Dodd Forrest

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Epilogue

1886

Dodd was almost lost in the past.  He was riding in a stagecoach. There weren’t many left. Railroads were expanding and train travel was more pleasant, so if that option existed stagecoaches were ignored.

But riding a stage did bring a sense of nostalgia. He recalled the anticipation and excitement of his boyhood stagecoach trips but that nostalgia too soon faded into pathos because of the reason for this trip to Jared’s home, and its urgency.

Dodd had been east several times since his marriage. Travel had become so much more convenient since the railroads were more accessible. Trips to the east that had taken almost three weeks now could be made in a week or less and the Forrests’ private car was often made available to him. The comfort almost embarrassed Dodd. He had the vague feeling that he was indulging himself, but the car actually made the trip less expensive. The car made it unnecessary to rent hotel rooms.

Each trip served two purposes. For five years he had been invited to conduct seminars on frontier medicine at Harvard. By 1880, Dodd no longer considered Carson City to be on the frontier, so his topic was changed to Medical Practice in the Mountains and on the Prairie. Dodd realized that in the early years he was seen as a kind of curiosity, almost a missionary, by the ethnocentric easterners who considered life away from the big cities primitive and boorish, but he was still honored to have been asked. Now, after almost twenty years of practice, he was looked upon with respect commensurate with his reputation for integrity and skill in practice, and his continued scholarship. The trips also gave him the opportunity to keep up with the child labor movement, which was very much alive in the east, and in which Dodd maintained a passionate and active interest. For Dodd, that was the second, and very important, purpose for the trips.

Dodd had come to understand that getting child protection laws passed was not the real issue. Getting people to obey the laws was the issue. Several eastern states had passed explicit laws, but mill and mine operators too frequently found ways around them. Many states that had child labor laws made enforcement of those laws the responsibility of the superintendent of schools in each county. It was common practice for the mills or the mines to own the towns and thus control the appointment of school officials. Even if the superintendent was inclined toward concern for all children’s health and education—and most were not—keeping his job was contingent upon not depriving the owners of their cheap source of labor.

Too often, even the children’s parents collaborated in circumventing the laws. Sometimes this was out of financial necessity, but just as often it was because they owned the children and could do with them as they pleased—and it pleased them to exploit their children’s wage-earning potential. Dodd was concerned about the problem of families whose breadwinner, usually the father, was deceased or disabled, or had abandoned the family. The mother could not earn enough to support her family and the wage of a ten- or even a seven-year-old child often kept the family together and fed. Some states were experimenting with Mother’s Pensions. These were monies paid by the local governmental unit and amounted to hiring the mother to care for her own indigent children rather than placing them in an orphanage or some other kind of substitute care. Dodd favored Mother’s Pensions. It made sense to him to pay a mother to care for her own children rather than to pay a stranger or a bureaucrat.

There were problems to be solved, but progress was being made, and the future, while definitely uncertain, was still mildly encouraging. Many prominent persons were actively working for better laws and better enforcement of those laws. Dodd had no way of knowing in 1886 that it would take almost fifty years to get a federal law and general compliance to that and to state laws. Neither would he know that even with federal child labor laws the lives of indigent, neglected, abused, and abandoned children would remain miserable and they would never become more than bureaucratic and political chattel.

Even when most of the eastern and western states had effective child labor laws and compulsory school attendance laws, the south lagged far behind in both the passage of such laws and, when laws existed, in their enforcement. Dodd’s experiences in this area had made him realize how naive he had been to assume that there would be no more Petes, Beckys, Revas, Ervins or Austins in his lifetime. Children could only speak through the mouth of some adult and those adults, through conscious or unconscious intent, expressed their own self-interest rather than the best interest of the children. The welfare of children without responsible parents would forever take constant public vigilance and action.

Dodd was anxious to get to Jared’s. That was the reason he was riding a stagecoach. Had he been returning to Carson City he would have gone all the way on the train. But the wire he had received from Jared caused Dodd to cut this trip short and hurry to his father’s side.

