Part 14: 1873-1923

I don't think I have to explain what cancer, hospitals, surgery, medicine, radiation, hair loss with all the underlying sights, smells, and pains do to an 8 or 9 year old. To say it was hell is obvious. Now I will admit that one's mortality is not as profound to a child as it is to someone who has "tasted life" for a longer period of time. I am now faced with the fact that something has or is happening to me and I am worried....yes even frightened. Much like the fear I had as a little girl being hooked up to an IV of poison I was now afraid, not of dying but of the unknown. I sat in Dr. Fransisco's office, this time almost twenty years older and without the support of my loving parents. I was alone this time. It was just a follow up to make sure nothing was coming back. No big deal really. But I was still scared. My mind looked to moments of strength when I was that little girl and once again I was drawn to a vision of my Nonna.

It was the first of many days, weeks and months in a hospital bed. A younger Dr. Fransisco was talking to my parents about glial cells, chemotherapeutics, radiation modalities, remission and other words too big and too scary for a skinny, tearful, little girl.

"Get out! Get out you three talking that nonsense in front of her. Do you want to frighten her to death?" she said as she walked in the door to my sterile room. All of her entrances seemed as staged and dramatic as the plays she once dreamed of starring in as a young woman. But unlike those characters this was real. Her family was everything to her and she was the matron: the protector. She was a force of nature a whirlwind of presence. When she entered a room all the lifeforce was sucked into the vortex that was her being.

"You three heard me. Do not use words like that in front of my little Squirrel. Squirrel, hun, are you ok?" I nodded; eyes pooling with yet unshed tears. "Out!"

They left. As if they had a choice.

Nonna came over to my side and wrapped her arms around me and cuddled me in her warmth. She smelled of Ivory soap and lilacs, immediately erasing the assault of hospital smells that I had yet to get used to. She hummed an unknown melody for a while and rocked me in her arms. She was thinking, I could tell, of what to say to the grandchild she loved so much. The humming stopped for a moment and then she spoke in her sweet southern drawl.

"Squirrel, I want you to be strong. Do not cry, ok, dear? I know you want to but you have to be strong to beat this thing." she paused and squeezed me a little tighter. "You are a Cambridge by birth. You come from a long line of the strong people. And that strength that backbone is as much your birthright as money or property. Your Pop's (my grandfather's) dad was a special man. Have I told you about your great grandpop Cambridge?" She had, but I shook my head no. I loved when my Nonna told stories.

Henry Stanton Oakes Cambridge was the first of three children born to Joseph and Ginnie Cambridge in the spring of 1873. He was a large baby that grew into an even larger boy that had more energy than anyone knew how to deal with. He drank in life with abandon and would for most of his life. He was the personification of the American spirit. He was proud, even cocky. He took on every aspect of life like a challenge and always came out on top. He excelled in school in sports and made friends with almost everyone he met. And as he grew up in age and out in waste size his hunger for life grew as well.

His younger brother Carl on the other hand was his antithesis. He was scrawny and lazy with a penchant for trouble. He was in jail by the age of 20, cut off from the family fortune at 25 and dead of alcoholism by 30 a beggar in the streets of New York.

His sister Rebecca was quiet and unassuming. A shy girl who fell in love and married the first boy she dated, the son of a prominent gun manufacturer. They lived a quiet and unassuming life in Pittsburgh, PA.

At Brown, Henry met the love of his life: Anna Davidson. She was the daughter of oil tycoon Walter Davidson. While courting Anna Walter took to Henry as his own son. So much so he promised him a stake in his corporation when they wed. Henry in true Cambridge fashion refused until he learned the business and he did. Starting in the lowest position in the company he worked his way up honestly. They were wed in 1898 and Henry spent his honeymoon on an Army boat to Miami. The Spanish-American War was about to start and he volunteered to serve; both out of patriotism and desire to meet his idol: Theodore Roosevelt. He served under Roosevelt in the unit known as the Rough Riders, a rag tag collection of Western cowboys and East coast bluebloods. Henry had followed the life of Mr. Roosevelt and longed to be like him. The two did look remarkably similar causing some of his fellow enlistees to call him Jr. Roosevelt of course hated this and gave him the name that stuck with him for life. Henry Steel. This was partly due to the fact the family was in the steel business but also due to the fact he could not be bent or broken no matter what. In one battle he was shot three times and didn't stop fighting until Roosevelt made him. He defied orders and went back into battle to save an injured soldier. He was shot a fourth time. The last wound in the back, instantly crippling him. He was sent home paralyzed. Or so they said. He was walking within three weeks of being home. Doctors never could explain why. Some say it was out of shear stubbornness.

In 1900 Anna learned she was pregnant. They were thrilled to announce he had an heir. The families were thrilled but the joy was soon met with sorrow. Walter Davidson took ill quickly and died during the pregnancy. He left the company to Anna and Henry, who was now helping his father run Cambridge Steel and Wire. He handled the transition to the oil business with ease. Profits climbed from the first day and never dropped. He was a natural. Life could not be better. In the spring of 1901 Anna went into labor while Henry was on a hunting trip with some of his fellow Rough Riders. A telegraph announcing the labor was sent to his hunting lodge and he quickly left for Paragon City for the wondrous event. His only hope was he wouldn't miss the birth. Upon arriving to the hospital he learned the tragic news that mother and daughter were both lost during the delivery. There were complications and Anna was small and weak. They tried to save them both but could not. Henry's spirit was crushed. He temporarily handed control of the company to his father and disappeared for two years. There were rumors and "sightings" of Henry Steel. Some saw him in Asia in opium dens others under the influence of absinthe in Paris. There were stories of him living with African bushmen and even retreating to the North Pole. The longer his absence the taller the tail. The truth is noone knew where he was and what he did but when he came back he tackled life with a new energy. He spent the next few years combining the Oil and Steel businesses into a fortune very few saw not only in America but the world. He was a solitary man with a solitary purpose. Driven with only business on his mind. His father became ill in 1917 and Henry took control of Cambridge/Davidson Oil and Steel. While he hid it from the world, his heart ached with the pain of loss and the emptiness of solitude. He had spent 15 years denying his heartache while building his empire. It all changed when his father passed away in 1921. At a memorial service he met Amanda Murray a 29 year old friend of his sisters from Pittsburgh that she had just "accidentally" bumped into in Paragon City and "invited" to the memorial. His heart filled with light for the first time in years. They soon began dating and were married within a year. In 1923 at the age of 50 he became a father and produced an heir for the Cambridge legacy. But Henry Steel was far from done with life for he would live to be 103 years old. At age 60 he would start a campaign that would help define the Cambridge family. In 1933 he had concerns and even opposition to the power and influence an individual was gaining in the Paragon City community. That person was known only as Statesman.