CHAPTER 1 STORYTIME by Cupideros
Friday, October 6, 1871
Northside, Chicago, IL
Carriage Ride Downtown, Chicago
Morning
Stubborn, twenty-five-year-old Chicago socialite Starr Oakes hated being dishonest as she rode in her carriage to downtown Chicago from Superior Street where she lived in a mansion. It tore at her heart. She covered her lovely straight black, shoulder-length hair with a cute little peach and blue boater hat. The hat accentuated her beautiful flat forehead, her long nose and her cute oval face. Starr Oakes’ small mouth had thinned flattop lips; lips that kissed only one man, Kendric Jones, a man she loathed. Big, arrogant, a junior lawyer who desperately wanted her hand in marriage and he was willing to wait for Starr to give in to despair. He was the exact duplicate of her dad’s personality.
“Stop at the Hinna’s Fashion dress shop at the corner, Charles. I plan on visiting a friend and shopping for an hour. You can wait or go to the park and come back if you want.”
“Thank you, Ms. Oakes. I’ll go to the park and feed the pigeons.”
Starr smiled back at Charles. Then she struggled to climb out of her black carriage. To her surprise, she was actually getting the handle of the frumpier stylist bustle attachment of her blue and white dress. The peach ribbons on the skirt and bodice at the back of her bustle, she adored best, however.
Hinna’s dress shop, which had a big spacious interior and several entrances and exits, provided the perfect subterfuge. Starr spoke to the salesclerk for a second. Then she turned back to see if Charles had driven away. Starr thanked the salesclerk for her dress suggestions and told her to wrap it. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.” Starr quickly walked to the South side, away from the Chicago Park and exited Hinna’s Fashions. She hailed another carriage.
“Take me to the Lake Chicago Bank please.”
“Yes, ma’am!” exclaimed the man as he took her fare.
Starr gave him a generous tip under the understanding that he’d keep his mouth shut. She’d seen her dad employ the move several times at business luncheons as a growing teenager. Under the best of conditions, she would tell her powerful lawyer dad, Derral Oakes, and her stay-at-home mom, Patrisha Oakes, why she planned to withdraw half her savings from the family bank, Lake Chicago Bank. It was her money. And she needed it soon to make the trip to Jada, California to be with her mail-order husband, Rex Hassa. His picture burned in her mind: triangular face, dark sandy brown hair, happy eyes and blonde mustache. He said he had to constantly shave to keep the stubble off his chin.
Her dad disapproved of the mail-order bride arrangement. An arrangement concluded over the past five months, suspense-filled months. Back and forth, she and Rex sent letters: love letters declaring their affection, sharing their likes and dislikes, revealing finally that Rex owned and ran a successful mining camp in the town of Jada, California.
Staring out the window, Starr was jostled from side to side, as the carriage ran over the cobblestones. Starr Oakes smiled a knowing smile to herself. Sophisticated Chicago, I’m going to miss you. This place where marriage prospects abounded, this big town, rightfully, any girl would love to visit and find her beau. But this is not the place for me. I love the country. I want to live on a farm.
Why her dad disapproved didn’t surprise her. He grew up near Sutter, California and the 1849 gold strike. Derral Oakes hated the place. He called the men lawless hooligans with no morals or intelligence, except in spending gold coins. Her dad went on tirades about Starr negotiating behind his back. “To think you’ve practically auctioned yourself off like a whore!” he vented.
Starr told him that mail-order brides were a common phenomenon; something lots of women did who wanted to get married; women who wanted to go West and live on open land and space. She had answered Rex Hassa’s mail-order bride advertisement right out of the Chicago Tribune. Rex Hassa ran the mining camp; he wasn’t one of the scoundrels mining and spending his brief gained nuggets of gold. If her dad had to weigh the two, mail-order bride section and the Stock information and business news section, he’d choose stocks and business every time. That is what the Chicago Tribune meant to her dad, Derral Oakes. He’d never seen the mail-order bride section. He didn’t care.
Starr’s mom sympathized and felt Starr’s lonely anguish. Patrisha Oakes knew what twenty-five years old felt like—old maid. Her mom at twenty-five gave birth to her only child, Starr. That’s what old maid felt like—one chance to have a child. Several miscarriages happened to her mom, but no one talked about that. And if Starr inherited her mom’s genes, like Darwin insisted in his Origin of the Species, time slowly slipped away. Starr, the old maid, probably forever forfeited her chance to have a child. So she determined to go after what she wanted most. Destiny was the watch in her left hand, and she often consulted it to guide her life. Fate, unfortunately in her right hand, came along as the twin Nemesis of Destiny.
The fateful five-year Civil War conflict burned up Starr’s best years for marriage, fifteen to nineteen. Dying, blown to bits, crippled or missing eligible men didn’t make good marriage prospects at all. Go West; get married there, Starr’s gut told her. And Starr determined to go out West and make a new life.