Luke was 87 years old and had remained in robust health. Dodd knew, however, that when his father failed, he would fail rapidly. Luke Forrest was not the kind of man to suffer infirmity. When he could no longer live a full life, he would die. Dodd did not see that as a fault in his father nor did he see it to be a virtue. It was who Luke Forrest was and Dodd, who had loved the man’s life, would love and respect his death. When Jared’s wire told of the extent of the effects of their father’s stroke, Dodd knew that the Luke Forrest era was coming to an end. If at all possible, Dodd wanted to be there for that end.

Although Dodd didn’t know what he’d find when he reached Jared’s, he had a sense of peace. Luke’s life had been full, and the man had made his family’s life full by his love and his training.

Dodd thought of the last time he had come to this part of Nevada on a stagecoach. It was seventeen years earlier and he was returning from Harvard with his baggage of self-doubt and anxiety about the future. Those seventeen years, however, had been good to him. Pete had entered his life, had taught Dodd to see himself more clearly, had brought love to Jared and Libby, had matured into a loving, diligent, and loyal man who had completed his medical studies at Harvard, and had joined the practice in Carson City. Ivan Prater had gone to Harvard with Pete and had also joined the firm.

Those seventeen years had given him Elizabeth and four fine children. The twins were almost fifteen and, as is always the case when one stops to take stock, Dodd marveled at the quick passage of time. He was proud of what his children were becoming and he became nostalgic when he thought of the joy they had brought. Dodd had learned to find reward rather than frustration in his work. His life had been full.

Luke was still alive when Dodd reached Jared’s. Luke had lived with Jared for the past two years. He had never explained his choice but the family knew. He still loved children and Hank and Grace were among the youngest of his grandchildren. He chose to go where there was still the vigor of young children. Dodd’s children were young but there was never any thought that Luke would choose to live with Dodd and Elizabeth; they lived in a city. Luke would never live off the range country that had been his life.

Scamper’s high-strung way of life had caught up with him at age 60; The heart attack took him in his sleep. All of the other brothers, the daughters-in-law, and most of the grandchildren, were there with Luke. He could no longer speak but he knew. He could not express his pleasure at seeing Dodd, but he had his family with him and he could now die surrounded by those he loved. He died peacefully less than a day after Dodd arrived. He died as he lived, with grace and dignity, and it seemed that he chose the time. It was almost as if he and God had a pact. Luke would go willingly if God allowed him to choose the time.

When the family gathered again after the burial, the atmosphere was more one of nostalgia than grief. They could not wish their father back. They had, all their lives, heard older persons speak of how quickly time passed. Perhaps until now, the Forrest brothers had considered that the idle musing of a pre-senile mind. But now they were the older generation and they realized that the fifties, sixties, and even the seventies, were not as old as they had seemed.

But at a Forrest reunion, whatever the reason for having gotten together, even nostalgia eventually had to give way to levity. It did, in fact, seem appropriate to remember and honor their father with joy and good humor. It was their legacy as much as any material thing and as the afternoon progressed, they came to know what they had always suspected. Joy and good humor were, indeed, the most valuable of the many things left to them by their father.

Pete had married Becky Roker upon completing his medical studies and was there, beaming with pride, as he showed off his three-month-old daughter. Pete had realized at about fifteen that it was not brotherly love he felt for Becky; that he was, in fact, in love with her. Becky teased him for having taken so long to come to that realization. She had known that she was in love with Pete when she was ten.

During their childhood and youth, Pete and Ervie and the younger of the Roker children had spent considerable time together. Each summer they had spent a week at each other’s homes. Even when the boys became big enough that their work was needed, both Jared and Jess accepted that the children had a need to spend time with each other. In the early years it was because of the bonding between Pete and Becky and Ervie and Austin, but as they became more secure in their own homes, it was because of the deep friendships that had been formed. It was not surprising, then, that several of those friendships blossomed into romance. Pete and Becky, of course, but Ervie and Flora Brian also married, as did Austin and Sim’s oldest daughter, Laura.

