Our Mysterious Benefactor

My parents struggled to raise their three children in the midst of the Great Depression. Eventually I came along too, the last of the brood, but that was later, after the hardest times were over, according to Mother.

At one point, desperate for work to support his family, my father took a job at a factory quite a ways from their home in Fairmount, Indiana. That left Mother to care for the children alone for weeks at a stretch. When the youngest, baby Jeannie, woke up coughing one morning in the winter of 1931, Mother kept her bundled up near the coal stove in the living room. "The warm air will soothe you, little one," she promised.

But Jeannie's condition worsened as the day wore on. Her cough seemed to come from a hollow place deep down inside her chest. By nightfall her fever raged. The other two children played quietly, careful not to run or shout or ask Mother too many questions. Even Bonnie, the family dog, seemed to sense something was terribly wrong.

My mother feared it was pneumonia. What would she do? She didn't have the $5 it would take to see a doctor.

Before going to bed, Mother and the two older children—Vangie, age 10, and Johnny, 8—prayed for the baby. Mother held a warm rag of onion poultice to Jeannie's chest. "Please, God, touch this child and make her better." "Amen," Vangie said. "Amen," said Johnny.

Mother tucked them in, pulling the covers up around their worried faces and kissing them on the forehead. "Is Jeannie going to be all right, Mama?" Vangie finally asked.

"God won't let anything bad happen to her," Mother said. "He'll watch over our little Jeannie extra-close tonight."

"If she feels better tomorrow, maybe she'd like to play with my best truck," Johnny offered.

Mother's heart sank. Jeannie wasn't going to get well overnight. Don't alarm the children, Mother reminded herself. She forced a smile. "Well, that would be fine, John. You're a good big brother, you are. Now you two go to sleep."

She turned off the light in their room and went back to the kitchen to settle Bonnie in her box. "You keep watch too, you sweet old dog," Mother told her. Then she closed the door between the kitchen and the living room in order to conserve the heat from the coal stove.

Mother took the fretful baby into bed, trying to comfort her as best she could. "God, please stay near this house tonight," she pleaded. She closed her eyes and fell into a fitful sleep. But Jeannie's guardian angel was wide awake....

Near dawn, Mother woke to Bonnie's furious barking. She was scrambling around as if she were after something. What is that dog up to? Mother wondered. She sat up in bed. A kitchen chair crashed to the floor. Footsteps! Someone was in the house! Mother jumped, and hugged her baby tight to her chest. Then she heard the intruder running from the kitchen and across the back porch.

Mother was too frightened to investigate. Instead she hurried out of bed to jam a high-back chair under the knob of the closed living room door.

Bonnie's persistent barking roused Vangie and Johnny from their beds. "Come in with Mama, children. We'll all be warmer sleeping together," she told them. They piled into her bed, careful not to disturb little Jeannie. Mother put her lips to the baby's forehead, which seemed as hot as the coal stove itself.

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Read more true stories of personal encounters with angels in Angels on Earth Magazine.