1914

As it had been since childhood, for Jennifer Clauson and Rowena Kramer, a shared bedtime involved sleep only when the need of it made further conversation impossible.  Almost a tradition, it was an important part of a friendship that began the day after Carlos Roblés, Jenny’s father, arrived in Garwood, Iowa with his wife and three children.

Nearly destitute, Carlos had “accepted” the position of town dump-master, as a means of avoiding incarceration as a vagrant.  With the dump’s housing facility unfit for a family, they had stayed with Rowena’s parents, the Carlsons.

The prejudicial scorn, endured by the family, resulted from the parents’ biracial marriage.  For Carlos, of Mexican decent, and his wife, the very fair, Lorraine, it was disappointing, but not unexpected.  The same could be said of the menial position he had graciously accepted; and the miserly housing that the town fathers begrudgingly erected for the family.

It is difficult to imagine the family’s life in Garwood, as anything less than  unbearable, had it not been for the Carlsons…and Rowena.