(ELEVEN)

Harry's Hillside House
in later years

5

Chicago, Illinois
3907 Prairie Avenue
August, 1901

  May and Hamilton’s home was only two blocks from Lake Michigan, but no onshore breezes alleviated the unbearable August heat.  It was a spacious two story house with enough bedrooms to accommodate their two children, John McCallum, five-and-half years old, and Katherine, age four; Mother Emily, Pearl, and now Harry.  May’s close friendship with her brother was renewed—if under a cloud.  He slept late, moved about with some difficulty—painful to see in a man only thirty years old.  He enjoyed some afternoons with little Jack and Katie, taking them to the lakeside park; sitting with May and the good doctor long sultry nights on the porch.

  He talked of schemes to renew the land in Palm Springs—surely she must know all of them would return one day.  May promised him he needn’t concern him­self—he could count on them for support—even see him through college.  Perhaps he could study law like John Guthrie.  As to returning to California, she tried to con­vince him it wasn’t possible—certainly not now.  Privately, Hamilton feared that Harry’s cough, fortunately infrequent, might lead to tuberculosis.

  Pearl hardly spoke to Harry.  She seemed to be living out the role of “educated, sophisticated belle,” now that she was attending Miss Stone’s School.  Harry’s earthiness annoyed her.  Secretly she feared she might become like her brother.  Why hadn’t he made something of himself like father?  What would become of her if she got stuck with acres and acres of worthless land?  What could she make of her life?

  Pearl sensed, even at twenty-two, she shared Harry’s crazy affection for the earth, a fascination for land, and particularly Palm Valley.  But what if she turned out to be like him, burned out at thirty?  He looked like a Forty-Niner.  How could she entertain her friends with him in the house!

   “Hey, Pearl, we gotta get you back out to the desert and the devil wind,” Harry teased, “get some of old Lord Tahquitz into your soul.  You look like a marsh­mallow bon-bon.  When’s the last time you were on a horse?”

  In mid-September the weather turned cold and Harry’s condition worsened.  His coughing attacks increased.  His lingering tuberculosis seriously affected his heart.  Hamilton told them that Harry couldn’t last the week.  A pall fell over the household.  Emily and May took turns sitting at Harry’s bedside.  Hamilton did everything he could to save him, but it was hopeless.

  At one a.m. the morning of October 19, 1901, one month to the day before his thirty-first birthday,   Harry Freeman McCallum died at the Forline home on Prairie Avenue.