Fourth Annual Wild Violet Writing Contest Winners (2006)
Fiction
— Third Place
Anton
By Mary Ellen Walsh
(continued)
The sun was threatening to burst out from under the clouds, and it finally did, with a sickening brightness. Pfarrer Lanz was waiting at the church, quietly sitting in a pew, lost in his thoughts. She wanted to ask him if he was tired, but he seemed happy to see her, to get back to the records. Perhaps he needed a distraction, as there was some unhappiness in his life now.
After a few hours, they found the marriage record of Anton's parents. To their surprise, they had gotten married on September 7, 1743, three years before Anton's birth. And their first child, Elisabetha, baptized on April 3, 1744, was legitimate.
What did this mean? She had asked the pastor to clarify. He told her this may have meant that Anna, his mother, had the child by another man while she was married to Mathaus. He would have still been baptized, of course, as babies were baptized no matter what the circumstances.
She imagined what his life must have been like. Did he know the circumstance of his birth? What were his feelings toward his parents? Did he know his mother had committed adultery? Was Anton loved by his parents?
Anton married Agnes Bommer on May 24, 1784. Their son, Johannes Georg, was born the following year. It was Johannes Georg's son, Josef, who would immigrate to Newark, New Jersey, in the 1850s. Josef (Joseph in America) was Anna's great-great-grandfather.
But then she came across the records of their deaths. On December 8, 1786, Mathaus and Anna Bauer, Anton and his wife, Agnes, all died that same day, though it did not state how.
The pastor suggested they go to the cemetery where her ancestors were buried. If they'd had headstones, they most likely would be gone by now. Anna and Pfarrer Lam used their lot numbers to find them. Mathaus and his wife Anna were buried together. Their daughter-in-law, Agnes, was buried nearby. Anton had no listing for a lot. Could this be a mistake? They both searched for Anton, but he was not buried in this cemetery.
"He would not be buried here in the church graveyard if he had committed a crime, or if he'd committed suicide."
Anna tried not to show her enthusiasm to the pastor when he said this, but it must have shown. "By 1786, he was married and had a child," Anna mused, "but maybe he suddenly snapped and killed his mother, then had to kill Mathaus Bauer and his wife. Agnes, because of his shame, or because they were witnesses?"
Pfarrer Lanz just smiled. What must he think of me? Anna wondered. He's talking to someone so ghoulish.
But Pfarrer
Lam was a patient man, and perhaps more understanding of her than most
people would be — this woman who had traveled alone to come here,
hoping to find something interesting to write about people who died centuries
ago. Pfarrer Lam was used to talking to people on the fringe of lie sometimes.
When he received her letter asking for his help in genealogy research,
he had been eager for a distraction. He told Anna that his father was
ill with cancer. Finally, they ended for the day in late afternoon.
