Copyright © 2006 - 2017 - Kathryn Grant - All rights reserved
Charles Girvis/Gervey "Sheep" Randall
Charles Gervey Randall was the son of Charles "Jim" and Mary Ann. Gervey
was the nephew of my great grandfather Charles Edward André. Gervey was
about 15 years old when he went to live with the Vorst family. Charles Edward
and Louise Anna André Vorst (niece of Dr. Maurice André/wife of Leon Vorst)
would have been first cousins.
"Shortly before Charles Randall died, he asked Leon Vorst to take care of
Gervey. Leon Vorst was appointed his guardian on September 23, 1913.
(Court records, Book “J” page 415.) Leon was required to post bond of $50.00.
Charles W. Meyer and Anna Vorst were “securities.” He was much loved by
the Vorst family who called him “Sheep.” He lived in the family’s livery stable
across from the house and worked for Leon. Mom wrote a story about him
titled “Baa, Baa Black Sheep” that was published in the magazine “St.
Joseph’s Messenger.” In later years, when he became ill, my dad arranged
for him to be admitted to the St. Louis County Hospital in Clayton where he
died on 3/5/1948. Our family had him buried in Valle Spring Cemetery in
Ste. Genevieve; Myrtle and Alice paid for his headstone.
Some of the ages and other numbers don't add up in the story but that may
have been a little poetic license."
(L. Wade, email communication, 3/2/2007)
"Baa Baa Black Sheep" - by Myrtle Vorst
When we were little, Mother Goose rhymes were almost as much a part
and parcel of our upbringing as were castoria, oatmeal and long winter under-
wear. Almost before we could toddle. Bud and Sis and I were lisping: "Little Boy .
Blue, come blow your horn. . ." and "Jack be nimble, Jack be quick. . ." along
with our "Now I lay me down to sleep. . ." and the Hail Mary.
But after Papa's livery stable almost burned to the ground one dark, windy
night, Mama taught us a new version of "Baa Baa, Black Sheep."
It went like this:
Baa, baa, Black Sheep,
Have you any love?
Yes, sir, yes, sir, three bags full.
One for my master, one for my dame,
And one for the little ones
That bear their name!
Mama never believed in fortunetellers, of course, good Catholic that she was;
and she never allowed us children to believe in them either. So each April when
the gypsies encamped near the big spring at the edge of town across the road
from the cemetery, she shoved us back behind her long gray calico skirts
whenever one of the dark-skinned ladies with the bright, jangly earrings rang our doorbell. "No thank you!" she would say politely, but with determination, to the
gypsy in the pretty flowered dress. "I don't want my fortune told."
"But for one silver dollar, I will look into your whole future," the wide-eyed gypsy would promise, trying to lure Mama into the deal. "Even now, I can see that there
is a tall, dark stranger coming into your life." "Fiddlesticks!" Mama would return impatiently. "I've been told that every spring since you've been coming to town,
and so has every other woman on the street. You are wasting your time and mine.
Good afternoon!"
Mama would shut the door quickly and from behind the lace curtains we would
watch the gypsy go reluctantly from the porch steps and up the street to our Aunt Fenie's house where she met with as little success as she did at ours. After that,
Bud and Sis and I would watch our front sidewalk for days though, for any signs
of a tall dark stranger who might be coming into our lives. "It could just happen
maybe this year, Mama," we would say. "It is wicked to give a second thought to
such nonsense," Mama always returned. "Go into the back yard and play
hopscotch."
And so we would. And before many more days the gypsies would load up their covered wagons again and we would see them driving out of town. With them
went that aura of mystery that always hung over the village while they were
camped at the outskirts. And with their departure, we always forgot the tall, dark stranger.
So when papa came walking in with Charles Gervey Randal one autumn
evening at suppertime, it was quite a surprise to all of us. Mama, of course, never gave a thought to the gypsy's words when she saw the gangling ten-year-old
standing beside Papa, his round, shining brown eyes almost as big as silver
dollars beneath his dark, kinky hair. But Bud and Sis and I did, and we looked at
one another knowingly. Later that evening, when Mama was getting us settled in
our beds, I asked her if she remembered what the gypsy had said.
"Yes, I do," she said shortly. "But Charles Gervey is neither tall nor a stranger.
Your Papa and I have known him since he was a baby, and his parents before
him." "But he is dark, and he's come into our lives, hasn't he?" I persisted. "Yes!" Mama said, at the end of her patience with me, and with Papa too, to a certain
extent. "He's as black as the ace of spades, and we're stuck with him. I guess,
thanks to the county court.
But mind you this: your father being appointed his legal guardian has nothing to
do with that fortuneteller. Fortunetelling is a sinful, unholy practice which is
frowned upon by the Church. Do you understand? You are never to have any part
of it! You must promise."
"We promise, Mama!" we said in unison, as we crossed ourselves and
launched into our night prayers. But when she turned off the lights and left the
room. Sis and I huddled together beneath the covers of the big iron bed where
we slept and whispered for a long time about Charles Gervey. "Do you suppose
he's afraid, sleeping over at the stable office all by himself?" Sis asked.