“Lake Chicago Bank, Miss.”
“Thank you. Will you please wait for the return trip? I’ll pay you generously for that as well.”
“Yes, ma’am!”
CHAPTER 2
Friday, October 6, 1871
Northside, Chicago, IL
Carriage Ride Downtown, Chicago
Morning
Starr went into the bank. “I’d like to withdraw half of my money and send it to the Bank of Northside.”
“I don’t know whether that is such a good idea, Ms. Oakes. Your dad’s money practically runs this bank.”
Starr smiled sweetly. Messes only her typical dad managed to create. “That’s why I want to move it to my new bank.” Starr’s brown eyes stared hard at the balding banker. He was a short man who wielded power by holding on to people’s money.
He moved very slow and handed Starr a withdrawal slip.
“In fact, I want to move half my money to my new bank. I’ll take the other half in bills.”
The short-baldheaded banker’s jaw dropped. “That’s not a very wise—”
“Diversification is the smartest financial move one can make, right?”
He stammered. “Well . . . at least not all of the money is in one bank.” He seemed relieved to know that competing banks lost out on the majority of Starr Oakes’ considerable holdings. And Starr knew her dad’s ruthlessness in finances. He’d go to the other bank. He’d demand her money be frozen.
“The financial transaction—to—to move the money—to your new bank will be done by five p.m. today. As for the rest,” he turned and nodded to a young handsome looking clerk.
The young clerk brought out a black bag from behind the gated windows of the bank. “The balance, Ms. Oakes. Do come back if you decide to change your mind.”
“I will,” Starr smiled sweetly again and lied. She needed to control the chaos that would erupt when her dad found out about the withdrawal. Derral Oakes turned vicious when people crossed him—family member or not.
Starr walked out of the bank a free woman. Of course, she had wealthy Rex Hassa, her mail-order husband to count on, but having one’s own wealth topped all. She did. And if going to the mining camp turned out as bad as her dad predicted, the extra funds provided the perfect backup plan.
“Take me to the West Bank of Chicago.” Starr handed the carriage driver the fare and another generous tip.
Minutes later, Starr had deposited two-thirds of the money in her real new bank.
“Thank you for joining our bank. We offer several advantages over traditional banks such as the ability to wire money across the states,”
“Thank you. I don’t think that’ll be necessary, though.”
The bank clerk had round spectacles and a full head of brown hair. Starr didn’t know why bankers all had brown hair. Maybe brown hair meant conservative or secure.
Really happy, Starr rode the carriage back to Hinna’s Fashion dress shop and entered the South door. She picked up her new pink day gown and walked out the front.
“How were the pigeons, Charles?”
“Anxious. Nervous. I’ve never seen them like that.”
“Home, Charles.”
“Will you be going to the ball at the theater tonight?”
“I don’t know, Charles,” Starr said with a real happy smile on her face now. “I suppose I’ll be expected to show my pretty face.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Oakes said they’ll be staying in. Just thought I’d ask.”
Starr adjusted the new dress box on the seat beside her. Slowly she gained the upper hand over the new bustle dress’s ability to complicate her entering and exiting her private carriage. “Kendric will pick me up, Charles. So you can have the night off.”
“That’ll be great Ms. Oakes.”
Starr stared out the window on the ride home. Your move, Dad. You won’t keep me here in Chicago for long. Just two more days and I’ll be eloping to Jada, California, land of grapes, mining camps, and my new love sweet home.
***
Starr went to the ball and danced with Kendric. One of them had a wonderful time. It wasn’t Starr. Every moment she thought about Rex Hassa and how she missed him. Sometimes to ease her lonely feelings, she kissed his triangular face picture. His last letter came one week ago. Running a mining company involved a lot of hours, Starr assumed now. Until she got pregnant, and she expected to get pregnant right away, most of her days would consist of learning the town of Jada. Starr, from Rex’s letters, had quite a lively little place to negotiate. They had a small school and Rex planned on opening an orphanage for the children whose parents had left them, abandoned them. Mining took its toil and some people got tired of paying ten dollars for a loaf of bread, thirty dollars for a meal, fifty dollars for clean washed clothes by a Chinese immigrant whose language the miners didn’t understand. When they got tired they just left. Rex said he knew a lot of people in Jada. Starr figured the mine employed the most people, the majority of Jada’s population. That in a sense made Rex an even bigger power broker than her dad, Derral.
***
Had the power gone to Rex’s head, too? Did his ex-girlfriend, Janny Nuzzi’s spontaneous nature, the cause of their breakup, still inspire Rex’s feelings? Her mind grew increasingly busy worrying about the relationship to be, before it even happened. In his mind, Starr Oakes, perhaps, might be just another woman to know and use. She didn’t think of herself that way. In her mind, Rex spoke the truth and cared for her. He wanted nothing more than to love her with all his heart.