Pete was an amazing man. He had retained his childhood tenacity toward mastering a task, had been an honor student at Harvard, and was an excellent doctor. Dodd was probably as proud of him as he was his own children, and as a child, Dodd’s son, Peter, had worshiped Pete almost as Pete had worshiped Dodd. Pete also developed Dodd’s concern for children. He had doted on his younger brother and sister and Dodd’s children, but he also remembered his own early childhood. When he became a man, he too took child labor as his cause. He became involved in several related movements while in Boston, particularly those promoting the improvement and enforcement of compulsory school attendance laws. He also became a strong advocate of Mother’s Pensions. In the large eastern cities one easily saw the destitution of families whose breadwinner had been disabled, or had died or abandoned them. As it had to Dodd, it made good sense to Pete to ‘hire’ the mother to care for children of such families.

Neither Pete nor Dodd could understand the opposition faced by those trying to improve the plight of children. Both were most appalled by the religious opposition. Many clergymen preached that hard work purified the soul and that the idle time that came with only six or seven hours of school rather than a twelve hour work day was damning many children to hell. There was also some of the same mindset that had led many southern preachers to justify slavery during the pre-Civil War days. They tended to base morality on the lifestyle of the affluent and powerful. God rewarded virtue and if these people were rich and powerful, they must be right and good. Various religious groups fought Mother’s Pensions because they would take children from their orphanages or in some other way usurp their power. Some vocal Catholic, Protestant and Jewish leaders would rather see a child of their faith on the street or even dead than under the jurisdiction of another faith. Many of the few childcare persons were proud of their ‘compassion’ and were much more interested in public acclaim and their power than in the welfare of children. Things were getting better for some children, but very slowly, and the progress was far from steady. Every accomplishment seemed to be accompanied by at least a partial defeat. Dodd thought again of how naive he had been to believe that the issue of children who fell into out-of-home intervention would some day be resolved. Children had no political or even ethical voice of their own, and, as mentioned, those purporting to speak for them seemed not to be able to sort out their own self-interest from the needs of the children. It was frustrating but it was the way it was. It was human nature and certainly not an excuse for doing nothing. Frustration forced many early zealots out of the quest but many sincere advocates continued to press the issues, Dodd and Pete among them.

The problem was much worse in the east where the textile mills were well established and traditional religious and political power entrenched. Much of the west was not industrialized and laws regarding institutionalized children were stronger and better enforced. Political and religious bureaucracies were just developing in the west. Since there were no established bureaucracies to buck or bureaucratic power to threaten, more progressive, enlightened attitudes toward children easily became law. The religious forces—the Baptist, the Mormon, and the Methodist—were, in a sense, frontier-driven, not controlled by wealth or entrenched power. Even though it was ancient and well established, the Catholic Church in the west took on the nature of the frontier and exerted influence toward more humanitarian dealings with children. The forces that resisted change for children in the east and south simply did not exist in the west.

Even though, where they lived, children’s problems were less severe than in other areas of the country, conditions were far from Dodd’s and Pete’s liking. But society changed so fast, and with social change came new problems for children that required new attention and quick action. Both men understood that as bureaucracies became more entrenched, they became more resistant to change. From observing humanitarian efforts in the east, and from life itself, they learned that institutions created to serve soon lost their sense of mission and their primary efforts were given to preserving themselves. Bureaucrats became jealous of their status and power. Self self-preservation and self-aggrandizement drove them rather than, as they always claimed, the best interests of children. Any necessary changes would become, as they were in the east, difficult to achieve, and hard fought. Proper and humane policy, therefore, must be in place at the start. Concern for children, Dodd and Pete had both learned, was not a transitory thing. It had to be a lifetime commitment, and the level of their men’s commitment and concern had Elizabeth and, to the extent that her young family would let her, Becky working for just laws regarding children in Nevada.