"I would be," I said. "Once I saw a rat crawling along the shelf where the lap
robes are." "But Papa said since they keep the big tomcat in there at night all the
rats are gone," Sis reminded me. "I'm glad, "I said. Then I closed my eyes tight
and breathed a quick little prayer for the newly orphaned Charles Gervey who was
only ten and was sleeping alone for the first time in the little office beside the livery stable.
"I hear you've had an addition to the family," Aunt Fenie, Papa's sister, called
over the back fence early the next morning as Papa came out of the kitchen door
and turned toward the stable. Papa laughed. "Yes," he said, "I guess you'd call
him the black sheep of the family." "Did you hear that? I asked Bud and Sis.
"Papa said we're going to call him "Black Sheep." "Black Sheep," Bud said,
trying the feel of the new name upon his tongue. "Yes. . . like 'Baa, baa, Black
Sheep' in the Mother Goose rhyme," I told him. "I guess he won't be Charles
Gervey any more."
"The trouble with Leo," Mama said across the fence to Aunt Fenie after Papa
has gone, "is that his heart is too big for his own good. Letting himself be made
a legal guardian of that child by the county court!" Papa's heart was as big as a
bushel basket, I knew, with room enough in it for every stray dog and cat in town,
for every homeless waif, whether black or white, for anyone in trouble or pain.
"Go to Mr. Leo," folks around the village would advise those needing help of any
kind. And when they went, he forwarded money for doctor bills and rent, for food
and clothing, for marriage licenses and taxes. Drunkards went to him for money to
go to St. Louis to take the Keeley-Cure. No one was ever away, and it was a rare case indeed where he could not bring comfort to a distressed heart.
So it was no wonder that Jim Randal, Charles Gervey's father, had called for
Papa when he lay on his death bed and asked him to look after his motherless
boy after he was gone. "Leo thinks he's going to be a big help around the stable," Mama was telling Aunt Fenie, doubtfully. "In my opinion, all it will amount to will be another mouth to feed. I'm to fix a plate for him and he's to eat here on the back
steps. That is, in good weather of course. Other times, he'll just have to carry it
over to the office, I suppose. I'm sure I'm not having him tracking in and out of my kitchen three times a day with that stable dirt all over his feet."
And so it was that Sheep, as everyone in town soon began to call him came
into our lives. He was no disappointment to Papa either, despite Mama's grumbling.
In fact, before we knew it, he was Papa's right-hand man. He curried the horses,
he answered the phone, on cold days he kept the fire going in the little potbellied
heating stove in the tiny square office where Papa's drivers sat between trips
and where the lap robes and saddles and some of the best harnesses which
were used only on special occasions like weddings and parades and funerals
were kept.
Faithful as a puppy, he shadowed Papa from sunup until sundown. When Papa harnessed up old Barney to the little green express wagon to drive to the depot
at the other end of town to meet the incoming drummers with their heavy sample-
laden trunks, Sheep was beside him. Hot, dry summer days, he sat next to Papa
on the high seat of the water wagon and made the round of the town dampening
the streets to keep down the ankle-deep dust that would have formed otherwise.
When they passed our house we always ran out waving and shouting to them. Mama would come to the front door fuming and fussing about us keeping out from under the horses' feet. Then we would run around to the back of the tank and stick
our hands beneath the sprinkler, wetting ourselves to the shoulders. The street smelled cool and fresh after they had passed.
When winter was upon us, it was Sheep who ran across the snowy street from
the stable with the bricks to be heated in Mama's oven for the foot warmers that
were put in the buggies beneath the heavy woolen lap robes for the comfort of
Papa's passengers. It was he, also, who brought over the corncobs that Mama
burned in her cookstove. He kept our wood box heaped with wood that he himself split. When we children went to coast on the hill, he watched over us. When we begged for a sleigh ride around town, it was Sheep who hitched old Barney to the cutter and drove us up one street and down another, his white teeth flashing in an
ear-to-ear grin as we sang "Jingle, bells, jingle, bells! . . ." at the top of our lungs.
Winter, summer, spring and fall, he was our body-guard. When we climbed up
into the fragrant hayloft at the stable for a look at the latest nest of kittens, or went
to view the new colt of one of Papa's brood mares, he was there beside us as
faithful as a guardian angel. In the autumn we went nutting together in the big
fields skirting the river where the towering, wide-spreading pecan trees grew in
such great numbers. When Christmas rolled around, it was Sheep who went to
the woods with us to select our Christmas tree.
Sleeping in the little office alone at night seemed to hold no terrors for him.
He greeted each new day with a smile that covered his whole shining brown face.
He loved to sing and he loved to jig. He loved the horses and he loved us children.
But most of all, he loved Papa! "Mr. Leo," he called him, and at any moment
during the 27 years he was with him, he would have laid down his life for him
without question.
