Love Dies Hard in Leetonia

The following story is a reprint of a story I had published in the "Pennsylvania Reader."

The setting is during a time in Leetonia's history when over 500 people lived and worked in the company owned town.

In the spring of 1878, the tannery whistle at Leetonia blew. “Emergency! Emergency! Emergency!” Renaldo shouted with every pull on the stout cord. Townspeople fearing fire, injury, or some unknown accident dropped everything and ran to Renaldo’s aid. Ready for action and breathing hard they surrounded Renaldo and demanded the news.

Renaldo shouted,” Maria in Italy has agreed to come here and marry me!

“Renaldo you idiot,” one of the men exclaimed, “I dropped everything and ran a half mile to your wedding announcement.”

Not seeing the look of shared enthusiasm for his announcement, but of an imminent beating, Renaldo shrank back and tried to make an escape. Two husky woodsmen grabbed the large man and hauled him like a sack of grain to Cedar Run Creek for a proper head clearing. They hurled him in the spring cold water and watched with satisfaction as he bobbed up gasping for air.

Anyone else would have faired worse, but Renaldo was a valued machinist, a hard worker and had come with the Lees to establish Leetonia and help with the tannery operation. Renaldo was known as a strong man, quick with a temper, and short on looks.

Many years ago Renaldo had courted Maria in Italy unsuccessfully. Time and lack of other marriage proposals softened Maria towards Renaldo and she agreed to marry him if he would pay her way to America. Maria also longed to leave Italy and Renaldo would give her a way to escape.

Maria was five-foot tall of average features with long flowing black hair. After sending Maria a ticket Renaldo thought of her daily coming to be his bride. The people of Leetonia would no longer mock his looks for all eyes would be on Maria. They would admire him for his ability to get such a woman as his wife. He would be the envy of every man. Not the brunt of their jokes.

The day Maria was to arrive in Wellsboro, Renaldo a dedicated worker didn’t take time off. He decided to send his cousin, Antonio who didn’t work to pick up Maria. Antonio always anxious for an adventure and time away from Leetonia eagerly accepted. Antonio was everything Renaldo was not, handsome, charming, and lazy. Antonio spotted Maria in front of the hotel in Wellsboro and she spotted him.

“Are you Maria?” Antonio asked.

“Yes.” Maria said. “Where is Renaldo?”

“He had to work and asked me to escort you to Leetonia.”

“Well thank you,” Maria said her eyes sparkling at him. “My bags are over there. Is it a long trip to Leetonia from here? “

“It is a long day’s ride, maam.” Antonio said as he hoisted her bags into the buggy.

The first ten miles of the trip pleasantries were exchanged about the weather, Italy, and the area. Then the road changed it got smaller and steeper and Maria’s expression changed with it.

Antonio noticing the change asked. “Are you alright?”

“I didn’t realize there were so many mountains here.” She said looking around. “Italy is full of mountains and I thought I’d left them behind.”

“Didn’t Renaldo tell you anything about Leetonia?” Antonio asked.

“Not really.” She said. “Just that he had a good job and would take good care of me.”

“Renaldo has a good job, but life in Leetonia is far from easy. Not a lot to do if you ask me. I prefer the city, the good life, and the fast pace. I plan on leaving Leetonia soon.” Antonio looked at her with one of those hard to resist smiles.

She instinctively reached for his hand. “Would you take me with?” She said in half desperation and half hope. “I don’t think I could bear living in another small town.”

“What are you going to tell Renaldo?” Antonio asked.

“I’ll tell him the truth, I don’t love him.” She gave Antonio a half-child, half-woman look that melted him. “Renaldo courted me in Italy and I never liked him. I just jumped at the chance to come to America when he offered.”

He felt an urge to place his arm around her to save her from Leetonia and steal her from Renaldo. How could he fall for her so quickly? Girls adored him before and he dismissed them so easily? But Maria somehow challenged him to be a hero. Save her from the ugly Renaldo and the little mountain town. Could he be her hero? He placed his arm around her.

“I think we would make a great team.” He told her. “We will escape Leetonia together.”

They laughed and planned the rest of the trip. Talking as though they had been friends forever. “We are just about there.” Antonio told Maria.

Maria reached over and lightly kissed Antonio. “I think I am falling in love with you Antonio.”

Antonio felt the rush of similar feelings. “You must move away from me. We are too close to town and people might see.”

Maria moved a proper distance away, but the seed had been planted.

It was getting dark as they entered Leetonia; Renaldo’s strong figure sat near the edge of town on a bark pile and he rose to greet the carriage. Antonio noticed Renaldo had bathed and shaved and was wearing his best clothes to greet Maria. Antonio wondered how well he would take Maria’s announcement. Renaldo helped Maria down from the carriage and embraced her warmly but gently.

“Mr. Lee has offered let you stay at their place tonight and rest. I am sure you are tired from your long drive. Antonio can drive you up to his house and I will meet you there in the morning to discuss our plans.” Renaldo helped Maria back up in the carriage and watched Antonio drive her up to the big house. Maria had chosen to say nothing.

