Chapter 4
With all three boys settled in at Sarah's house Aaron and Candy sat in his office to discuss who she was, why she had visited Miss Biddie and what might be the next steps for her.
"Well, Mr. Stemple…" she said.
"Call me Aaron, please since I will be your lawyer, we can be on a first name basis." He said with an encouraging smile.
"Okay, Aaron!" she said and then continued:
" I don't know this Will Harmon person or his son, but he seems to be carrying a grudge against me and the children. Jason, my husband came from West Virginia and if he were alive, he would be able to take care of this business but now I suppose I need to find out and stop this person from whatever, he is planning to do!"
Aaron looked at her from across his desk. She had dark black eyes, but her hair, which was also black, had some copper and brown highlights that no beauty parlor could ever copy. She was almost 29 but still looked as if she were only 20. He remembered his grandfather had told him that the picture that Aaron Stemple the first had in his office was a picture of him with all the brides at Lottie's. Every bride had been named and the date they married and who they married was printed on a piece of paper and slipped between the back of the glass frame encasing the tintype.
"Candy, I would like to show you something, could you please come with me to my father's office. He took her down the hall and opened the door to a room that was something out of the early 1900's. It looked like a museum as she walked in. The mahogany desk, the original Tiffany lamp as well as several pictures, or photographs of different people who had come to Seattle. One photograph stood out. There was a pictures of a fairly handsome man standing next to a mill with his foreman. She read the name printed on a copper plate:
"Aaron Stemple and Harvey Simpson of Stemple's Mill June 1885.
"Well, you do favor him in some ways although I suspect your mother would have said you favor her more!" Candy smiled and looked at the other pictures. He stood there; he wanted her to discover for herself what he was seeing. She came to the picture of all the brides. She stepped up and read the copper plate listing all the brides, who they married and when they married. As she read each name she looked up at each bride. She thought they were beautiful. The names were not in alphabetical order. They were in date order. The last two ladies a Miss Biddie Kloom who married Barnabas Smith and finally she came to Miss Candy Pruitt! She gasped although the picture was by no means as clear as it had been when it was first shot, she had to take a look a second and third time, taking out her little compact and looking at herself in the mirror. Aaron went up to her and said:
"Do you see what I see?"
All she could do was to nod yes. He took her over to a colorized picture that he had just made of all the women from the first group and Miss Candy Pruitt then saw her great –great-grandmother. Standing next to Jeremy Bolt, Marriage date was December 1875. Candy dropped to her knees and started to cry. This is what she had been wanting to find out for years! Now, she knew she had family. Somewhere she would find the rest of the cousins, uncles, and aunts but now she just cried tears of joy. Aaron reached over and handed her the tissue box and waited until she was able to compose herself.
"I grew up an orphan!" she said. "An orphan who did not know those in her family. I had this one note taped inside of my suitcase and I would look at it. I did not know B. S. was Biddie, I was not told anything until I came of age and only just scant information. I was told that Candy and Jeremy's son Jacob married a Lummi woman, and they had a daughter and son as well. The daughter was also named Candy and her brother was named Jeremy. So, when your mother was only 15, she was pregnant, the man who was your father was an alcoholic and was not very good to her. She ended up having you but giving you the Bolt name since that is the side of the family that was the most loved. Her mother's brother became his first mate on a whaling ship and spent most of his time in Alaska. When he finally heard that your mother had died it was about ten years later. You would have been ten years old and living with a foster family." Aaron said as he gently guided her to a seat on the chair in his office. He stood for a few minutes leaning on his desk.
"Candy, your uncle kept in touch with my dad. He would write every so often to find out if you had tried to contact him, but every time there was nothing. I inherited the information and promised my father that I would hold onto that until you could be found. But it looks as if you found us!" Aaron smiled. A knock on the door and Jason came in.
"Mom, Sarah says it is time for supper! Hey, mom, why are you crying, did this man hurt you? If he did, I will save you!" said 13-year-old Jason ready to knock Aaron down.
"NO, no, I just found out some good news and was very happy about it!" Candy said.
"but if you are happy, why are you crying?" Jason came over to give her a hug.
"Because we all cry when we are happy, and we cry when we are sad. Just some of us do it more than others! Now, Tell Sarah we will be there in a few minutes." She said to him and gave him a kiss and a hug. He ran out of the room to the dining room.
"Well, I think we had better go now. Do you need some more time to freshen up? The powder room is just across the hall. I will tell Sarah you will be there shortly."
