L E A N N E H O W E
from 1918 Union Valley Road
In the months to come an astonished Pentecostal Holiness preacher
Will say Iva Hoggatt was called by God,
She has the mahogany mark of divine protection across her face, he says,
Lack of oxygen, fool, says her Irish father-in-law. She nearly died from the flu.
The 1918 influenza pandemic was the most severe pandemic in recent history. It was caused by an H1N1 virus with genes of avian origin. Although there is not universal consensus regarding where the virus originated, it spread worldwide during 1918-1919.
UNION VALLEY ROAD, OKLAHOMA
Maybe it was while reading the 1918 Union Valley Bulletin
A political handbill given John Hoggatt by a hacking cougher at the feed store
Maybe it was the sour apple gone mahogany black that he’d eaten from his wife’s cellar stash
He knew he should have given it to Trudy their hog
Maybe it was the six-mile walk to and from his father’s farm in Stonewall, Oklahoma
Just to ask, need help with that heifer, Pop?
Maybe it was the burning tingling running over the top of John’s head
As if he was being roasted alive, filling him with fear
He coughed into his fist, no
Iva honey, lock the gate so the Crowder boys can’t steal our cow
He coughed into his fist, no
Iva honey,
He coughed into his fist
Iva, so cold.
Winds like a siren whip the Junipers outside, maybe 90 per,
He swayed left, and then right, and onto their Jenny Lind bed
A wedding gift,
Coveralls still on.
Shocked into
consciousness
by sunlight
Iva supports
herself with her
arms and leans
forward Eyelids
thick and
gluey Has
she been
crying in
her sleep?
The bed
is cold, the
stove out Her
long black
hair matted by
high fevers In
her dreams,
the sounds
of a gurgling
brook She
looks
at John, her
teeth chatter He
is completely
blue now. She
presses on
John’s
chest. Blood
and mucus slip
between his blue
lips Breathe, John,
Breathe.
Don’t
worry I
gave our baby
girl to your
sister, Euda
Yesterday,
the day
before,
maybe last
week, She’s safe.
Didn’t make
a sound, just
waved bye-bye,
Bye-bye, bye
-bye, Mommy.
Like you,
she doesn’t
complain Like
you, she’s more
Irish than
Cherokee –
like me.
Breathe, John,
Breathe. Take
a breath, John
Hoggatt How
many times?
Breathe.
Iva curls
up by his
side, played
out Who hast
never bruised
a living
flower, she
whispers. Now
I lay
me down
to sleep I
pray
the Lord
my soul to
take If I
should die
before I
wake.
Breathe,
John.
The sun is yet a rumor
Iva sleeps like the dead
Until she doesn’t.
On the third day she feels herself rising
She observes herself in the mirror
Washes her mahogany cheeks
That’s odd, she thinks
Lock the gate, John,
Or the Crowder boys will steal our cow.
She coughs into her handkerchief
John honey,
She coughs into her handkerchief
John honey,
She coughs into her handkerchief
Hear me.
Yes Iva
You live in unmeaning dreams, he says,
The grave is ready.
John honey
Stay
I washed your Sunday shirt
Hung it on the line to dry
We can bury our faces
In summer laundry
Taste the scent of sun
In a field of light
Breathing as one
Stay
Iva is dreaming again
She hears his name, John,
The sound like a bell on her tongue,
John
on
on
on
g-
Breathe
IVA REMEMBERS 1918
Give me your hand, John Hoggatt,
Remember our fishing hole at Byng
Fat fish fed from Blue River
I said switch canes from there
Made the finest Cherokee baskets
Remember?
Give me your hand, John
Together we’ll catch a mess of perch,
Cut canes for baskets and head home,
We can invite your folks over for supper,
Only a short wagon ride away,
Not far.
Give me your hand, dearest
Remember last fall, we helped build the Byng P.O.
Named in honor of Sir Julian Byng
A British World War I hero.
Your father had a conniption.
You, an Irishman, putting an Englishman forward!
Give me your hand, Johnny boy
I call you home now, I call you home tomorrow
A thousand times I call, even as our bodies flake into stars
Get up John Hoggatt
You cannot stay in this death bed
Get up.
Walk on Iva, says John, softly.
Walk on my girl,
My girl,
My
IVA RELENTS
No, it wasn’t like that – you didn’t see
He was lying quietly, mouth shut, one hand on his chest,
The other frozen in mid-stir
We were curled be side one another
When they found us
Be side, what a wonderful word
Be side is the scent I carry
Be side the first man I touched
And him touching me.
Be side John when I was raised from the dead,
Fully awake,
I heard something,
Perhaps our baby
A kitten crying for a saucer of milk
A kitten crying because she is lost
Because she is forsaken
Because she is left alive.
No, not the cat,
Me
IVA AND JOHN HOGGATT READ OF HIS DEATH IN THE UNION VALLEY WEEKLY
Birth 31 Jan 1893 Washington, United
States of America
Death 7 Jan 1919 Union Valley,
Pontotoc County, Oklahoma,
United States of America
John
Not much of an account of my life,
No mention of you,
Our daughter, the farm,
Two Holsteins, and Blackie the cat
Iva
Dearest, there is no anthem for a man
Who marries a Cherokee girl, barely 18,
Makes her a widow at twenty,
Knowing she’ll linger another sixty years
John
Iva, how could I know
Iva
It’s in the newspaper
John
We could go on like this
Iva
Forever
LeAnne Howe is an enrolled citizen of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. She is the Eidson Distinguished Professor of American Literature in English at the University of Georgia. Howe is the author of novels, plays, poetry, and screenplays. She’s the producer and writer for the 60-minute Searching for Sequoyah that aired November 2021 on PBS stations and affiliates in the U.S. Savage Conversations (Coffee House Press, 2019) is Howe’s novel of Mary Todd Lincoln and a Savage Indian ghost that Mary claimed tortured her nightly in 1875.
In August 2020 Howe published two books: Famine Pots: The Choctaw Irish Gift Exchange 1847-Present (Michigan State University Press), co-edited with Irish scholar, Padraig Kirwan; and When the Light of The World Was Subdued, Our Songs Came Through: A Norton Anthology of Native Nations Poetry, co-edited with Jennifer Elise Foerster and former U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo. The excerpt above, about her grandmother’s life, is from Howe’s in-progress novel, 1918 Union Valley Road, set in Oklahoma during the flu epidemic.