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The setup

The Whittaker Saga: the setup

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 I  was vastly inspired when reading the decades challenge, and as a history teacher, I could not stop myself from giving it a try. Of course, true to my nature or refusing to do things by the book, the first thing I did was break the rules. How? By creating as my protagonist a single, working woman living on her own! Gasp! Why? Partly because a story popped into my head, but also, partly, to honor the many women who - by choice or necessity - actually worked, and worked hard for their living in the 1890s. We tend to forget them, but the working women were there - from the hard working farmers that we often downgrade by calling wives, as if they weren't an essential part of the economy of the farm, to the working class women working as domestic help or in the factories where they were only payed half of a man's wages.  So with that, I introduce Abigail Spencer, a single, working, middle class woman in 1890s Willow Creek:  As middle class there is only a few jobs avai...
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1970s: Returning home isn't always easy

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As the Paris Peace Accord take effect, and the policy of "Vietnamisation" is declared finished, it's time for the US troops to return home. For Carl it's with mixed feelings he sets on packing - as he know his time with Chi is up. "I will work to get you over from home," he promises. Only a few days before has she told him that she's pregnant. "You can't possibly know that's yours," his CO has told him bluntly. "So no, it makes no difference. For all you know she's not even pregnant." Carl might be naive, but he's not stupid, he knows it can be someone else's, but he also knows it could be his. What if he's leaving his own child behind? But in this he has no say, and any promises he makes are weak at best. He cannot make the government accept Chi, he cannot prove the child is his, he can send money but he has no way of knowing if it reaches her or not. "I won't forget you," he tries to console th...
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1970s: Promises and Lies

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As the US is ramping up their exit strategi from Vietnam, Carl is becoming obsessed with Chi. It's not that he, by now, has not figured out what she is doing, but knowing does not make a difference to his heart. Not when Chi looks at him with such sadness in her eyes. "Why do you do this?" he asks her one night. "Have daughter and mother. Husband dead. Village no food, so I go to town, but no jobs. This is only job, so I take it and send money." Hating what she has been forced to do, Carl starts giving her extra money, starts finding reasons to see her outside of her "work", and find himself falling deeper. "You take me to America, soldier?" she jokes when he tries to see her during the day, at first joking, then as the weeks passes more seriously. Carl hates saying no, so he says he'll try. Then he says yes. He pretends he doesn't know deep down it's a lie. He even tries to make it happen. But his CO just laughs at him when he br...
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1970s: In which Michael is busted, Susan has hear heart broken and Carl has his snatched away

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Having packed up his dorm, it's time for Michael to return home. At the last moment, Robin suggests (decides) that she's coming along. "So I can meet your family, then you can come and meet mine before we find a place of our own. My parents are dying to meet you." Not finding a good enough reason not to let her come, Michael agrees. What he hasn't counted on is his family throwing him a welcome home party. There, as they walk through the door they are greeted not only by his parents, but by grandparents, aunts, cousins... and someone who was once a girlfriend. Linda throws herself into Michael's arms as he arrives, and while Robin first assume the pretty blond is some sort of relative, she's all too soon put straight. It's an awkward moment. Before Robin catches herself and chews Michael out, right there, at the party, in front of everyone. Linda, on the other hand, just start crying. This was not what she had in mind. Pulling Robin aside to his old r...
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