Ervin’s preference would have been to stay home and ranch with his father. Josh and Libby, however, insisted that he take at least some college. Ervin reluctantly went to the University of Nevada at Reno, not completely sure what he was to study. He found some courses that related to agriculture and became fascinated with them. The university did not offer a degree in agriculture so Ervie majored in the arts, with all the agriculture- and law enforcement-related courses he could get. Law enforcement was a new science, and not a major interest for him, but it did fill his time and it might become useful, who knew? After graduation he returned home to the ranch life he loved.

Austin knew what he wanted to do as soon as he had gotten a taste of ranch life, particularly after his brother, Robert, came back from the army. As a child, Austin loved his parents, and Becky and his other siblings, but he worshiped Robert. When Robert married, he lived on the home place and became just as attached to Austin. Jess had lived to age 79 and there was never any question that Robert and Austin would ranch the home place. There was no concern about inheritance. Jess had provided land for all his sons, and his daughters had married well.

Josh saw the end of the high demand for silver. The lode still produced well but the drive to go on the gold standard, as well as the current glut on the silver market, made Josh feel that more diversity was wise. He had assumed the presidency of the company in 1880 and convinced the brothers to buy ranch land in Texas and the Indian Territory. It was a gamble, but some scientists believed there was oil there. Oil had been produced in Pennsylvania since 1859 and new uses for the product were being discovered all the time. A German named Nikolaus Otto was experimenting with an engine that used gasoline and there was talk of putting such an engine on a buggy. For Josh it didn’t take much imagination to see where that could go. He foresaw, and enthusiastically tried to persuade his brothers, that motorized buggies, trains, and even boats, would soon need vast amounts of gasoline. Some of the brothers were hesitant but Josh and James convinced them that, while it might be a gamble, the odds seemed in their favor. The Forrest Investment Group had also expanded its banking holdings.

Pick Fillion was now a respected lawyer. He remained the Carson City corporate lawyer for what had become the Forrest Investment Group but when Levi and Noah completed law school in Texas, Pick formed Fillion, Fillion and Forrest, Attorneys at Law. The boys did most of the firm’s non-company work but depended heavily on Pick for direction during their first few years. Jamie had gone to the University of Texas with Levi and Noah but elected to go back to San Francisco. His fiancée there did not wish to leave her friends and her family.

Joshua Forrest perhaps had the most difficult career decision to make. The Forrest Investment Group needed someone in New York City, near the important financial centers. For a Forrest to move so far from his tight-knit family was, at first, unthinkable. Josh had originally opposed that move for his son, but this was a family business and Joshua had become fascinated by the workings of the financial community. He had demonstrated skill and good judgment and finally, albeit with ambivalence, he had convinced himself and his father that New York City was where he should be.

It’s a little startling to have lived life a day at a time and then to attend an event that calls to mind how many days have passed. Dodd had seen his children grow, but the age in his brothers’ faces, and the gray in their hair… There was no regret at the passing of time, just surprise. People lodged in one’s mind as they were when last seen. There was surprise, but there was also satisfaction. They had lost Scamper, but they had been a fortunate family. They were more than comfortable financially, but—more importantly—they were healthy, and they had earned respect. They had not only earned the respect of others but they had earned the right to respect themselves. That was important to Dodd. He had never wanted to be respected for who he was. He wanted respect for what he was. He had earned that. The Forrest boys had been blessed with healthy children who were growing into honorable citizens.

What more could Dodd ask? He would miss his father and the life that had been, but the life ahead would be good. It would offer challenges and perhaps sorrow, but whatever it brought, it would not bring defeat. Luke had instilled in his sons the mettle to overcome.

1922

It was an old argument, but one Pete could not let go. Just as he had as a child in the orphanage, he dearly loved his brother, Erv, and while the argument was not hostile, it was nevertheless an argument. “You’re sixty-two years old. You have more than enough money to retire. If you want to work, help your sons on the ranch. You’ve been sheriff of this county for twelve years. Isn’t that enough?”

Erv laughed. “You still have to look out for me, don’t you, big brother? This is not the Lawton of our boyhood. There’s no Eli Laker to shoot me in the back. This is Winnemucca in 1922. Come on, Pete. There’s no danger in this job. I spend most of my time shuffling paper. If I decide not to run again, it will be that, not some danger that makes me quit.

