Cincinnati

Cincinnati survives in Earskell Russell’s memory as the setting of a brief, happy life with Alice Louise Berry—and as the city they left behind only weeks before her death from influenza. The recollection gives the place an intimate significance: its crowded streets and tall buildings marked the beginning of Alice’s independent ambitions and the happiest period Earskell ever knew.

Alice’s Ambition

Alice, who came from Fox Knob near the Riley place, wanted to attend secretarial school. Earskell recalled that he was not much older than Arvin Eugene Russell is in the scene where the story is told. The pair went to Cincinnati, where Alice began classes at the Gilmore Sanderson Secretarial School. Her wish to study gave their departure a hopeful direction; Earskell remembered her big dreams as one of the qualities he loved.

A Brief Life in the City

Earskell remembered the days they spent in Cincinnati among its tall buildings and crowded streets as the happiest of Alice’s life, and of his own. Alice contracted influenza and died only a few weeks after starting her classes, in the 1918 epidemic. The account does not say that she died in Cincinnati; instead, the city remains bound to the short interval of study and shared happiness before her illness.

Memory and Loss

Years later, Earskell recounts the story to Arvin and Emma Russell. When Arvin asks why Earskell did not stay, the question brings him back to Alice and to the loss that had brought his life in the city to an end. He often wondered whether she might have survived had they remained in the hills, but was glad he had not tried to dissuade her from pursuing her ambition. Cincinnati therefore carries both regret and gratitude in his recollection: it was the place they left, but also the place where Alice’s dream and their happiest days briefly came true.