Judy White at Zion Book Store. Thanks to Reagan Arthur, my skillful editor at St. Martins, to Jane Jordan Browne and Danielle Egan-Miller of Multimedia Product Development for their faith and enthusiasm, and to steadfast friends Robbie Spillman and Libbie Gottschalk.

The Diary of
Mattie Spenser

My next-door neighbor, Hazel Dunn, who is ninety-four, is moving into a retirement home. Ever since she signed the contract to sell her house, shes been bringing me boxes of china and old books, along with a few wonderful family heirloomslacetrimmed linens, a worn paisley shawl, some Indian beadwork, and a lacquered laptop desk that her grandmother brought west in a covered wagon. Hazels only son died as a boy, and she has no other close relatives. So Im not depriving anyone of an inheritance by accepting her familys things, she says.

Of course, she could sell the stuff to a dealer, but Hazels a generous soul, and she knows how much I love antiques. Besides, what would she do with the money? she asks. She could live to be 150 with what shes got socked away. I think the real reason she doesnt want to sell the keepsakes, however, is that she dislikes the idea of people pawing through her bedding and schoolbooks and Victorian valentines, holding them up to curiosity.

Sorting through all the stuff has been quite a job for Hazel because shes lived in the house forever. Its huge, and every room is cluttered. Her parents designed the home for balls and big dinner parties. They were members of the Sacred Thirty-six, Denvers fashionable social set at the turn of the century. Thats the group that snubbed the Unsinkable Molly Brown, until she emerged as the heroine of the Titanic disaster in 1912 and they had to invite her over. Hazel remembers the poor Unsinkable, as her mother called Molly, showing up for tea, dressed in a skunk-skin coat, poling herself down the sidewalk with a shepherds crook. Later on, Molly and Hazels mom got to be good friends.

When Hazel married Walter Dunn, he simply moved in with Hazel and her mother, Lorena, by then a widow, just like Harry Truman did, Walter always joked. The two of them lived quite happily in Hazels bedroom until Lorena died in 1959, at the age of ninety. Then they got the master suite. After Walter broke his hip, he and Hazel closed off the second floor and turned one of two parlors into their bedroom. Walter died two years ago, and realtors have been hounding Hazel to sell ever since.

Although Hazel looks and acts twenty years younger than her age, shes wise to go into a home where someone can keep an eye on her, because she refuses to slow down or take precautions. Sooner or later, shes bound to fall. All the neighbors are sorry about her decision, however, because Hazel is a hoot, more fun than anybody on the block. Shes also a treasury of neighborhood history, remembering, for instance, when Dwight Eisenhower married Mamie Doud, who lived over on Lafayette Street. Mrs. Doud, Mamies mother, was a good friend of Lorenas, too.

Our block has become part of what the realtors say is Denvers most desirable young urban professionals neighborhood, and those of us who moved here long before there was such a thing as a Yuppie are skeptical about the couple whove bought Hazels house. Theyve announced theyll gut the place, put in a fifty-thousand-dollar kitchen, and paint the brick mauve. Im upset about the changes, but Hazel doesnt seem to mind that the house will lose its historic character. She never was crazy about the place, but by the time her mother died, shed lived there too long to be comfortable anywhere else. Besides, as Walter put it, Bess Truman didnt sell her mothers house.

Of course, were all worried that before she can move into the retirement home, Hazel will hurt herself lifting boxes and hauling junk from the attic to the alley, but she wont let anybody help hershoos us away, in fact, when we go over on some transparent errand. Hazels not just being stubborn. Sorting through one hundred years of family accumulations is traumatic, and shes got her pride. Hazels never been one to show emotion, and she doesnt intend to start now. She didnt shed a tear at Walters funeral. The only time I ever saw Hazel cry, in fact, was when I rushed over to tell her that John F. Kennedy had just been shot. Shed already heard the news on the radio, and she was sitting in the kitchen, sobbing. Sharing our grief that day became one of the many bonds between us.

Although Hazel wont let me help with the heavy lifting, Ive been keeping an eye on her as she makes trips back and forth from the house to the Dumpster, or runs up and down the stairs of the carriage housewhich never once housed a carriage. Hazels conservative father owned a car when he built the place, but he wasnt convinced that automobiles were here to stay. So he erected a carriage house instead of a garage, in case horses made a comeback.

Since I try to keep track of where Hazel is, I knew that she was in the attic of the carriage house when she called out to me in an alarmed voice one afternoon. I was gardening, and I rushed through the gate that connects our yards, yelling up through the open hayloft door, Are you all right?

Come up, dearie, Hazel cried in a voice that held more exasperation than panic.

Nonetheless, I took the narrow stairs two at a time, and I found Hazel bent over in the center of the room, at about the spot where the new people intend to put in a hot tub.

Ive gotten so clumsy lately. I let the trunk lid slam shut on my dress, and now Im caught. I cant reach over there to lift the lid, and if I try to pull out my dress, Ill rip it. Can you believe it, pinned to a trunk by my skirt!

I carefully lifted the lid, and Hazel straightened up, examining her skirt for tears. I ran my hand over the soft black leather of the old trunk. It was handmade, put together with brass nails that had turned black with tarnish. The inside was lined with mattress ticking, now soiled and torn. An oval brass plate on the front of the trunk was engraved M.F.M.S., Mingo, C.T.