Woman in The Brown Dress

by Bill Michaels

I hope you all know what a spirea bush is like, and the flowers it produces. They, along with lilacs were a favorite perennial with the old time settlers of this area.
They are in bloom now, white, delicate, lacy, and looking like an oversize snowflake.

There is an area the size of a small house bordered by four large oak trees which had been left standing when the rest of the trees around them were cleared on the farm where I live. There had been a stone about as heavy as one person could lift along one side of the area, before I had moved it. The spot has become an asparagus patch from roots coming up through the decades. I always “knew” that someone was buried there, and that it was a woman. There is sort of a peaceful aura about it.

Yesterday while cutting grass, I noticed that the short spirea bushes were in full bloom around one of the trees, and I stopped to admire them, and as soon as I had done so I was so overcome by a feeling of sadness that I was on the verge of shedding tears. Puzzled by the strength of this emotion, I concluded that an unseen being and I had become temporarily connected by either love and appreciation for the spirea bushes or else their image.

It was a very hot day, and perhaps my brain was somewhat scrambled, but while I was thinking about who planted the bushes and loved the flowers, a clear picture appeared in my mind of a woman in what is now called a “prairie dress” (one piece, long sleeved, buttoned in front, and with a pleated skirt) and a deep bonnet. It and the bonnet were a little darker than chocolate brown, with no accessories showing. It was either brand new or freshly ironed. I couldn’t remember her face, but her features were either blurred or deformed. She was of pale complexion and I believe her eyes were blue. I am not sure if I saw any of her hair, but if I did it was as brown as her dress.

Why the sadness? Were her loved ones buried there? Why was she here, was she just visiting or is she “earthbound”? “When” as we tell time was she from? This farm was “homesteaded” during Andrew Jackson’s presidency (which ended in 1837). This part of Indiana was swampy, and very disease infested. It was quite common for diseases such as diphtheria, smallpox, or scarlet fever to decimate pioneer families. Even the “modern” Indians of the time avoided it, although it was heavily populated a millennium or so ago. Flint and stone knives, axes, and hammers are fairly plentiful, clearly made by people who enjoyed enough leisure to allow them to express their love of beauty. Judging from the finish and proportion of the stone artifacts, I would like to have seen their perishable objects of bone, wood, and feathers. They had a “swamp economy” using cattails and “pottery grade” clay to make their homes and baskets, and lived (at least seasonally) off the birds, frogs, and grass seeds. They had no fired pottery, however.

I had previously found the remains of a woman’s high top shoe put together with wooden pegs; the beauty of proportion and the fine workmanship still evident. Was it hers? Did a dog or raccoon take it and cause it to be buried in the mud? Was it sucked off a foot while wading in the edge of the swamp possibly to rescue a child? Surely It had created a great sense of loss. If it had been discarded, it would have been burned in the cookstove.

There had been a cabin nearby, and her sour cherry trees still remain, along with a white mulberry tree of the kind whose leaves were used to feed silkworms. Cabins built by poor people had no iron or glass in them, and what few nails or hooks used were salvaged when the cabin burned or was abandoned.

Anyway, I don’t plan on trying to contact her, but I will not be able to help thinking of her whenever I see a blooming spirea bush.