More dependable than the most faithful watchdog, he kept guard at the stable through the night. If one of the horses got down in his stall and couldn't get up,
Sheep was pounding at our back door to waken Papa. "There's a horse down,
Mr. Leo!" he would say a bit breathless, and Papa would hurry to slip on his shoes
and to pull his trousers up over his long white nightshirt. Together they would cross
the street and enter the stable by the light of the lantern Sheep carried.
"Be careful Leo," Mama would call after them. Mama was always sure that
Papa was going to be killed by one of the four-legged brutes. With her shawl
wrapped around her shoulders, she would shove back the lace curtains on the
parlor window and stand looking out into the darkness toward the stable.
Sometimes Bud and Sis and I crowded around her, but usually she chased us
back to our beds where we lay listening to the pounding of the horses hoofs
against the stall boards.
Once down in the narrow stall space, the big animals were helpless until Papa
had loosened the halter ropes and, with much prodding and pushing and pulling,
had gotten them to their feet again. Sometimes the neighbors, wakened by the
sound of the kicking, would come to Papa's assistance, but more often than not
Papa and Sheep worked alone; and as time went by Papa came to depend upon
him more and more. He was growing tall and strong and at 14 he was the best
hand Papa had. He had finished the eight grade at Lincoln school by that time,
and so Papa put him on full-time at the stable.
Papa paid him well and saw to it that he put a good part of each week's
earnings in the bank. Each Christmas he got a new suit and on Saturday nights
he would slick himself up with a bright red tie and with a flower from Mama's
garden in his lapel. We could hear him singing in the little office as he dressed:
"Oh, Susanna, don't you wait for me, For I'm goin' to Louisiana with a banjo on
my knee. . ."
Sunday mornings he was up in time for six-o'clock Mass so that he would be
on hand at the stable later when Papa went to the eight. There were always a
great many phone calls on Sunday morning from the ladies of the town wanting carriages for Sunday afternoon driving. The longer he was with Papa, it seemed,
the happier he became. The sweetest music in our lives was the sound of his
laughter. The sight of his white teeth flashing in a smile warmed even Mama's
heart.
But it was not until the night of the fire at the stable that Mama was won over
to him completely. After that, whenever she went riding in the afternoon, it was
he who drove her carriage. When Papa gradually shifted with the times from
horses to the Model T Ford, Sheep was her chauffeur. She took particular pains
to make the plates she prepared for him three times a day attractive. She
cooked his favorite foods, and always insisted upon him having two desserts.
"A growing boy needs plenty of food," she said. Before, she had accepted
him only because Papa had insisted upon it, but after that night, when he woke
us from a deep sleep with the cry: "Fire, fire! she blessed him a thousand times. Looking upon it from the parlor window, the stable seemed to us a blazing
inferno from which there would be no escape for any of Papa's prized horses.
But while the fire department poured water from the long hoses on the blazing
hayloft, we could see Sheep darting into the stable and then out again with one
horse after another.
It was a thrilling sight to watch them rearing up on their hind legs and to hear
them whinnying with fright as they came out into the open and Sheep passed the halter rope to someone in the crowd. Bud and Sis and I were so interested in the horses' escape that we might have forgotten all about Papa, but for the fact that
Mama kept moaning his name over and over again prayerfully. "Where is Leo?"
Aunt Fenie asked as she hurried in our front door to give support to Mama.
"He's in there cutting those horses loose!" Mama told her, "Pray God, he gets
out alive!" It was just at that moment that Sheep led the last of the horses to safety.
We had counted them and we knew. First he had brought out Lady Gay, then
Barney, who was our favorite, then Dobbin, then Sue, and one by one all of the
others, some of them with colts. So it was hard for us to understand why he went darting back into the smoke-filled stable again in such great haste.
It was not long before we knew, for when he reappeared he was buckling at
the knees, half dragging, half carrying Papa who had been almost completely
overcome by smoke. When Mama saw them, she cried out in anguish, and
forgetting that she wore only her old blue wrapper over her night clothes, she ran
out of the front door and across the street toward the stable. Pushing her way
through the crowd, she dropped down beside Papa where Sheep had stretched
him out upon the ground.
"Hush, hush, now!" Aunt Fenie kept saying to us as we started to cry. "Your
Papa will be all right just as soon as he gets a little fresh air into his lungs." The
next morning at the breakfast table, Papa, who always made light of trouble, was almost as good as new again. He chuckled softly as Mama fretted over him like
a mother hen. "I'll never forget the sight of that boy dragging you out of that smoke
and flame," Mama said, heaping Sheep's plate high with scrambled eggs and
crisp bacon and slices of her own homemade cinnamon coffeecake while he
waited on the steps outside.
"I guess no family's ever had a whiter black sheep in its fold than ours,"
Papa said appreciatively. "Black sheep. . .humph!" Mama sniffed indignantly.
"He'd be a credit to anybody's family!" she added with conviction. And forgetting
that she had once regarded him as only another mouth to be fed in Papa's long
list of charities, she spooned an extra helping of peach preserves and another scrambled egg onto sheep's plate.
