Liam Sullivan in Scranton - LS2 - Meet the Townspeople of Scranton

Robert Collins: Welcome to our home, Liam Sullivan.

Liam: Liam, on a personal level, please. Mr. Sullivan is the children’s teacher. Thank you, I appreciate the invitation.

Robert: In that case, I’m Robert, Mr. Collins is the School Board Director. I’d like you to meet my wife, Cynthia, the mother of our six children.

Cynthia: It is very nice to meet you, Liam. And this is Elizabeth, age 2. You’ve met our older five children, of course, in school: James, 6, Wyatt, 8, Polly, 10, Emily, 12, and Oliver, 14.

Liam: Yes, and a fine group of youngsters they are. Very attentive and anxious to learn. I can see they are being raised well by caring parents.

Robert: Thank you, Liam. We do the best we can. My wife and I each work for the railroad, as you may know. Cynthia takes Elizabeth to the train station each day as she monitors the telegraph during the day and the little traffic we get coming in and out. I am responsible for the track and the telegraph lines two and half miles each to the northwest and to the southeast. Also, I’m solely responsible to see that the water tank is full before each train arrives. I walk the track one direction one day, then the other direction the next day, back and forth, continuously. New track can be very fickle. One day it can be fine, the next day, have a problem. I fix problems I can that I find. I schedule a maintenance crew to come in from Jerome or Rolla if it is something I cannot fix myself.

Liam: That is a lot of responsibility.

Robert: Yes, it is, but I love every minute of my work. Being part of a brand new branch line is quite a challenge. I’ll call the children in and we can get set down to dinner.

Hans Hermann: It is a pleasure to have you dine with us this evening, Mr. Sullivan. Have you met my wife, Blanche?

Liam: Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Herman.

Blanche: Welcome to our home, Mr. Sullivan. The children have just taken their seats for dinner. Please join us. You know Rachel, 8, Charles, 11, and Agnes, 14, of course.

The three children in unison: Welcome to our table, Mr. Sullivan.

Liam: Thank you, very much. It is my pleasure to join you.

During dinner, Hans shared the role of he and his wife in the community: We operate the tavern in town, as you probably know, which also includes three rooms on the second floor that can be rented by visitors to our town. We don’t get a lot of visitors at this time, of course, but we do have one or two every couple of weeks regularly. Blanche works at the Tavern from early in the morning until mid-afternoon. She takes care of the rooms, and prepares food for any guests when we have them. My nephew, Luther, works from mid-afternoon through the evening. He is there now so that our family can have our evening meal together as a family. I have overall responsibility, of course, and am there to do whatever needs to be done at any time. My older brother, Lars, has a similar operation in Rolla, where I got my start. When the opportunity came to move over here, we were happy to take the gamble of making it a success. We are happy to be here, and hope that success will come over time.

Liam: What kind of visitors do you get?

Hans: We never really know. Right now we have a strange one, but not that unusual, I suppose. His name is Seth Wallis, an Englishman. He is exploring in the caves under the ridge to the west. He goes out for two, three, four days at a time, then comes in for a bath and overnight in a bed. Hope the weather continues nice, so he will continue to stay. Says he is prospecting for minerals. We all know they are there, it is just a matter of if he, or anyone, can find enough to justify mining. Hasn’t happened yet, but we’ll never know until someone spends enough time at it to find what might be there.

Liam: Sounds like an interesting guy. Maybe I’ll get to meet him one of these days.

Hans: You are welcome to stop by, any time, to see if you can catch him in.

Leonard Perkins: We are happy to have you in our home, tonight, Mr. Sullivan.

Liam: I’m Liam, away for school, Mr. Perkins, but with the children all here, Mr. Sullivan will do fine.

Leonard: I understand, yes, must maintain a level of decorum and discipline.

Liam: Yes that is best. I appreciate the invitation and am very happy to be here.

Leonard: This is my wife, Maude, with our youngest, Thad, 5. You know the other five, of course: Matilda, 7, Adeline, 11, George W., 13, and Sarah, 15.

Liam: You have a fine family. I should mention that Sarah has been very helpful to me at school. She and her friend, Agnes, have been willing to help me with the younger children which gives me just a few more minutes each day with some of the older ones. It is much appreciated, and I get the feeling they enjoy the opportunity, as well.

Maude: Sarah has mentioned how you have used them, and she does enjoy being helpful. She also enjoys helping us out at the store, too, so this is another great learning experience for her.

Leonard: Our General Store serves a broader area than you might be aware of, Liam. To the east, down off the ridge, along the Brushy Creek, are three sets of farm families. There are also three more farms further up the creek to the northwest, and a couple down stream. They each come to us for their basic supplies by barter with their extra produce. A couple of them keep hogs, so we are able to have some pork products to sell, for instance, that we wouldn’t have otherwise.

Liam: Besides the barter with the farmers, do your supplies mostly come on the trains?

Leonard: Some do, of course, but we continue to get some from Jeremy Jacobs’ freight runs. He goes to Waynesville to the southwest weekly, with several stops along the way. There are a number of small towns in the area with various commodities available, and he regularly visits them and provides an exchange of goods that is very useful to each of us.

Liam: What you are saying then, there is a lot more going on around here than might appear at first glance.

Leonard: Yes, I believe that is true. While the railway construction was going on, and before, there was much activity. With them gone, we are working to keep that activity level alive. Time will tell if that can be sustained.

This is the second episode of a new, free-standing series of stories but it will be shown to have ties to The Homeplace Saga series of historical fiction, family saga stories. Liam’s mother was the former Ruth Weston, older sister of Levi Weston. Liam’s father, John Sullivan, was a younger brother of Jourdan Sullivan, who with his wife Martha settled on a farm in the west valley of what became Oak Creek Township in 1852. Both given and surnames in these stories can be found in the Phelps County, Missouri, 1870 U.S. Census though they are each used here in totally fictionalized ways. Related historical events are portrayed as accurately as possible in the context of this historical fiction, family saga series of stories.