What we know
1892-1900
Tom and Sadie Stoner's only daughter.
Katy's Creek
After Sadie died,
Tom went without shaving—
wore the same red flannel for years.
Everyone said it was a shame
the way he never remarried,
and how he let Katy run loose
through the old woods. She wandered, hopping on
the sharp stones of Settler’s Creek,
slipping between pines
that revealed small groves of wildflowers—
black-eyed-susans, queen-annes-lace,
occasional columbines and red indian paintbrush.
Once she teetered for a moment,
leaning on a thick, low branch
to stare quietly into the summer green.
“Daisies,” Miss Miller had shaken her head,
“Do Not Speak.”
Katy listened to the daisies anyway
while they whispered their long tales of other worlds.
Then she stomped crawfish out of the creek and
shinnied up the cool aspen bark
Rachel Cole said it was a judgement on him
when Katy died of influenza
after she came home shivering in the dark1.
Tom said nothing.
Just beat his hand against the quarry marble.
Years later, he would sit rocking
on the front porch.
I always told her to wear her shoes
he would say.
Just like her mother.
Heedless.
Connections

Portal
Sources
Portal caption and links
A drawing of a stem of daisies.
Sadie Stoner
Marble Springs
Zandra Miller