The Tillman Obituaries

The Tillman Obituaries

Chapter One

Justin Tillman was returning to his ancestral home in Long Valley; he had been living and working in the city of Beacroft for three years, teaching mathematics at an elementary school. The narrow two lane highway from Beacroft to Long Valley promptly closed for half a day whenever snow or ice covered the road. Only four wheel drive vehicles with snow chains were allowed through the treacherous mountain passes that lead into the Valley. The only option left open to Justin was to catch the morning train to Bridgewater. He hated and dreaded that five hour trip. Kurt Schreiner would be there waiting for him at the station. A year ago he had caught the same six a.m. rattler. The rest of his family had packed the overcrowded family four wheel drive and headed for Long Valley. Ever since he could remember, his family spent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at his grandparent’s house in Long Valley. His father Michael was to pick him up from Bridgewater station and then drive to the family home. It was a fifteen mile drive through sweeping bends and hair-pin turns. His father never arrived; a car accident due to an icy road had claimed the life of both his parents as well as his three sisters ten miles from the Long Valley turn off.

Justin wasn’t the type of person to draw any type of attention to himself or to anyone else, for that matter. He wasn’t always like that, Justin loved to be the centre of attention. He had embraced life and what it had to offer for much of his thirty-two years. His family and wide circle of friends had truly nurtured a free spirit and, in return Justin would have done anything within his power to please them. However, he had almost become a total recluse for most of the working week. The tall gaunt looking Tillman had kept much to him-self, stayed in doors for most of the day light hours. He would only venture outside the family home in the small town of Long valley half an hour after old Elsa and Kurt Schreiner opened the local gas station and general store.

The Schreiner’s promptly opened their business every day at eight-thirty a.m. even on a Sunday. Long valley had a population of only four- hundred, and most of the townsfolk complained bitterly about the Schreiner's disrespect for opening general store on a Sunday, but nothing was said about the gas station. “Why would they want to complain? Who would want to drive fifteen miles to Bridgewater for their petrol?” Kurt Schreiner used to say.

Old Elsa and Kurt had suspected who was behind the tirade of complaints directed at them, but never said a word to that person directly or to anyone else. They were happy to know that on a Sunday morning, the only person who would walk through the doors of their general store was Justin Tillman. And Justin told them bluntly how Father Macgloin had told his parishioners on numerous occasions during the sermon not to buy anything from the Schreiner’s. After all, who were they to disobey God’s commandment ; keep holy the Sabbath day. The old couple had arrived from Germany after the war, and Justin’s grandfather was the first to welcome them into their small community. Elsa retold the story to Justin about the day Michael Tillman - Justin's grandfather told some of the townsfolk after a Sunday mass, “If the Schreiner's had been our enemies during the war so what of it? They are our friends now and made a new life here. So live with it people, because they are not going back.” Justin never knew his other grandfather, but he knew he was a hero who fell in combat serving his country during the Korean War.

Sunday was the day Justin loved the most; he would attend the nine a.m. mass and, after the mass had finished, would walk the three mile hike along the Wheeler’s road until he reached the Old Catholic cemetery...... TBC.