BluestoneReview

Dad explained to me that Alfred was Josephine’s husband. He worked in the Ivanhoe mines. Down in the mines the air was cold and damp. In 1918, the influenza ran rampant in Ivanhoe. Numerous mark - ers bore the names of lives cut short. Alfred and Josephine were just newlyweds when the fever took Alfred. After Alfred’s death, Josephine found out that she was going to have a baby. Although she was a widow, Josephine thanked God that she would have a baby to bear witness to love that she and Alfred shared. When the baby was born, though, he was sickly from the start. His first cries were barely a whimper, and then he was gone. Josephine’s heart was broken. Josephine got a job in Price’s store, but she never remarried. She was faithful to her church. She played the piano at the Baptist church on the hill. At night, Josephine could be seen walking through the cemetery as she visited with her husband and child. Daddy took my hand and said, “Amy, last night those were not rain drops on your windshield. Those were Josephine’s tears. On October 13, she returns to remind Alfred that she loves him.” The Water Boy of Ivanhoe, Virginia By Gene Douglas Dunford Seventy years have passed since I became the town’s first wa - terboy. Ivanhoe was a mining town. A couple of years after the mines opened, the people’s wells went dry. When they drilled the mines, they hit water pockets. This caused the water to sink below ground level. It dried up wells and springs in Ivanhoe. My grandmother saw this as an opportunity. She bought me a red Radio Flyer wagon and two large cans. I went around town and hauled water to the people whose wells had dried up. I charged twenty-five cents a day. Mrs. Jerry Sisk paid me one dollar because I hauled her wash wa - ter, too. I tried to always keep my customers satisfied. I am almost eighty-one years old now. I still think about that little boy. I can still see him pulling that wagon of water through town.

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