Darlin' Nellie
by
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Chapter One
1921
Emma Caroline Wakefield stood very still outside her father’s study, continuing to hold her hand poised to knock at the door. She had been about to go in to plead with her father to change his mind about the ultimatum he had given her and Sean Donagal the night before. But Calvin Wakefield’s fiery voice came clearly through the hand-carved, oak-paneled door. She knew that, ‘eavesdripping,’ as their new house-girl called it, was wrong, but when she heard her mother say, “Calvin, we need to talk about Sean and Emma,” she had become motionless, her curly red-golden head cocked to one side, her thick-lashed eyes anxious and her taut young body poised to burst in angrily—or for flight.
“Amelia, I have never known you to oppose me. I will never allow a daughter of mine to marry that upstart Irish Catholic.” Emma could imagine the cold disdain in her father’s blue eyes, which usually beamed approvingly at her—or did not see her at all if they were buried in some financial tome. His voice held suppressed fury. Emma’s heart sank.
Her mother’s sweet tones held a firmness Emma had never heard. “I have never had to oppose you, Calvin. We are usually in agreement and I also wish that the handsome charming Sean Donagal had never come into contact with our Emma. But he did, and if we do not give our blessing we will never see her again. We may not anyway.” There was a sob in her mother’s words. After a moment she began again, “He is going west. And, take my word for it—she will go with him with or without our blessing. Have you forgotten what it was like when we fell in love and how your parents did not want us to marry because I wasn’t from
There was a prolonged silence now and Emma imagined her slim, lovely mother crossing the floor, her red-gold head to one side, and her brown eyes angry, yet pleading. Emma had often heard her father say, “Amelia can bewitch a tightwad out of a $100 donation.” But could she bewitch Calvin Wakefield, the stern Calvinist banker, out of his antagonism to Sean Donagal?
Emma had prayed many sawdust prayers—that’s what she called them, because that’s what they were like—ground from a dry branch, cut from a dead tree. Words she repeated because they had been taught by a long-faced, long-nosed preacher in what she thought were dry as dust sermons. She had prayed more willingly for her loving mother and doting father, but she felt no connection to the God with the seeing eye who sent people to Hell. She had vivid recollections of the Reverend Thomas reading Jonathan Edwards’ Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. It had given her nightmares. But now she prayed a heartfelt prayer. “Please help Father to listen to Mother, because she is right—I will run away with Sean anyway.”
After never-ending moments , her father answered, “All right, Amelia, I will agree to their marriage, but I will NEVER give them my blessing.” His voice sounded gravelly like he wanted to cough or shout, which he seldom did. “I’m sure he is a heathen—maybe doesn’t even believe in God, much less know Him personally.”
Elated, Emma scurried back up the stairs to her room, her heart beating with delight and the excitement that she had never known until she had met Sean at a sedate dinner party at the Caswells three months before. It had ceased being a sedate dinner party the minute she had lifted her shy blue gaze to meet his laughing, bold, dark admiring stare. The crisp, dark hair that fell onto his forehead and curled about his prominent ears and the cockeyed smile caused her heart to race in a way it never had before. Her cheeks flushed and she lowered her eyes.
“Y’look like an English rose,” his words were a delightful brogue that tickled her fancy.
Emma had suddenly become bold. “And how would you know, fighting them as you have been?” She laughed into his eyes, not knowing what to expect. The bespectacled Timothys and Stephens she had known had all been somber young men earnestly pursuing their studies and careers—worthwhile fellows all, approved by mother and father. But she had never felt this excitement, this urgency with them.
“Y’re a bonnie one as my friend Scott Mc Duff says. I’m not fightin’ thim anymore. I almost got kilt or put in prison. That’s why I’m here. I’m goin’ west. Me Da’s in
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About the Book
Baby Darlin’ Nellie Donagal is miraculously spared in 1922, when an inebriated ex-gambling partner of her father’s murders him in an attempt to retrieve a gambling debt. She is rescued by Thomas Endicott, a banker from England who had paid her father, Sean Donagal, fifty dollars to take him to Sedalia, Misouri where Sean was planning to live with his father, Patrick Donagal. Endicott delivers Nellie to her Irish grandfather, a store owner and a new Christian who has started a church in Sedaila. Nellie’s lovely mother died after giving birth to the baby she had prayed for and longed for.
Darlin’ Nellie is the story of a little girl who is raised with great love and joy by her grandfather. However, always in the back of her heart is the passion to know who and where her mother’s family is. Would she ever find them?
Along the way she has many adventures and misadventures—especially with her close friend, Aaron Blessing, who gets her into scrapes, but also helps her get out of some.
God has given Nellie a big voice which she uses for Him—at first in church, then in the New York area where her mentor provides voice lessons and opens the path to a career in music. She hears the beloved Marian Anderson sing and is encouraged by her to continue the path to fame with her voice. Now she has another question: shall she devote her life to the path of fame or shall she have a home and family—or can she have both? Can she know God’s leading and find His will for her life?
These questions are answered in this beguiling story.
About the Author
Beth Nelson is the mother of six children and has twenty-one grandchildren. She is the daughter of a New England pastor and saw a life of faith lived daily in her home. Many people from many countries and walks of life were welcome in their home.
She has been writing all her life—for, after children, writing was her passion-beginning with plays, puppet shows, and stories, also writing articles, local news and letters for local newspapers. Last year her first book, Cup of Bitterness Cup of Joy, was published in the desire to bring hope, comfort and peace to people who have been physically, sexually or emotionally abused.