As they drove up the Lee house, Maria said, “You must help me Antonio. Talk to Renaldo for me tomorrow morning I cannot face him. I am afraid of him.”

“What will I tell him, Maria?

“Tell him I don’t love him. Tell him I love you.”

“Do you…love me?”

“With all my heart.” Maria said stealing his heart with her eyes.

In the morning when Renaldo went up to meet Maria he saw Antonio sitting outside the house. Love must be blind for Antonio was outmatched by Renaldo’s size, reputation and strength, yet there he was ready to take a beating for a woman he had known for only one day.

“What are you doing here cousin?” Renaldo asked curiously.

“Renaldo.” Antonio started nervously. “Maria doesn’t want to marry you.”

“What!” Renaldo couldn’t believe his ears.

“Why? Where is she? Let me talk to her. This must be a mistake.” Renaldo spewed out words faster then Antonio could answer.

“She doesn’t want to talk to you.” Antonio responded.

“She has decided to marry me.”

Renaldo started to smile thinking Antonio was playing some sort of joke on him. But upon noticing the serious look in Antonio’s face, Renaldo’s face reddened.

“She can’t do that. She promised to marry me. I paid for her to come and marry me.” Renaldo so hurt and confused instead of pounding Antonio to a pulp he walked off in a daze.

Leetonia in the late 1800’s was a company town. Everything was owned by the Tannery. Housing, food and other necessities of life were deducted from your meager pay and it was a hard life. No real government existed in Leetonia. However there was an unofficial town council that decided matters of importance to the people of Leetonia. Three old “wise men” of Leetonia called Maria in front of them to question her.

The council informed Maria that her parents had signed a contract for her to marry Renaldo and she must do so or else. Maria in an unprecedented move flatly refused, saying she never loved Renaldo and had no intention of living in Leetonia. She had lived in the mountains of Italy and had no intention of living in the mountains of Pennsylvania. The council realized they were in a difficult position decided she could marry Antonio provided Antonio pay back Renaldo the money he had spent getting her here or Maria must leave town at once.

Everyone knew Antonio didn’t have a dime much less the $50 needed to pay Renaldo back so they thought they had her. An immigrant girl without friends or family ended up entertaining drunken lumberjacks in saloons and brothels in the small sawmill towns. She equal to the challenge stalled long enough to get an uncle of Antonio’s in Jersey Shore to come to Leetonia. Then using the same charm that had captured Antonio persuaded his uncle to pay off Renaldo and give her the freedom to marry Antonio.

The wedding was as small as the support for Maria’s deception of Renaldo in Leetonia. One large figure sulked outside the church cursing its occupants under his breath. Two weeks after the wedding, Maria and Antonio headed to Jersey Shore to work for the same uncle who had paid off Maria’s contract.

The payment had not eased the pain or embarrassment in Renaldo. He pulled the crumpled letter from his pocket the same one he had held so high the first day he’d read it to his fellow workers. The same one he had taken a dunking for in Cedar Run Creek using the tannery horn to announce.

“Lies all lies.” He said to himself as he rolled the paper thin soaking it kerosene and walked heavily down the road to a rock ledge overhanging the road. He climbed up the rock face hand over hand often slipping on the loose shale and finally pulling him self over the top. Then he pulled a sack of black powder from his back and began pouring it into a deep crack in the rocks. When the crack filled with powder he pulled a large rock over it and waited.

Maria and Antonia headed toward Jersey Shore in their buggy on the narrow winding mountain roads. Passing each mountain she vowed never to see another mountain again after she left this place. Some of the places they passed had vertical rock faces dangerously overhanging the road. These often fell and blocked the road during spring thaws or rains, but they had nothing to fear today the weather was sunny and warm on the two newly wedded faces.

A shadowed figure sat looking at the oil soaked promise; hearing the hoof beats of an approaching horse; he shoved the letter under the rock he sat on touching the black powder and lit up a store bought cigar. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d enough money to buy a cigar and enjoyed puffing it in rhythm to the sound of the approaching horse. This would be a sweet day. He saw the two sitting close in the buggy as it passed under him and yelled as he touched the cigar to the oil soaked letter:

“You should have been my wife!” The quiet mountain day erupted with a blast, rock and dust rained from the sky.

The sound echoed up the valley and reached Leetonia to be met only with slightly curious ears. Was someone blasting a stump or rock out of the way? Only when a scared, bruised and tired horse appeared in town dragging pieces of a carriage did an alarm go up.

Men mounted up their horses and raced up the road finding tons of rock covering the road. They heard Antonio’s cries and saw him caught in a tree halfway down the mountain. They pulled him out but he was badly injured and died the next day. Maria died instantly crushed in a pile of rocks from the mountains she hated so much.

Renaldo missing from work that day along with some blasting powder never came back to work. Strangely a foot appeared in a leather boot drug home by some town dogs. The boot was identified as Renaldo and what was left of the foot given a proper burial.

Maria and Antonio Andrezzi are buried in an old Catholic Cemetery in Avis, Pa July 17^th, 1878.

Based on a true story from the account of William H. Plank former superintendent of the Leetonia tannery.

Mountain Girl, Paula, Logging Out!