“If you want to worry, worry about Uncle Dodd. The man’s seventy-seven years old. He won’t stay off a horse, and he drives a car like a madman. Is he still playing with the motor on his REO to try to get more speed?”

Pete chuckled. Dodd was, perhaps, too spry for his years, but there was no slowing him down. He had only stopped practicing fulltime a year earlier—and then only because Elizabeth had told him that she had let medicine have fifty-two years of him. Now she wanted a little more of his time. He acquiesced, but he still questioned and made suggestions to the boys, as he called Pete and Ivan, and Peter and Matt, and the rest of the medical staff at the Bloom Clinic, on almost every case.

Dodd was still Dodd, not overbearing, but loath to let that part of his life go. His active and very much alert mind still tried to find a better way. That was his motivation for trying to make his REO go faster. That was his motivation for questioning and making suggestions to the boys. He was not reckless or controlling, just inquisitive… and perhaps more mentally alert than he was physically able.

There was always more to learn, and Dodd wasn’t ready to stop learning or living. There was, for example, no reason for him to keep a barn full of horses but the stable was always full. The horses were for his grandchildren and great-grandchildren, he claimed, but he and everyone else knew they were just as much for him. Horses were no longer the necessity they once were, but Dodd still loved them. The fact that, at seventy-seven, he would not stay off them did give rise to concern, to everyone except Dodd.

The heart had gone out of Dodd a little when Harvey died. What a friendship that had been. Not many men are fortunate enough to spend their lives working with a very good friend. If he’d had to choose, Dodd probably would have said that Pick had been his best friend, but Harvey would have been a very close second. They were the kind of men that Dodd respected most. Men who had known and succumbed to catastrophe or dissipation but had been strong enough and wise enough to overcome it. Harvey, like Dodd, had remained active long after most his age had retired to the rocking chair. Dodd’s friendship, as much as his dedication to his science, kept Harvey practicing much longer than would have been necessary. Dodd practiced several years after Harvey’s death but it was never the same.

Ervin Forrest had been a very successful rancher and he loved it. But his sons loved it too, so when they were ready to take over, Ervin followed a secret ambition he’d had since college. He ran for sheriff of Humboldt County. It gave the boys the ranch and gave him something to do. He was good at it. He was the county’s first ‘educated’ sheriff and he turned the loosely run old-time western sheriff’s department into a modern police force. He was proud of that, and felt it a duty to continue. So much had been given him.

He and Pete never were together, but sometime during that visit the subject of how their lives had started and how they were now was discussed appreciatively. There were so many unfortunate children. Why had God chosen them? Why had they been given minds to learn and bodies to work? Why had He given them those loving parents who allowed and encouraged them to make the most of those gifts from God? They had long ago realized they would never know why; there was just the fact that they had been given much. Knowing that gave them a strong desire to give back. Pete gave back by ministering to people’s health. Erv had chosen another kind of knowledge and he could give back by seeing to people’s safety. In spite of Pete’s concern for his safety he could not quit. Not yet.

There had also been loss in their lives. Hank, their beloved baby brother, had made a career of the army. He had made colonel, but was gassed in France during the Great War. Jared and Libby had lived full lives but their deaths were very difficult for Pete and Erv. These were strong, confident men, but the fear and loneliness of their early years had made loved ones more dear and losses more difficult. The fact that they could face those losses as they did spoke volumes of their parents and of them. As for their father and their uncles, their home and family had given them the mettle to overcome.

But these brotherly visits were not all argument and nostalgia. Neither had lost his mischievous nature. They had become true Forrests in their playful teasing and insulting. Years had not dissipated their affection, and maturity had not diminished their boyish impudence. Now in their sixties, they just plain had fun together. Pete had Erv almost giggling by mimicking Erv’s nervous, blundered attempts at asking Flory for their first date when Austin Roker burst into Erv’s office.

