Read Online American Ghost: A Family's Haunted Past in the Desert Southwest by Hannah Nordhaus - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Hannah Nordhaus
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had died in a third-floor fire.
Now that I was searching, I stumbled across fellow Julia-chaserswithout effort. Some were related to me; many weren’t. But each time, I was surprised to learn that others felt as connected to Julia as I did—that they, too, had made Julia’s story their own and embroidered it with their own preoccupations, as Joanna had in her novel.
In his blog, my distant cousin Robby remarked on the differences between Joanna’s novel and Julia’s real life, between the imagined Abraham and the one who lived in history. It was, he wrote, “like that Star Trek episode where they go to a parallel universe, and see what life would be like if all the crew members were violent and evil at heart.”
We create imaginative worlds, parallel universes that serve our needs—I did, when I was a yearning, frustrated twentysomething looking for villains. Lynne did, too, in imagining Abraham as a monstrous man not unlike her ex-husband. Joanna did in her novel. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Julia’s ghost story gained traction in the 1980s and ’90s, as American feminism began to contest more forcefully the notion of submission in marriage, redefining it as abuse. This was the era of madwomen in the attic and burning beds. And in the contemporary version of Julia’s story—her story as we modern women have told it—Julia was a victim. And Abraham was a villain.
I don’t know that anyone in my family believed Abraham to be a saint, but I got the sense that Robby felt Abraham might not be as bad as Joanna—and Lynne, and many of the ghost stories—made him out to be. If Abraham was domineering, or consumed in his work, or if he gambled and frequented bordellos or yelled at or ignored his wife, was he a villain, or simply a man of his time and place? Would Julia have thought her husband a monster and a scoundrel, or would this be how she expected husbands to behave? Is it fair to judge as villains these ordinarymen of an earlier era, simply because they played by rules we no longer honor?
There is the Abraham who raised a proud American family and helped build an American city, and the Abraham who served only himself; there is the Julia who lived in the world, and the ghost woman who lives on in our minds. One feeds the other, and sometimes they intersect.
BOOK OF PRAYER
Julia and Abraham Staab, early in their marriage.
Family collection.
I have a photo of Julia and Abraham taken around the time she first arrived in Santa Fe. Abraham sits on a tassel-trimmed chair wearing a dark suit, while Julia stands behind him, leaning in slightly, her hand on his shoulder. Abraham looks straight at the camera, fearless, with a bare hint of a smile. Julia looks neither at him nor at the camera but somewhere between, perhaps at someone else in the room. She wears a full-skirtedsatin dress embossed on the shoulders and collar, and her hair is coiled smoothly above her head; her eyes are a tad too close together for classic beauty. Her fingers on Abraham’s shoulder are relaxed. It appears to me as if there is some affection there. But in another photo taken around the same time, she sits by herself, wearing an even fuller skirt and a smart white kerchief around her neck. She looks warily—wearily—and frankly at the camera, as if accusing. She looks so very alone.
Julia’s first daughter, Anna—conceived soon after Julia moved into the adobe house in Santa Fe—was born in November 1866. Anna’s name is entered on the blank pages of a book still kept in my family— Neues Israelitisches Gebetbuch für die Wochentage, Sabbathe und alle Feste zum Gebrauche —The New Israelite Prayer Book for Weekdays, Sabbath, and All Holidays. The prayer book served as the equivalent of the family Bible for Julia, a repository of important family milestones, recorded in German. It had been published in Berlin in 1864, perhaps given to Julia upon her engagement to Abraham. On the overleaf there are six ruled lines
Now that I was searching, I stumbled across fellow Julia-chaserswithout effort. Some were related to me; many weren’t. But each time, I was surprised to learn that others felt as connected to Julia as I did—that they, too, had made Julia’s story their own and embroidered it with their own preoccupations, as Joanna had in her novel.
In his blog, my distant cousin Robby remarked on the differences between Joanna’s novel and Julia’s real life, between the imagined Abraham and the one who lived in history. It was, he wrote, “like that Star Trek episode where they go to a parallel universe, and see what life would be like if all the crew members were violent and evil at heart.”
We create imaginative worlds, parallel universes that serve our needs—I did, when I was a yearning, frustrated twentysomething looking for villains. Lynne did, too, in imagining Abraham as a monstrous man not unlike her ex-husband. Joanna did in her novel. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Julia’s ghost story gained traction in the 1980s and ’90s, as American feminism began to contest more forcefully the notion of submission in marriage, redefining it as abuse. This was the era of madwomen in the attic and burning beds. And in the contemporary version of Julia’s story—her story as we modern women have told it—Julia was a victim. And Abraham was a villain.
I don’t know that anyone in my family believed Abraham to be a saint, but I got the sense that Robby felt Abraham might not be as bad as Joanna—and Lynne, and many of the ghost stories—made him out to be. If Abraham was domineering, or consumed in his work, or if he gambled and frequented bordellos or yelled at or ignored his wife, was he a villain, or simply a man of his time and place? Would Julia have thought her husband a monster and a scoundrel, or would this be how she expected husbands to behave? Is it fair to judge as villains these ordinarymen of an earlier era, simply because they played by rules we no longer honor?
There is the Abraham who raised a proud American family and helped build an American city, and the Abraham who served only himself; there is the Julia who lived in the world, and the ghost woman who lives on in our minds. One feeds the other, and sometimes they intersect.
BOOK OF PRAYER
Julia and Abraham Staab, early in their marriage.
Family collection.
I have a photo of Julia and Abraham taken around the time she first arrived in Santa Fe. Abraham sits on a tassel-trimmed chair wearing a dark suit, while Julia stands behind him, leaning in slightly, her hand on his shoulder. Abraham looks straight at the camera, fearless, with a bare hint of a smile. Julia looks neither at him nor at the camera but somewhere between, perhaps at someone else in the room. She wears a full-skirtedsatin dress embossed on the shoulders and collar, and her hair is coiled smoothly above her head; her eyes are a tad too close together for classic beauty. Her fingers on Abraham’s shoulder are relaxed. It appears to me as if there is some affection there. But in another photo taken around the same time, she sits by herself, wearing an even fuller skirt and a smart white kerchief around her neck. She looks warily—wearily—and frankly at the camera, as if accusing. She looks so very alone.
Julia’s first daughter, Anna—conceived soon after Julia moved into the adobe house in Santa Fe—was born in November 1866. Anna’s name is entered on the blank pages of a book still kept in my family— Neues Israelitisches Gebetbuch für die Wochentage, Sabbathe und alle Feste zum Gebrauche —The New Israelite Prayer Book for Weekdays, Sabbath, and All Holidays. The prayer book served as the equivalent of the family Bible for Julia, a repository of important family milestones, recorded in German. It had been published in Berlin in 1864, perhaps given to Julia upon her engagement to Abraham. On the overleaf there are six ruled lines
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