Part 11:1823-1873

It was late September, my search for an opening on the Vahz angle of my case was leading nowhere and I was in the middle of another grueling hour with Dr. W J. Haverschmidt. I'm sure he's a competant psychologist or more likely well connected, but the only reason I'm sitting in the chair is because Smithie asked me. I stared at the ceiling because the sweat on the fat analyst's balding head was too distracting.

"Ms. Cambridge... Ms. Cambridge," he interupted my daydream, "I need you to pay more attention. We can't get to the problems without you paying attention to your thoughts and feelings."

I bit my lip. "Sorry, Doctor, what were you asking."

"I was asking why you don't mention your paternal grandmother."

"I don't know. Why do you ask?"

"Well she was you last living relative." he looked down at his folder on me. "She died just a little over three years ago, yet you haven't mentioned her. May I ask why?"

"I don't know, I...." my thoughts drifted again this time to my childhood.

My first solid memory (smells, sounds, feelings) of my grandmother was the summer of my sixth birthday. We were staying in Bermuda at an old family friends oceanside manor. I remember sitting on her lap, sun on my face, enjoying what could only be paradise. The water was a combination of green and blue that still to this day leaves me breathless. Add to that the sands of the beaches are a light pink, the one color to perfectly contrast the gem like color of the water that crashes upon them. The weather: perfect 72 with flirty, salty breezes. Truely dreamlike. Heaven on earth.

We had just finished a Sunday brunch of eggs, fruit and Bermuda Fish Stew (a personal favorite). She asked me to come out onto the back deck to sip lemonade and talk about something very important.

"Do you know about your family, squirrel?"

"Mommy, Daddy and you, Nonna?"

"No little one, the story of your family?"

"No, Nonna."

"You remember your Pop Cambridge?" she asked, her husband of 38 years, my grandfather: billionaire heir and World War II hero. He had died of a stroke in 1983, just weeks before my 4th birthday.

I smiled, "Yes, I love Pop."

"Good, good, so did I very much. Well let me tell you the story of his.....your family." Her grip on me tightened and she kissed me lightly on the top of my head. She was a beautiful woman even at 59 years she still looked like the pin-up girl of her youth. Her hair was always blond and coifed perfectly. She was always in a dress with heals. Even in the tropical heat she looked, well, perfect. She had a code about appearances that she instilled in me over the years. Always look perfect and act perfect. Always remember you are a lady and you are a Cambridge. (I never corrected her grammar)

"Well, Squirrel, we are going to go back to 1823 right around the same time our Paragon City was founded. Do you know how far back that is?" I nodded enthusiastically, not so much that I understood but more that I loved when my Nonna told stories. She had been an actress and a pin-up girl in her youth when she met my grandfather at a victory parade in New York in 1945. They were married within 2 months of meeting each other.

Her voice was seductive, the sultriness of the Georgia heat of her childhood. When she entered a room or when she spoke people took notice. It was a gift as wonderous and powerful as any hero I've met. She was a force. She knew it. I couldn't be any more different than her and I loved her and hated her for it. But when she told a story, oh the world stopped and all that was present was her voice and the pictures she painted with them.

My great-great-great grandfather was born in 1823 in what is now called Galaxy City to Joseph and Mary Cambridge. They named their only son, Johnathan Oakes Cambridge.

Joseph was a hard working lawyer, a brilliant legal mind with too much integrity to make money with it. What little money he did bring home was usually given away after the essentials were paid for. Mary and Joseph were devout Lutherans who felt a strong pull toward philathropy. They lived well and never went without but what little was left was always given away to those less fortunate. This would shape the future of the Cambridges for generation but inevitably lead to the ruin of this family. In 1839 when Johnathan was 15 years old Joseph committed suicide after a bad business deal left the family broke. Johnathan was left to care for himself and his mother. He quit school and went to work for Pemiscot Textiles.

The owner was H. S. Pemiscot a brilliant businessman that was at once ruthless yet kind. He took to Johnathan and his situation but never gave him quarter. He liked Johnathan but showed no favoritism. He did though take him under his wing and serve as a father figure. After five years Johnathan began to notice H.S.'s 15 year old daughter Genivieve. They began friendly conversations when he'd see her and formed a strong friendship, but Johnathan was wise enough to not make romantic advances at his bosses daughter. Finally when he was 22 and had been promoted to foreman of one of the textile mills he spoke to Mr. Pemiscot of his intentions. Pemiscot told him he could court his daughter on one condition. He had to work hard for one year without contact or speaking with her. He could only write her letters. If after that year he still felt the same way he could court his daughter.

He wrote her everyday and she to him. Pemiscot doubled his shifts and lowered his wages. He did everything in his power to test the young man. Johnathan never waivered, he worked, went home, read his correspondence and wrote to her about his days at the mill and his dreams for the future. As the eleventh month approached his mother passed away. At her funeral Pemiscot told Cambridge he understood if he didn't want to continue that if he needed his daughters comfort he would ablige. Johnathan said that he made a commitment and intended to honor it. They were married a year later.

As a gift for the wedding Pemiscot made Johnathan a proposal. Since he had no son and Johnathan and Jenny would inherit the family fortune he told him to pick a business he wanted to start and that he would provide the start up cash. He remembered an article he had read when he was fourteen about an invention called the telegraph and had always been fascinated by the connections it would create. He was fascinated by the expansion of the young country and the role that invention had played and had an ispiration. In 1847 the deed to a wire plant was signed over to Johnathan and he soon became the top seller of wire to the telegraph companies across the country. The company did well beyond expectations and H.S. was proud. Thus a tradition in the Cambridge family. A child was given the means to do whatever they wanted. It would prove to make the family fortune grow over the years. Some failed but the family business as a whole always increased in size. Hard work and smart decisions were family traits as apparent as Johnathan's sandy blond hair and blue eyes and would be for generations to come.

Another family tradition was formed in the years of Johnathan and his bride. Jenny was an avid reader and loved to write. She started a journal chronicaling the life and times of the family. She wrote daily passages about the comings and goings even at times focusing on the minutae of recipes or guest lists. This was an honored tradition of the wife of the eldest son that carried on to my own Nonna, who loved it as much as any other before her.

They had four happy children Joseph(1849), Mary(1851), June and Elizabeth(twins 1853). Joseph was raised with all the wisdom and ambition of his father. Charity which meant so much to Johnathan was stressed to the children and each found their pet causes. Joseph went to Brown (a new tradition that would be followed for years to come) and excelled in his business studies. When he graduated he made a proposal to his grandfather Pemiscot now an old man. The railroads were connecting the young country so he saw prospects in steel. He soon owned 5 of the highest producing steel mills in the country. The families fortunes grew even more. H.S. passed due to old age and Johnathan took the reins of the textile business and the wire business where profits grew exponentially. The girls all married into fine Rhode Island families and all were happy. Joseph married his sweetheart from Brown, Genivieve Malone. Their first son Henry Stanton Oakes Cambridge (1873) would blaze the family into the new century with guts and voracity and turn the family fortune into something of legend.

"Miss Cambridge.......Miss Cambridge."

I shook my head; lost for a second.

"Our time is up." his sweaty bald face smiled. I thanked him and left the office.