You Were There Before My Eyes: A Novel by Maria Riva

Author:Maria Riva
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Sagas, Historical, Cultural Heritage
ISBN: 9781504049122
Google: qvk0DwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2017-10-10T16:40:05.235768+00:00

13

Winter winds whipped John’s shirts on the line, long before Jane had prepared the kitchen for hanging the wash indoors. Hannah was already planning to make candied apples for the children at Halloween. Mr. Kennec was busy sharpening his cutting tools for when it would be time to harvest ice on Lake Erie. Mr. Henry had been issued real leather gloves, but continued to wear his rainbow mittens because, as he put it, mail tended to slip from hands encased in leather. Across the country, roads were being built and surfaced, streets paved with asphalt instead of gravel and sand. The City of New York had gotten its first motorized taxis. Polishtown, now such an important community, practically a small nation in itself, had become a suburb of Detroit, given its own name of Hamtramck. Highland Park boasted more than twenty thousand inhabitants, could point with pride to its first motorized fire engine. There were 7,882 different categories of jobs filled, full time, around the clock at the Ford plant.

The tough, yet respected, James Couzens, who many believed was responsible for the idea of the Five-Dollar-Day, had resigned as vice president and treasurer of the Ford Motor Company, “Young Mr. Edsel” had been elected to its office of secretary. Henry Ford was working on what was closest to his heart—to give the small farmer a motorized tiller of the soil, a tractor that he could afford to buy, could depend on to serve his needs.

The construction of a new Ford plant was under way on his vast marshland holdings along the Rouge River. His industrial power realized, Henry Ford was beginning to believe that his personal stature on both the national and international scene had reached sufficient importance for him to raise his voice for peace in Europe. He proclaimed and the press eagerly quoted him, that he would gladly “give everything I possess” if he could stop the war and prevent the amassing of arms in America, declaring, he would not allow a single automobile to leave his plant if he thought it would be used for warfare. Praise for Henry Ford’s pacifist proclamations were legion. One influential newspaper calling him “one of the greatest benefactors of the human race,” adding that “this modest mechanic-millionaire doesn’t know he is a great man, makes him all the greater!”

When John brought this glowing tribute home to reread and savor, Jane, observing his obvious delight in his paper, dared to ask what it said and was answered by him reading the entire article out loud for her to appreciate; commenting when he had finished, that finally the Boss was being recognized for the superior human being he truly was—and about time, too!

Michael, covered by a cut-off sheet with two big holes to see through, that his father had painted with little flying bats, so he could be a ghost who flew amongst them, sucked on a big red candied apple, convinced he was in Heaven. On first seeing him before her front

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.