Here's to the Ladies: Stories of the Frontier Army

A Season for Heroes

A Sea son ror zra Freeman died yesterday. I don't usually read the obituaries; at least I didn't until after Pearl Harbor. With four grandsons in the service now and one of them based in the Solomons and missing over a place called Rabaul, or some such thing, I generally turn to the obituaries after the front page and the editorials. There it was, right at the bottom of the column, in such small print that I had to hold the paper out at arm's length . . . Ezra Freeman. There was no date of birth listed, probably because even Ezra hadn't known that, but it did mention there were no surviving relatives and that the deceased had been a veteran of the Indian Wars. When I thought about Ezra Freeman, I ended up thinking about Mother and Father. Still carrying the newspaper, I went into my bedroom and looked at the picture of Mother and Father and D Company hanging on the wall next to the window. It was taken just before Father was promoted and bumped up to a desk job in San Antonio, so he is still leaning on a cane in the picture. Mother is sitting on a bench holding quite a small baby, and, next to her, his shoulders thrown back and his boots together, is Sergeant Ezra Freeman. The picture was taken at Fort Bowie, Arizona Territory. I was ten or eleven then, and that memory was one of the first that really stuck in my mind. It was where Father nearly got killed, my little brother was born, and I discovered a few things about love. 9780875655642.pdf 200 5/3/2013 12:25:14 PM 192 HERE'S TO THE LADIES My mother was what people call lace-curtain Irish. She was born Kathleen Mary Flynn. Her father owned a successful brewery in upstate New York, and Mother was educated at a convent, where she learned to speak French and make lace. She never owned up to learning anything else there, although she wrote with a fine copperplate hand and did a lot of reading when Father was campaigning. The nuns taught her good manners and how to pour tea the right way. Father could always make her flare up by winking at her and saying in his broadest brogue, "What'll ye hev to dhrink now, Kate Flynn?" She had beautiful red hair that curled every which way. Little springs of it were forever popping out of the bun she wore low on her neck. She had a sprinkling of light brown freckles that always mystified the Indians. I remember the time an old San Carlos Apache stopped us as we were walking down Tucson's main street. He spoke to Father in Apache. Father answered him, and we could see he was trying to keep a straight face. We pounced on him after the Indian nodded, gave Mother a searching look, and walked away. "What did he say, Father, what did he say?" Father shook his head and herded us around the corner where he leaned against the wall and laughed silently until tears shone on his eyelashes . Mother got exasperated. "What did he say, John?" "Oh, Kate Flynn," he wheezed and gasped, "he wanted to know . . . Oh, God . . ." He went off in another quiet spasm. "John!" Mother didn't approve of people taking the Lord's name in vain (which made garrison life a trial for her at times). "Sorry, Kathleen." Father looked at her and winked. I could feel Mother stiffening up. "He wanted to know if you had those little brown dots all over." 9780875655642.pdf 201 5/3/2013 12:25:14 PM A SEASON FOR HEROES 193 We children screamed with laughter. Mother blushed. A lesser Victorian lady would have swooned, I suppose, but Tucson's streets were dusty then, and Father was laughing too hard to catch her on the way down. Mother and Father met after Father's third summer at West Point. He had been visiting friends of his family in Buffalo, and Mother had been a guest of one of the daughters. They had spent a week in each other's company; then Mother had gone back to the convent. They corresponded on the sly for several months. Father proposed during Christmas furlough. They were married after graduation in June. There had been serious objections on both...