Unlikely Friends in an Unfriendly Time

Warm July darkness blanketed the farmland of Black Hawk County, Iowa. Houses and barns dotted the landscape. It was 1894, twenty-nine years after the War between the States. As the moon rose, the figure of a slender young girl could be seen walking across the field toward a wooded area behind one of the barns. The flickering light of a bonfire was visible through the trees. A circle of white slowly moved around it. The girl approached a tree at the edge of the woods. Something was hanging from one of the branches, swinging back and forth like the pendulum of a large clock. Moving closer, the girl raised her head, stopped abruptly, and collapsed in a heap. The landscape held its breath. Something was terribly wrong.

It had been three years since Frances and Sally came east to seek their fortunes. In 1898, the Philadelphia area, where the young women settled, bustled with new life and activity. Along the Main Line west of the city, wealthy families had built many mansions. While most were in good repair and busy with the comings and goings of the elite, one or two were overrun with weeds and obviously abandoned. Greystone was such a place.

The empty mansion brooded over its neglected lawns and gardens like a bedraggled giant surveying his kingdom. The only sign of life was old Lucius, the caretaker, who sat on the huge stone steps leading up to the entrance. All was quiet until a horse and rider burst upon the ,scene. Lucius looked up, and at that moment, the horse reared, and the rider was thrown to the ground. Long-forgotten memories stirred within the old man. In the war, he and other colored soldiers were given the dangerous task of rescuing the wounded. Now he sprang into action. Hobbling across the lawn and kneeling beside the fallen rider, he saw before him a white man-a boy really-looking up at him. Obviously in pain, the boy didn't make a sound. He had landed on his side with his leg twisted beneath him. Without a word, the caretaker stood and hobbled back in the direction of the mansion. The boy followed the old man with his eyes as the caretaker disappeared around the corner of the building. After a while, the old man returned leading a horse hitched to a wagon. With difficulty, he lifted the young man and laid him in the wagon. Helpless, the stone-faced giant watched the wagon disappear over the horizon.

The old man coaxed his horse along at a slow pace so as not to cause his silent passenger undue pain. They were headed down the Lincoln Highway toward the town of West Chester where, five years earlier, a group of local doctors had managed to set up the first hospital ever built in rural Chester County. It was getting dark.

The sleepy little Pennsylvania town nestled into the rolling hills as if to ward off the chill of the September night. On a hill north of the town, the Chester County Hospital, never asleep, stood out in the deep darkness.