“Pete, I’m glad you’re here. I think Mr. McGurdy’s dying and I can’t find Doc Becker. I thought Erv might know where he is. Looks like the end for him. He’s failed fast the last few days. Don’t think you can do much but I reckon we ought to try.”

McGurdy’s health began to fail when he was just past seventy. He had never married and, of course, made no friends. When he could no longer work, he was destitute. The fact that Erv and Austin purchased a small house for him and hired care for him was not all the Christian charity it appeared to be. They were somewhat ashamed but they took some private satisfaction from ‘heaping coals of fire’ on his head.

McGurdy hadn’t changed. God, not these doomed sinners, was providing for him. He was as demanding of them as he had been cruel when they were boys. Austin and Erv tolerated his tirades and insults. They actually felt sorry for him. They had known love and happiness. Perhaps McGurdy had known a mother’s love but they doubted the poor man had ever known a day of happiness in his life.

McGurdy was moving in and out of reality. He shook with terror when the young woman serving as his nurse seemed to him to be the devil. When his mind cleared, he ranted at her and, when they entered the room, at Austin and Erv. When Pete, someone he did not know, moved to his side he again was in the grasp of terror.

“Who are you?”

“Pete, Mr. McGurdy.”

“Pete, I know Pete. He’s an evil, evil boy. I’ll teach the little demon. I’ll bind him to Eli Laker.”

“That was a long time ago, Mr. McGurdy. You just rest. Don’t worry about that boy. He’s all grown up.”

“No, that young man from Harvard took him to the devil. Did you see the devil? He was here. That evil boy, Pete, sent him to torment me. I told him he would go to the devil. He was evil, but I sent him to Mr. Laker. The judge took him. No, he needs to go to the devil.” With a strength he hadn’t had for several days, McGurdy sat up and yelled, “Judge, you’ll go to hell. That boy’s got to go to the devil.”

The forms around him again became demons from hell. Being one of the Elect did not comfort him as he faced death. It never really had. The specters he saw now had been with him all his life. They had been there, telling him that he was worthless and evil. He may have fooled others but he, himself had never been fooled. He could scare others with a vengeful god and threat of hell, but he could not fool the demons. They were hell, and they could not be fooled.

McGurdy died screaming in terror. Pete wept, not so much for the man as for his wasted, pitiful life. Pete wept for his terror and for the god he had invented, the god that had all his life kept him from knowing the real God.

Bruce McDuff had come back to Carson City at age twenty-five. Josh was eager to keep the commitment made those years before but Herbert Hatcher still saw Bruce as his boy and Bruce saw Herbert as his father. Bruce worked at the bank until Herbert retired. He then became president of the Carson City Bank. The Forrest and the Hatcher families had almost become one and Bruce was a fully accepted member. Since Herbert’s death, Dodd had become his father figure, and the news he had just received from Scotland would thrill Dodd as much as it had Bruce.

For the first time since they were taken to Scotland by their cousin, The Reverend Doctor Ian McDuff was coming back to Carson City.

Ian had taken a doctorate at Edinburgh and had become a Presbyterian minister. Ian and Dodd had exchanged letters ever since the boys had arrived in Scotland. Dodd was proud and satisfied that Ian had taken advantage of his intelligence and his disposition, but he missed the boy. Dodd was in a state of elation when Pete came to see him. Dodd bubbled the news to Pete. Pete almost decided not to tell Dodd the news he had received by wire from a friend in Boston.

Twice the congress had passed national Child Labor Laws: in 1916 and 1919. The 1916 law had been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court. Now Pete had to tell Dodd that the Court had again overturned the law. Dodd had spent much of his life working for such a law. To tell him of this latest setback now when he was so excited about Ian seemed so cruel but Pete knew it would be more cruel to not tell him.

A pensive Dodd allowed himself to feel disappointment for only a few moments. He sighed deeply, looked at Pete, and said with that familiar determination, “Well, then, we’ll just have to start over.”

Copyright © 2003 Gordon L. Klopfenstein