Alice was a recent graduate of the School of Hard-Knocks.
Enrolling was not her choice. She entered this world as an orphan of circumstance. With a mother who died in childbirth and a father who disappeared, she was a legacy member. What likely happened upon her arrival is that a local family informally took over her guardianship, raised her from infancy, and put her to work. It’s possible she was the built-in nanny for the rest of the children—or at the very least expected to be grateful of her placement, whether genuine affection was present or not. Even in the best of circumstances, if it existed, she never felt quite like she possessed a real place to land—a valid and not altogether uncommon version of the adoptee experience. The people around her painted a portrait of what they thought her life should look like. The very moment of her birth robbed her of any agency she could have had access to, and she walked with that unwelcome heaviness in silence.
It did not help that she was likely of either Scottish or Irish descent, which was a population that early America did not treat with any form of kindness.
Marriage was her only escape. At the tender age of 15, she wed. Technically her name was Lavonia Alice, but no one called her that. Technically his name was Harry Edwin, but no one called him that either. They made a perfect pair.
Together they scraped a livable existence as homemaker and handyman, paying for everything in cash and forgoing luxuries like sugar, store bought butter, and electricity. Indoor plumbing was out of the question. By the time they landed in their built-from-scratch farmhouse at the end of the lane, Alice had the fragments of her aspirations all tied together: a family, with three little ones in tow and even a little barn cat to keep her company. She and Edwin finally arrived, with the life she dreamed of built right into the wooden porch steps.
Of course, her dreams arrived right on the heels of the Great Depression.
Alice was thrust into the quiet work of trying to make it. It was fortunate that Edwin just started with the railroad, because it was a job he was not likely to lose. Even so, food cost more money than they had. It was the garden that saved them, and Alice tended to it with the determination only a 1930s housewife could put forth. Every March into the next decade Alice would kneel over endless rows of dirt, poking, mounding, watering and pruning her family’s survival. She’d rise every morning before the sun to tend to their milk cow, and finish by sloshing feed for the calf they’d be raising for beef. In between she’d bend over a hot canner, snipping and boiling and sweating until they had 100 quarts of vegetables to keep in the pantry. Alice’s love meant apron strings and action. She knew more than anyone that happiness like this was not just handed to you, and she certainly was not going to allow economic collapse to take it away.
Living meant loving, and it also meant fighting. So it’s no wonder that those her loved her best described her as determined and scrappy.
The three drunk strangers never knew what hit them.
The night was stormy and wet. Fat drops of rain soaked the dirt around the clapboard porch. Lightning illuminated the windows every so often, flashing in nervous little eyes peering over fingers into the dark outside. It was nearly bedtime for the three Anthony munchkins, and Edwin was just about to head to second shift. Alice stood in front of the stove, taking the coffee pot from the burner and pouring him a cup as he headed out the door. She lowered the heat, wiped her hands on her apron, and turned to start the work of shooing her little ones into their beds. They looked at her with pleading eyes and she shook her head, pointing to the hallway with clear communication that no nonsense would be happening tonight. They scampered into the bedroom, and Alice kissed them each in turn. Just as she tucked the youngest into her homemade quilt, two slow knocks sounded at the front door.
Keeping a neutral expression, Alice stood, turned, and closed the bedroom door behind her. She walked into the living room, puzzled, and reached for the knob. Slowly she opened the front door and there stood three people she had never met before. Two young men and a woman, slouched and loose in rumpled clothing. The rank smell of old whiskey fingered it’s way into the house. As Alice listened in between their slurs, she could see that they were requesting shelter from the coming thunderstorm.
Alice ran through various scenarios quickly in her head. She was not opposed to hospitality but four considerations occurred in tandem that gave her pause: these were strangers, it was the middle of the night, her children were in bed, and her husband wasn’t home. She knew more than anyone that everything she had bled, sweat, toiled and cried for could be gone at the snap of a finger. Times were hard, and uncertainty had a 50/50 chance of being either benign or a death sentence. She motioned them inside and pointed toward the kitchen. As they turned toward the table, she hurried to the gun case and grabbed Edwin’s shotgun.
Just as the three circled the kitchen table, Alice entered and ordered them against the wall. She was not a stranger to a fair shot and it showed, as one hand held the barrel perfectly perpendicular and the other curled around the trigger. The woman held her hands up, eyes wide, and the three complied. They looked at each other with eyebrows raised, asking silently if this tiny five foot woman was for real. The boyish man in the middle broke into a sloppy grin, sauntering forward. He called her “little lady” and pushed the barrel to the side, throwing a swaggering look to his comrades.
Alice recovered quickly and grunted, eyes burning in fear and rage. No man, least of all a stranger, walks into her house and bosses her around. There was too much at stake. Stepping forward, she pressed the barrel into his chin and raised his eyes to meet hers. The cold metal pressed his delicate neck skin and scraped the meandering five o’clock shadow. Alice Anthony was not in the mood for games.
He reluctantly acquiesced, raising his hands in mock surrender and stepping back against the wall. They asked how long they would have to stand there, and Alice informed them that her husband would be home at midnight. They asked if they could at least sit, and Alice forcefully shook her head. A floorboard in the hallway made the tiniest creak and, without turning, Alice ordered her youngest back into bed. The woman asked if she could at least take her shoes off and Alice pointed the shotgun at her, studied her face, and reluctantly agreed. “No sudden movements,” she growled.
They stayed like that for a possible eternity. After an hour, Alice pulled out a kitchen chair and sat, sweat beading on her forehead, shoulder aching, and gun still trained on the three. Burnt coffee and the scent of firewood wound it’s way through the air. The man on the left let his head droop, straightened sharply, then drooped again. The woman scratched her cheek as her foundation started to flake. The middleman dug into his pocket for a cigarette, and Alice said “absolutely not.” The clock over the door frame ticked incessantly, each gearshift getting louder by the minute. Alice had given birth to three children without an epidural and still, somehow, this was the longest night in her remembrance.
Finally, just as the small chimes struck midnight, the front door opened and Edwin’s footsteps thumped through the doorway. They heard stomping as he shook the rain from his shoes and a soft shush as his coat hit the rack. Alice had never been so glad to hear such a sound. He called her name and she responded that she was in the kitchen, eyes trained on the three. Edwin breezed through the kitchen door and stopped short, surveying the scene before him with shock.
What happened next is unclear to family history. Knowing Edwin, it’s certain that several four letter words were involved. It’s a good thing they lived in a rural area, otherwise his tirade toward the three would have certainly woken an entire neighborhood. Quicker than a cricket, the three rushed out of the house and down the road, with Edwin shouting that they better not let to door hit them where the Lord split them.
They would not be returning to that area of town anytime soon, if ever.
Anyway, that’s the story of how my great grandmother held three strangers in her kitchen at gunpoint.