CHAPTER 3
Sunday, October 8, 1871
Northside, Chicago, IL
Home of Derral and Patrisha Oakes
Late Afternoon
Starr Oakes opened the door laughing and smiling. Kendric, her suitor, held onto her elbow. They just returned from the theater seeing a play about love and marriage. Starr had her train ticket to Jada California in her purse.
“In the den,” her dad, Derral, spoke.
“Shall I escort you to the den?” Kendric joked.
“I think indeed you shall,” Starr replied.
Starr knew better than to try to spoil her last two days in Chicago. On the tenth of October, she’d be on her way to Jada California for good or bad. “Mom and Dad, we had a wonderful time,” continued Starr as she sat down and started removing her wrist-length black lace gloves. “I was just telling Kendric that Victoria Woodhull will be running for President of the United States next year. She’d get my vote, if I had one. Women will not sit by and be coddled like children as this century ends. Elizabeth Blackwell had already proven women will not faint if they study hard; she got her medical doctorate in 1846. Women do more than just walk around looking pretty. We write books and take photographs, invent things. Being a housewife is the least of the things women are capable of doing.”
Derral, her dad, smiled. “Then I suspect you’ve changed your mind about this mail-order bride nonsense,” he chuckled, and then offered a glass of Sherry to Kendric.
Kendric Jones took the glass and gulped it down to Starr’s obvious disgust. Her mom turned her face away back to her Godey’s Lady’s Book Magazine.
“I tabled the matter for a while,” Starr artfully dodged her dad’s accusations. Once she eloped, her dad, mom and Kendric simply would adjust to their new lives.
“Then Kendric has something to ask you.” Derral nodded to Starr’s dad as if they were in court.
Kendric cleared his throat and got down on one knee. One big knee since he stood six feet, two inches tall. He weighed about two hundred and ten pounds, but all of his weight looked like muscle. “I know this isn’t sudden, but, Starr I’ve been pursuing you for three years now. Will you marry me?”
“I knew he’d propose soon, dear Starr. Answer, yes.”
Starr’s jaw dropped open. Looking past Kendric toward her dad, Starr quickly composed herself and let out a big laugh. She shook her head from side to side. “Ha hahahahaha. Surely you’re joking, Kendric.” Starr took off her green and peach small boater hat. She’d tied her straight black hair up in an updo. She wore a dark-blue bodice with dark-blue bustle skirt. She put the boater hat on the small divan beside her chair; then she adjusted herself in the luxury burgundy chair. “Mom, these bustle dresses do give us a bit of trouble?”
Kendric had fire in his eyes, but he acted civil. “Starr?”
Derral jumped up. “I’ve had enough of this Starr Elizabeth Oakes.” He came forward in his gray bow tie on his wingtip white shirt, charcoal ambassador vest with a silver watch chain attached. He continued his conservative dress with black pants and shoes. Starr’s latest delay and deflect tactic broke the usual composure on his square face, more than annoyed at Starr’s latest delay tactic. His stiff arms flanked his sides as he stood near to Kendric. “This exceptional young man possesses every quality for a society lady.”
“Then let him go and marry that other societal lady.” Starr turned to Kendric. In a clever and subtle move, she closed Kendric’s two hands with her own, shrouding the glittery large diamond ring inside the tiny felt black box. “I like you, Kendric. You’re great for going to shows, theaters, picnics.” She let her pretty brown eyes fix on Kendric’s small hurt gray eyes. “But I am going to marry Rex Hassa. I am going to Jada California.”
Derral reached inside his right pocket as if to check his watch. “You won’t be catching a train to anywhere.” He waved the train ticket. “See this train ticket.” Derral ripped it in two pieces. “Wasted money. Wasted time.” He threw it to the floor and Starr’s mom rushed over to pick the torn paper up. “Derral you said we would wait until tomorrow to confront her with this. She’s our only daughter.”
“And our only daughter has got to learn to obey,” Derral said turning back to Starr after lecturing his wife. “Now the money you shifted to your Bank of Northside is frozen. So I don’t know how you’re going to live in that—that cesspool of a mining town, Nada.”
“Jada,” Starr said firmly in an even tone. Her oval face looked peeved, but she expected this. Twelve years old, she was not, not anymore. But something endless petty directed her dad to meddle in her life. “That’s my money, Dad,” Starr continued knowing the escalating battle had a good side. It deflected attention away from Kendric’s obvious humiliation.
“I bought that shabby little Bank of Northside. The manager’s explicit instructions are to get my signature before a penny is withdrawn. No daughter of mine is going to ruin her life. Just throw it away on a mythical mining company owner in a town that doesn’t exist on the map.”
Starr jumped up, entirely fed up. “Who gave you the right to go through my things? My bedroom. I am twenty-five years old. And Jada exists!” Starr pulled out the cherished mail-order bride letters from her oblong blue rose purse. “How come I have a postmark on my letters?”
